Once I arrived at Dulles Airport, I had an easy time
checking in and getting through the security checkpoint with ease. It has been a while since I took an
international flight and I forgot how speedy and efficient the flight was – my
departure time was 9:05pm and we left at 9:05pm. Upon arrival at Heathrow Airport in London,
you could tell that the whole airport was in Olympics mode due to the speedy
entry into the U.K. except for the guy Jaime who is from Fairfax County (he was
detained by the U.K. customs officials).
He wrote down the wrong information on the extended stay card and got
detained in the locked room until he could find the paperwork that had to
correct address that we are staying at for 3 weeks…everyone, including the U.K.
customs officials had a laugh afterwards and they allowed him to keep the
detainment card as a souvenir.
Once I made through the checkpoint, my cell phone didn’t
work even though I set up my international sym-card…thanks Verizon! I scrambled to find an Internet café so that
I could tell Sarah and my parents that I arrived safely; afterwards, it was
onto the Underground (subway/metro) for my 1 hour journey into London. It is much nicer than the DC Metro and/or NYC
Subway system! Once I arrived at my stop
in London @ 11:30, I made my way to the Churchill War Rooms where I was to drop
off my luggage and meet up with the other NOVA teachers. Since we weren’t meeting until 1:00, I had some time to kill so I walked down to 10
Downing Street (this is where the U.K. Prime Minister lives), Westminster
Abbey, and over to the British Houses of Parliament and Big Ben to take some
photos.
I meet up with the NOVA
teachers @ 1:00 and then we headed over to the Red Lion Inn for some lunch
where I had fish and chips. Due to the
crowds upstairs, we made our way to the downstairs seating area and since no
one was there, we had some time to get to know each other better while we
ate. Then, we made our way to the River
Thames for a 90 minute boat ride tour until the opening banquet started at
5:00. Below are a few of the sights we
saw:
· London Eye (36 pods that hold 20+ people in each
pod where you can see for 30 miles)
· Cleopatra’s Needle (the twin is located in
Central Park in NYC)
· St. Paul’s Cathedral
· Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (replica only)
· The London Bridge and the Tower Bridge (often
confused by people to be the London Bridge but that
is incorrect.)
· Tower of London
When the welcome banquet started,
we meet the rest of our party which included 4 teachers from Seattle and 1
teacher each form Kansas and New York.
We were then given a behind the scenes exclusive VIP only tour of the
Churchill War Rooms…this is the underground bunker where Churchill and his
military cabinet stayed and conducted battle during the Battle of Britain in 1940
for the defense of all of England (otherwise known as the BLITZ to the
British). Once we finished, we had a
dinner reception and then got on the coach bus to take us to our living
quarters for the next three weeks – Homerton College in Cambridge. When we arrived, we found out that the WiFi
connection didn’t work in our rooms which pretty much ended the long day on a
sour note because we hadn’t had Internet connection for almost 24 hours…unheard
of in today’s society right??!! Speaking
of our rooms, I am very envious as I’m sure everyone who went to Shepherd will
be because the rooms are much nicer than our college days. I have my own sweet with a personal bathroom,
2 closets with all of the space I could ever need and a huge desk; my bed
however is very small and my feet hang off the edge of the bed. Anyway, needless to say that due to the time
change and being in a strange place for the first night, didn’t go to bed until
well after 3:30am and woke up around 7:00am but it was a restless sleep.
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