We Made It! :)

We are here! It's so surreal to finally be typing this as I sit in our apartment, having just settled in. It's 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Our adorable little apartment is across from an ancient Dickens-esque looking building turned into a shipping company and  the Christ Church Bentnick C of E Primary School. We can hear the sound of happy, cute British kids quite often as they play on the playground. I just heard the school bell ring too!

Also, as you read this post keep in mind I am somewhat loopy and sleep deprived and on about 50% brain power (I literally just wrote brain POWDER....sheesh.....) so bear with me. :)

So, backing up a bit for a recap on the flight. We made sure to get to our gate with lots of time to spare, so that, in turn, made plenty of time for some good old fashioned people watching, which kept us greatly amused. For some reason, we saw several guys wearing cowboy hats, an unusual item to be traveling with on a plane. The other interesting thing was that the ones we saw were either going to Sao Paulo or....get this.....Paris. Any French cowboys out there want to confess? A British guy put on a Boston accent when bringing his wife some coffee and a bagel. It was hilarious to hear, because we are always impersonating them and don't ever hear of them impersonating us.

Finally, we boarded our plane and we ended up a bit separated, due to the tickets being added at the last minute. Galen ended up being 2 rows behind us but Victoria and I got to sit together. The plane had rows of 2, 4, and 2. She and I were the sitting on the 4 row in the middle, flanked by British people. The guy I sat next to didn't talk much and mostly watched movies, but the lady that Victoria sat next to was quite nice and they chatted on and off.

The flight went well, though we didn't get any actual sleep due to the sheer uncomfortable-ness coupled with having strangers at our elbows. We rested, we just didn't sleep. We tried to watch a movie on Victoria's laptop, but we stopped because it started to make her a bit dizzy. I watched some of The Great Gatsby on the video player on the back of the seat, though I didn't get to finish it. I found the GPS graphic on the screen that showed us where we were flying over quite interesting. Seven hours later, we could see the rooftops of London in the windows. Once we touched down and got off the plane, we had to go through Customs and Border security, the only difficulty being the long wait to get to the checkpoint.

Then we rode the underground to get to the station nearest our apartment, which ended up being a good 20 minute jaunt down the streets of London. The thing I was struck by immediately was the architecture in this city!!! Even the little dinky apartments have such charm and details that you can't help but admire them. Think of the housetops that Burt the chimney sweep danced on top of in Mary Poppins-that's what the houses are like all over the city.

We had a big scare when we arrived to our apartment to find the one that we were supposed to be using occupied by someone else. Thankfully, Victoria was able to reach the apartment manager and she figured out that those people took the wrong flat, and we were supposed to be in #1 and they in #2.  We opted to stay in flat #2, which is virtually the same and which is where we are right now. I don't know what we would have done if our apartment had fallen through. The lodging here is booked months in advance! Tonight we are planning on taking a little trip to this little street by the name of Baker, so I will write about that later. Pictures to come! :)