Flying and Arriving: The London Chronicles

I never thought I would be the author of a blog, but here I am and if you're reading this it's either because you are super bored or semi interested in what's been going on. Either way, thank you. If we hadn't had time to talk, yes, I am in London. We (myself and other CSUF students doing London Semester) made it here safely and here we will remain until April. Send me some suggestions after you read this (if you make it through all the way), my first post. Let me know what you want to see or if you have any questions for me.


Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start...)

The Flight:

Not as bad as I expected it to be. We flew out of the San Francisco International Airport (which had a really amazing wall art exhibit—I’ve posted pictures below) on Jan. 8 around 12:30PM and arrived in London on Jan 9 at 6:30 in the morning. I spent my time on the plane watching movies. Have any of you ever seen City of Embers? Tim Robbins was in it. Very strange movie,

I'm not quite sure what to make of it even a week later. I also saw a documentary about sharks called Shark Water (I think) which was very sad and focused on the illegal shark fin trade market, specifically in Costa Rica. Sharks a vital part of the environment, they’ve outlived the dinosaurs for fuck sake, and now they are disappearing because their fins fetch big bucks. It’s a gruesome film that really opened my eyes, if you’ve never seen or heard of it please check it out. I also watched Lakeview Terrace (it was a long flight!) finally, not too bad I suppose but certainly not an Oscar contender. When I wasn't watching movies, I was watching a screen with an airplane making steady progress across the Atlantic.

I sat next to a girl from London who was visiting family in San Fran. She apparently moved to Italy to get a masters degree and is finishing up her PhD in London. I was quite jealous, but we exchanged information and we’re supposed to meet up sometime soon. I guess the strangest thing about the flight was landing on Friday AM and not knowing what had happened to the rest of my Thursday. To avoid jet lag they told us to stay awake as long as we could and so my first day in London was a groggy one, spent in sleepwalk mode until I could get to my bed and readjust my internal clock. It was pretty cold when we got here, but we were all kind of delirious so it was fun. We took a coach to our flat and got situated. I'm living with 5 wonderful flatmates, they are Alicia, Ashley, Sarah, Darin and Charity. We have a sixth roommate coming in soon, Jennifer. As an interesting aside, Darin and Charity are actually married and I suppose this is like a second honeymoon for them, which is pretty cool, eh? Our flat is really cute, out of the three flats occupied by the Fresno State group ours is for sure the cutest. Did you have any doubt that I would use my skills to make it so?? When we got here we spent some time unpacking and booked it to the nearest market, Leather Lane Market, where I bought some tulips to spice up the flat. And spice it up I did! (Flat photos by the lovely Sarah Chandler--thanks roomie!).