STO: London

I've been to London before, just once. I remember that we were coming back from a Mediterranean cruise and had done a lot of traveling - through Barcelona, Venice, Ethesus, Athens, Istanbul, I hit up all that as well as the boat's arcade. I remember that the fourth Harry Potter book came out just a few days before we arrived in London, so I bought a book at the airport and became consumed of course, because I am the biggest fan of that series (challenge me!). We were only in London for a few days so while I think I've seen the sights and rode on the Eye, I really don't know the city at all. I had thought that I was in London in like 2004 or 2003, but I looked up when the Goblet of Fire came out and was stunned to see that it was in July 2000. I was not even 12 on my one previous visit to London! So for all intents and purposes, this was my first trip to London.

As I left off in the last post, Thursday was a supremely hectic day. Getting to school is never easy here, and Thursday was no exception as I rushed to catch my buses and made it to my World Englishes class 5 minutes late. I bolted out after my last class, skipping a math tutorial in the process and came back home to pack up and prepare for my 9:15 flight. Somehow I ended up taking a nap, and when I woke up I realized I had to make dinner, figure out my housing situation back at Georgetown for NEXT YEAR, call Crystal (whom I was staying with) and my cousin Shu Yi (whom I planned on visiting), find out how to get to the airport in Dublin, find out how to get from the airport in London, eat my dinner, take money out of the ATM, finish packing up and get to my flight. This was one of the most hectic 2 hours of my life, but in the end I caught a bus before 7 and go to the airport with a good 40 minutes to kill.

RyanAir was my airline of choice and it is famous for being dirt cheap. Flights are as low as €1, but this roundtrip to London was just under €90. Now I understand why. The inside of the airplane can best be described as compact, with the hard plastic seat of the person in front brushing up on my skinny legs. There was actually no pocket in that seat to put any stuff, so I kept my passport, iPod, wallet and cell phone in my pockets and was uncomfortable. Luckily the flight was short, barely over an hour in the air. Upon descent into London, we landed so hard and violently that a third of the plane actually screamed and we were all relieved when we did end up taxi-ing into a gate. At this point I turned on my phone, discovered that I was now on the T-Mobile UK and that text rates had increased to 50 cents and call rates were something absurd like 27 a minute. Well I bit the bullet and texted Crystal that I had arrived. I then got some pounds, found out how to catch a train into Liverpool Street Station, where Crystal had told me to go. Done and done. The whole train ride I periodically called Crystal, to no avail, and eventually ran out of money on my phone. At this point I'm kinda freaking out, cause I'm alone in London and my means of sleeping indoors was not readily apparent. I add money to my phone on a call for the first time ever, which was extremely difficult but eventually I do get another 20 euro on it (I'd end up spending 40 euro in London just on phone charges and I wasn't on it very often). I arrive in Liverpool and call Crystal again, to no response. Well I have her address, so after much internal debating, I go outsidewhere it's rather chilly and hail a black cab to her house. The cabbie doesn't know where it is, but I sit and wait for him to thumb through a map and ultimately deliver me to this cold stone house in some back alley only a few blocks from the station. I buzz in the house but soon discover that Crystal is not home. I consider lying outside the door waiting for her, completely shaken at the prospect of being homeless in this greatest of foreign metropolitans, but eventually the dreadfully cold night time air urged me to call the one other London phone number I have in my digital address book. The number belongs to Jordan, another friend from Georgetown at LSE whom I'm actually going to room with next year, not the least bit because he saved my ass that night. When I called him up, he replied, "Dude I'm soo wasted" to which my response was: "That was not what I wanted to hear." However he did tell me how to get to his place, after catching a cab to Tower Bridge I spotted Jordan on the side of the road and almost jumped out the door. So yeah, I did have a home in London, and did not join the other homeless immigrants for a night of scavenging. Crystal called me at 1:40am to say that she was sorry but had been in a club with no service. I yelled at her.

The next day I took a noon train to Oxford to visit my cousin Shu Yi, who just wrapped up a 1 year Master's program in Environmental Studies. Oxford was only an hour from the city and well worth it, because the colleges are beautiful. Apparently there really is no Oxford University per se, because every student there is part of their individual College first and Oxford U second. Each College has their own campus and courses and everything and members of different colleges have nothing in common except that they're all serious academics and live in the same town. It was a beautiful college town on that early autmn day and the architecture of the place wa superb. I mean, some of the schools are extremely old, and they all have their own distinctive, unique and exquisite designs. I grabbed dinner with Shu Yi after she showed me around the city although I really didn't see any tourist attractions. Nonetheless, it was a very pleasant afternoon and I much enjoyed that town. While I'm not planning on ever studying there, I do envy Bill Clinton and his Rhodes scholarship.

Ok so I get back into London, contact Crystal who picks up my 4th call and in the unclear reception, tells me to go to some Underground station. Great. After finding it on the map, I head over there and give Crystal another 2 calls, and when she does answer, she tells me to walk West to where she and her friends are eating sushi. Then after walking half a mile, she responds that I should have gone East. Finally she texts me the address, and I ask someone where it is, and they kindly point me Southwards. I doubt Crystal is reading this so let you viewers be known, she is in store for a nasty April Fool's trick in the future. Ok anyways, I finally meet up with her, completely exhausted cause I've been toting my bag around this whole time (keep in mind I don't have a place to stay). The night took us many places, beginning with Sake Bombs and ending with getting bombed, but the highlight was definitely when we entered this pub near the Underground station. It had actually been on a whim, we were considering dropping my bag off at her place before going back out before I said we should grab a beer at this place. Inside, I was immediately spotted by Arthur Smith, another Georgetown LSEer whom I had forgotten was in London, and this chance encounter led to loud celebration and a lot of "holy shit" moments. I had also randomly bumped into Arthur at a News Years Eve party at Harvard this year that was totally random too. Jordan also showed up at this pub and it was pretty sweet, and as I got to the bar and got a drink, I turned around to find myself face to face with Eric Bodzin, yet another Georgetowner, this time one who lived down the hall from me last year. This coincidence was even more unexpected and I almost dropped my beers in exclamation. Crazy times.


Ok I gotta run to class and afterwards I'm leaving for Stockholm, Sweden, so yeah this has been pretty nuts. I need to further my stories when I get back, including sightseeing in London, my roommates difficulties coming back from London, and the house alarm that deprived me of an hour of sleep last night.