Day One

Today was quite the day. Actually, it was two days. My Monday and Tuesday ran into each other, despite the attempts of the lovely people on Virgin Atlantic to simulate a night time and a morning time. I jumping the gun, however. The day started in Shaker heights Ohio.

Dad and Emily wished me a good trip and gave me hugs goodbye before they left for school, leaving Mom and I to do crazy last minute things like doing laundry(me) and baking muffins(mom). I ran around the house trying to find things I forgot, and finally we were off. Mom brought me to the airport, helped me check in and hugged me before security.

I had a short flight from Cleveland to JFK and then a long one from JFK to Heathrow London. The shorter one was just fine except for the screaming boy in front of me. However, thanks to my 21 year old cat's constant yowling I find that I've been trained to drown our obnoxious noise. It also helped that the kid was yelling in Turkish. Though I didn't mine the screaming the man next to me did. He was pretty well self contained except for a few agitated jerks and at most a shushing aimed at the boy. The poor man was also obviously afraid of flying, so I'm sure a screaming child didn't help his nerves. The only other notable aspect of the flight was the complimentary drink I had. Apparently they were out of tomato juice except for "spicy tomato juice." I tried a cup and it was delicious, though I can see how many people would disagree. It tasted like if you made Frank's Red Hot Sauce a little bit milder and into a drink. Yum!

The second flight was just looooong. They airline did all it could to make it more enjoyable, and the design of everything even down to the silverware and the safety pamphlets was a treat! I always love bold geometric vibrant and simplistic designs. Virgin airlines had it. That extra effort on the design front is not something that airlines seem to devote too often, but it really made the trip a lot more fun. We also had a plethora of things to do through the TV screen imbedded in the seats in front of us. I watched half a movie and an episode of a TV show, but for most of the flight I attempted to get comfortable and sleep. I wasn't very successful in either endeavor.

The most frustrating part about the trip, other than the failed sleep attempts, were the waits. This group flight served probably about 200 Syracuse students in one go. It was ridiculous. Lines wrapped around themselves and lasted forever. I was lucky enough to find my friend Brianna and her two lovely parents who helped me lug my luggage around. I don't know what I would have done without them. We had to wait to get on the plane, wait to get off, wait to be admitted to the UK, wait for our luggage, wait for our buses, wait to sign in at the hotel and wait for our suitcases to arrive. Oh well.

Brianna and I were absolutely exhausted when we got to the hotel, but we were advised not to sleep. After sending enough hints on the internet that we were still alive and well we decided to pass time by checking out an open house at the Syracuse University hub in London called the Faraday house. Mom, Rick, you would not believe it. Before leaving I looked at the map, and then left it in the room to see if I could get there myself. Since we had all afternoon I figurted if we got too lost we'd retrace out steps back to the hotel and start again. Not neccesary. We did not make a single wrong turn. It was maazin stepping outside of the hotel and seeing LONDON! The buildings are more quaint, the taxis are black and the cars are definitely different. Apparently the gas prices here are roughly $8.00 a gallon, so the cars have to be different. That plus the congestion fee one has to pay to drive around London makes the drivers pretty grumpy. I don't think I'll be crossing streets without a buddy for a while. Even when being careful I've had Brianna pull me back off the street a couple times while a car races around the corner.

We got to the Faraday house to find doughnuts, coffee and English people waiting for us. For this first week, SU abroad actually employs young Brits to talk to us and to help us out with the transition. Unfortunately Bri was too tired to speak much and eventually even I ran out of conversation. We thought we had killed a bunch of time, but it was still only 1:30 in the afternoon. As a last effort I asked one of the young gentlemen to suggest something around here for us to walk to. His answer led to the most memorable first day in London we could ask for. Apparently the Thames was only a 15-20 min walk away.

More in the next post. I'm gonna make a picasa page first. We can't have the details of my walk around London without pictures. La'ers!