I wrote this yesterday...

So... I’m in London. I’m living in a fairly new apartment building on the border of a really nice area and a not so great area of London. I like to consider the apartment as being in the nicer area of town because it makes me feel better about things. It may not be right in the center of everything, but I think that its a pretty decent distance to most of it, and considering the other options in our budget, it was a pretty good choice. Its actually a pretty big apartment too. Its a duplex with three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, fully furnished, new kitchen with all modern appliances including a stove top, oven, big fridge/freezer, dishwasher, and washer/dryer combo machine. There’s also a bus stop right outside the door, a major rail station like two blocks away and a DLR station a four minute walk in the other direction. Another thing that’s good is that there’s a really cute pub down the street that has free wifi, which I’ll definitely be using until I get internet in my apartment.

My parents have been living here with me for the past two weeks, and I am patiently awaiting the arrival of my two roommates, Mariel and Kristin. I just can’t even believe that I’m here. Finally! I have been waiting for this moment for so long, and now its finally here. This may sound a little crazy, but I still don’t think its hit me yet that I’m going to be living here for at least a year. Living here. I’m living in London. I moved to another country, and I’m living in London. This adventure will check off two of my major life goals. One being that I am living in a country other than the United States, and two being that I’m getting a Master’s degree. There’s not much left on my life goals list other than to visit every continent in the world, write a book, get married, and have children. I’m knocking off two major life goals in the matter of one year. That’s one pretty significant year! I am going to remember this for the rest of my life. I am going to share my pictures and stories from this journey with my children and grandchildren someday. This is pretty huge.

The only thing that I’m truly nervous about is letting it slip away too quickly. I have a terrible tendency to stress and worry about everything, and I worry my time away. I don’t want to do that here. I want to enjoy every moment that I have, so that I can remember every little bit. I want it to last because this is once in a lifetime.

London... Day 4

So... tired. Its such a strange feeling to be tired, but my body hasn't adjusted to the time change yet, so I don't want to sleep when I know that I have to. Its day four in London, and my stress level is just now starting to calm down. I also don't want to eat at the right times either, so that's been fun. I'm hoping that I adjust eventually, but at this rate, who knows if that'll actually happen. We just had dinner at this place in Kennsington called "Maggie Jones's," and it was pretty good. I had chicken and artichoke pie, and I really liked it. So far, we've only eaten at two places where the food wasn't great. Other than that, it really hasn't been that bad. I guess the last time I was here, we were on a strict budget, so we didn't really go to the places that my parents and I are going to now. When they leave, its probably going to go back to either crap food, or cooking for myself. I hope that I have time to cook for myself because my guess is that I'm probably going to be extremely busy, which means that I'm probably out of luck on that one. Oh well, it doesn't really matter if I eat good food, as long as I eat, that's all that matters. I'm going to be walking a lot and dancing more than I have in over a year, so I'm going to definitely need nourishment. I'll hopefully be moving into my apartment on Tuesday, so I won't have internet until I set it up, and who knows when that'll happen. That means I may not be able to post an update for a while, but hopefully it won't be too long.

I'm Here!

So, I'm in London. Man, am I stressed out! I mean, I wouldn't have expected this to be easy peezie (peezie?), but I never expected it to be as difficult as its been. I'm not going to burden you all with all my stress and aggravation causing issues, but I am going to tell you that its honestly been no picnic. The only thing that's keeping my head up is the fact that I am rekindling my love for London. Before I got here, the idea that the only reasons why I love London is because of the touristy areas and the fact that I just plain-old love being on vacation. After being here for the past two days, I've been working my patootie off (patootie?) trying to find an apartment, and I definitely have not done anything touristy other than walking by Big Ben once for less than ten minutes. Its amazing that after all of that and thinking about the stress of what's to come, I can still say that I know I made the right decision in coming here. I really feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Its a weird feeling, and I didn't even have that when I moved to LA, but here is different. It may still be a little (OK a lot) scary to think about living here on my own after being in the comforts and stability of my home for the past year, but the feeling of happiness will most definitely outweigh all that. Of course I'm still nervous, stressed, busy, blah, blah, whatever, but I know it'll pass and then I'll be OK. Probably more than OK.

Procrastination Isn’t Good When You’re Running Out of Time

I don’t want to be this way, I really don’t, but I honestly can’t do anymore packing! I have  most of the stuff that I am taking with me to London sitting in piles on my bed, I have empty luggage sitting in my hallway, and I have most of my other clothes and stuff in plastic bins downstairs (completely out of my way). If I just put all this stuff in the luggage, I’ll have so much more space in my room right now, which will give me a little more breathing room to get the rest of the stuff packed up to go to Pennsylvania. So why don’t I just do that? Why am I sitting here writing this blog instead?

I have to wake up early tomorrow to speak with my realtor in London, call my insurance company to check up on the status of receiving my 90 day supply of my prescriptions, and go to a hair appointment, so I need to get some rest, but its almost 9PM, and I’m sitting here NOT packing. Procrastination is a disease. A disease that I unfortunately have a very severe case of. I honestly don’t mean to procrastinate, and the last thing I want to do is wait until the night before I leave to pack, but I am paralyzed by procrastination. I can’t move. All I can do is sit here and look for random nonsense on the internet and/or watch truly bad television that I normally wouldn’t even consider watching.

I gotta get up...OK, I packed. I fit all the stuff that I have ready so far into two large suitcases, one medium, and one small. The valuable and irreplaceable items, such as my laptop and jewelry, are coming with me in my carry on luggage. I just can’t believe this is happening so fast. I just hope that all the pieces of this sort of complicated puzzle all fall into place within the next two weeks or less. Less would be great!