I survived the flight! Not without some damage (it's me we're talking about)- I ripped my nail back when trying to move my duffle bag in the overhead compartment :-( And of course my first aid stuff was in said bag and I had no motivation to try and get it out while bleeding.
I seriously could not sleep a wink on the flight, which was terrible. I ended up watching Pitch Perfect (which is like my new favourite movie and this is like the fourth time I've watched it) and Prometheus. Prometheus is probably why I couldn't sleep haha, there were some seriously gross parts. And the food service didn't help- the lights were on for over half the flight and they gave us a full-sized dinner around 11:45 pm, so my body was seriously confused. Overall, it was an uneventful flight with no turbulence or dramatic passengers or anything. We arrived nearly an hour early so we had to circle in the clouds for twenty minutes before there was a space for us to land.
Landing was awesome- we flew in over central London and since I had a window seat, I got to see everything from above, including the O2 arena, the London Eye, the pickle building, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, and Big Ben. That's when I seriously started to get really excited, even though I felt like I needed to fall asleep.
Customs and baggage claim were uneventful, other than the fact that I didn't get a landing card from a flight attendant (I was awake the whole time so I don't think they handed them out at all, to be honest), so I had to step out of line to fill one out when I got to the counter, which was a little embarrassing. However, my attendant had checked the papers of ten or so other Arcadia students that morning so she didn't even look at mine and let me through without any trouble. Getting to the meeting point was an ordeal though. Carrying all my bags through a very warm airport wearing a sweater and a long-sleeved shirt = overheated Rebecca. I had to catch a train from terminal 4 to terminal 3, and the train was delayed do to a security inspection. And the route to the meeting point within terminal 3 was entirely uphill, so that was rough. But the Arcadia group was easy to find once I got there!
There were about 25 of us waiting for the bus, and after waiting for fifteen minutes or so, we all filed out from the airport and packed our luggage into the bus waiting for us. We all got our individual schedules (I love the British pronunciation of schedule haha) for our specific programs while we were on the bus along with a phone card, and then we were off. The airport is about 45 minutes to an hour from central London, so we had a bit of a ride. And the whole time I was concentrating very hard on not vomiting all over the bus. For whatever reason, I've had the worst jetlag of my entire life today, which doesn't even make any sense to me, since I've never had issues with it coming to Europe (the return trip always gets me though). But I was nauseous, dizzy, had an odd headache, and the shakes, so I thought I might be sick from something I ate. However, I've since had nearly three bottles of water plus water at dinner, a brief nap, and a lovely three course dinner from Arcadia, and I'm feeling much better. So I think everything can be blamed on jetlag and dehydration.
The ride was nice otherwise, it definitely made me feel like I was visually in England. It still has yet to hit me that I'm actually here, and this is finally happening. We drove through a bit of countryside with some cows, then the outskirts of London with the very quaint townhouses and cottage-esque homes and little shops, into the more famous neighborhoods of London, like Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and finally to Bloomsbury where our hotel and Arcadia's offices are located. There were a few bumps along the way dropping off students at other housing (involving the Arcadia representative attempting to jump a fence in his dapper suit in the rain, which we all found quite amusing), but all was well with the group ending up at Thistle, our hotel. Not all the rooms were ready, so they told us we would have to wait until after 2 (we arrived around 1:35ish), and we created a luggage jungle in the lobby. They called my name first a little before 2 to tell me my room was ready, and I was luckily on the ground floor so I just had to lug my duffle bags a little ways down a hall. I opened the door to the surprise of my roommate who had just laid down for a nap. Her name is Emily and she's also going to York. We talked for a little bit, I was quite hyper in that "I'm really tired and I'm about to crash but I just keep talking" way, and I made myself chug a bottle of water, and then we both feel asleep for about an hour until our meeting at the Arcadia offices at 4 pm.
The Arcadia offices are two blocks away from our hotel, so it was a quick walk over. It's a little drizzly here, but it's so much warmer than Michigan, I really didn't mind the rain. I finally caught up with Megan at our meeting, where we received our arrival packs with our handbooks, program-specific documents about academics at our universities, travel passes, and maps. We had a brief overview of some important things to do in the first few days, and then we went back to the hotel for a three course meal. I sat with Megan and some students going to Oxford. There was a vegetarian option, thankfully, and we all had salads. The pasta (vegetarian dish) was delicious I completely forgot how much better pasta is in Europe and the UK. There was fruit for dessert, and tons of water to drink.
So now I'm just chilling in the room, writing my blog and trying to decide how late to make myself stay up to get on track for the time change. Some people are going out to pubs tonight but there is no way I could stay awake and I already feel hungover on traveling, as Emily put it haha.
Tomorrow we have a lot more meetings and a scavenger hunt of London, so it will be more exciting. And I'll take some pictures at some point!
I seriously could not sleep a wink on the flight, which was terrible. I ended up watching Pitch Perfect (which is like my new favourite movie and this is like the fourth time I've watched it) and Prometheus. Prometheus is probably why I couldn't sleep haha, there were some seriously gross parts. And the food service didn't help- the lights were on for over half the flight and they gave us a full-sized dinner around 11:45 pm, so my body was seriously confused. Overall, it was an uneventful flight with no turbulence or dramatic passengers or anything. We arrived nearly an hour early so we had to circle in the clouds for twenty minutes before there was a space for us to land.
Landing was awesome- we flew in over central London and since I had a window seat, I got to see everything from above, including the O2 arena, the London Eye, the pickle building, Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, and Big Ben. That's when I seriously started to get really excited, even though I felt like I needed to fall asleep.
Customs and baggage claim were uneventful, other than the fact that I didn't get a landing card from a flight attendant (I was awake the whole time so I don't think they handed them out at all, to be honest), so I had to step out of line to fill one out when I got to the counter, which was a little embarrassing. However, my attendant had checked the papers of ten or so other Arcadia students that morning so she didn't even look at mine and let me through without any trouble. Getting to the meeting point was an ordeal though. Carrying all my bags through a very warm airport wearing a sweater and a long-sleeved shirt = overheated Rebecca. I had to catch a train from terminal 4 to terminal 3, and the train was delayed do to a security inspection. And the route to the meeting point within terminal 3 was entirely uphill, so that was rough. But the Arcadia group was easy to find once I got there!
There were about 25 of us waiting for the bus, and after waiting for fifteen minutes or so, we all filed out from the airport and packed our luggage into the bus waiting for us. We all got our individual schedules (I love the British pronunciation of schedule haha) for our specific programs while we were on the bus along with a phone card, and then we were off. The airport is about 45 minutes to an hour from central London, so we had a bit of a ride. And the whole time I was concentrating very hard on not vomiting all over the bus. For whatever reason, I've had the worst jetlag of my entire life today, which doesn't even make any sense to me, since I've never had issues with it coming to Europe (the return trip always gets me though). But I was nauseous, dizzy, had an odd headache, and the shakes, so I thought I might be sick from something I ate. However, I've since had nearly three bottles of water plus water at dinner, a brief nap, and a lovely three course dinner from Arcadia, and I'm feeling much better. So I think everything can be blamed on jetlag and dehydration.
The ride was nice otherwise, it definitely made me feel like I was visually in England. It still has yet to hit me that I'm actually here, and this is finally happening. We drove through a bit of countryside with some cows, then the outskirts of London with the very quaint townhouses and cottage-esque homes and little shops, into the more famous neighborhoods of London, like Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and finally to Bloomsbury where our hotel and Arcadia's offices are located. There were a few bumps along the way dropping off students at other housing (involving the Arcadia representative attempting to jump a fence in his dapper suit in the rain, which we all found quite amusing), but all was well with the group ending up at Thistle, our hotel. Not all the rooms were ready, so they told us we would have to wait until after 2 (we arrived around 1:35ish), and we created a luggage jungle in the lobby. They called my name first a little before 2 to tell me my room was ready, and I was luckily on the ground floor so I just had to lug my duffle bags a little ways down a hall. I opened the door to the surprise of my roommate who had just laid down for a nap. Her name is Emily and she's also going to York. We talked for a little bit, I was quite hyper in that "I'm really tired and I'm about to crash but I just keep talking" way, and I made myself chug a bottle of water, and then we both feel asleep for about an hour until our meeting at the Arcadia offices at 4 pm.
The Arcadia offices are two blocks away from our hotel, so it was a quick walk over. It's a little drizzly here, but it's so much warmer than Michigan, I really didn't mind the rain. I finally caught up with Megan at our meeting, where we received our arrival packs with our handbooks, program-specific documents about academics at our universities, travel passes, and maps. We had a brief overview of some important things to do in the first few days, and then we went back to the hotel for a three course meal. I sat with Megan and some students going to Oxford. There was a vegetarian option, thankfully, and we all had salads. The pasta (vegetarian dish) was delicious I completely forgot how much better pasta is in Europe and the UK. There was fruit for dessert, and tons of water to drink.
So now I'm just chilling in the room, writing my blog and trying to decide how late to make myself stay up to get on track for the time change. Some people are going out to pubs tonight but there is no way I could stay awake and I already feel hungover on traveling, as Emily put it haha.
Tomorrow we have a lot more meetings and a scavenger hunt of London, so it will be more exciting. And I'll take some pictures at some point!
No comments:
Post a Comment