Kari Dettorre

London: A New Hope

]Today marks the beginning of our journey through the United Kingdom. We left Pittsburgh last evening and landed in London this morning. Yes, the classic red-eye flight. I’ve never been on a plane for so long (7ish hours I think??), and I’ve never been on a red-eye flight, so that experience was interesting, to say the least. It was a long night followed by a long day This whole timezone thing is so weird to me, I’m absolutely baffled by the fact that it’s 10:00 PM here and 5:00 PM back on the East Coast. I understand it but I just can’t wrap my head around how it works. All I know is that it’s going to take some time to adjust to the time change.

We arrived at London Heathrow Airport around 10 AM, and after going through customs and getting our luggage, we met our wonderful tour director, David Caponera (we stan), and embarked on a bus tour of the city, and made a stop at Buckingham Palace. This bus tour was dangerous because I immediately fell in love with London (had we stayed longer than four days, I might not have come back).

I used to live in Savannah, GA, which is a more historic city and a lot less urban, so I while I loved living there, I always felt like it was lacking a city atmosphere, which is how I ended up in Pittsburgh. London reminds me of all the things I loved about Savannah, as well as the things I felt it was lacking. It’s safe to say that London truly snatched my wig and stole my heart (Love Robbery by Kalin and Miles plays in the distance). 

After settling into our hotel, we went to dinner and tried the infamous fish and chips. I didn’t necessarily care for dinner, but I tried it and that’s what matters! I’m not a huge seafood person to begin with, but it wasn’t even the fish aspect that threw me off, but the blandness. I suppose I’m just used to more seasoned food, or maybe I’m just weird. I still recommend trying it, just because it is such an iconic meal over there.

We had an eventful day, and I’ll admit that I got pretty cranky, but it was still a good day. I’m excited to see what the rest of this trip has in store. Stay tuned!