Welcome to the UK

Hello All,
I know its been awhile since I have arrived in London but its not easy setting up a life here, but I better start from the beginning so you can see what I mean...
I arrived safely with no hiccups in my travels. I even ran into Amanda at the border services counter in Iceland. Amanda for those of you who do not know is one of my best friends. She has also entered the Sotheby's Institute of Art programme but she is doing the Masters of Contemporary Art while I am studying Art Business. On arrival we contacted her Great Aunt Ceeta and took a cab to her house in Wimbledon where we stayed for the next 3 nights which definitely helped with the cost of living. We were treated like queens and served many a delicious meal. I was even treated to a Caribbean specialty, Goat Curry. Believe me its good. Our next days were filled with pounding the pavement trying to look for a place to live. If I thought looking for a place in Victoria was hard...pfft. London rental are vicious and expensive. It was not a pretty sight to see us looking for places. We got acquainted with with the Tube quite easily our Oyster cards help us out and make things cheaper and more efficient even though they run out quickly. Searching for a place to live is complicated. The market is crazy, especially because we happened to land on the day that the high school exam results were released so EVERYONE who did well (and it was a good year for that) were looking for places too. Anyways our first day we saw a couple places and tried to not get lost. The first place we actually made it to on time....well lets just say I wouldn't let a rat stay there. From there we say a couple of other places. Nothing we were too keen on though one was quite liveable, however we would have been on top of each other.
The next day was a saturday so there were not a lot of new places to look at, and everything gets snapped up in an instant. We called and called and called for places. We went to agencies who looked at us like we were mental. Seriously, we would give our details and they would immediately tell us there was nothing. They would say that it wasnt even worth us leaving them with our details as there were so many people ahead of us or had more of a budget than we did. It was brutal and we were beginning to get really discouraged.
The next day was a Sunday and we couldn't do a whole lot of anything so we did a bit of sightseeing. We also had to get a hotel that night and moved into the area near our school so we could get a feel of the borough. Its gorgeous in Bloomsbury, the afterwork crowd packs themselves into the pub and all over the street and will drink pint after pint. Its quite a lively area.
By Monday Amanda and I went back at it and on our way to a place we finally got a call back from an agency. He was really nice and took our details and asked a lot of questions, we booked an appointment for that evening. We saw a couple of places but nothing was really suitable and stopped in a couple of agencies that shot us down. By the time of our meeting we were feeling pretty low. But once we arrived at the place (Foxtons) our guy Leo said he had some options for us. Foxtons is the biggest and the glitziest letting agency. We were just happy to see one place let alone the 4 he had to show us. He drove us around in the company mini to all the locations, our first stop was the instantly likeable and all except one were viable options. But we decided to go for the first one. It has a large reception/kitchen with high ceilings laminate flooring white leather couches and a roof terrace. We are on a main road but its not too loud and the best part is that our view is of the park that is directly across the street. We have two double bedrooms and built in closets and the view from these bedrooms are of traditional British brick houses (think the Chimney song from Mary Poppins) there is even a Church spire in the distance. It is however a 4th floor walk up but hey I need the exercise.
There are so many things to set up here, you have to have a tv license, council tax, gas, water, and electric all changed into your name. I cannot even describe to you here the crazy frustration that it has been to set up our internet/cable/landline. I dont even fully have it yet we broke down and bought the portable sticks\moblie broadband to have internet in our house but it makes us happy and we dont have to go to the sketchy internet cafe where I have been hit on while checking my mail. I have a broadband box, but the systems are so archaic that I wont get my activation until next FRIDAY! That's right, its why we miss Canadian speed of service. Seriously, The companies will flat out lie to you just to get rid of you and there is no way of speeding up the service, even if they have messed with you.
But luckily school is starting on Monday. This week starting on Wednesday we had our orientation. Thursday we had a full day of lectures and lunch and tea breaks. Then everyone was delivered to the Sotheby's Auction house for a cocktail reception. However Amanda and I missed half of the party....A couple of new friends and Amanda and I had gone up to use a different bathroom in this lecture building that our institute was using as our full university would not fit in any lecture hall in our institute. We got ready and started to head to the buses but Tiffany and I realized we left our folders upstairs so she and I jumped back into the elevator to go back up. HOWEVER, the small sketchy elevator didnt reach the floor, it just stopped. right in the middle. It was pretty freaky. We started to call the buzzer and no one answered for awhile. Amanda luckily heard us and asked the people at reception what was going on. This elevator was completely closed in with no ventilation. The security told us that an engineer was coming shortly, but according to Amanda they quoted an hour and a half. So Tiffany and I waited in our party attire for an hour. They kept telling us that someone was coming but after an hour we started to get impatient, I started to jiggle the door and the elevator started to bounce a little. Finally we agreed to open the door together and low and behold we just had to step up a little and crawl out. (Yes I know you are never supposed to try to open the door incase the elevator moves but it didnt and I was just relieved) One of the staff were waiting with Amanda in the lobby and the IT guy came to get us in a private car hire so we made it to the party, headed straight for the bar (sorry Gma but I deserved this) to get ourselves a glass of Champagne. The servers made sure my glass was always full to ease the pain. And I got to meet and talk with a couple of the professors at the party and the director of the entire school.
I am really excited for school to start, after my friday orientation my professor handed out our first essay paper...I havent even been to class yet.
On Saturday Amanda and I visited the National Gallery, it reassured my reasons for coming to London, seeing all the artwork I have only read about or seen on a slide, so many famous pieces. I cannot wait to hit the books.
Well I think thats about all I have of any real interest. Just email me if you have any questions. I will update as much as I can but I am not promising anything. Hope you are doing well. I hear the weather has been decent there. I am very jealous, we have had only a couple days of rain but when it rains it doesnt stop. Oh ya there is a planned tube strike this week, which I am not thrilled about. To get to where I go to school its a 15 minute tube ride and I do not have to transfer at all. Its also only a 2 minute walk to the tube station from where I live and a 5 minute walk to school.

Lots of Love
Alyssa