Porto to London to Leeds

Today the London experience finally began....sort of. It started off this morning at 7 when I caught the metro to the airport in Porto Portugal. This involved a major repacking of my bags so I could make the 15 kilo weight limit for Ryan air. In the end I had to throw away all my hair products and was wearing about half of my clothing. In my opinion budget airlines are degrading! Blasted poverty!

So I showed up in London about noon....only to realize that the Stanstead airport is about an hour train ride from London, so train to the Metro station.

I went into the office of my travel nursing agency and met Roz my recruiter who I have been talking to for the last 6 months on the phone. I had an unusual experience meeting her. You know how when you read a book you have this mental image of how someone is and then you see the movie and they have cast the actor all wrong. Same thing here. I was picturing Roz as a portly middle aged woman with mousy brown hair, no idea why. Turns out Roz is a thin woman from Singapore in her early thirties. Imposter! No, she was really nice. I got a bunch of paperwork finished and should hopefully start working in the next two weeks. The postal strike here is slowing everything up.

From the office I got back on the metro. This face is showing my distress at being on the underground during rush hour with a suit case. Yikes!

I headed across town to meet up with Lauren. I met Lauren Brooks at the YSA convention. She is best friends with Charlotte and I had asked her previously if I could stay with her until I start working. She said that was fine as long as I was ok accompanying her to Leeds for the weekend. So I met her at a train station outside of London and we made the 4 hour drive up north. We got there about 10pm, so it was a big travel day.