Cheers from Merry Old England!

I have finally arrived in London! Pip pip, cheerio! :)

It was nice to have my cousin Tina and sister Sarah help me finish up my packing on Thursday morning. Then, my mom, my sisters, and Roman took me to the airport on time in the afternoon. They also helped me do some reallocation of my stuff from one suitcase to another since one of them was over the 50 pound limit. After much rearranging, we got it to weigh exactly 50 lbs! Both flights were on time as well and luckily I got a window seat on the long 9 hour flight from DFW to London Gatwick, but of couse, they did not get my vegan meal right. Fortunately I had called in advance and knew that, so I took food to eat on the flight with me. I got to watch "Some Like it Hot" and some British mystery movie on the flight. When I arrived in Gatwick, the passport control line was a mess and very long. It took me about an hour to get through and my legs and back were hurting from carrying my big old backpack. After I grabbed my bags and walked out of customs, I saw the programme's representative, Alice, standing there with a Mountbatten sign with my name on it. It was nice to be picked up. We rode the train from the airport and then got to take one of the cute little black London taxis. I will take a picture of one later.

We rode to the office since my flat was not ready yet. She took me to get breakfast and I got to meet my roommate, Jesika, from Boston. Since our flat was still not ready, they sent us on an errand to open a bank account at Lloyd's Bank. We had to find our way around on the tube and got lost a little. The tube was really fun and they actually do say "Mind the Gap". :)




Jesika is not shy to ask for directions, so we got to talk to a lot of Londoners. I don't think I am ever going to get over the accent here. It is so cute!

Once we got to the flat, we settled in and met some other interns, a couple of which work at UBS too. Everyone is really nice. We are still waiting for our other 2 roommates to come in on Monday. Hopefully they are nice. Still have not met another Texan or hispanic.

Wel, it is about 1:30am here and although it is Friday night, Jesika and I are not going out. I want to wake up tomorrow for a jog and then run errands and take pictures, so I should get to bed soon. I am still pretty tired because of jet lag and kinda sickly from the plane. I will post more pics later.