Pre-London and London Day 1

The night before I left for London, a good friend of mine was home from NYC so the four girls and the guys that were around went out for dinner and drinks.  Not a bad way to start a vacation.  The next evening it was off to London with a friend from college.  The flight wasn't bad except that it was a red eye. I do NOT enjoy the red eye because no matter how tired I am, I can't seem to fall asleep or if I do fall asleep I can't stay asleep.  One nice thing though was that the flight wasn't full so we had some room at our seats.  So I read my book, watched some tv at my seat, and played some games on the tv (each seat had a tv, that was kind of nice).  We made it to London, cleared customs and then waited for our shuttle.  And then waited and then waited some more.  They said it could take over 30 minutes so we just kept waiting and waiting and finally well after an hour I called the emergency number you are supposed to call (from my cell phone, which meant I was paying obscene amounts of money for a bad connection, which also meant I was trying not to scream into the phone because the woman could not hear me).   She put me on hold and then came back on the line and told me to take a taxi.  Seriously?  Good thing I exchanged some money before I left home. The taxi ride was long and pricey (I did get reimbursed for it), but the driver was pleasant and informative.  It was way too early to check in to our hotel so we met our tour guide, got some info, and dropped off some luggage before heading out to explore the area.