Spain 11: Which actually takes place in London

I left for London Thursday afternoon. I ditched class fifteen minutes before it ended and hurried to the metro with my full backpack slung over both shoulders. I had stupidly managed to forget my lunch in the classroom, and I couldn't exactly go back as it was still going on, and I would be late. Oh well... The metro is only right down the street from the University, and it's only a twenty-five minute ride to the airport, so I arrived with plenty of time to spare. The line for easyjet flight to Gatswick, London, was fairly long but moving, and I didn't have to check any bags, which was nice. I made my way to the gate and on the way bought chocolate and a sandwich, which I ate at a little table while reading (Oliver Twist right now, which was perfectly appropriate for being in London soon).
The flight was fast, a mere two hours, and I had gotten a seat near the front, so I was one of the first people off the plane. I made my way through the airport, which is pretty well organized, to emerge in the arrivals zone where my brother and JT greeted me. I ran to meet them and hugged Jon for an age. It was so good to see him, the first family I'd seen in two months. It was a surprise too, I hadn't thought Jon would come to the airport to pick me up with Luc, my uncle. I couldn't stop grinning all the way to the car and for the ride to Luc's house.
There, I saw Cecile and Antoine and Benoit, my cousins, and Noelle, my aunt. I wrote an e-mail to my mom saying I'd arrived well, and checked facebook very quickly. Jon and JT and I hung out while Luc prepared dinner. I chatted some with Luc, told him about Valencia and studying abroad, and travel plans, and listened to Jon play guitar in the living room. He's gotten pretty good. Dinner was large and fun; I talked to Benoit about books and soccer and his (hopefully) new job, and to my family about Valencia and things. The dinner was delicious and it was good to see my cousins again. It's been over two years since I've seen most of them, and a little longer in the case of Benoit, I believe.
Since my birthday was only a few days away, Noelle and Cecile had baked me a cake, and they came in singing "Happy Birthday" with it fully lit with all 21 candles blazing. It took me three tries to blow all the candles out, and I think I'll be ok with the day I'm old enough to get the numbers. The cake was delicious, and all I could have asked for for my birthday. I couldn't have been happier to be with family for my "birthday." Afterwards we watched some standup comedy on Youtube (Eddie Izzard) and then hung out a while in the living room. I went to bed fairly early, since we were getting up around 7:30 the next morning to visit Stonehenge, a could of hours south of my uncle's house.
The drive was long, but I didn't ind relaxing and chatting with JT and Jon and my aunt and uncle, and the scenery was nice. England is so different from Valencia, so green and gray and with so many tall thick trees and rolling hills. It's a stark contrast to the water-starved land of Mediterranean Spain. Anyway, we arrived and my uncle graciously paid for us to get in, and we listened to the audioguide tour thing as we walked around the stones. We weren't allowed to go right up to the stones, which one can only do once a year on the summer solstice, but we could get pretty close, and they were gorgeous nonetheless.
Stonehenge, as you would guess, is really just a bunch of stones in a field. On the other hand, it's pretty amazing to think that the stones that stand before you have been there for thousands of years, and that this particular patch of earth has been maintained for longer. Jon and JT lifted me over their heads to make a human-henge, and we discussed what a henge was, and made lots of jokes about druids (that the druids made stonehenge is a myth, not based on fact at all, by the way). We mostly slept in the car on the way back, and arrived at Luc's around 2. We had sandwiches for lunch and hung out for a while before heading into London to meet Pierre (another cousin) and Helen and later, Andrew Sillers!
We left around 5:30 or so and went straight to Pierre's place, "we" being me, Benoit, Jon, and JT. I brought all my stuff with me since I was going to stay the rest of the weekend at Pierre's, closer to the center of London and in that respect slightly more convenient. Pierre picked us up at the train station and back at his place we chilled and talked, I mostly with Helen, until Camille (Pierre's sister) made it down from Manchester to join us. We all left for Brick Lane where we could get some curry and hit some bars before all crashing at Pierre's.
We arrived and found a bar to hang out in while waiting for Andrew to join, who unfortunately had a slightly harder time getting to Brick Lane, which is on the opposite side of London from him, and considering the number of metro closures thanks to the Olympics. Anyway, he made it eventually, and I ran out into the street to meet him, and we hugged, probably to the great amusement and consternation of the general public in the crowded street, for a very long time. He came into the bar and I introduced him to my myriad family, which consisted at this point of three cousins, one brother, a friend and a girlfriend (Helen, who I also consider a part of the family).
Now that we had everyone, we could finally get some food! We were all starving, since it was past 8 by this point I think, which is fairly normal as a time to eat for me but still a little late for England. I could not stop grinning, again, as Andrew and I walked together the several blocks to Brick Lane, chatting about I don't even remember what now. He did cut his hair, but it's mostly grown out by now. At Brick Lane, which is home to what seemed to be a zillion curry houses (read: Indian restaurants) is an interesting place. Outside each curry house there is a man trying to entice people to enter. The one we desired was unfortunately full, but it was not long until we found our way to another, where they made us the nice deal of one free round of beers. I don't really like beer, but this one was alright.
The curry was delicious. I actually had a lamb korma and plain nan bread, both of which were amazing. Jon started sweating a little halfway through his prawn pasanda. I mostly chatted with Andrew, and I hope I was not too antisocial with my family, but I was too excited to see Andrew. I asked him about classes (going well, except he's very concerned about this sociology paper coming up. He's so close to done and excited I think about going home soon. I was not just a little jealous... Seeing Andrew and my brother reminded me so much of home it hurt not being able to see everyone else. We stayed at the restaurant for quite some time, and since my aunt had sent 100 pound to treat us all, we split the difference evenly and paid close to nothing more each. Thank you Anne!!
After the curry, we walked some more and found a bar, where I unwisely let Camille order me anything, which happened to be a beer, which I happened to very much not like. I should have stuck with cider, which is much sweeter and lighter and significantly less bitter. Oh well. Pierre insisted it was one of the best beers to be had, but even as uneducated as I am in these matters, politely disagreed, and wondered what on earth the judges had drank before they chose this as a blue ribbon beer. I pretended to sip, and occasionally accidentally did, while standing with everyone outside where it wasn't so warm but was still very crowded. I chatted more with Andrew and JT but we left not too long after since we all had to take the tube home, in our case two tubes and a bus, and something like that for Andrew as well.
Let me here explain a little bit about London. First of all, it is very big. In comparison with Valencia, well, you really can't compare them because you can walk all the way to the other side of the main part of the city in less than an hour, whereas in London it takes as long in public transportation. In addition, London insists on the upkeep of its tube lines, which means that several lines or sections of lines will be closed on weekends, when people are in no rush to get to work. The result of this is, of course, that more people take the remaining lines, such that you are packed as sardines in a can in any tube, and sometimes have to wait for the next one to get on. As a result, I was slightly less excited about the public transportation in London as Andrew had been. On the other hand, it works, and you can (eventually) get wherever you want to go. So that's good.
Anyway we got back to Pierre's place, and Andrew apparently got back well to his place, and chilled for a bit before going to bed. I think we watched some Family Guy and talked, and went to bed I'm not sure when. I shared the guest room with Camille, and the two of us slept very well on the large queen bed. That night, I dreamed of Meaghan and Ellen (who in my dream were for some reason getting divorced, which seemed to mean that they were no longer going to live together, except that we were all back at UMBC and it was pretty weird) and Mike and Jon and Max and Sarah and everyone else as well.
Camille and I both woke up early and showered, and by the time we were done Pierre was up as well and making coffee. JT and Benoit soon joined the land of the living, and we all waited on Jon for a while before Benoit and Camille went to wake him up. Camille had to head back up to Manchester that day so she left around 11:15 or so, and Helen had work so she had left ages earlier. Eventually, at sometime around noon, we managed to get going and Pierre took Benoit, me, JT, and Jon to a breakfast place close by. We all ordered the full English Breakfast, which consists of eggs, ham, sausage, toast, hash browns, and baked beans, but Pierre decided to cancel his order and head home after a couple of minutes, feeling unfortunately very sick. We believe this was due to the consumption of both alcohol and antibiotics.
Anyway Benoit got us all into the city where we visited the Natural History museum, which was sweet. The thing is massive, and we saw only a small quarter of it. Our initial intention was to see the Darwin Exhibit, which is a temporary one and only around for a few weeks more, but it was sold out for the day. Andrew met us there not too long after and we checked out the rocks section, which was really cool. JT knew a great deal about rocks, having been a civil engineering major and geology minor, and explained to me a lot about rocks and things, which was cool.
We left around 4:30 or something to meet up with Benoit, who had gone to a pub to watch a soccer game his friend was playing in on TV. We met up and decided to walk for a bit and visit Hyde Park. In my brief stay in London this time around, Hyde Park was probably my favorite place. This is probably because it was the least crowded, most relaxed, and Andrew and I had a good chance to talk for a while as we made our way across the park, and get a couple of pictures. It was chilly but not cold, and a really nice day, which is to say overcast but not raining. Of course, since I brought my umbrella to England, it didn't rain at all then entire time I was there. Anyway Jon wanted to see Harods, so we went there next.
Harods defies description. It is a massive mall, essentially, but more intense than any mall or shopping center I've ever encountered, and a zillion times more crowded. I would have mistaken it for the Christmas rush at Macy's in NY. I had to struggle not to get lost from everyone. I was amazed with the variety of things they had. The food place was great, it was like a market, but fancier and bigger. Doormen stood in every archway. We didn't last too long there, being tired from the kind of long day and all the walking, so we went to find a tube station afterwards. We took the same tube as Andrew for a while, but got off earlier to switch, so I had to say goodbye on the train. I wouldn't see him again that weekend, and in fact I won't see him again until I get back home in June. It was hard to walk away.
We got back to Pierre's pretty tired, having stopped on the way for wine and dessert, which I just remembered we never did eat. We sat chatting and watching TV, relaxing and putting our feet up, while Pierre prepared the dough and Benoit helped roll it out. We made individual pizzas, which was awesome. Pierre had almost every imaginable topping out and we could each make our pizzas and we would cook them one at a time in a quick five minutes and then eat them in rounds. I went first, and added a little sauce, onions, peppers, salami, mozzarella, pepper, and oregano. It was delicious, as were they all. We eventually found Harry Potter V on TV and watched that, half mockingly, half explaining the story to Pierre, who did not really seem to care, and trying to remember the books. Eleanor, Benoit's sister and the cousin I traveled to Paris with winter of freshman year, joined us as well from Oxford for the evening. It was good to see her again, even if only for a while.
I spent quite some time online trying to figure out the best way to get to the airport the next morning and at what time I would have to leave. I had not realized that Stansted is the world's worst airport and ridiculous to get to. There is a train that usually goes there, except it was closed Sunday morning (go figure) so instead I had to take a train from near Pierre's to Victoria, where I could catch a bus that would get me there in a little over an hour. Since I am fairly paranoid about being late and missing planes in general, I gave myself a little extra time, and woke up at 7 the next morning. It was good I had said goodbye to everyone the night before because no one was up when I left, except Pierre who drove me to the station, and Helen. One train ride and bus ride later, I was at Stansted, with a ton of time to spare. Also, I am never flying into or out of Stansted ever again in my life. It is probably the worst airport ever. Well, the worst in my experience.
Getting back was sad. I missed my family and Andrew Sillers and my brother. Also there is nothing sadder than getting to an airport and seeing all the happy smiling eager faces there waiting for someone, and you know there's no one waiting for you. It happens I guess. I got back home around 3:45 and no one was in, so I decided to write a bit. It was a really good weekend overall. I was so glad to spend my "birthday" with people I know and love, and to see Andrew Sillers. I am glad I am going back at the end of the semester to see them all again (minus Andrew). It was really good to see Jon and JT, and I am so excited to show them Valencia. Anyway... time to go find some internet to post this, and write thank-you notes. More updates in a couple of weeks perhaps, since Thursday will find me in Alicante, then Mallorca with Max and Isaac, and after that Valencia during Fallas!!