Bittersweet Reflections

On the account that currently I have nothing better to do and I am stuck in a computer lab for the next 30 minutes or so waiting for Dr. Sharkey to show up to my money reimbursed (a hefty amount, like £100+), I will blog.

Since I really haven’t written about London, I will now, uh, write about it.

– September 18/19: Arrival in Heathrow Airport, London –

I took British Airways to Heathrow Airport, which is far, far, far west of Central London. So far that it is in zone 6 on the tube map, and so far that it took us two hours to get to my school. T.T

But anyways, my flight was around 3 in the afternoon, so my parents and I went to eat noodles at this place called Mien Ngha (spelling? I fail at spelling Vietnamese) for lunch. (Those noodles are the best!) We took all my luggage with us, so the car felt kinda heavy on the way to restaurant, hahah. The manager wasn’t in, but one of the waiters talked to us and told us funny stories while we ate.

My parents wanted to take me into the airport personally and not just drop me off at the terminal gate, so we had to find the parking lot for my dad to park the car in. We ended up dropping my mom and my luggage off at LAX first, and then my dad and I went to park the car in Parking Lot C.

Of course, we got kind of lost , we drove right past the entrance of the parking lot and had to make a U turn to go back. Then we had to take the tram back to the terminal.

What follows is the boring checking in process, and saying goodbye to my parents. My mom brought a camera with her and randomly started taking pictures of me, while my dad pretended to not know us.

I had to go through security, and the guy in front of me was super friendly. He and his wife were joking around the podium where the security guy was checking passports, and were saying that I totally looked like a terrorist and that they should my bags super carefully. Then my bags had to go through the x ray scanning machine and boom! I got tagged for security, hahaha. It was because I had bottled water in my carry on (mom forgot about 100 ml rule) and they had to take it away from me. So embarrassing!

British Airways is really niccceee. Well, the only airline I’ve ever been on was Delta on my trip to Hawaii, and that was nothing compared to this plane!

First off, when you get to your seat (I had a window seat!) and there are a bunch of goodies waiting for you!! Granted, this is a 10 hour flight, so I might actually need some of the stuff they gave me. > < They had a mini toothbrush and toothpaste, an eye mask, socks, headphones, a blanket, and even a little pillow for you to rest your head on. Are all international flights like this??

My seat also had a little entertainment screen thingy (that had defective touch screen technology!) where I watched Night at the Museum 2, a Simpsons episode, and something else. I can’t remember. o.o I know I watched at least two movies…

Speaking of the touch screen entertainment, it was that stupid thing that caused technological problems and cause our flight to be delayed by almost 20 minutes. It wouldn’t start up, so the crew was messing with it while we were on the takeoff strip.

It was a long flight, and all I did was watch movies, listen to music, eat and sleep.

Dinner was surprisingly delicious! I don’t know why people keep complaining about airplane food; the food I’ve had on both Delta and British Airways was pretty good. o.o

Dinner was chicken and rice, with a slice of cake, salad with Italian dressing, a muffin and little cookie bar thingy.

Yum yum yum!

And I guess the drinking age of 21 didn’t apply to people on the plane! The airline attendant asked me if I wanted wine or beer with my food! I said no, but they did come in the cutest tiny glass bottles~ (The guy who sat next to me had like 5 glasses of wine the entire flight. -_-)

Breakfast was equally as filling and mouthwatering~~!

Funny enough, the breakfast was packed in a little white box while dinner was plainly served on a tray. I guess breakfast is really the more important meal, haha.

The front of the box says “Enjoy” in cutout letters!

Breakfast was a teeny loaf of bread with butter, orange juice, coffee and yogurt.

Since I had the window seat, I was constantly looking outside at the sky to see where we were flying over and what it looked like outside. Of course, most of the time it was just clouds and a beautiful blue sky, but I really checking the entertainment system a lot to see where we were and when we would be arriving in London.

I guess even though the system was faulty, it was still pretty neat. Or maybe I’m just a naive girl who hasn’t been on an international flight before and this is all nothing new, haha. For some reason, I think the second point is true instead of the first. xD

It had our planned route and everything on a special screen, so you could check exactly where we were at any given point in time. At one point I wanted to see what Greenland looked like when we flew over it, but I failed. T .T

The entertainment system was pretty cool, I guess, but back to the point~

I was looking out the window and trying to see what the UK looked like from the sky, and was rewarded with a lovely view of greenery and lakes with houses spread out around them. So pretty!

Afterwards, we landed at Heathrow Airport in London at Terminal 5. Brand spanking new Terminal 5, where everything is made out of glass and shininess, unlike LAX.

The shops in Terminal 5 are ridiculous too. All high class (or what I perceive to be high class, since I see myself as being, uh poor…) stores, like Louis Vutton, Gucci and Prada. Seriously, who will go to the airport just to buy these brands? Wouldn’t they usually go to one in a fancy shopping area or mall?

But I guess I can’t really say anything because Vanessa is very seriously looking for a Louis Vutton purse/bag to buy for her mom. She says she is unwilling to buy over $1000 for one, and in my head I’m thinking, “$1000?!?! On a purse???” I don’t even think my mom has spent over $50 on a purse. At that point I suddenly felt inferior to her…

The hallways were also very, very long. Before I went to the baggage claim, there were at least 3 long hallways to walk through and 3 escalators to go down on.

But I think that’s very typical of the transportation system in the UK, especially with the tube. The underground tunnels are also a series of connected tunnels, stairs, and escalators. Sometimes transferring between lines feels like a real hassle because of the amount of walking involved. o.o

Or maybe I’m just really, really lazy.

That’s probably it.

People do call this laziness typical of Americans here though. I’ve heard some overseas students talk about non automatic doors, and someone muttered, “Lazy Americans.” T.T

I got to the border control area kinda late because I was too busy gawking at everything in the airport like a country girl. There was a slight queue, but it wasn’t too long. When it was my turn, the lady at the desk was very nice and asked me about what I was studying and stuff. She asked me if it was the first time I’ve been out of the country, since she didn’t see any stamps in the pages of my passport and I laughed and said yes. Then she told me to have fun in London and Europe and let me go without any troubles~

I guess I should mention at this point that I was actually a bit worried at the border control place because they asked us to bring proof of enrollment from our university and I never got my acceptance letter from QMUL. I only had the visa letter from the school, and was super glad that they let me in. ^^

I went to claim my luggage, and I guess I took so long looking at stuff that there was hardly anyone from my flight waiting for their suitcases in the area. ^^;;

Thank god the trolleys there were free of charge, unlike LAX. They were sooo useful in carrying all my stuff around~ my luggage turned out pretty heavy and it was kinda hard carrying all of it around the airport. I don’t know how I will manage it when it is time for me to return the United States. I guess I will lug and tug my stuff and look silly. T.T

The terminals at Heathrow are very distant from each other. QMUL  had an airport collection service, but they were meeting us at terminal 3, so I had to take a high speed train from terminal 5 to terminal 3. What followed was kinda hilarious, because I had unload my suitcases from the trolley, get on the train, and then pull my suitcases out and find more trolleys.

It is harder than it sounds!

I also had trouble trying to work out how the trolley works. > < You have to press down on the lever while you push it, otherwise the brakes are put on and it’s very difficult to move around. Otherwise, it makes the job much easier!

You can’t take the trolleys on the trains ( I wish you could) because they have these barriers on the platform that prevent big baggy objects through. Pretty much everyone was struggling with their suitcases, haha.

When I finally got to Terminal 3, I had to walk through another super long hallway to get to the arrivals section of the airport, where I assumed the QMUL delegation were waiting.

Then I saw Vanessa and was happy that I didn’t get lost. 😀

QMUL had coaches (buses) rented out to take us to the school, but since my plane was late because of the technological dysfunction of the entertainment system, I missed the bus I was supposed to go on. We tried to go on the next one, but the bus didn’t have enough space to carry all our luggage. So, even though the bus wasn’t full with people, it left and we were left to wait for the next bus.

To apologize for the delay, the QMUL international student people brought  everyone a complimentary bottle of water, worth about 1 pound. Yay!

When we finally got onto the bus about an hour later, it was a super long drive to QMUL because of traffic, since I arrived on a Saturday and the Mayor of London likes to have transportation repairs done on the weekends. Bumper to bumper traffic, not unlike Los Angeles freeways at all. T.T

Thank goodness Britain has bus lanes! These are red lanes on the side of the road that are only for buses and motorcycles. Veerrrry useful when there is heavy traffic! I wish we had these in the United States!

On the way, we saw the red double decker buses that I later got an opportunity to ride on~ they are super cool to ride on the second floor! It’s just sometimes the bus is a bit bumpy when it first leaves the curb, so going up the stairs is quite dangerous! (I fell down once.)

There was also an ambulance in front of us. I really think that white ambulances look better then these yellow and red striped things they have. They are kinda ugly. > < But at least they are very eyecatching, haha. No one in the right mind would ever paint their car that color, so I guess it’s easy to see that it is an emergency vehicle.

The police cars and fire trucks are sometimes this color too!

Hardly anyone in the UK drives a Honda or a Toyota, haha. Most of them drive Volkswagens and Mercedes- Benz, and some other brands that I don’t recognize.

I’m still not used to them driving on the left side of the road either. It’s so…wrong….

Two hours and some crazy driving by our bus driver later (I am soooo sure he was driving waaayyyyy pass the speed limit after the amount of traffic eased), we finally reached Mile End and QMUL!

I’ll write about moving in later, since it is getting late and I have to go to sleep now.

Cheers!