Day 1 in London

So it all began with an 8 hour flight on Air India from Chicago friday night at 8:40. We got served some kind of curried chicken and rice (not good). We got to London and boarded coach busses with our massive International Enrichment group and drove about 30 minutes to our flats in South Kensington. Our street (Hogarth) is lined with tall, white buildings. every entrance has a front porch with steps.. it's very cute. 

There are 5 flats in our building, and of course we got the one on the fifth floor. my suitcases weighed 45 and 55 lbs... my legs and arms were SO sore after carrying both of those up 6 flights of stairs. I say 6 instead of 5 because the door to our flat opens to yet another set of stairs. It's a hike. We have 2 bedrooms, 1 with 2 bunk beds, the other with just 1, a very small bathroom and kitchen with a half fridge. We have a pretty decent common room with a table and a desktop computer and a TV that may be slightly more than 8 inches. 

After we painfully dragged our suitcases upstairs we went on a walking tour of Kensington. We had the traditional fish and chips (fries) and it wasn't that great. We have lots of restaurants close to our flat though, and a grocery store with good food.

Tonight we went on a pub crawl! It was pretty fun - I had cider that wasn't very good - pretty dry. Then I had Fruli, a strawberry beer and it was delicious! Now we're just relaxing - it's been a long day but it was worth it.

This area of London has tons of really tucked in pubs, stores and restaurants. You can turn down any alley and find a street lined with shops. The whole atmosphere is just quiet and relaxing. The pubs are quiet too - you can actually have a real conversation in them without yelling, it's great. It is weird to see American beers though - there are Budweiser ads everywhere. 

It was rainy and cold today - not exactly what I expected my summer weather to entail, but it's okay, it can snow and I'd still be happy because I'm in LONDON!

Oh yeah, I should explain the name of my blog.  Tonight on the pub crawl one of the locals was talking to another guy and he said, "girls that drink pints are butch, girls should only drink 1/2 pints." Hence the name of my blog. Of course we were all drinking pints at the time, so I guess we'll learn to do as Londoners do as we go along. 

I'll eventually learn how to post pictures so that I have pictures to go with my stories, but until then it's just writing...  

Cheers!