Living La Vida London: Day 1

I flew out of the Dallas-Ft. Worth International airport yesterday at approximately 6:45 p.m. and was honestly more scared to leave than anything else. Everything hit me all at once:
I won't see my family for almost a month.
I won't get to spend Independence Day with my family.
I won't get to go to the Independence Day celebration my hometown hosts every weekend before the 4th of July.
I'm in a strange country across the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of miles away from anyone I know.

I'm alone here.

Needless to say, I'm scared to death right now. Landing in the Heathrow Airport was not exciting, but terrifying because I have nobody here with me. I guess this is why I need to do things like this: I need to grow up... or something.

The flight was alright and I was able to sleep at least a little bit. The girl I sat next to was flying to Ireland and was not a very experienced flyer. I suppose the fact that I am a seasoned professional flyer should have eased my mind a bit, but no such luck. I will say that the dinner that was served was actually very good- not like other meals I've had the misfortune of consuming on a plane ride.

After coming to the Kensington area of London and finding my room, I slept... against the advice of the staff here. I honestly tried to fight it off, but I decided to give in and sleep. The good thing is that I'm still very tired from all that has happened today and get exhausted at the thought of all that is to come.

My Dormroom 

The view from my window.

Unfortunately for me, I have not made any friends yet. This is something I am worried will not happen. What's worse is that I'm supposed to have a roommate and she isn't here. I'm pretty awkward to begin with, so adding the possibility of a person I've never met before wandering into my room tonight and sharing said room with me for three weeks also causes me great anxiety. It's all just a lot for me at the moment.

I tried to ease my mind by taking a walk around this part of town on my own, but I got lost. Of course.
I probably wandered around lost for about an hour before I finally found my way back to my dorm. I wasn't worried about getting lost, I was more worried about the blister forming on the back of my left ankle because I decided to wear athletic socks with my combat boots. In other words: I made a bad choice. Those who know me were likely expecting me to have some tale of getting lost in London because I get lost everywhere else I go. I have a good sense of direction, but the issue is that I only know the general direction of things and have a difficult time remembering exactly where I am and how to get where I need to go. This is also why the Tube frightens me. There are so many stops and I don't want to get lost on the Tube. I really just need someone here with me so that I don't have to get lost all by myself.

Things will probably get better, but as of right now, I'm a nervous wreck.