Oh my god I'm in London

Skipping ahead to London.. (New York/Philadelphia entries to come later)

That's what I thought I'd think the moment I landed in Heathrow. But actually, I didn't. It's been three days since my arrival and it still hasn't hit me yet. I guess that's just how it goes. I expected a large, thick curtain to be lifted off my eyes, revealing something extraordinary, magnificent, and different. In reality, it was more like wiping away some spots off my glasses and putting them back on: most of it I'd seen or encountered before, and there were some details in the picture that were a bit blurry.

I took the Underground from Heathrow, and noticed that the London Tube doesn't smell like smoke, or sweat, or even urine, but excessive amounts of different colognes and perfumes, mixed together. I was slightly dizzy coming off the Underground at Angel Station. When I arrived overground at Angel at 6am, it was again the smell of the city that I first noticed. It wasn't like 6am in Beijing where you breathed in and out CO2, or like 6am Tokyo where you can smell the previous night's parties on the streets infused with carbon monoxide, or like 6am Vancouver where you can smell the ongoing rain, or like 6am Florence where you were tempted by whiffs of espresso and freshly baked brioches. I smelled 'Europe' but definitely not its continental counterpart. I smelled newspapers, trees, fresh cologne, and an aire of an inexplicable sophistication wavering through the busy, hurrying crowd. That was my first impression of London.

I spent most of the first day catching up on sleep, and exploring Angel in the early evening with a friend. On the second day, I ventured out to take a look at LSE, happily took a picture of it, forced my way into its famous Library and made use of the internet, took a picture of the spiral staircase (of course!), visited the bookstore and got a Watermark's card, booked a dentist appointment for mid-October, and then walked along the Thames from Aldwych to London Bridge (which is not Tower Bridge), and paid a visit to my residence in Southwark.

On my third day (today), I called up LSE Accommodation to see if I can move in a couple days early. Every night up until 30 September costs me an additional £15 but I thought it would be worth it - I haven't had my own room in so long! The said it wouldn't be a problem. Fantastic. I called my movers and asked them to deliver my boxes the next day. Then, I went and printed off copies of my resume and walked around in grey weather, looking for a job around Southwark. I visited T-mobile later in the day in an attempt to get myself a phone so that I'm more connected to the civilized world, but failed, when they said I have to sort out my bank account first so they can run a credit check on someone who just landed in England for the first time. Of course. By the time I left T-mobile, however, the banks were closed, so the HSBC Bank question and T-mobile question is left for tomorrow afternoon, after I've fit everything in my room at Sidney Webb.

Oh my god I'm in London.