Orientation for my course was on Thursday (after a long day of figuring out where I was living and moving my stuff from my temp room to my permanent room) and that last thing I wanted to do was to sit in an auditorium and listen to the Dean talk about student life and blah blah blah…the same things I heard what I was a freshman at MU. When I sat down though, I heard this voice behind me that sounds extremely American…so what did I do? I turned around asking “Where are you from? You’re American right?” Probably not the best thing to go around asking in England where being called American to some would be an insult. Either way, I ask, and luckily for me she said she was from Philly.

Sarah is a fashion PR post grad who moved here not knowing anyone and was also living in the halls, like me. So, we exchanged numbers and adding each other on Facebook. Before long we were long lost best friends. As Sarah calls us, Insta-Friends…since the moment we met we instantly became friends.

We started out adventures by doing some shopping on Oxford Street with two of my previous friends and then walking to Harrow from campus to do a little grocery shopping. The next day, we ventured to IKEA (which took like 2hrs to get too…when we could have walked there in 30mins) On our way back was easier since we knew our way…except we got off on the wrong bus stop. We were unaware that you had to press the STOP button to make the bus stop…we just assumed the bus driver would stop at our stop. Not so much the case. So we walked back with our hands full of heavy things, that is when we stumbled across a shopping cart just lying on the ground. So, what did we do? We picked it up, put our stuff in it, and pushed it all the way back to campus. Besides the funny looks and the fact the shopping buggy had a busted wheel, as they all seem to do here, it was a lot easier than carrying it the 5 blocks or so to get back to where we should have gotten off.

From there we decided to go the American way for dinner…aka McDonald’s. (Might I say that they have classier McDonald’s here than in the States…hint hint America!) When we walked into MickyDs we met some pirates…yes I just said pirates! When I asked them why they were dressed like pirates and all the main guy said was, “So that blonde fair maidens like you ask to take pictures with us!” Which yes, I did ask to take a picture with them, but how could I resist? They we London pirates! With the accents and all! I could not help but to pull my camera out and ask, and they were happy to oblige. 🙂

After meeting those characters, we decided to go hang out and do some classic Facebook stalking in my room. Now, at this point we were still in the “making new friends” process, so when I heard the door outside my hall way close I could not help but run like a spaz to my door, swing it open, and look to see who it was. To my surprise it was a guy…who was “well fit” as the English would say. To bad he was walking towards my room when i swung the door open.. no way I could cover than one up. So what did us stupid girls do? Follow him into the kitchen pretending to get my food from the fridge to start a conversation. And that is how we met our third person in our trio, Tom (aka Bugs).

Tom is a Music Management post grad from Massachusetts. We gave him his nick name, Bugs, because he was attacking my carrot sticks when I took them into his room one night to hang out. Awh poor Bugsy, he just does not know what to do with Sarah and I when we drag him places. I think deep down he is happy he met us… at least that is what I tell myself to sleep better at night, since he is my neighbor and all.

He did venture with us to the Publix of London, also known as Sainsburys (there is another big grocery store called Tesco). We walked there, stopping at a delicious Kebob Shop on the way to eat dinner (Good job Bugs for picking it out!). As always we had some sort of issues, Sarah could not get the shopping carts out of the stack for us to use. So, big strong man decided he would show us… and what did he bring back? the awkward cart with the baby chair attached to the front, which was extremely odd to push around the store with no baby in it. We also managed to forget BOTH of the two shopping lists we (as in Sarah and I) had previously made throughout the day. So we literally bought no food. Tom, who had no food except PB&J to begin with only bought milk and oatmeal. Needless to say, we are all going to starve within the next month or so since none of us can cook…or are to lazy to.