Today has been a long day. I'm so exhausted! But, to start at the beginning:
My sociology presentation was at 11. My partner (who I've yet to meet) failed to show--no big surprise there. I presented to my TA and the two other students who were in class. So...I didn't stand up, etc., like I would if I was giving a presentation in the U.S. It would have been awkward. Anyway, I guess it went well, but how would I know?
After class, Melisa met me, and we went down to the pier. She brough egg salad sandwiches--they were great but made me miss my mom, who makes the best egg salad. We ate our sandwiches down on the pier, and then we visited the cute little shops (again) and the tea room. I had hot chocolate, rather than tea, and a shortbread cookie. Good choices, for sure. Then, we wandered around town, finished packing, and hopped on our train to London.
This is already terrifying. I feel sick to my stomache, and I'm afraid it'll probably stay that way all break. There are so many uncertainties. We did make some friends on the train though, Jess and Matty. They were hilarious, and we enjoyed the train ride with them. They told us all about the UK, and we told them all about the US. When we got to London, they should us where the tube was, and how to use it.
We took the tube from London Euston Square to King's Cross, then changed trains to get to Brixton. The tube wasn't bad, but--AFTER booking our hostel--we kept hearing about how shady the Brixton area is, which was not reassuring at all. When we got off the tube, we followed the directions (given to us by our hostel) on how to find our hostel. We got hopelessly lost. It was not good!
We wandered up and down the street, to no avail. It was ridiculously frustrating, and dark, and sketchy. Someone tried to sell us pot; another guy tried to start up a conversation (but we definitely ignored him). Some concert got out, and there were loads of pot-smoking, crazily-dressed people that we had to fight our way through. I'm not kidding. I saw more than one guy wearing a tutu, which is strange because everyone else was dressed for a rock concert.
We asked a cop for directions. She put us on a bus, which got us nowhere. We finally got ahold of Lauren, who google-mapped it, and helped us find out way. I had my GPS, but it struggled to find satellites--and really, I wasn't comfortable pulling out my GPS here. Very, very sketchy. Anyway, Lauren helped us get to our hostel.
It's a party here. No lie. One loud, crazy party. That's what the ground floor of our hostel is. We couldn't figure out how to get in, so we stood in line for the party. They pat you down, and search through your stuff before they let you in to the party.
They didn't search us, since we were staying at the hostel rather than partying, and they had a security guard take us to the bar to check in. The check-in guy/bartender showed us to our room--it's a "public" room with 6 beds, but it actually feels really safe. We have to go through three doors with different keypad locks to get in.
Then we waited. We intended to meet Noelia at the airport, but when her plane landed, we were still lost. We gave her directions to Brixton, and told her that we'd meet her at the tube station since this part of town is creepy. But the tube closed, and she had to take a series of night buses to get here. By 2 am, Noelia still wasn't here. The party is still going strong. But the upstairs is actually pretty quiet, and sleeping won't be too hard, because I'm pretty exhausted.
We're worried about tomorrow. We chose to pick up our Stonehenge tickets at the Luton airport, because none of the other options were familiar, but we have no idea how to get to the airport. And it turns out that the bus leaves from Victoria Station, which is a lot closer than the airport. We're worried that we won't have time to get to Luton and then Victoria before our bus leaves at 7:30 am. So we're just going to go to the Victoria bus station and explain. I've got our booking confirmation, etc. If they can't issue our tickets from there, we may have to give up on Stonehenge.
I'm trying not to let it all get to me. This is all part of the experience. I won't get to see everything I want, but it'll be ok. I wish I could stop feeling sick, but it's hard. I feel awfully lost. I just want to call everyone, and hear their voices. I did call Mom, which was good. She knows I'm safe now.
Ok. Time to wait for Noelia to get here, then a few hours of sleep before we get up in the morning. This will be worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment