FINALLY!! Made my way to el capitale of London, Hengland. Im gonna write this one in points since, due to ‘engineering problems,’ Bitch Blogger erased my LONG post that I spent a whole bunch of time on!!! Im mad, but anyway…..
1. Sometime last week…came across the return train ticket I bought when I first got here and, realizing it expired in a week, remarked “SHIT” and called Sharon up to see if I could stay with her. She said “SURE! Anytime.” Tru. Off to London!!
2. Left on Friday afternoon. Was supposed to go to Gatwick Airport but genius me decides to get a hot chocolate 5 minutes before my connecting train was supposed to leave. Thanks to French incompetence, which led to my large cup not being filled up completely, I had to go back to the stand and request that he fill up my damn cup. And seeing as how to British love to form damn lines, or queues, for no reason, I had to wait. Can’t make America look bad by bypassing them all, now can I?? Got back to the platform just in time to see my DAMN train going off into the fog. Deciding I didn’t wanna wait another DAMN hour, I bought a ticket to Paddington instead and freaking got to London in like 2 seconds!! Forget Gatwick.
3. Got on the London Underground to transfer to Victoria station, where Sharon was the meet me. BUCKED UP ON RUSH HOUR. GREAT!! Hundreds of people whizzing by me at 100mph. So many people, so overwhelming!! Well not really overwhelming, but I feel sorry for anybody that wouldn’t be able to understand how to figure out the system. LOTS OF PEOPLE. “This would be an excellent terrorist target,” I thought. Seriously, I hope they are protecting that place with all their resources because lots of people could go in an instant. Sorry to be so morbid.
4. Noticed that everybody had either 1. an ipod mini or 2. some other type of mp3 player…I mean, SERIOUSLY, ive never seen so many people with earphones on. Made me jealous...now I want one…lol.
5. Got to Victoria, where I would have to wait an hour for Sharon to get there. Never been so cold in my damn life. Think Im catching pneumonia as we speak. I got freaked out and thought I was in the wrong place and she couldn’t find me, but it would turn out she just lives hella far from the center of London, even though she still technically lives in London.
6. She and her daughter, Shereen arrive. We would make another couple of connections just to get to where she lives, in Essex.
7. Her house looked really nice, very modern unlike most of the 100 year old interiors Ive been seeing since I got here. Turns out she redid the whole inside of the house. We watched Eastenders…..I didn’t recognize any of the characters. I asked about people like Dan and Mel and Shereen laughed at me and said those characters were like 4 years ago! My bad….I guess 4 year old episodes is the best the PBS in Ft. Lauderdale can do.
8. Saturday, they went with me to go do some sightseeing. But first, we met up with my aunt and her son, Darmaine. This boy was so quiet, shy and reserved, it kinda bordered on annoying. lol. Turns out he’s 17, but he don’t look a day over 15. Shereen was quiet too but it was cool. She actually reminded me of my old roommate Christie: dark skin tone, skinny, long hair, didn’t look you in the eye too much when they talk to you..lol.
9. Took the underground. At this point, we were LITERALLY underground…when we had to leave the station, we had to go up three stories just to get out!! I did notice that we went kinda deep when we first got on. At this point, Im seriously worried about a terrorist attack in that piece. There’d be no way to get out!! I thought…
10. Got off at a stop right in front of Big Ben and the House of Parliament. Yay!! Nobody else was as excited as I was, so I truly felt like a damn tourist. Saw the London eye. Looked closely and realized it’s actually turning. Went to Buckingham palace, etc.
11. I kept feeling like a fool cuz I was the only one taking pictures. I was grateful they were there, but I don’t think I got to absorb it as much as if I was by myself. At this point, I say to myself that although I sometimes say it might be nice to have someone on the trip with me, I realize that sometimes I think people get in my way and I don’t really do what I wanna do lol..or I mean, I just don’t think I focus as much, because Im worried that I might be keeping them or boring them and such. So therefore, Id much rather do it alone.
12. Was very worn out by the time the day was done. Evidenced by the fact that I never quite recovered when we made it back home and I was in bed by 9:30 and didn’t get up till 11 the next day.
13. Sharon cooked dinner for me and even gave me some to take. Reminds me of my mommy!! She shares a lot of similarities with my mother, I would realize, so no wonder I like her so much.
14. Ill be back in London in two weeks, and Sharon said I could stay with her, but I wanna stay in the heart of the city. It gets annoying after a while when you have to take a long ass journey just go to do touristy stuff everyday. Same thing happened when I stayed with my aunt in damn Queens when I went to NY. Bad idea. Ill still stay with her a couple of days though, just to not seem ungrateful, but hopefully a hostel the rest of the time.
Anyway, I believed Ive been tricked into doing some dance for the African-Caribbean society here. lol. Actually, I don’t mind, cuz I wanna get involved, especially since I NEVER get to go up to the campus since I really have no reason to. I think this girl Alicia, who’s from St. Lucia didn’t wanna do it so she asked me. But on the bright side, Im going out with her and the girl down the hall from me, Ranya, to some club called Babylon tonite. In talking, I told them Ive been to Delfter about three times already and they said they’ve never even been there and that Ive been out more than them and the only reason they’re going tonite is cuz someone else is there to force them to do it. They seem nice! So hopefully it’s fun…it’s supposed to be RnB and Hip-hop nite.
Le fin.
