Let's Catch Up

(I wrote this Sunday night. As you may calculate, I did not find an internet cafe the next day.)

Right now, I’m in a room at the St. Giles Hotel in London, where the internet is not free nor cheap, so I’ll have to post this tomorrow, perhaps from an internet cafe rumored to be nearby. Obviously I am safe and sound, although I’m putting that status in jeopardy by staying up to write this. It’s only 8:06 (20:06), but I haven’t slept since Friday night.

I departed my dear parents and Chicago Saturday morning, and had a forgettable flight to Newark. Lots of crying children and slow-moving elderly. Most notably, the combination of pressure changes and sinus clogging made landing painful, and from then until the lift-off of my next flight, my right ear’s hearing was inhibited, as though I had an ear-plug in it.

Newark was neat, not for itself but for its proximity to New York City, where I have never been. I think I saw the Statue of Liberty from the interterminal AirTrain. But who cared, it was all England! England! England!

I spent awhile wandering around Newark Int’l half deaf, looking for the Virgin Atlantic check-in. I found it and a woman with an IFSA name tag; my passport was checked; I stood in line; my passport was checked; I took my boarding pass to security; my passport was checked. Initially, I felt a little silly with my new passport pouch, but it was really useful.

Other students gathered, and we all kind of danced around each other. Someone named Joe asked me if I played basketball (I don’t). He and I talked here and there between check-in and the gate. He studies history.

Security searched my bag on suspicion, I overheard, of “tubes.” Instead, they discovered my bag of carrots.

My ear was still bad, so I really wasn’t social, I admit. Talking felt weird, even the little that I did with Joe. It felt like half of me was talking, and my other half just heard the echo. So, for most of the four-hour layover in Newark, I sat by myself diddling with my computer. There also they tried to charge me for internet use. Oh, they.

But, gee, let’s get to Europe already. So, there was a plane ride on Virgin Airways, six hours about. They gave us all little gift packs with a toothbrush, a single serving of toothpaste, some other small things. They served dinner. My seatmate (only one) was an Italian, not part of the IFSA program, and he ordered white wine with the chick’n’n’rice, so I did the same (after all, he is Italian, he ought to know his wine). During take-off, he took up most of the window with his head, turning to me only to say, “What a great view!”

I watched The Wackness, which is a pretty new movie that I wanted to see in theaters. It’s good—I hesitate to say “very good” because I may have given it more credit for its soundtrack. It is set in New York in 1994 (i.e., B.I.G.). I couldn’t sleep because I wasn’t tired or comfortable. As the movie was ending, the Italian got up to go to the bathroom, so I paused it and looked out the window. We were over the Atlantic at this point, at night. I have never seen stars so bright, not even at Holden. No wonder they used to use them to find direction. I don’t think our plane was using celestial navigation, however.

As soon as we took off, my ears popped right again, but upon landing, they both—both!—found earplugs. Because of the weather, which was very rainy, the plane had to land at some intermediate place, from where we had to take buses to the terminal. That bus ride felt about 20 minutes long. But it was my first inside perspective on British roads. I kept waiting for our bus and the oncoming cars to suddenly switch places, but they never did.

We got our stuff, checked customs no sweat, waited for everyone else to do the same, changed some money, got on a bus to the hotel. That was my first real view of London. Houses here, rather than being designed from the front of the property to the back, are designed to go side-to-side. I wonder what’s behind them. Red lights turn red and yellow before they change to green. London’s big. Their traffic signs, indicating what will happen at the fast-approaching roundabout, are incomprehensible to me.

Evidently no one in the program is studying engineering, because once in the hotel, all of us with all of our luggage filled a very small space and tried to move, which didn’t work for a long time. By now exhausted, I showered and lay down for a few minutes without sleeping, and then went to lunch with three other students. We found pub food.

I walked Oxford street—Europe’s most businessed store strip—with my hotel roommate, who is also named Alex (someone’s joke). Then I skipped over to the British Museum for an hour, only long enough to find it and find some stuff in it and take some pictures. I am pretty sure the things I was passing hurriedly in search of bigger things are all important, famous, old, etc. I’ll go back.

Then the group went out for dinner, which was pretty good, and here I am, writing this thing for an hour and listening to more B.I.G. Now I’m going to bed.