Landed

Wow. These past few days have flown by. Tuesday, my mom and I went to stay with Nick and his family in O'Fallon, and then Wednesday I flew out of St. Louis. I did my best to keep from bawling my eyes out when I was saying my goodbyes. (Since then, I haven't had much time to cry.) I flew into Chicago with a few friends from school, and then had an 8 hour flight to London. I sat next to a very quiet British man and was able to sleep for quite a while on the plane.

Upon landing in London and making it through the customs line, we discovered that the airline had lost Jake's luggage--and as of today, they still haven't found it. This was terrible, but also slightly funny. Plus, he was able to help carry some of our luggage as we made the trek through the airport to the bus station.

We rode the bus to our hostel and dropped off our bags. Then we went to find an ASDA (the British equivalent to Wal-Mart). We walked for a very, very long time in a light mist. Our lack of direction was obvious when we found ourselves in the middle of what seemed to be an industrial district. Jake, being the only guy, asked some local blue-collar workers for directions. We were able to walk to a Tesco, which is also a grocery store. We bought some lunch, some toiletries, towels, and I bought a hairdryer. Then we sat on some benches outside and ate. The stench wafting from the 5 of us and our dirty hair probably made passersby thing that we were homeless. But we were happy nonetheless.

After we finished eating, we made the long walk back to our hostel to see if our room was ready. We waited outside for a while before the owner asked me to come inside and pay for the room. He told me that the room we were supposed to stay in had flooded, but he was going to show us to a nicer hostel down the street. This hostel had complimentary breakfast and private bathrooms. It was also much more expensive, but the hostel owner paid the difference.

Since we were all completely exhausted, we took a nap in our room. Then some of us decided to go find some dinner. We walked Feltham looking for something good to eat and managed to find the ASDA we had been looking for earlier. We bought some drinks and then got takeout--or takeaway, as the British say--from a restaurant that served different kinds of burgers. Then we went back to the hostel and feasted and went to bed early so we could meet the Harlaxton group at the airport the next morning.