London, You Have My Heart

I made it to London, and I can’t believe I’m here! I’ve been year for about five days now, but it simultaneously feels like I’ve been here for months, and minutes. I’m so surprised by how quickly I’ve gotten comfortable with the public transportation here; they make it so easy to get to the city, and travel throughout it. I definitely thought it would take me a while to get used to it and be able to find my way, especially with my horrible sense of direction!

The whole journey of getting here was pretty easy, and I didn’t have any complications, other than my suitcase being about 15-20 pounds overweight (all of my books had to go home with my parents instead of overseas with me, sadly). The flights went very smoothly, and luckily there were no screaming babies. It was definitely hard sitting there for seven hours straight on the flight over to London – I had a layover in Detroit – but it went by relatively quickly.

I got into London at about noon on Saturday, the 18th, so I was able to get settled in at the home I’m staying at. The couple hosting me is so lovely, and they have the most adorable little house and family. They have two cats, Rosie and Mackey, as well as three children and four grandchildren. I’ve met their son and his two children, and they are so sweet as well. I definitely lucked out, because I have a great roommate as well! It’s nice staying with a family, especially since I come from a very close one, so I have that homely comfort, and a wonderful place to come back to after long classes. My host mom has even made my roommate and I two batches of gluten free cupcakes, and always makes sure that there is vegetarian and gluten free food for me to eat!

I spent most of Sunday sleeping, basically, because I was feeling pretty sick in the morning and very jet lagged the whole day. I definitely underestimated how tired I would be! My sleep schedule is slowly returning to normal, so that’s very nice. I’ve now spent about three days in the city, walking around as a class, and wandering a tiny bit on my own, and I’ve taken so many photos so far. I thought I would post all of them to this post, since they are of all over London, and not any specific sub-city. I’ll be having dedicated posts for each of the places I go to, but for now this is an initial catch-all post!

This is the street of the neighborhood my host family lives in.

The houses are so cute here!

I can’t get over the architecture; everything is gorgeous!

There are so many streets with cute buildings like these!

Soho and the West End is definitely my favorite area so far.

Leicester Square is so beautiful!

There are so many double deckers, and they definitely do not get any less impressive the more I see them!

I had to take a stereotypical telephone booth photo.

I couldn’t believe the shot I got of Big Ben, because the clouds suddenly cleared!

This is Mackey, one of my host family’s cat! She is the sweetest little thing.

My host family has such pretty roses in their garden!

This is Rosie, the rather chubby-but-adorable second cat.

There was a swan (a swan people) just casually swimming about by the park near Buckingham Palace.

As if it couldn’t get any better, here are some baby swans. I think I died in this moment.

This is from on of the monuments from a German bombing.

I really need to start getting more “touristy” photos with myself in them!

We got to watch the guards sign off (?) at four o’clock. The horses were so gorgeous!

I’ve taken hundreds of photos so far, so I’m really glad I decided to bring an extra memory card! That way I won’t have to worry about the amount I’m taking, and I’ll still have plenty of room for my Spain trip. I’m having so much fun; I’m extremely grateful that I’m here. I was pretty homesick the first full day here, probably because I was so exhausted, and was just lying around the house not really doing much of anything. Now that my mind and body are both so preoccupied, I’m not dwelling on home! It definitely comes in waves, though. I just keep thinking that I’m in one of the most incredible cities in the world, and probably won’t have a chance like this one to be in London for so long, doing whatever I want to when I don’t have classes. I’m so lucky to have my parents who both encouraged me to come here, because I’m seriously having the time of my life so far.