Saturday 29 June 2013

Getting Here, Always an Adventure

Days 0-1:

Getting to England was an adventure in and of itself.  I live in Richmond, VA, and I was flying out of Charleston, SC, which is approximately 8 hours away.  That meant that I had to get to the airport in Charleston by train, plane, or automobile before I could get on the plane on 6/27 to even begin my journey.  In order to save a little money, I chose the train and embarked on what should have been a 7-hour Amtrak trip (my first!) on Thursday, June 26.  I was lucky enough to get randomly bumped from coach to business class where I got my very own row of seats, but that's pretty much where my luck ended!  As seven hours turned into nine, I was ready to be on solid ground again.  Finally, late Wednesday night, I made it to my hotel in SC.

The next day I began my tour of the airports.  The Charleston airport has a lovely Dunkin' Donuts that serves wonderful bagels and cream cheese.  I'm sure that many people would consider ordering a bagel at a donut shop a food crime, but it was exactly what I wanted.  After breakfast, I headed to the gate and ended up meeting up with a whole crew of students who were heading to London to be part of the same study abroad program as I was.  We ended up sitting near each other on the plane, sharing gum, travel advice, a few laughs, and lunch and the layover in Dallas.  Ahh, Dallas...

Remember how my seven hour train trip turned into a nine hour one?  Yeah, that's about how the layover in Dallas happened, too.  We were supposed to leave at 4:45 and we had arrived around 2:30--the perfect amount of time to grab a bite to eat, exchange our dollars for British pounds, and run to the restroom before taking off for our overnight flight across the ocean.  Except, that's not exactly how it happened.  The airline kept bumping back the departure time...thirty minutes here, thirty more minutes, forty minutes, and so on.  Until finally, at around 6:15 they announced that they were going to give us food vouchers.  This was not good news.  This meant that there was no way we were leaving at 6:40 like they had said a few minutes before that, and I happened to be taking the first bite of my delicious grilled cheese sandwich (also from Dunkin' Donuts...I'm not sure why I have an affinity for buying anything and everything EXCEPT donuts there!).  So, I took my voucher and bought ice cream and bottled water!!!  It was delicious :)
The airline gives me a food voucher, I get Ben and Jerry's!


Eventually they did put us on a plane, and it was only 4 hours after our original departure time.  Once we arrived in London Friday morning, my new College of Charleston friends and I grabbed a cab, stuffed ourselves and our luggage into it, and took off for our new home at King's College!

We had arrived!  Here are some pictures from my cab ride.

A London street

Double decker buses


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