The first moments

(Posted late, I know. I'll try to catch up with everything tomorrow.)

The flight wasn't as horrible as I thought it'd be.

I left the United States at 6:30 Friday evening for a roughly 7.5 hour flight across the pond to the great nation of Britain. The inflight movie was 27 Dresses - seen it before, but funny - and the dinner was - worse that KidCuisine. I tried sleeping and managed about two hours, but I guess I was too excited to seriously consider sleeping. I read David Sedaris' new When You Are Engulfed in Flames, which is hilarious - his best collection yet probably.

Landing at 7 a.m. Saturday (five hours ahead here), I collected my 100 lbs. - literally - of luggage and found my uncle, who's a native here. My aunt and uncle have lived here almost six years(?). They recently purchased a new house about 30 minutes (by train) outside the city. They have a three year old - Grace - and a two week old - Samuel. Living in a house with children again is bizarre, comforting and annoying all at once. I don't really mind it. They're great kids, and I love having cousins on this side of the family.

We picked up coffee - which had to be ordered white or black, and eat-in or take-away. The train ride from the station was about 45 minutes to their house, which actually backs up to the train station, so it's really convenient. Being 30 minutes outside the city, it's been a real disconnect it seems. But it's free acommodation so I really can't complain. 

Got back to the abode and met my newest cousin. Walked up the hill with Grace and Martin (uncle) into Charlton. Don't know much about the area other than it's old. Their house is over 100 years old itself. Coming up the hill into the town area, there was a town fair going on, which was a real strange spectacle. The stuff of storybooks really. I've never seen anything quite like it in the States. We went to the library and got some books. Outside, there were private gardens open for viewing on an London Open Gardens event. Apparently, as green space is quite limited in this area, long ago owners would cordon off plots to establish gardens privately. Now, every so often, private owners all unlock their doors to show off to the public. There were crafts and tea and cakes. So British. Next we walked to the Co-Operative. Think of your local grocery store, and then take it down by about 4/5. It has just what you need, but it's not what we think of as a grocery store. It's more like a convenient store on speed. We picked up dry cleaning too.

Returned home, and I don't quite remember what we had for dinner. Oh, right, I tried Indian curry for the first time and quite liked it. Spicy, but good! I think we then watched Peter Pan. Turned in early Saturday night as I had only gotten eight hours of sleep in almost two days.

Sunday was up and to Greenwich (about three stops on the train down). We went to the park. It was a strange experience. We don't really have parks that get totally packed and busy. Granted, we've had gorgeous weather (fingers crossed) since I've been here. It's be hot actually and very unseasonal. Since it costs $1/min and .50/text for my iPhone to work here, I picked up a pay as you go thing and got my own 11 digit phone number. Again - different. It's not too bad price was $20 for the phone. $20 top-up gets me 300 messages, and then each call is .20 flat and extra text are .10 each. Also got my first Starbucks here. They don't have my favorite Iced Passion Tea Lemonade. 

We had dinner that night with my aunt and uncle's neighbors - Lizelle and Herman. Lizelle is how I got the position at Harper's Bazaar UK, which is why I'm here in the first place. I'm doing two weeks at the magazine here. Lizelle is the assistant to the editor, the fabulous Lucy Yeomans. They're a lovely couple, moved here from South African and Herman is in programming at J.P. Morgan.

All in all, it was a great day. Went to sleep around 1030 (after buying a much needed power adapted for my laptop!) to be ready and able for the challenges the next day would bring.

Or wouldn't. You can be the judge when I catch this thing up to my first three days of work here in London, which should be coming tomorrow night. I swear I'll try to take more photos (photographs as they're called here). I've not taken any really yet.

Good night from London!