American Airlines: 1; Me: 0

I'm in London!

I think it's mostly sunk in now because I'm seeing all these places I saw the last time I was here and because you hear those British accents all over the place. I'm not sure it's quite hit me how long I'm going to be here, but I'm really excited about everything and really looking forward to being more excited when my luggage gets here (it was left in Newark) and when I'm de-jetlagged and showered.

I arrived in Newark from my Raleigh flight and went through the really fun process of re-checking in at Virgin Atlantic. When I went through security they had this weird thing that screens you for explosive traces. It's like a big phone booth that's open on the sides, and you walk in and it shoots these little puffs of air all over your hair and sides and pants and feet and then somehow tests for the substances. But it was very clear from the check-in line and from the security line that BU students were going to make up a large part of the passengers on the flight; there had to have been at least 40 of us. It was great because we all sat together to kill time at the gate, and I got to talking to this girl Robyn who is a hospitality major at Cornell and happened to have the seat next to me on the plane. As we talk I learn that she was born at Camp Lejeune, is one day older than I am and is equally obsessed with food and cooking it.

The plane trip from Newark to London went by rather quickly. They served us a great dinner and gave us all goody bags with and eyemask, ear plugs and a toothbrush -- which I will be using tonight if my bags dont come. They had about 50 movies to choose from, as well as about 30 TV episodes, games, music, travel guides, etc. Immigration was no trouble, and the only great thing about Virgin Atlantic not having my luggage was that they paged me right when I got there and told me and had me fill out the paper work. So I didn't have to wait around until my bag just wasn't there and then figure it out on my own.

Robyn and I took a taxi to the Crofton, which is on this gorgeous stretch of hotels and embassies and is more complicated to maneuver than I can really explain. At one point I got upstairs from my room and couldn't figure out where the stairs were to go back down. My room is in the basement, but it still has windows. It's a big room, and it's a double. My roommate Pai En (pronounced like Pie Anne) is really cool, and she's also in the journalism track so we have two of our classes together.

The Crofton houses 176 of the programme's 290 students. There's an R.A. on each floor, and the bottom floor is separated (somewhat arbitrarily) into 3 flats. Each flat is about 12 people and those people share a rather large, really nice kitchen with a dinner table, two couches and a widescreen TV. In my room I sleep in bed A and put my things in wardrobe A, and in the kitched my food goes in cupboard A, and there's a little key that locks one of my wardrobe drawers as well as my food cupboard. We have a full-sized fridge and freezer, two ranges and ovens, and one plate/bowl/untensil of each type for each person.

I spent much of the rest of the day settling in with my non-existant stuff. Robyn and I, along with one of her roommates, did take a walk to get the basic groceries at Waitrose, one of two supermarket places. It's a really overwhelming feeling to walk into a grocery store and recognize nothing outside of the produce section. But I got some bread and peanut butter and jelly and tea and a quart of milk and found the London A-Z guide. We were given a speed tour of the neighborhood which really just served to confuse us more than help us, and then we had a meeting where they told us all the rules and how much we would be fined if we broke them. Apparently they're really into fines as deterrents.

I think tomorrow I'm going to Notting Hill to try to buy a phone (the Kensignton store didn't have what I needed) and to do some more basic shopping for the flat. Then we have a mandatory boat tour of London, which should be interesting. Updates later, for now I need some sleep.