At least the plane ride was okay...

It hasn't been so hot for me here yet. The plane was okay, mostly on time and all that.
One of the nice things was that we got to fly over England at night, so it would be pitch black except for these copper freckles of lights. Once we got closer to London, it turned almost mauve with all the lights, and I watched the entire landing (which I normally don't do because I'm keeping the plane from crashing through sheer force of will). So that was fine.
And then we landed.
this was at 11:00 at night.
By 11:30, we left the plane.
By 12:30, we had finally made it into the student immigration line.
By 1:15 am, we hadn't moved in the student immigration line, and one of the airport workers was trying to chat up a blond girl with dimples from Tulane.
Then Lauren was brave enough to ask the nice airport lady if we could jump to the line that HAD moved, and we did, and we got through super quick.
Then came the taxi queue.

My impression in America has been that, if you and a bunch of other people are waiting for a taxi, you push and shove and elbow each other, and whoever wins gets the taxi. Or you call ahead so there's one waiting. But you don't form a queue.
But we didn't know this, so we joined what looked like a clump and got yelled at. The exact words were, "I don't mean to be rude, but we have been waiting a very long time and....", which I think means "I really want to be rude, go away".
Considering that taxis were coming about 1 every 10 minutes, for a line of 100 people, that's pretty understandable, if still annoying.
But the nice American lady called the taxi people, and we finally managed to leave about 2:10 am.
I thought the cab ride was okay. True, the cabbie did ignore the signs that said "Watch your speed" and "Slow down", and the giant patch of ice we skidded on, but I was okay with that until he started talking to himself.
The hotel wasn't too bad - for a place to sleep, it did fine. The people at the desk were less than helpful. It turns out that the floors don't go 1 2 3, it's GROUND 1 2 3, etc. Part of my confusion was he said we had to take the lift to the first floor.
But we slept and had tea and it worked out.
And after that, yesterday wasn't so bad. We managed the Heathrow Hoppa and the Tube pretty well. Other than some stairs at the Gloucester Road station (with no lift), I think it went pretty well. We found the check-in place, and then the flat with minimal trouble.

Despite being mostly settled, I'm still crabby. I don't know if it's culture shock or what, but people aren't nice and I'm generally impatient with everyone and everything. And I don't sleep, which doesn't seem like jet lag because I don't get tired during the day or anything. I just don't sleep at all. Seems more like insomnia to me.
But we found the sandwich shop, and we've got orientation tonight and I'm thawing a bit. So it's getting better.