Dani does arriving in England

After waiting for an excruciating 3 hours in the terminal at Pearson Airport (time passed by quickly - thanks to Trev and LScadds for lengthy phone calls), I boarded the plane, completely surrounded by families and old British people. By nothing short of a stroke of pure, dumb luck I was joined in my small row by two handsome British men my age (both of whose names I currently forget, but they were lovely, and saved me breakfast while I slept). The woman behind me was a soothing British lady who read Harry Potter 7 to her children in her endearing British accent, doing different voices for each character as I fell asleep. Who needs the in-flight movie? The handsome British gentlemen beside me were laughing about how annoying it was (at one point the lady said “Is it bedtime yet?” and the children replied “NOOO!!” to which the men beside me groaned loudly). I, however, had the biggest smile on my face ever, and they were amused at how much I was enjoying it (“is this like Mary Poppins for you?” they asked, and I replied that sometimes dreams really do come true). I’m making everyone in England believe that Canadian girls are quirky nerds.

Once I had landed safely in Britain I said goodbye to my new friends and took off to big, scary customs. I had a pretty good internal laugh at the sign that stated “every other passport here, including USA”. How many Americans would have had to stand in the UK only line with a sense of entitlement before they had to actually write it on the sign? There was a couple who continuously made out in front of me (never appropriate), and the line lasted for like 45 minutes. It was awful. When I finally got through, I had the next challenging task of finding the recruitment agency, a "quick jaunt" for the knowledgeable, but quite the task for a newbie. I met with the recruitment agency people and they ran through a lot of things I needed to know (very few of which I actually remember due to jetlag). At the recruitment agency there was a really nice girl (again, names or details escape me), who offered to show me to my next location (Geoff’s house in Putney/Hammersmith). She had just moved to London, but claimed my tube stop was the one before hers, and she would GLADLY show me the way. I was ecstatic to shut my brain off and just follow someone around for a while. Should have probably been paying attention though – because this girl had NO idea where she was going (I figured this out at approximately the time I was lugging my massive suitcase UP the same set of stairs I had just lugged it DOWN). It took everything I had not to throw a hissy fit on the poor, (wannabe)-helpful girl, but eventually I figured out my way to Geoff’s house, had a shower, fetched some dinner, and felt much, much better. In an attempt to stay awake and fight off my jetlag we ventured into Piccadilly Circus, which was overwhelmingly touristy (kind of like Niagara Falls) and crowded so we had to bounce and go home to bed (day one as a couch-surfer, but appreciative of the comfy duvet and pillows).