London: Day 1

Hey everyone! It's Tara and Cailin writing from LONDON! We will be staying here for about 4 months and then traveling for a few weeks after our semester is over. We thought a blog would be a great way to keep family and friends updated! Anything written by Tara will be in red and anything written by Cailin will be in blue. (Union jack colors!)

Keep checking daily/weekly and we should have new posts to share what we're up to.

As for today...
After a 4 hour drive to the Newark Liberty Airport, a 7 hour flight to London, and a one hour drive from the airport to southeast London we are finally at our school! 

The Campus Green

The day was pretty hectic in general, from missing the highway exit to the airport, not having any time to eat before the flight, and ruining my favorite down-filled jacket. (There are feathers flying everywhere since my suitcase rolled over the sleeve :'(...) Despite all of this, nothing beats the moment when we were almost denied entry into the UK. I guess we needed round trip tickets and they don't like to let people with one-way tickets into the country because they may never leave. Oops... no one told us and we read every rulebook/guidebook/handbook we were emailed. After getting yelled at by the immigration officer and being completely terrified, he let us into the country, but gave our passport a special stamp that forces future immigration officers to not let us into the UK without a round-trip ticket. I guess that's just one of the mishaps of traveling. However, now we are all settled. Almost. Tara has met the majority of her suitemates and out of my 8 suitemates I've only quickly seen one. I don't know where they all are!? We also had our first London grocery shopping experience and I got my favorite cereal (Krave!) but it originated in the UK so it has more exciting flavors here. I bought chocolate hazelnut and can't wait to eat it tomorrow before our orientation filled day. My first impressions of London may surprise people because it seems similar to the US in so many ways... It looks a lot like NYC in Southeast London at least. Of course there are the classic double decker buses and telephone booths around but I definitely don't have culture shock... Yet.

Additionally, a huge lame shout out to United Airlines for saving Cailin and I from starvation by providing amazing plane food. It was better than any TV dinner we've ever had and I never knew I could devour plane food so quickly. Chicken in cheese sauce, vegetables, salad, roll, and a brownie for dessert; plus a crossiant and fruit for breakfast to put us in the European mood right before landing. Despite the few travel glitches, navigating both Newark and Heathrow airports wasn't bad at all, and before we knew it we were greeted by our program advisor with Union Jack gift bags and transferred to our school in a Mercedes town car with a full-on suit clad driver. Who knew they pulled all the stops for simple students!

Our Gift Bags

A cute keychain they gave us!

Driving through, we could see Big Ben and The Eye in the distance, a reminder that we were actually in London. It is still so surreal and like Cailin said, southeast London is very similar in appearance to a typical NYC street, so besides the red double decker buses and driving on the left side, I don't really feel out of place (oh the british accents too)! Currently, I'm trying to stop being jet-lagged and am looking forward to a trip to see all the sights in central London this weekend!

On another note, Cailin and I decided to do a tally of how many people ask us if we are twins here. Many of our good friends don't see how people could think we're twins, but strangers have been stopping and asking us that question since I can remember and it has never stopped. Day 1: 1 person