It was strange thinking last night on the flight and bus ride home that the “home” I was going to was Seville, Spain and not Belews Creek, North Carolina, but that’s how it felt, like I was home again. The trip went smoothly all the way up until the day we were supposed to leave. It was nice being able to wake up everyday without a plan pr schedule other than what we had thought of the night before, and just doing whatever it was we felt like doing that day. While I didn’t get to cross everything off my ‘to-do’ list, I did cross of a majority of the items and even add some I hadn’t plan on doing. Kate and I flew into Stansted airport at 11:30 (London time) and went about changing our money and looking for a bus. As soon as we stepped outside the airport we knew we weren’t in Seville anymore as the icy wind cut our faces. We got on the bus after paying 10 pounds to someone trying to hurry the line along although we could have gotten the round trip ticket for 14. The bust took about an hour and 20 minutes to get us to the Victoria Coach Station, now about 1:30 am, where we proceeded to ask someone how to get to the nearest tube (subway) station. We were pretty much laughed at when they told us the tube stopped running about midnight. So there we were in the freezing cold wondering what to do…the only thing was to walk a few blocks to the Victoria Rail Station where we found buses that would take us to Tottenham Court Road. We then had to ask people on the bus (luckily we could use our English here) where to get off. Finally, at about 2:30 we got off the bus, found ‘the gold man on top of the theater,’ as Laura described it, and made our way to 99 Great Russel Street. We had told Laura we’d arrive by 1.
The next day we awoke to snow falling outside the window of Flat 7. Laura and her flat-mates went to class and Kate and I got ready to face the weather. We made our way back to Oxford Street where the bus had taken us and looked in some stores. Not that we were intending to buy anything of course. It was just amazing how close Laura lived to everything. You step outside and you’re smack dab in the center of the city, literally. We got groceries for our stay at the nearest Sainsbury’s. Groceries were surprisingly cheap for their standards. About normal priced once to convert it to dollars. Thankfully, Laura had given us a mini lesson on the money the night before and we didn’t have to hold out our change with confused looks on our faces. The rest of the afternoon consisted of walking to Trafalgar Square where we visited the National Portrait Gallery and the ‘Monet to Picasso’ exhibit at the National Gallery. We saw some famous paintings there like ‘Sunflower’ by Van Gogh and ‘The Water-Lily Pond’ by Monet. That night we went to a pub with Laura and Joey and had our first cider- like a beer without the bad aftertaste- a Strongbow.
The next day Kate and I got day passes for the tube at 5 pounds each. We began the day at Notting Hill and walked down Portabello Road to the outdoor markets. Kate bought a fourth of a loaf of rye bread that was to die for. We warmed up in a coffee shop for a while but then it began to rain…flats were a bad idea so we had to go back to Laura’s so I could change and get an umbrella. Out again, we went to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park where my dad had said he had been present for protests during the Vietnam War. We proceeded to Buckingham Palace where we peered through the iron bars at the funny little men in fuzzy hats. To my despair, they were not wearing the customary red suits but gray ones instead…perhaps it was their rain attire?? After that we moved on to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. Across the river we caught a glimpse of the London Eye, also called the Millennium Wheel- a huge ferris-wheel type ride built in the year 2000. Finally, we made our last stop at the Victoria and Albert Museum where we saw a fashion exhibit with clothes from the 60s (complete with the fad that was paper dresses) and a photography exhibit with the work of photographers like Wee-Gee who I had read about in my photography classes. Back at the flat, we all went out for Mexican. The food was overpriced and the service was poor, unfortunately. We watched the movie Trainspotters and then called it a night.
Day 3- Kate and I went straight to the British Musem, only a block away from Laura’s flat. We made a bee-line for the Rosetta Stone and where we studied its ancient writings. We wandered around the rest of the place looking at ancient artifacts from Egyptian pottery, to Greek war helmets to Roman mosaic art. Most of it dating back to a couple thousand years before Christ. After we had our fill we made our way to Niel Street and The Tea House shop where Kate and I bought some English Tea. She bought flavored black teas like coconut and caramel while I opted for the jasmine green tea. We were lazy the rest of that afternoon and watched Runaway Bride until it was time to go meet Russ two tube stations away. I worked with Russ at Gwynn Valley summer camp in the summer of 2005 so it had been a year and a half since I’d seen him. He brought two friends and we all went out for a drink, where Kate and I had a pint of cider : )
The next morning Laura took Kate and I to The Pancake House which is one of her favorite breakfast spots. It was also the only place I had ever seen a chicken and cranberry sauce bagel on the menu so of course, that’s what I ordered. After breakfast, Kate and I went to Covent Garden. There were a lot of people out that Sunday. It was the first day we had seen the sun and I guess everyone else was as happy about it as we were. We bough some candy, strolled through indoor shops and outdoor stands and even watched some outdoor theatre where a scraggly looking man performed his comical skit escaping from a strait jacket. He wore tights, a red crotch cup and a white t-shirt that read ‘beast.’ I didn’t ask. We met up with Russ and his friend James again and went fo frozen yogurt before it was time to go wait outside the red carpet. The baftas were going on that day right there in Covent Garden and we wanted front row seats to spot some celebrities. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts hosted an array of actors and actresses including Jake Gyllenhaal and Kate Winslet, neither of which we actually got to see. That evening we went to the same bar we had gone to the first night and ate fish and chips. We couldn’t go to England and not eat Fish and Chips. Curiously, the plate was served with a side of peas, but I was only too glad to see that they weren’t mushy peas as a menu we had seen earlier actually had ‘mushy peas’ written out at something people order.
Day 5. The day we were supposed to leave. The day we got to the airport 10 minutes after check in had closed and they turned us away. Bewildered, we got in line after exhausting any other options and waited our turn to reschedule our flight at the lovely fee of 50 pounds. The flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until the next day so we had to go all the way back to the city and stay with Laura another night. The bus dropped us off early in the city so we ended us rolling our suitcases about 8 blocks down the middle of the city at 11 pm. The next day, we arrived at the airport at 3:15. The flight was to leave at 6. We were one of the first in line to check our bags and made it back to Seville by 9:30. Off the bus, Kate went home and I waited for another bus to take me to the apartment. It didn’t show after 30 minutes and I only had three Euro in my pocket, not enough to cover a cab home. So I proceeded to roll my suitcase along toward home when like a final kick in the butt, the bus goes zooming by. I had to laugh.
Overall it was a good trip, not counting the trip home of course. But I’m glad to be back and not planning on going anywhere out of the country anytime soon.
Londres
