Friday, December 17, 2004
I leave for the US tomorrow. You would think that I would be ready to go home. Instead I feel an overwhelming feeling of loss and depression. I went for a long walk today around the streets of Kensington by my dorm. It was strange walking down the streets I have become so accustomed to. I walked past Builder’s Arms where the tables are always filled with people outside, despite the temperature or weather, at all times of day sipping their pints and eating their fish and chips, and passed by the bridal shoppe with the ugly dresses and the Indian grocery store where the smell of simosas creeps out to the street beckoning you in. These places have all become my home and I have grown to love London as my own city.
It is amazing how much I feel I have grown and changed since I came here four months ago. I have met so many interesting people that have changed my life for the better. For instance my guys from my Tuesday night acting class, David, Musty and Joe. What began as a random night at the beginning of the semester where David invited me out for a drink with this group, ended up being a tradition that we've repeated and expanded to every Tuesday night at Builders and hanging out for other things outside of class, like excursions to Bride and Prejudice, hanging out after the play, going to Ranouch Juice, David cooking me "real" Italian dinners from an Italian boy...lol, long..long talks with Joe about Chad and Kindree... these guys have become really good friends of mine that I'm really going to miss and hate leaving behind. We're the special "group" as Musty calls us. All 3 of them are extremely special and diverse people that have opened up my eyes and exposed me to such different cultures and experiences. Before them I knew nothing about Bollywood, or Indian culture or Ramadan or what its like to have a pet elephant. I knew nothing about what it was like to live in Italy, Greece or France and go to school in Spain. These people have lived all over the world and experienced such different things from me, yet they're all the same age as me. It’s just exhilarating talking to them.
I just can’t even believe how much I feel that I have seen and experienced these four months. I guess when I think about what I'm thankful for this holiday season; I could definitely say that I'm so thankful for this experience. I'm thankful for making these new wonderful friends, for getting the chance to travel and see all the things that I've seen, for allowing myself to grow up and become more independent and exposed to so many new things, for just having this much fun and enjoying college for the first time in my four years.
As I walked through the chilly wind today and buttoned my coat tighter, I realized that although I will miss London more than I possibly could have imagined, I will always carry these experiences in my heart. I have these memories to cherish and look back on whenever I want to, and most importantly all the lessons and people I have met and learned from will come home with me in my heart Although I’m leaving London tomorrow, I’m also bringing a part of it home with me.
It is amazing how much I feel I have grown and changed since I came here four months ago. I have met so many interesting people that have changed my life for the better. For instance my guys from my Tuesday night acting class, David, Musty and Joe. What began as a random night at the beginning of the semester where David invited me out for a drink with this group, ended up being a tradition that we've repeated and expanded to every Tuesday night at Builders and hanging out for other things outside of class, like excursions to Bride and Prejudice, hanging out after the play, going to Ranouch Juice, David cooking me "real" Italian dinners from an Italian boy...lol, long..long talks with Joe about Chad and Kindree... these guys have become really good friends of mine that I'm really going to miss and hate leaving behind. We're the special "group" as Musty calls us. All 3 of them are extremely special and diverse people that have opened up my eyes and exposed me to such different cultures and experiences. Before them I knew nothing about Bollywood, or Indian culture or Ramadan or what its like to have a pet elephant. I knew nothing about what it was like to live in Italy, Greece or France and go to school in Spain. These people have lived all over the world and experienced such different things from me, yet they're all the same age as me. It’s just exhilarating talking to them.
I just can’t even believe how much I feel that I have seen and experienced these four months. I guess when I think about what I'm thankful for this holiday season; I could definitely say that I'm so thankful for this experience. I'm thankful for making these new wonderful friends, for getting the chance to travel and see all the things that I've seen, for allowing myself to grow up and become more independent and exposed to so many new things, for just having this much fun and enjoying college for the first time in my four years.
As I walked through the chilly wind today and buttoned my coat tighter, I realized that although I will miss London more than I possibly could have imagined, I will always carry these experiences in my heart. I have these memories to cherish and look back on whenever I want to, and most importantly all the lessons and people I have met and learned from will come home with me in my heart Although I’m leaving London tomorrow, I’m also bringing a part of it home with me.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Alright to begin this blog, this had to be one of the longest, worst days ever!!! So I got up and got to the bus at 8 o clock this morning to go on the trip to Lincoln, England for the famous Christmas market. Well for starters, no one told us that Lincoln is supposedly 3 hours away. So we got there and were finally told this valuable piece of information and our reactions were pretty mutual as we all thought, oh that kind of sux, 3 hours is a long time to be on the bus. Well the bus ended up being a half hour late picking us up which I know made all of us standing there shivering in the cold clutching our venti Starbucks lattes think, shit I could have slept for another half hour.
Finally the bus pulls up and the driver is this crazy Welsh man that sounded like he had a mouthful of marbles when he talked. None of us could understand him. Well after he almost drove us off the road a couple of times Paul, our chaperone, gets onto the microphone to tell us that we're supposedly 10 minutes away. Now Paul is a 25 year old guy from Liverpool who is more interested in getting with half the girls in the school than actually disciplining us as a chaperone but, he can't because the job won't let him. He's an awesome guy and he parties with and takes care of all of us. He's in charge of all the study abroad activities. He just started this semester so we've been his first class and he's bonded with all of us. Well he mentions that he has to go to the bathroom, but we should be there soon so it shouldn't matter. Well of course as the words come out of his mouth we hit this mammoth traffic jam.
For the next hour a snail could have possibly passed us by. Then even after we get out of the traffic, we're driving down the road and we see the sign for the Christmas market, but there's a road block in front of us. Our bus driver slams on his brakes, nearly throwing us all out of our seats and sits in the middle of the lane. We must have sat there for about 5 minutes, just holding up traffic. All of us are like what the hell is he doing? At this point Paul waddles up to the front of the bus and he's standing there doing this potty dance (quite a humorous sight) and he's like what are you doing? And the Welsh driver answers in his marble-like dialect which no one can understand and then proceeds to throw the bus into reverse!! IN THE MIDDLE OF TRAFFIC!!! Paul goes flying backwards and lands on his ass in the middle of the aisle. How he didn't wet himself I still don't know... All the cars are like trying to back out of the way and then the bus driver swings the bus into this wide left turn onto this side street almost taking out 3 parked cars along the way. At this point we're all sitting there thinking holy shit we're going to die.
Finally four and a half hours after leaving London we pull up at the Christmas market. At this point we're so late that we only have 3 hours to shop before the bus is picking us up again to go home. We're all exhausted and cranky and thinking that this better be one hell of a market. The market is so crowded and crazy that the whole town is organized with one way pedestrian signs to guide all the tourists. My friend Sidney and I are walking through and the event staff are all guiding us through like "Follow the signs" We look at each other and are just like "Are you kidding me?" It was like we were being herded through like cattle. There were so many people that you couldn't even get near any of the stalls. We walked through the whole market twice and were just completely disappointed. We couldn't find anything we actually liked and even if we did we couldn't get near the stall to take a closer look, let alone actually buy it. The whole thing was a waste of time.
After walking through the second time Sidney and I still had another hour to kill, we started cracking up and we're like "And we thought we wouldn't have enough time..what the hell are we going to do with ourselves?" At that point we saw the pub, the Lion and Snake. It rose up into our view like a mirage in a desert. Our freezing fingers and rosy cheeks were saved. We pushed open the door and found the place packed like the rest of the market from wall to wall like a can of sardines. We managed to push our way through to the front and order our drinks and proceeded to stand there talking and hanging for the hour with people banging into us from all angles.
Finally it was time to go back to the bus. The bus is somehow a half hour late picking us up again, then the driver pulls up and gets out of the bus with a cigarette sticking out of his mouth and starts waving his arms screaming out at us something that sounded like "agruhury gurp" as we all climbed onto the bus. From this point on I can't tell you what happened to the night. All I know is that although we hit no traffic, or any reasonable explanation, it took us 6 hours to get home. Although it was supposedly only 3 hours away... uhm Yea... Paul says that the bus driver took some weird random route home that took us completely north and out of the way supposedly trying to avoid traffic. All I know is that is was the RIDE FROM HELL!!!!
We had driven for about an hour when I had to pee so badly I thought I'd burst. So I went up to the front of the bus and sat next to Paul and told him I needed to stop. As I said it like 5 other girls were like yea me too...So Paul told the bus driver to pull over at the next rest stop. Well for some reason he drove past 2. Paul was like "uhm, mate did you hear me?" And all we got back was marblish gibberish. I was like "Paul I need to go like ASAP." Finally the bus driver pulls over, an hour after I had asked. Me and the 5 other girls SPRINTED to the rest stop. We all got dinner and climbed back on the bus expecting to be back at school within the hour. I mean after all we had already been driving a full 2 hours.
Well 2 hours later the bus driver pulls off the side of the road in the middle of bumblefuck. We're all like, "what the hell?" Paul leans over and is like "what's doing mate?" The driver is like "its illegal for me to drive more than 4 and a half hours without a break." And he walks off the bus leaving us there. He finally comes back on a half hour later with a cigarette still sticking out of his mouth even though it’s also illegal for him to smoke on the bus. It somehow managed to take us another hour and a half to get home.
Sidney and I were getting delusional talking about how we thought this was just like that ghost story where the 2 hitchhikers find that weird, sketchy cab driver to drive them and he proceeds to drive them around for hours and they're like where are you taking us and all of a sudden he turns around to look at them and he's a skeleton and he's like "On the Road to Hell!!" And it’s all spooky and stuff. We're like "we're on the road to hell!!"
As he pulled onto the sidewalk almost taking out an entire row of cafe tables to let us off, I thought to myself that I have never been so happy to see Kensington in my entire life. All I know is that somehow I was on a bus for 10 and a half hours today. And the market sucked...and the entire day sucked. Well except for Sidney. But yea... so I hope you guys at least enjoyed this random rambling story.
