Arrival in London

Entry One: Arrival in London

            To say the plane ride to London was uneventful would be an understatement. It was cramped, uncomfortable, and rather hot. Some of the students and teachers who were lucky managed to catch some sleep, while others like me were less fortunate. But I knew that in the end it would be worth it. I’d always dreamed about going to London and seeing all the sites. To be honest, when I took this trip, I didn’t care so much about going to Paris, as spending a few days in London. The plane ride was about 6 hours of me attempting to sleep, then giving up and watching movies. After waiting so long, we finally touched down in London, leaving me in a great mood. That is, until, we got stuck in an enormous line to check in our passports…

            If someone said that the students and teachers weren’t tired or crabby, they would be a liar. Even those who managed to fall asleep were only out for a few hours. Everyone was tired and jetlagged the whole day, and rather irritated. On that first day, it seemed all that we did was wait, wait, and wait some more. Our first subway ride into the city, as I remember, was lengthy, and uncomfortable. We were all crammed in a small space with no open windows and no air conditioning for almost an hour. Even the teachers were complaining about it.

            However, we finally arrived at our destination. We explored the city a bit and stopped to have lunch in a nice little area. I was hoping they’d give us some free time to explore on our own, but we only had an hour and we were not allowed to wander off.

            After lunch, we headed to see the London Eye. Needless to say we waited in a gigantic line, but it was entertaining due to the street performers that were interacting with the crowd. This one man had these weird things on his legs that made him jump very high, and he was throwing a beach ball into the group and jumping, and also did a backflip once or twice. The students and even the teachers were hitting it back to him, and it was pretty fun.

            Eventually, we were nearing the entrance for the London Eye. As the man working there asked us how many people we had with us, I simply said “52.” He gave me this look that sent me a message of something like, “Damn tourists…” We split up in to two groups to get on the Eye, and it was an amazing view. You could see all of London, from the Big Ben to the millions of people scampering around down below. The London Eye was the first thing I really enjoyed on the trip, as did most of the other students. Although I’ll admit at the top, looking down seemed to suddenly bring out the fear of heights that I hadn’t really known about before… But other than that it was quite enjoyable.

            Overall, I really did not like my first day in London, mostly due to the fact that I was tired, crabby, and extremely jetlagged. I’m sure if I had gotten some sleep it would have been a bit better, however, I really enjoyed the London Eye.