There...

I have been in London now for a week. It seems more than an acceptable time of adjustment, and now all excuses of "I'm too jet-lagged," "I sleep at odd hours adjusting to the time change," and "I'm still trying to figure out my way around," hardly seem valid reasons for not maintaining the blog I promised so many I would.

Now, a few points of order before we begin...

I did not intend to be that kid who goes abroad and starts a blog. Nothing against all the people who do that. And that's not to say I wasn't going to blog when I was here. What I mean is: My intentions were to start the blog earlier on, filling it with ideas, clever thoughts, reviews of whatever I was reading/watching/eating at any particular moment. A sort of archive for thoughts I have throughout the day that all too often go unwritten and melt away before they can accumulate.

The title of the blog, I hope, indicates that this will not only be a travel blog, but also a place for me to deposit these random and rambling thoughts for future reflection. For example, expect future thoughts on movie previews, Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and some thoughts on book cover design. Certainly, the "Wandering" suggests a lot of traveling will happen, and I hope that it does. But the things I stumble upon when thinking will also crop up now and again.

How I'm Not Where You Are*:

From Point A to Point B, how I got to London. A lot of flying. I have to imagine that reading about my flying to London will be about as boring as my flying to London, so here are some bullet-point highlights:

• Flight from Boston to Chicago (because I had to go West to go East) next to a very mysterious Russian couple. Likely on their way to Wossamotta U in search of moose and squirrel.
• Turned a blind eye to the woman watching a pirated DVD of The Blind Side on the flight to London.
• Struggled to sleep on the flight. I was initially jealous of the many little kids around me, who were able to curl up their short little legs and sleep comfortably. Jealousy faded during our descent, when they all began to whine about how much their ears hurt, and I just cleared mine with my finely-honed airplane inner-ear muscles.
• Cleared immigration with flying colors. Did not need the myriad of bank documents, proof of birth, or letter from my parents (Yes, my immigration guide said I would need to bring one). And was welcomed by...
• Tiger Woods! On a full-wall ad for Accenture, which read: "It's what you do next that counts. We know what it takes to be Tiger." So much for being the 2nd sponsor to dump him... Someone needs to keep track of where they put their ads.
• Spent the majority of the drive to my dorm talking with my driver (whose name was, disappointingly, neither Winston nor Charles) about the snowfall in London. If you hadn't heard, it has been snowing a lot lately in London, and the city has basically no clue what to do.

And that's that. Got out of neither-Winston-nor-Charles' van, hauled my stuff up to Ramsay Hall Room 507, unpacked, realized exactly how little sleep I got on the plane, and decided to go to bed early. Don't want to explore an unfamiliar city at night on 2-hours of airplane sleep. That's a surefire way to get lost.

The next day, I was off and exploring London, which I've been doing for the past week. But more on that later. Since this post was just supposed to be about how I got to where I am now.

A final note regarding the title of this post. Until it is book-ended with the intended closing chapter of "... And Back Again," all posts are coming from somewhere in/around Europe.

*Unless you are in London.