Day 1 & 2 of Eliana’s London Adventure (Post 1)

Hi friends!

As I write this, I am safely settled into my flat in London to study abroad this summer!

(Due to time change confusion, I have not slept for well over 24 hours. Also due to the time change and my rush to finish this and sleep, my parents haven’t proofread this. Please bear with me if this blog post is filled with incoherent sentences and typos.)

I have been so blessed by my friends and family who have encouraged me and prayed for me as I have set out on this adventure. A lot of the fears I had before this trip have now faded away to be replaced with peace, excitement, and gratitude in light of this opportunity.

Despite the 10-hour length and my lack of willingness to sleep, the flight actually might have been the best I’ve ever had! Seriously, I would do it all over again just for fun if I could. 

Somehow, I got a row of three seats all to myself. Do you know what you can do with three seats all to yourself??? It’s even better than having a middle seat empty, because you don’t even have to share that empty middle seat space with another passenger. You have all the benefits of a window seat and aisle seat and more. I got to stash my bag under the middle seat, producing a bunch of extra leg room for myself. I stole an extra seat pocket, too. I could put my bag ON the seat. I could turn the monitors off. I could even push down the armrest and “manspread”! So many possibilities. I was so spoiled. 

Here are frozen Canada lakes.

Here is me trying to sleep when I was not tired.

Here is my first glimpse of London. 🤩 

Kidding. 😂 Here is the beautiful English countryside!

Once I got to the airport, I eventually found my flatmates and we got an Uber to our flat. Our keys weren’t ready yet, so CEA CAPA took us on a walking tour while we waited. (I’ll have to write more about my first impressions of London some other time) After that, we moved in. I struggled to get my eSIM card set up to connect to the internet, and we were given the wrong wifi name, so I was cut off from communication for a while. I wasn’t too worried about it though.

But my poor parents! I’m afraid I traumatized them. When I reconnected, I saw that Dad had set a notification to track when my location left the airport. Mom tried to reach me repeatedly by texting me and emailing me and Whatsapp messaging and calling me. Poor Mom. 🙁 I had just been chilling and enjoying the fact that being disconnected from my phone wasn’t that bad. 😂

My flatmates and I then browsed the Borough Market and got pizza for dinner and did some shopping and now we’re back at our flat! And now I’m posting this quick-and-messy blog post and probably heading to bed pretty soon after. Good night!

I’ll try to write to you again sometime… Maybe a Day 16 post if you’re lucky.

London Blog Post Series

Eliana’s First Week at London Overview (Post 2)

Eliana’s London Updates Three Weeks in! (Post 3)

Eliana’s Updates More Than Halfway Through (Post 4)

Eliana’s Final London Update (Post 5)