Well I'm here in London! 

Let me start from the beginning, Eric (roommate) and I both got bumped to an earlier flight at MSP airport, because of that we ended up having a 4 hour layover in Chicago. At Chicago we had to go to the international terminal. We made it through security in a flash and got to our gate 3:45 early. For some unknown reason there were no places to eat in the international terminal so we decided to go back out and found a bar to get some food. Eric and I have the tendency to get into deep political, economic, and "life" discussions; combine that with some 

beer and lets just say time flies. Only because I had to go to the bathroom did we realize that it was 9:15 and the gate closed at 9:25, oh yeah and we had to go through security again and the line was about 50 people deep. Basically, we started freaking out. To our luck, a BA flight attendant was running late some how found us, we

 sprinted, were able to duck the lines and get a "sped up security process" and then ran to our gate. 

The flight was good but when we got to the airport Eric, Greg (my other roommate here), I all had our luggage

 lost. So we spent the first two days without luggage. I actually threw my boxers away and rolled commando on Friday. Luckily, on Friday night our luggage did arrive and man did it feel good to put on some new clothes. 

The first night we got there we had our first pub experience. We went to two different pubs and decided to start our "beer tour." Our goal is to try 100 different beers and we are taking a photo of each one we try. 

Basically 

we have just toured the area, we are so lucky to live where we are living. Basically its the nicest part of London. The streets are lined with Mazerati's, Rolls-Royce's, Benz's, BMW's, Volvo's, Audi's, Range Rover's, and Mini-Coopers. Basically the cheap car around here is a Volkswagon. We've gone out to a few pubs -> Beer is a lot less expensive than I

 was thinking and most pubs have pretty good deals for dinner. You can get a beer and dinner for around 10 pounds. There are few sandwich places that are relatively inexpensive as well. The only thing is that since we are in the nicest part of London everything is pretty expensive. Even the grocery stores are pretty high-end. 

So I've been talking a lot about how nice Kensington is, and it is. However, we live right next to a bunch of embassies (the Dutch and Israeli are on the same block) and because of our location we are right in the middle of a pretty intense protest that

 started today (Saturday). Two-hundred thousand people were on our street protesting the Israel-Palestine conflict. It was for the most part peaceful but turned pretty nasty pretty fast. We're staying in because the protesters really really really don't like

 westerners or anything western. Eric and I were out today and went to the Natural History Museum and Harrods. On our way back we 

were going to stop at a pub to meet some people for dinner. However, we realized that the pub was filled with a bunch of protesters, we felt that being around them as they consumed alcohol would not be a good decision. We ran to a sandwich shop and then stopped to get some beer. As we were in the liquor store we noticed that 3 police vans with about 20 officers rushed out and put a bunch young guys against the wall and were padding them down. We then realized that they had thrown a police traffic barricade through a Starbuck's window. They were also chanting about how much they hated Westerner's. 

To put it bluntly, Eric and I were scared shitless. We ended up taking the longest route but furthest away from the crowds to get home. We didn't talk the whole way back because we didn't want anyone to here our accents. You can find the article at this link that describes the Starbuck's incidence on the second page. 

No one has adjusted to the time yet we have been staying up crazy late and sleeping til about 1 or 2. No one intends to sleep that long it just happens. 

This city is pretty awesome and there is so much to do, I keep forgetting I have to start class on Monday, which is a drag. I feel like this will be a pretty special 4 months. I could stay here for all 16 weeks (not travel once) and maybe experience 1/100th of what this city has to offer. I'll try to get out and do a bit more than to experience this AWESOME pub culture, but its so fun. I think I can post pictures on the blog so I'll try to keep everyone up to date (although I will admit that Eric and I aren't picture people). 

I'll try to keep this updated every few days. Love ya everyone.