hull in my head

The problem with planning your day around how much sleep you expect to get on the airplane is that if you can’t fall asleep on the airplane you’ve sorely miscalculated. After having done this two days in a row I arrived in London completely shattered.* Excitement carried me through however and after immigrating, I took a 100 mile per Xpress from the airport to Paddington station. The previous day Josh had described the train perfectly by saying; “if you want your first non-American experience to be one of those “wow this is way nicer and faster than any train in the United States and all it does is shuttle people to and from the airport”, “Europe rocks America every day of the year” moments, this is your chance…”. In fact the 15 minute ride almost went by too quickly.

Once at Paddington I schlepped my bags around to a storage facility, and then exited the station. Outside I took in a deep breath of air and said to myself: “I’m in England. I am in bloody England!!!” For the first few minutes I couldn’t help but have this cheesy grin plastered to my face. I had arrived.

First on my agenda was to get the full English breakfast but I didn’t want to go to a place that seemed too touristy. I wanted the real deal, so I wandered the back streets away from the busy station until I found a restaurant called the Rob Roy. Inside was your stereotypical (but really nice) hostess running the quiet place with only the cook. I say stereotypical because she called me “love” every other word. In fact she began by saying: ’ello love. What can I get you?” I had found just the place I was looking for!

I ate my breakfast outside taking in the beautiful London weather and of course the scenery. Then I just explored. I walking around into all manner of shops and neighbor hoods, saw the marble arch, and took a rest in Hyde park, and more. It was interesting, they have all these lawn chairs set up in Hyde so I assumed it was just a service they provided there. But after sitting in one for a minute a Jamaican fellow came by to collect money from me. It was £1.50 for two hours. £1.50 just to sit? It almost surprised me as much as the 20 pence I had to pay to use the bathroom. I was too tired to argue though and paid him. I just sat for a while, people watching, and then fell asleep for a quick moment. When I woke up I made my way back to Paddington to take the underground to Tottenham, where I was being put up by a friend of a friend of a friend whom I had previously never met.

On the way I passed a homeless looking black man passing out fliers. I didn’t accept one but as I walked away he noticed I had Watchtower and started a conversation. He was surprised to learn that I was American ad then told me that he doesn’t understand why Americans are Christians, after all Jesus didn’t ever go to America. When I asked when Jesus came to England he began singing a song as proof. Much to his disbelief I didn’t recognize it. I told him to give me some slack, after all I’d only been living in England for less then a day. To which he then began to wonder who sent me to England. His theory became that I was CIA using being a Christian as a cover when really I was sent by George Bush personally to spy, assassinate, a steal. To which I added “and trim the hedges!” Then I just went with it and had some fun. In fact I ended the conversation by saying “I’ve been compromised” and then rolled and jumped away in my best Our Man Flynn fashion. I could hear him laughing as I crawled down the street.

By the time I hand finally reaching Tottenham later that night I felt years older. Not just because my feet were blistered and extremely sore (I learned never to wear new boots while traveling for three days) or that my whole body was exhausted from travel and lugging my bags around. Mainly I felt older because I had successfully gone from Seattle to London alone. In London I had single handedly taken almost 150 pounds of luggage on a train, 3 subways, and a bus, and up countless flight of stairs to get to where I needed to. I began to feel like I could accomplish anything, I could travel anywhere.

I arrived at Amal’s house around six. He is a wonderfully likeable fellow with a good sense of humor and obviously generous to let me stay for the next few days. He is also a good cook and I hungrily ate his rice and shrimp medley. Then I took a much needed hot bath and felt a million times better. By 8:30 I had fallen fast asleep and didn’t wake up the next day until almost 1 PM. I told you I was tired.

*Shattered: Exhausted, Wiped out, etc.