First 24...chaotic.

So this is both of our first blogs ever...more like our journal...so be nice.

Well our first 24 hours in London was an adventure and a half...
-Arrival at Vancouver Airport...both of us have 2 large, full suitcases and 2 carry-ons...Sam has hers gone already, no issues.  Mine get weighed, I have weighed them at home and they're close, but under. Lady at the counter (who wasn't very friendly) weighs them...weighs one bag, it is under, weighs second bag, it is over by 2 kg. Need to rearrange, and she has a big problem with giving me back the other bag. As that bag came back across the scale it had magically increased 2 kg. AMAZING!  We then moved to the side to readjust some stuff, took out a bunch of stuff, and decided to weigh the other bag again on a different scale...it was about 3 kg under the cut-off weight.  So we put everything back in the second bag and weigh it just to see...it is also underweight.  I haven't changed anything. Soooo...we went back into the line and both my bags were under and went through no problems.  Frick. I was so mad.

-Flight was good, neither of us slept much.  Left Jan 8, 8:45 PM in Vancouver, arrived Jan 9, 2:00 PM in London...might have brought Tim Tams with us.

-Arrive in London, go through customs, I get through easily.  Very friendly man, gave me some advice about going in and out of the country with a visa, sent me on my way...Sam had issues.  The lady she went to was not so nice, asked a lot of questions she couldn't answer/didn't understand (something about being sponsored to be here?), and made her sit and wait while she went into a back room to talk to her superior.  Took about 10 minutes and she finally came back and let Sam into the country.
-Got bags, and Sam got to have her name written on the board those car people have. Very exciting.

-Best decision we made...taking a taxi from the airport.
-2.5 hours to get from the airport to the place we're staying...crazy traffic, it's in the boonies, and we're half asleep in the car by the end of the ride at only 5:30 PM here
-We arrive at the house we've rented  room in...we can barely fit out bags through the door (the man who let us in was mind blown at how much stuff we had), then had to climb a death-flight of stairs...very steep, small stairs, and a skinny...then we enter the smallest room possible for 2 people, 4 suitcases, and 4 carry-ons...we have figured out that the room that we are in is smaller than my individual dorm room at University.
-We decided to try to stay up as late as we could to get our clocks on London time, tried for 10, ended up being 8:00, which means us weirdos woke up at 3:30 AM because we'd had our 7 hours
-So here we are at 3:30 AM, both wide awake, cuddled in Sam's very small single bed, searching for places to live for an hour and a half and finally deciding at 5 to try to sleep a bit more
-We woke up again at 8 very groggy because we'd gone back to sleep
-We got ready and headed out for breakfast, to get oyster cards for the transit here, and start our first day...with no way to communicate and no maps (no phones for the UK yet)
-Found a little cafe just up the street, took a look at the menu and asked what was in a bacon sandwich...I got a very funny look and the answer of "bacon".  So apparently a bacon sandwich is just bacon in a bun in case you ever need to know.  Don't ask, they think you're a moron.
-We then went into a little convenience store to get oyster cards...he attempted to explain how they worked to us, then proceeded to just ask for our money and hand us our cards telling us to swipe it going on and off...we were more than slightly confused when we left.
-We headed to the train station...the only route we knew to get up to Clapham Junction where the company that we're here with has it's main office (we just wanted to get our bearings a bit and were going to try to open bank accounts)...so we swipe our cards like we were told to, stand on the platform, and are told over a speaker that the train that we want is delayed because of electrical problems or something...next one will be in at least 45 minutes, maybe longer.  We look at maps ourselves to see if we could figure out how to get there another way, go inside to talk to the guy who works there (he's not there...or is pretending not to be there because we could hear a TV), a very nice man tried to help us but we were very confused so just said thanks and smiled, decided to try the buses, but when we got there we couldn't even figure out where we were on the map let alone where we needed to go ("Sometimes we think about taking the bus on our first day in London, then we're like...ummmm, better not") and we headed back to the convenience store to see if he can help...he tried, but couldn't help us, so we went back to the train station.  The man was there this time so explain how to get there by going backwards, then taking a tram, then getting on a different train.  Finally we were on our way.
-We got to the bank, apparently you need an appointment...oops.  So we made appointments, then went to find free Wifi.

-Ended up finding a Starbucks and sitting for 3 hours, booking a ton of viewing for the next few days...very productive.  A lot of people have issues with the fact that we can't be called though.

-Our final task of the day was to get to Wimbledon and our first appointment for flat viewings (we found crepes with Nutella on the way). It was fine, nothing special, weird agent...places are very small and very expensive.
-We managed to get back to our room all in one piece and without getting lost...high five moment!!!
-We're exhausted, it's now 7:40, and we need to stay up until 10 so we don't wake up at 3:30 again.

Tomorrow we're viewing 10 places...fingers crossed that one will work for us!

We are so glad to be here together...London Adventures 2014! <3

We'll keep you posted :)

Sam and Lisa