Two flights, one screaming baby, four noisy neighbors, two very bland meals, one fully-booked flight, two facial scans, and three bags later, and I have officially arrived in London. I have officially set my feet on foreign soil and breathed in the fresh air that smells nothing like home. I will say, even now, I don’t think it has hit me that I am in London, let alone going to be here for a month. I am so excited to see everything London has to offer, especially after today.
Even though it feels like I just fit 48 hours into one day, we all still had somehow enough energy to go explore London a little more. After getting into our rooms, we went to Russel Station to get on the tube headed for Piccadilly Circus. I’ve been on the New York City subway and the metro in Washington, D.C., but I’ve never experienced anything like the tube. There are unspoken rules that are followed by everyone traveling, and somehow obvious? You wait for everyone to get off and then get on as quickly as possible. Then on the escalator, to stand, stay on the right, while the left is reserved for walking. Everything is so fast-paced, and everyone seems like they have somewhere they need to be. A man fully body-checked me today and didn’t even turn around to hear my apology :(.
Living in London is already very different than how I normally function in the United States. I have to remind myself to focus on looking the opposite way when crossing the street. I audibly gasped when we got onto our bus from the airport on the left side. There is no air conditioning in the hotel. The sink and bathtub have two spiky knobs, not one handle. But, humidity doesn’t exist. The “warm” day of 68ºF (20ºC) had a very chilly wind that made a cardigan and jeans a favorable outfit choice. I know it’ll take a lot of getting used to, but the initial “culture shock” is a really interesting experience. I have been out of the country once before, but even then, the only real culture shock I could remember was the language barrier of my brief Duolingo Italian skills. But the weirdest thing about this trip is that all the culture shock is from behavior, rather than language. It’s a weird experience that I know I’ll have to adjust to.
For lunch, a group of us had “Authentic California-Style Tacos” – whatever that means – and ate it in Russel Square. While the tacos were less than memorable, the experience will stay with me forever. We sat in the grass – that feels different than American grass, but I don’t know if that makes sense – and shared stories about our travels. Later, when we had the night to ourselves, our group decided to explore Chinatown, and we devoured very tasty (and cheap!) Taiyaki fish waffles with vanilla ice cream. Then instead of taking the tube home, we decided to take the 25 minutes to walk back to the hotel to see the city a little more. We came across 2,435 cafes and red telephone booths (give or take a few), at least two hair salons – including one that was very Sweeney-esque-, one “dental surgeon”, two hundred very big-boned pigeons, and eleven crosswalks including four zebra crossings. In total, since 12 PM today, I have walked 13,321 steps and have a feeling I’ll be walking a lot more than that in the days to come. I feel like I’ve lived more days than I can count, but I can’t wait for what the rest of our trip brings.
Theatre in London U of A 
Thank you!
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