I arrived at Heathrow on time at around 5:30am, wednesday. Immigration was uneventful, if nerve wracking. Although I'd been told by Nick that I could take the UK citizen line, I erred on the side of caution and went through the visa line. For some reason every counter official was dressed in a shirt and tie, except mine, he had a full on police style uniform. He greeted me in a friendly enough fashion though, 'aright then?'.
He inspected my passport, asked me a few questions, and through I went. Before going through he told me I could indeed use the other line, and he pointed it out to me. There was about 300 people in it, as opposed to my visa line which had about 3. I told him I would certainly do that next time.
Then I waited for my baggage. Things seemed to be progressing quite well at this stage, as it appeared that it was the first flight of the morning, and they terminal was deserted apart from my fellow Koala Lumpy travellers.
Then - disaster.
Some old guy somehow injured himself quite badly on the baggage carousel, enough to need the emergency stop button to be pressed. I have no idea what he did, or how he did it. But that put a spanner in the works for about 20 minutes. Then the baggage started up again (the guy was being treated on the floor as the baggage flowed past him) and eventually my bag came. I checked my paranoia tamper tag things (I have no idea what I would have done if they had been tampered with) and loaded up my trolley.
Customs time - anything to declare? Nope, I went through the 'nothing to declare' lane, though I was slightly nervous about the chocolates and vegemite I was carrying. Didn't matter though - not a single customs official was there.
Then I met Amy, which was weird but only for a second. I've chatted to her a lot, but not seen her really for years. We had a coffee at the airport. The first song I heard in the UK was "A B C" by the Jackson Five. How auspicious.
Then the TUBE. The Tube is very very cool. I'm going to feel weird about coming back to trains that only come every hour or worse. You just walk on the platform - and a train is there. If by chance a train isn't there you have to wait at most 2-3 minutes. People complain about various aspects of the underground, but I think it's pretty good. Not (relatively speaking) all that expensive either - I bought a £30 oyster travel card, which lets me do unlimited travel in zones 1 & 2 for a week. I must have taken dozens of tube rides already, and I'm only halfway through the week. Also gets me on the buses for free.
Amy got off at Piccadilly Circus to go to work, and I was left alone with my bags to travel the few more stops northward to Finsbury Park.
Getting off there I was officially in London! Once figuring out where to 'touch out' my oyster card (the underground lady must have noticed how confused I looked, and gave me some advice :-) I got to the outside world, and gave Bec a call. She was still not out of bed, so told me which bus to catch and where to get off at.
Eventually we met up on her street, and I dumped off my stuff. Had some vegemite toast for second breakfast (first was at 3am or something ridiculous like that on the plane) and a cup of coffee.
I knew I'd need to stay up if I wanted to get jet lag out of the way, so despite feeling pretty crap I soldiered on. Bec, her friend Gemma and I all caught the bus into town to do some sightseeing. First stop was lunch though, and it was this:
Yum!
Prices seem quite good until you realise they are in pounds :-(
Then for some walking and some scenery:
As you can see the weather was bloody wonderful.
At about 5:30 I met Amy again, we were on our way to do House Hunting (yes, on my first day). Amy had already done a bunch of legwork in the previous weeks, so we had some places to check out. One of them was really nice, and although expensive (it's an expensive area, Fulham), I would rather that than be living here in Finsbury park (there was a shooting in the tube station here last month!).
Went home and collapsed about 10pm.
