it is well with my soul

I am finally here!! I got to London on tuesday afternoon after about twelve hours of travelling, and was absolutely exhausted. I've been getting all settled in to my room and doing orientation stuff. I live in a dorm on a floor of all girls, even though most of the halls are co-ed. My roommate is a girl named Brittany, who is a junior from Colorado. She is really nice, and I think we will get along pretty well. The area I live in is called Kensington. Its a really ritzy part of town, and the flats around our dorm cost about five million pounds!! So it is absolutely amazing that I have the chance to live here!

We have also been travelling around the city a little bit. As part of orientation, all of the study abroad students (there's about 100 of us!) went on a bus tour around the city, which was a really nice overview of everything. I've already been on a big adventure around the city, as my brother Kevin hid a note for me and left me with the clue:

Gazing down on ben the secret is held in the lion's jaws.

So Brittany and I headed to Trafalgar Square and climbed up to a huge statue of a lion, to peer inside his mouth. There was a place where the metal was cut out and you could reach your hand into the entire body of the lion. But sadly, the note was nowhere to be found. Some curious tourist must have found it and taken it. But nonetheless, the adventure was fun, and definitely out of the ordinary.

Inside the Lion's jaws...

Me and the Lion

Tonight was also an amazing night! A group of about 40 of us went and saw the musical Wicked in the West End, which is London's version of broadway. The play was absolutely wonderful! The actors' voices were amazing and the entire musical was great. It was fun to hear them preforming an American musical with British accents. I really hope I'll be able to go to more shows in the West End. I'm really eager to travel around the city some more and can hopefully do that tomorrow!

xoxo