There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.

The title of this post has nothing to do with my trip over here except that I read it in The Bell Jar and thought it was hilarious. 

I'm here! I'm very tired, because I had zero luck sleeping on the flight last night and I've been running around and imparting wisdom (haha) all day. 

Once I got to Dallas (after a pretty bumpy flight) I hit the eats department and got a chicken tarragon sandwich at a place called Au Bon Pain (with good bread, for you non-french speakers) and then started wandering around trying to find a pay phone to call the parentals. Instead I found Veronica, a girl from my program who was on my flight, and she let me use her phone and then suggested we try to switch our tickets so we could sit by each other. The lady at the gate was very sweet and most helpful, and we ended up in the center section, but on the end and by each other.

It was a longish flight, made longer by the aforementioned inability to sleep. I did get to watch The Other Boelyn Girl (the only thing that appealed to me, for some weird reason), catch a few bits of Office episodes, and read more than half of The Bell Jar (my attempts at falling to sleep to it failing completely because I tried my plan just as Esther was having shock therapy. Whoops.)

After a quick ride on the Heathrow Express and a miserable one stop in the tube with much dragging of luggage, I discovered that I still remembered where the Centre was, as well as the gelato place (Illy) and the waffle place. 

Once we were settled a little I led an expedition (the first of many today, this one with Veronica, Stephen, and David) to the Notting Hill Gate tube stop to get Oyster cards, and then while Veronica went in search of cell phone options, I took Stephen and David to Gregg's for lunch to prove that not everything here is $26. 

We also made a quick trip into Trafalgar Square, walked through Kensington Gardens, ate sandwiches, and were assigned to wards. It's weird to be back in a different room with different people, but I love how it still feels to come "home" to London and still feel comfortable here after time away. And now I'm going to skim TimeOut for a few minutes and get some SLEEP. For the record, I feel like this whole thing was more interesting in my head before my head started to fuzz over. It will get more interesting as we go along. :)

Cheers!