Wow, so I did it. I actually made it through the month of January. I managed my life through Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, credit card crisis', three languages I'm not a native speaker to, and a very shady train station with blue florescent lights.
Not to mention going to London, England after three days of class.
Traveling to the airports around here are always a hassel. Mostly because they're not actually "around here." I had to go to Luzern, to go to Berne, to get to Geneva HB.
The last train from Geneve HB to the airport was around midnight and I, of course, didn't get there until 1 in the morning. I ended up staying at the same hotel that Kristen and I stayed at the weekend before. I also asked for a student discount. The man at the desk laughed at this but he saw my demeanor. He took 20CHF off the price.
I have to say that the next day, I slept in (ie woke up about an hour late), and still made it to the airport on time. It was a beautiful thing.
So I get to London, King's Cross. I'm tired, not sure which language I should attempt, and all I wanted was some Swiss tap water.
After this trip, I learned that no one in London knows anything directionally about London, even the natives.
I eventually get the Generator Hostel London. I was put off immediately by it's Jack-the-Ripper-like location and, what do you know, blue florescent lights. It was huge and there was a bar in the back. I stuck my backpack in a locker and hit the town since the other three in my group wouldn't be coming until well into the evening...
I had a day in London to myself!!
I started with the spiciest Indian food I could find. I think they thought I was European of some sort because when I told them to make it really spicy, it was spicy on the European scale.
I remember going to an Indian restaurant with my dad in Vegas this summer and I told the waitress to make it as spicy as possible. I don't know if they were holding back or not, but I barely cried. My dad was even impressed and he knows his spicy.
Anyway, I ended up walking through the British Museum, the Portrait Museum, Chinatown, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and through the center of everything "theatre". I was so close to seeing Les Miserables for only 15GBP but I didn't want to be late getting back to the hostel and meeting my roomies. Next time, though....
So I went to bed in the disgusting rooms of the Generator. Around 4:00 am Tera bursts through the door with a smile on her face "Hey guys I'm here!". Gloria and I sit up while Tera wrestles to get all her luggage through the door and into the squeaky locker. Uh. 4:00am. Ce soiree la.
No one was able to sleep because there were people screaming, yelling, pounding through the corridors at all hours speaking every language. Gloria apoligized and we found a smaller hotel the next morning, "The Goodwood Hotel: Bed and Breakfast".
Life at the Goodwood was rough: two keys, four girls. That's all I have to say about that.
Okay Model UN. It was much like debate but on a grand scale. About 25 of us had been assigned to a committee last month with a country and that's what we debated. We actually ended up passing the two resolutions for the two topics we had. I represented The Republic of Seychelles. I was talkative at first but then I just had to back off because really, what does Seychelles have to do with the Northwestern Passage?
Tera and I were the only students not attending school in England in our committee. Everyone else was from Leeds, Exeter, London, Sussex but many of them were originally from countries like Malaysia. We had a fun group =)
Even though I didn't speak up as much as I'd anticipated, the research I did beforehand and the debate that went on was really quite fun. It was like a better version of high school CX or Drama. (Speech and Debate was so much more staunch and serious in the US than here...I loved it).
No comments:
Post a Comment