"this is not the real london"

i took a tylenol PM at the beginning of my flight and turned on "julie and julia" to ensure that i would fall asleep quickly and would wake up in england. well, my plan failed and was kept awake most of the entire flight due to turbulence and a strange intrest in the movie. the woman next to me (ALWAYS a middle aged woman) kept nodding off in my direction preventing me to find a comfortable spot to rest my head. but that's what is to be expected when you travel, i guess.
we landed in london at around 11 am and i got to my flat in south kensington pretty easily but when i got there, i found the 13 person flat to be empty. um..was i missing an important orientation or was everyone else just late? i quickly grabbed one of the four beds in my room, (2 twins and a bunk bed in room 14e) and started unpacking. one by one other temple students arrived and i found a group to explore the neighborhood with.
3 trips to sainsbury's for some essentials (frozen pizza, pasta, hummus and a few bottles of wine) later i realized that these kids are kind of great.
at our flat meeting, one of the FIE advisors told us that the neighborhood we live in is not the real london (way too ritzy and even has it's own set of laws) and told us that we really need to explore the entire city. to my delighted surprise, everyone in the flat was on the same page and wanted to get out and really get to see the "real" london.
tomorrow we have some more orientation things to get through and then plan on staying out all day and night to see more than just the average tourist spots.
a trip to paris next weekend is also in the works.
i think i'm really going to fall in love with it here.