hibernation is appealing

Hello everyone! This post will be rather incoherent as I am falling asleep as I type. Last nightMaggie and I landed in Heathrow with no problems...until we hit customs. And there we stopped short, literally at a standstill for two hours. Finally we jumped into a line we weren't supposed to be in (we're rebels) and managed to get through. I had a momentarypanic when I couldn't locate my Visa letter, not helped by my customs officer letting flow pithy comment after snarky sentence. For example, "I'm wastin' my life away here, luv." Good times. To be followed by more good times as upon exiting the building to catch a taxi, we were yelled at by several Brits. We had unknowingly budged in the taxi queue. How embarassing. So we found the back of the line, absolutely exhausted (by this time it was 1:30 AM) and there we stayed for a half hour while a cab picked one party up every ten minutes. After an annoyed ex-pat called the company at around 2:00 AM. the taxis started flowing in! Praise be Allah, Jesus, Moses, Mary and the Spaghetti Monster! Maggie and I who had started turning blue from the cold and were slightly slap happy at this point, were overjoyed thinking the myriad of cabs were the best Christmas present ever.
So we finally got a cab. Driven by a DERANGED cabbie. He constantly talked to himself and drove about 100 MPH despite the signs advising people to drive slowly. We hit a patch of ice and swerved so violently I thought we were goners. It didn't bother me nearly as much as it should have; I was too tired. We got to the hotel in one piece with our cabbie muttering to himself all the while. He was kind of like a human Gollum (?). Er...yeah.
Once at our hotel Maggie and I were met by two brisk gents who told us where our room was. We, unfortunately, could not understand what the hell they were saying, but we figured it wouldn't be hard to find our room. We were wrong. Long story short, we finally found it but it took a lot of wandering around corridors to do so. After 20 minutes of this I asked the concierge again how to get to our room only to get the same incoherent instructions coupled with a look that clearly indicated I was one dumb American.
After sleeping for six hours, Maggie woke me up so we could journey to our flat. Well, she tried to wake me up, enticing me with tea and poking me incessantly. I was having none of it. Maggie thinks I was so tired because of jet lag. I think it is because I took a sleeping pill last night not meant to be taken unless one planned on getting at least eight hours of sleep. Perhaps it was both reasons. In any event, I was like Audrey Hepburn's character from "Roman Holiday" only substantially less happy.
After that things went smoothly. The Tube was easy and our flat is lovely. I share a room with two other girls and we have our own bathroom. There are about 17 people total in our flat. We have a small room which has magnificent windows that overlook a courtyard and a bit of Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens. I cannot wait to explore.
Now is orientation and then blissful, blissful sleep.
Love,
Lauren