Getting to London

So I have completed my first day of orientation. It was long and they gave us A TON of information. Some useful, like where the nearest gym is to my apartment and what cell phone (or as they call them in the UK, mobile phone) is a good deal. A bunch of us ended up buying one after the orientation session. So my UK number is 07975728646, if anyone gets bored and feels like calling! I also bought a skype number and that is 763-219-1168. We will have internet in our flats for 10 pounds a month. not too bad.



So anyways. Here is the story about my travel here. Got to the Minneapolis airport around 4/4:30pm (flight took off at 6:30). My plan was to check in two bags and have only my backpack for a carry on. I knew that my bags were probably going to be a little overweight, but sometimes they don't care. Well this time they cared! one bag was 57 lbs and the other one was 54 lbs (50 was the limit). So i had to use the extra carry-on luggage that I brought and take 7 lbs out of one and 4 lbs out of the other. Mom and i just started grabbing heavy stuff and throwing it in the carry-on. Both of my check-in bags ended up being 46.5 lbs. I asked the lady at the counter if i got anythign special because they ended up being the exact same weight. she just looked at me. apparently she didn't care for my attempt at humor. As we left the counter mom and i realized that we didnt' pay that much attention to what we were throwing in the carry-on, so we quickly had to check for sharp objects and liquids. It turned out that we grabbed a case that had scissors and twizzers in it and a bottle of lotion that was over the 4 oz. mark. luckily i was able to stop the guy who was x-raying my bags and he was nice enough to put that stuff back into my check-in luggage. Then i went through security and was lucky enough to be randomly selected for security screening. So i was escorted through the metal detector and all of my stuff was taken out of all my carry-ons. The guy was probably wishing that they had picked someone else, because i had a lot of crap!



the plane leaving for minneapolis had to be de-iced, so we were a 1/2 hour late taking. so we got into toronto around 10pm and my next plane took off at 10:55pm. Now normally this won't be that bad; however, at the toronto airport you have to go through passport control and then through security again. and then my gate was .5 mile away from passport control (the guy who pointed me towards my gate told me, he does it everyday so he knows!). I ended up arriving at my gate all sweaty with sore legs at 10:45pm. With just enough time to hop on the plane and get settled in quickly before we took off.



The plane was really nice. It had individual tvs for each person and you could pick which movies and tv shows you wanted to watch. I however decided to sleep and it was wonderful. the plane was really empty so i got all three seats to myself. I was able to stretch all the way out and get a decent 4-5 hours of sleep.


I arrived in London at the scheduled time. got my luggage and went through passport control. I found the mountbatten people at around 11:55 am. They shuttled us to the hotel at three different times: 9am, 12pm, and 3pm. A current intern and i were walking towards the bus as it took off!! So i ended up waiting at the airport until 2:45. it got a little boring!

after i got to the hotel i sat around for a while and then headed to the tube station with some of the others so we could get our week tube passes and dinner. i was back at the hotel around 6pm and in bed by 8pm. I slept ok last night. woke up a few times.

Well anyways. that was a bunch of info.

tomorrow is another orientation day and then thursday i start work. AHHH. wish me luck!!