elllllo mate!

If you couldn't tell from the post title, I am officially in LONDON! After the very easy 9 hour 50 minute flight, I landed in London at about 10am local time. I slept for about 5 hours of the flight which wasn't too bad... and of course they had complimentary wine and spirits on the plane which didn't hurt either! You would've paid to see me schlep all my bags around the London terminal. The AIFS representative almost passed out when he saw Jenna, Kirsten, and I rolling around 2 huge duffels each, plus our 2 carry ons. Oh well... you may take a girl away from Los Angeles, but you can never take the Los Angeles away from the girl!! Anyway, when we got to the cute little hotel, a small group of us went to a couple local pubs while we waited for check in (I wasn't complaining). I can officially say I've had my first European beer! Hopefully by the end of my trip, I will enjoy it a little more. By the second pub I had to switch to a glass of wine...  some things never change. So I can already tell the four of us will be SUPER close: me, steph (boulder), kirsten (boulder), and jenna. We already get along really well which is fun. Tonight AIFS is throwing us a "welcome drink" in the lobby, and then some of us are heading out to a fun dinner and the clubs. I am VERY excited to explore London. Tomorrow we have a tour of the entire city, Buckingham palace and all. In addition, we are going to see WICKED in a beautiful London theater tomorrow night. I am still pretty confused with the money situation here. They don't take euros like I thought, so I had to get some pounds, which are apparently very pricey... annoying. Lets just say everyone knows I'm American. From my bags, to lack of an attractive English accent. But I am having an amazing time so far and can't wait to meet the rest of the people on my program. good day chap!