Arrival at 15 Bedford Place!

So after an anxious month of packing and repacking I have finally arrived in London! I can't believe that I'm finally here. The trip over wasn't bad at all- we were on a huge double decker plane and there were many empty seats. Jordan and I got seats on the upper level and we had the row to ourselves. 


When we got to the airport in Heathrow  we met up with Allie (one of my roommates) and the rest of the group. After wandering around the baggage claim area of the airport for a while we finally found our way to the coaches that took us to Bedford Place- our home for the next few months!


We live on the third floor of the building ... dragging our suitcases up the winding staircase was quite the challenge. Our flat has two bedrooms a double (Emma and Megan) and a triple (Allie, Emily, and I) two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. 

Hungry and exhausted, we dropped our bags in our room and went out in search of some food and caffeine. With Emily's help (Emily is my roommate who has been here for a while already!) we found the grocery store, a cute and delicious organic lunch spot called Pod, and many coffee places. It was a good first adventure ... we also found other important places like the nearest Pub, post office, and underground station. 

Fun facts from London

...you have to go to a post office to exchange money

after going to lunch we set out to exchange the rest of our US dollars for pounds - we went to about three banks before finally being told that none of the banks will do currency exchange- oops (apparently that's true in the US also- who would have known!) We went to the post office and got our pounds at a painful exchange rate, but hey, there's not much that can be done about that. I asked about the old bills you gave me Grandma and the lady said since they are so old I would have to go to the Bank of England to exchange them for current currency- sooo probably not going to do that but who knows! When we got back Megan and Emma did a little research on British money as we tried to figure out all of the pounds and pence etc. We also spent some time trying to figure out the exchange rate - that wasn't too complicated but it will definitely take some getting used to.

...cars are small and go very fast and come from all directions 

Now, I was warned how confusing it was going to be since in England the drive on they wrong side of the street but I figured I would just look both ways and be fine...well let me tell you, it's not the easy. It's so disorienting to have cars flying around corners from what seems like every direction. Because it's not what I'm used to there seems to be very little order in the streets. Another source of confusion- Do you walk on the left or the right side of the sidewalk? We observed and there didn't seem to be any consistency so each time we were walking towards people we had to do the awkward side to side dance...I hope we figure that out soon. There are also plenty of pigeons around and they are not afraid to fly right into you. I really hated pigeons before this- now they kind of terrify me. 

...just because they speak English doesn't mean you can understand them

During our adventure to the grocery store I found out that just because people in London are speaking English words does NOT mean that they are easy to understand. At the register I got extremely flustered when I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the cashier was saying. I would hear something something something BAG and then something something something CARD. I managed my way with a lot of smiles and nods but felt unbelievably stupid. 

Tomorrow we're heading out to KEW - The British National Archives for a tour and we going to try and get pay as you go phones and do some more exploring! 


...More pictures to come!