Roll out the Red Carpet London, with your grizzly border control and buckets of rain

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13.35 hours on a flight, with a good seat ... I needn't have worried too much, i had the right hand side front row of economy class, right next to the emergency exit... leg room a plenty.

The guy to the right hand side of me struck up a conversation early on in the flight - he was a Pro Rugby League player from New Zealand (but actually Tongan), living in France, playing for their team. He was sweet, and a little bit quiet, but offered to share his french fries from burger king with me. I politely declined. We chatted a little bit. When I told him I was from Adelaide, he told me his girlfriend was from Mount Gambier, and asked me if i knew her.

"Quite possibly..." I mused. We chatted a little bit more, but I quickly tuned into my headphones, not wanting to be stuck in awkward conversation for the next 13 hours.

Otherwise, a very uneventful flight, which was fantastic, however, my only complaint being that my sleeping pills didn't knock me out hard enough. (When I got to London, Michael said "his name wasn't Sunny was it? That guy was in some sort of sex scandal recently..." - come to think of it, He was mumbled his name a little bit when we introduced ourselves, and when i thought long and hard about it, it did sound like Sunny or Sian or something.... hmmmm)

Just as the plane was about to land, the girl to my left struck up a conversation with me. She was pretty nice, from Sydney, she was in publishing but studying psychology and visiting her best friend in London for a month.

When we disembarked the plane, and got to Immigration, I was a trifle concerned that I hadn't memorised Lauren and Michael's address to put on my immigration card. I was no fool, I had seen 'Border Control', I was gearing myself up for a possibly heated inquisition.

I tried to call Lauren from the pay phone at the immigration reception, but it didn't work. The lady overseeing the que told me not to worry, if they really cared, I could just give them Lauren's number, and they would call her for me.

So, stepping up, I was cool, calm and collected, until I saw the woman that was going to be processing my arrival.

"Errrr..hi. I have a slight problem. I don't know the address of where I am staying."

She glared at me.

I awkwardly tried to smile, and continued. " Ah ha, well you see, I am staying with a friend of mine, in Hammersmith."

She was burning a hole through my forehead with that glare.

" Whadchya mean, you dunno where you are stayin? She pickin you up?"
" Uhhh, he he, well, I'm not really sure... our plans were a little loose...(awkward pause) Oh! I have her mobile number here, I just tried to call her and the payphone isn't working, just ask that other lady over there...."
"What are you going to do if she's not here to pick you up?"
"I was going to catch the tube to Hammersmith."
"Then what? You think its safe for a girl like you to be 'angin round a tube stop by youself. What's her name then? This friend of yours?"
I told her.
" How do you know her?"
"We went to highschool together...."
She flicks through my passport. " Where?"
"St Aloysius College?" I muttered, searching for some sort of pathos in her eyes.
She rolled her eyes.
" Yeah, where's that?"
"South Australia....?" I was starting to doubt my own answers.
"So, you planning to work here? It says here that you are an... Advertising person or something?"
"No, no, I'm just here on holiday for 3 weeks, and then I'm off to the Netherlands."
"Right." She sighed.
A momentary glance at me, and silence, before the rustling of passport papers and the thump of a stamp connecting with paper.

I've arrived.

I was slightlt surprised to stroll through customs and see NO ONE there and all the Xray machines turned off. Eeri. It was quite the contrast to Singapore that had body heat scanners at every arrival hall, and scary looking uniformed people, dying to rifle through your luggage. I know I arrived early in the morning (5.45 am) but surely the english are not that lazy that they don't care about disease, contraban, and other nasty surprises that may lurk in one's baggage?

A quick tube ride from the airport to Hammersmith station, and I was welcomed by Lauren's big bright smile, and a walk from the station to her gorgeous flat. On the drizzly walk to her flat (I was stupid to think that Summer here would mean anything other than umbrellas and jumpers),
I loved everything about her suburb from the moment I set eyes on it, however there was a moment where I stopped dead in my tracks. The little park on the way to her house, Brook Green, was so familiar. It was a seriously weird sense of de ja vu, it gave me tingles up and down my spine. I couldn't stop staring at the houses that face the park, I swore that I had been in one of them before.

Anyway, after some gossip, tea and cereal, we headed to her 'high street', where she introduced me to Primark(?) - possibly the cheapest store in the world, filled to the brim with .... STUFF! Lots of STUFF! It was like a trendy Valley Girl meets Target, and it was ridiculously cheap. It was just like the old days, when Lauren and I used to hang out for a full Saturday afternoon in Target and Big W, and spend hours just trying stuff on, flicking through cookbooks and telling each other we were going to go home and make the recipes with full knowledge that neither of us knew how to cook properly, tell each other funny make believe stories about the people that were shopping in the store, trying more stuff on, goading each other to buy stupid shit and buy each other little chocolates, and leave with big smiles on our faces, and little momento of our afternoons.

Then, we went to.... Westfield, about 10 minutes walk from her house.

I found it hilarious, that I had just left the land of the monstrous malls, and arrived to the other side of the world, to in fact, go to another Mall. But I was tired, and didn't want to venture far from home.

Needless to say; Lauren was excited to be there, since it supposed to be a big deal in England since they don't have much of a mall culture (and good on them I say), saying, "Look, a champagne bar, Look, Marks and Spencer.", enthusiastically pointing out all the things that are different to what is in Westfield in Australia. I am so desensitised to Malls and brands after a month in Jakarta, all I wanted to do was go to H&M for the first time, and trawl Top Shop quickly. The rest was just... a mall. But a mall without any fast food places ( so as not to attract unwanted gangs of teenybopper thugs), but what looked to be a very expensive food court. I was more excited that I had found a Pho restaurant inside the mall, than the plethora of designer shoe shops and european and english brands that were around.

As we left Westfield, we met our friend Georgina, and met Michael (Lauren's boyf) halfway home.

"Wow, those clouds look dark", George mused as she looked up.
"Let's beat the rain home" I said, worried about our lack of umbrella.

We didn't make it, and two thirds of the way home, the heavens opened, and poured a bucket of water on us. We stopped at the closes pub, and had a cider each, waiting for the rain to stop.

After a big day out, Lauren made wild mushroom ravioli pasta, and I swiftly fell asleep on the blow up mattress as the others watched 'Katie (Price) and Peter(Andre)' on itv. All in all, what a wonderful introduction to London life!