well, things have been busy, to say the least. Sorry if this entry ends up being kinda choppy–I feel like there are about a million things I should be doing right now. And I’m also in a computer lab with a million other people, which always makes me nervous.
Tuesday before last I got up at 5 in the morning to drive to Little Rock to fly from there, to Chicago, to Philadelphia. At Philadelphia I was picked up by Caitlin, another girl on my program, and her father, who then drove me to their home in Yardley, Pennsylvania. Yardley is a very nice town. Lots of fir trees and pretty houses. I had a quiet, restful night there, which was fortunate since I slept about two hours the night before, and then the enxt afternoon we drove to JFK airport in New York. This was my first ever glimpse of New York. I saw the Statue of Liberty from a distance and was not much impressed with Staton Island. Security was pretty easy to get through at JFK, which I was grateful for, and at about 9:00 on wednesday evening I flew out of the country.
I flew
changing of the guards
we randomly arrived at buckinham palace right in time for all this.
AirIndia. I was expecting the food to be really awesome, but alas, it sucked hardcore. also, the movies were lame. BUT, i had an aisle seat and didn’t have to climb over a million people to go to the bathroom. this was especially fortunate since I took a blue ambien (a very hardcore sleeping) and was acting rather strangely before i fell asleep.
From Thursday to Sunday I had orientation in London. We stayed in a pretty nice hotel in Soho right by the British Museum, and the IFSA-Butler offices were in a really posh area in Notting Hill. Seriously, the offices were right between the flats of Stella McCartney and Elton John, neither of whom did I see. Orienation consisted of listening to a lot of information we’d already been given and eating a lot of really good food. We went to a nice Mexican restaurant and had decently convincing burritos, a Japanese restaurant called wagamama’s (it was only so-so in my opinion), and my favorite, a Lebanese restaurant called Tas where I had lamb. I know, I know, it sounds awful to eat lamb, but I don’t care. I love lamb.
btw, coffee over here is
mucho disappointing. I bought this weird coffee-press thingy, but it has nothing on a real coffee machine from the states. gah. however, starbuck’s coffee cost the same over here as it does back home. at the harps on garland it is usually about $7.50 or $8.00. here it is