Live, Laugh, Love, London: Home Sweet Home

After an easy red-eye flight (free wine on British Airways!), I arrived in London at Heathrow on Wednesday morning at 6:30 a.m. I made it through Customs easily, and it was actually a bit anticlimactic after how much effort I had gone through to get my Tier Five Government Authorised Exchange Migrant Worker visa. :) I met Katja's friend Carlos at the airport, which was really nice. I may have had a bit of a breakdown if I'd had to navigate my way to a taxi by myself and find her place on my own. I was pretty tired because I'd only slept an hour or two on the plane, so it was nice to have a friend to meet right away.

At Katja's estate (housing complex) Carlos helped me learn how the key fob worked to get into her building. There's a lot of security here, which is nice. You need to use the fob to get onto the property and then again to get into her building. She's up on the third floor, and thank goodness there's a lift because hauling all my bags up those stairs would have been tricky. Carlos also had to help me figure out how to unlock her door, which has multiple locks. It took me a few tries to get it right, but I'm feel comfortable locking and unlocking everything now.

Katja left me a sweet welcome home note in the kitchen on this blackboard. I loved it!

I love her flat! It's got a nice sized living room and bedroom and a small kitchen and bathroom, plus a fabulous patio with a view of the city! It's the perfect amount of space for a single person. Katja has really cool vintage furniture, which creates a cool atmosphere in the flat. One thing that I'm not used to is living so near so many other people, and the noise might take me a little while to get used to. The only noise you hear from my house back home at night is crickets and the occasional train. But I am enjoying the change and get a kick out of all the different noises, languages and music I hear around the estate courtyard. One neighbor was playing some cool reggae music last night as the sun was setting, and it just felt like summer.

The patio with my first load of laundry drying. See the city in the background?

It took me a while to learn how to use some simple things in her flat--like the windows, washer and shower--but I'm getting used to it all now. I just have a laugh whenever I find myself trying to figure out how to use something that I know should be quite simple. For example, I couldn't figure out how to get the water to come out of the shower head, so I just used a cup that I filled with water over and over again and poured it over my head to get rinsed off. Of course, the shower turned out to be very easy to use, I just needed a little help. I've since figured it out and am looking forward to a proper shower today. :) It's sort of like being a little kid again and relearning how to do everything.

The living room

Kitchen. Check out where the washer is! A bit different from the States

The bathroom and the infamous shower I struggled with :)

The bedroom. Sorry for the mess--this was mid-unpacking!

Bedroom from the other side.

After he dropped me off Wednesday morning, Carlos gave me some time to have a nap and get settled, then I met him for a trip to Tescos (the grocery store chain). I picked up some basic supplies like sandwich makings, fruit, spinach, diet Coke (yay!), etc. It felt good to stock the small fridge with some comforts similar to what I buy at home. Then later that I night, I met up with Carlos and his younger cousin to check out a couple bars. We ended up at the local pub he and Katja frequent. "The Local," as they call it, was a kick! The people were very friendly--they all seem to know Katja quite well and love her, and many of them knew I was coming. I met all kinds of new people who were curious about America, and right away, I found myself answering some interesting questions about the states, so I got to practice my ambassador skills right away. I was also surprised that two people asked me if I was Canadian! One man even said, "How do I know you're really an American and that you don't just have a really good accent?" It was a hoot, and I had a lot of good laughs with my fellow beer drinkers. The later it got into the night, though, the harder I found it to understand people's accents. The locals tended to speak quietly and quickly, and I found myself asking people to repeat things quite often or just smiling and laughing with them even if I didn't know what they said. Haha, I just rolled with it, as the Fulbright staff tells us to do.

Yesterday I met my mentor teacher Frances, who is wonderful. She's young and fun, and after meeting me at the flat, she took me around the area. She showed me how to use the Tube and we had lunch at Pizza Express (a yummy pizza chain) in her neighborhood. Then we had a cider at a fabulous pub with an amazing outdoor beer garden. Two other young teachers, Anna and Sadie, from school came out and met us for a while, and they were so nice! I know I'm really going to love living and working here with these girls. All three of them made me feel so welcome, and they've invited me to a couple things with them. After we met the girls, we went to the neatest store ever! Argos is a catalogue shop where you write down the different items you want, pay for them, then they bring them out to you. It's a big chain store, but we don't have anything like it in American, and I thought it was so much fun! Plus, I was able to get my essential hair dryer and straightener--whew! Frances had to get back home before I did, so I took my time at Argos and walked back alone, which was good. It was just a straight shot home and only a 20 minute walk, but I still felt proud of myself for finding it! :)

Last night I didn't feel very well so I just rested at home and had an early tonight. Today I plan to do a bit of unpacking and organizing and then go explore the Brixton Hill area a bit. I've only been here two days, but I already feel like I've learned so much, and I'm proud of myself for being adaptable and easy going about things.