(Thursday 6/21 - Monday 6/25)
My journey to London started a bit earlier than many others, with my flight leaving Thursday.. my flight **supposed** to leave Thursday. After getting to the gate with boarding passes issued at the airport by the airline, we were told we could not board the flight, and after several hours on the phone with the airline we were rebooked for the following day. Six hours after arriving to RDU, we made our way back home for another night. After leaving the airport we were contacted about our bags and were told that the airline “didn’t really know where they were.” The options were JFK, London Heathrow, or Boston... an airport we were not even flying through. On top of this, due to not being allowed on the first flight, we missed all connections and were unable to rebook a flight to Poland without a large fee, so we then had to figure out a hotel in London for the nights we were originally meant to be staying with family in Poland. Eventually, most everything was figured out and we just had to hope for the best with our bags. Once Friday came we were unsurprisingly a bit hesitant about the whole situation, curious to see if the issues would continue. Thankfully, everything worked this time and off to JFK I went! I arrived in London on Saturday morning, tired and drained from the stress of the past few days. Saturday consisted mostly of napping (huge shoutout to the hotel for letting us check in at 10am - you saved my life!!) and a quick trip to the Bentall Centre in Kingston somewhat nearby - mostly just to do something and not spend the whole day in bed. The Bentall shopping center was very large and very beautiful, and I experienced my first day of the early closing time of the shops here. Saturday night I slept like a rock in the super comfy hotel bed and after getting probably about 15 or so hours of sleep between my daytime nap and nighttime, I was still a bit groggy the next morning. I loaded up on breakfast, with scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit, etc. We headed off to explore a bit of London and decided to see the Old Spitalfields Market, since it was a sight I remembered hearing about during our presentations and thought it would be an interesting place to look around and I noticed it would be awhile until we visited as a group. This was the first time I had to figure out the trains in England, but we managed alright and made it to the market. We walked around and found an artist that made her art by overlaying different pictures and colors. I fell in love with one of her pieces and ended up getting it for my new room (the only thing I had bought for it before this trip was a white comforter, which stressed me out a bit earlier, but also left me the freedom to buy any interesting things I found here since they would match my room). The artist explained the piece contained images of scenes from around England - the grave of a famous English poet, and the picture of the big is from a museum. She also explained the word transition but I can’t quite remember the significance. After Old Spitalfields Market, we returned to the hotel and packed and relaxed before going to bed early again. The hotel had incredible blackout curtains - which were a blessing and a curse because I slept so good but also a bit too good. Monday brought mostly sleep and packing, as well as figuring out how to get to Guildford the following day. I went to sleep that night full of excitement and anticipation of the journey to come.
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