Ah yes, the first blog post about my journey abroad. Since it is that, I suppose I should begin with just that. The journey.

So Tuesday night, Marc and I drove up to Omaha, and my aunt had gotten us a room at the hotel/casino Harrah's. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the outside, but you can take my word for it, it was pretty. The room was pretty sweet too, a pity we'd only have the next few hours to sleep there, before getting up at 5am to take me to the airport. I did however manage to take a picture of Omaha from our nice big window.




Time: 5:00am
Day: Wednesday

Marc and I get up, and get ready for me to leave the country. Sad. But the cappuccino cheered me up. Until I spilled (or as the English say 'spilt') it on my shirt. So while we're in line checking baggage, I switch my drenched hoodie for a different one quickly. I think I scared the guy from "Colorade-O" as he pronounced it. After baggage, Marc walks me to the security check line where we part ways. Him back to the LC, and me to St. Louis. Well, not quite yet. First I have to wait for about 2 hrs, so I call up moms, and buy Memoirs of a Geisha for some good reading material. I've been meaning to get it for a while, and this seemed like the perfect occasion. Then I get on this sucker



and fly over to Omaha



and land at Lambert Airport in the Lou.



Here, I have to go down and get my crapton of luggage, and drag it up the stairs (escalator=out of order) and get my butt on a shuttle to go to the main terminal, so I can check my bags and go through security again, since I'm switching from Southwest to American Airlines. But I did see a nice big Wicked poster, so that made me happy. So happy, I naturally had to take a pic with my new camera, of course doubling the happiness.



Once I'm in Gate C at around 8-ish, I wander a bit (my flight wasn't till 2-ish), find out my cd player is broken, talk to Reid, and then Abby gets there, and around 12-ish more Webster kids start arriving, so we make social, and get to know everyone. Finally we board this plane:



and begin our ways to Chicago. There, we only have an hour and a half layover, so Abby grabs some rag mags (she loves celebrity gossip more than I do) I get a new cd player ($50, but I've been needing a new one forever now, plus I had a 9hr flight to London coming up), we get some lunch from McDonalds, and I meander off to get some foreign cash



and find another Wicked mini-billboard.



It takes me forever to get back. Abby thinks I'm lost.
(Doesn't she look concerned?)




So then, we get aboard our nice luxurious, spacious, anything else with an -ious, international aircraft. The flight isn't cleared for take off for nearly an hour, so I wait and take pics of the inside of the aircraft.



Doesn't it look nice?

Anyways, it's somewhere around 5 or 6 once we actually start moving. I stopped keeping track of time at this point figuring once I was on the plane it didn't really matter anymore, since all would be lost in a matter of miles. The flight was actually really nice. Not much turbulence, sufficient space, we were served dinner, and breakfast, and had some tv/movie entertainment in front of us. I settled for some episodes of CSI.




I can't help it. I love that show. So in an effort to try and make my landing/morning in London a little easier, I decide to try and sleep the whole flight, since we'd be landing in L-town at 6:50am, even though that would have been my normal midnight for that day. Somewhere over Quebec I woke up and watched some Joey (guest starring Lucy Liu) and then fell asleep to some Mraz singing about planes going down. Amidst some slight turbulence, one would find this creepy, but it was eerily comforting. Then later I wake up about :45 mins away from landing.

From the air, in the dark, I decide London looks like any other city at night. (An astute observation) I wasn't by the window, so unfortunatly no comparison pic to the Omaha one. Once we land, we scurry off to the Passport Check/Customs, and wait in the longest line known to man. Serioulsy the whole place was just one big roped off line, running back and forth across the room. Of course, what better way to welcome a person to London than by sticking them in a que right away.

After I am officially let into the country (pretty easily actually, I think waiting in line was the hardest part--though no easy task, mind you) I follow the signs to claim my baggage, grab a cart (there's no way I'm hauling this after suffering once before in St. Louis) and Abby and we make our way to the Taxis. Outside, we walk over to this guy in uniform and he beckons a taxi for us and tells us "This 'uns yours" He's speaking in British! I love it!

So our taxi cab driver is seemingly quite nice. I wish I'd taken a pic of the outside, cause it was a really cool looking cab. Like a mini cross mated with a mini-bus. Thus begins our £60 (nearly $100.00) trip to Regent's Park. The taxi man helps us carry our luggage which was more than nice, so we tip him £10. He was excited. We must be very generous in our naivety. Did you know that in Australia they don't tip for anything? Not waiters, not taxis, nothing. Anyways...

Tired and grimy, I get to my room, find out I'm roomies with Abby (nice random surprise) unpack, shower, go to the reception/orientation meeting, and crawl in bed and crash at like 8pm (here). So since my room is now somewhat decent looknig here's some pics:

Here's the doorway of course:


On of our neighbor girls said as dorky as it is, she wishes that we had nametags. Though we couldn't commit to doing this for her, Abby and I said we'd tape some on our door for her ;)

The room is actually bigger than I thought it'd be.


...and here's my closet:


...and my desk, with all my cds and a few must have movies with me (Crash, Mars Attacks, and Season 1 of Gilmore Girls)


...my bed, with Memoirs of a Geisha tossed into place in preperation for some evening readign tonight:


...the nook where Abby plans to hide from me, should she feel the need:


...our fake little fireplace and mantle. I don't think I've ever had a mantle before.


...a little chair, from which to window gaze:


...and the view from our window:


on upon exiting...our door from the inside:


...the hallways:





...the many many stairs to climb to my room on the 4th floor:


..and the fun shaped windows which I plan to sit in.


Well, I think that's about it. I'll have more pictures of the outside etc. later. Tonight I'm going on the Jack the Ripper tour, so there should be some fun pics of downtown London as well. But for now, I'm going to go eat lunch in the Refectory for the first time. Wish me luck!

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