Safe, Snug, and Settled

My first peek of London through the clouds!

The River Thames

Our room

My closet (had to borrow some hangers from the guys:)

The view out my window

View out of my window down the street

The gang and I landed this afternoon at London Heathrow Airport around 1pm. Thankfully none of our luggage was lost. A coach then picked us up and we met our tour guide Brit who pointed out some points of interest and fun facts about London during our 45 minute drive from the airport to our flat. Even though it's only 14 miles, it takes a while to drive anywhere because the traffic is kind of crazy and doesn't make much sense to me quite yet. We got to our part of the city, South Kensington and dropped our bags off in our flat. Well...backup...first all of us overpackers had to drag our 40-something pound bags up 8 flights of stairs...there are no elevators. (Needless to say, I'll probably have some pretty nice legs when I come back :)) I walked in the door and looked on my bed and there was a huge puddle of water (like 4ft. wide) soaked through to the mattress and on the floor. I had the maintenance guy come look at it and first we thought it was from someone leaving the window open, but the drapes weren't wet. Then we thought that the ceiling was leaking. I left for a meeting and he went to check the flat upstairs, so I really don't know what the deal was, only that I now have a new dry bed :) We then headed over to the Foundation House to check in, buy books, and take a walking tour of our area. After that a few of us went to check out the local grocery store Waitrose. It took me about 45 minutes to get 8 things because the brands are all really different. Half of the time I didn't know if I was picking up yogurt or meat because the packaging is all really similar. I did end up finding Special K with Strawberries though :) The fruit is all really fresh and delicious and I'm hooked on balsamic and sea salt flavored kettle chips, they are sooooo good! The buildings in this area are so beautiful and most of them are actually old town homes divided into smaller flats. My room is about the width of two twin beds put together and about 2.5 of them in length, so pretty small, but definitely livable. So to make along story short, I'm here and settled and tomorrow I have a busy day. Night Night