After London I went back to Barcelona for 2 1/2 days so I could retrieve my big suitcase and catch my flight back to Boston. I really didn't take advantage of this time. I bought a final box of my favorite crunchy granola cereal and watched movies on my laptop until my computer died.

The rooms as the hostel, Kabul Backpackers in Plaza Real, don't have outlets. If you want to charge something you have to bring it to the front desk and they charge it for you. I just didn't feel comfortable leaving my laptop with someone else. It was just annoying and inconveinent to say the least. I was in an awful mood the entire time I was in Barcelona. I just wanted to leave. I had counted on being able to use a credit card to pay for my room at the hostel so I could then do something fun with the small amount of euros I had left in cash, but I was only informed once I was at the hostel that they only let you use a credit card if your charge is over 100 euros. My charge was more than I expected, but not over 100 euros. The room cost like 50 euros for the three nights, but then there was a 20 euro key deposit. So I basically had to hand over all of the cash I had when I checked in. Why can't places tell you of these policies ahead of time? When I arrived it was pouring rain and the middle of the night. I was really lucky that I had enough cash to cover the charge. So I was left with about 5 euros in cash for my last few days. I didn't want to take anymore money out because of the fees that are charged per transaction and I didn't want to have lots of money left over. So I let that 5 euros carry me through.

It frustrated me that I didn't have a ton of things I wanted to do in Barcelona. Here was my last chance, my time to say goodbye, and I had no desire. I was just done. The city and I knew we were never going to be friends and had accepted that. I still get annoyed that I don't have a ton of happy fun to share stories about my time in Barcelona. I take a lot of the blame for that. I can't change it, but I am not going to lie about it either.

Eventually the time to leave for the airport came. Besides some invasive extra security, seemingly reserved only for those passengers traveling to the U.S., my travel home was unremarkable. I watched a kid's movie with Spanish audio on the flight back and tried to get comfortable. It was pretty much impossible to enjoy the flight given the time difference messing with my head and just the physical maladies caused by sitting in a seat for 8 1/2 hours.

Much to my surprise, I got my bags and went through customs fairly quickly. I was done before my friend had even arrived. My U.S. cell phone was pretty much dead so I was stuck for a little while before she did show up. We took a cab into Boston and talked about the most random things. When I got that glimpse of the Boston skyline just as the sun was about to set I knew that I was home. I didn't have a job, a place to live, or a real direction in life- but I knew that I was finally somewhere I could feel comfortable on a day to day basis.

For about a week straight I was constantly amazed at how much English was everywhere! I caught myself straining to hear Spanish and being overly excited should I find some being spoken. I realized that my mind was craving the linguistic practice that it had started to take for granted. Since then I have joined an intercambio group here where native Spanish speakers help me with my Spanish and I help them with their English. I also attend a social meetup where everyone speaks in Spanish the entire time. It's not much, but at least I'm doing something to try to keep Spanish a part of my life.

The first thing I did when I was alone that first night back at the place I was staying temporarily was turn on the Spanish tv station and listen to the news in Spanish. I couldn't understand every word, but it was still very comforting. It amazed me that the very thing that had for so long made me so nervous and anxious and feel so inadequate and an outsider was now what calmed me. In the 6 weeks or so since that first night my confidence in the language has definitely decreased, but I have not given up hope of being able to keep up the work that is necessary.

I am seriously considering joining the Peace Corps. It is a very huge commitment, but I have a shot at being sent somewhere where my Spanish skills are very useful and I want to make a difference in the world. Right now without a job and a purpose I feel like I am wasting time. This is the perfect time for me to do something somewhat irrational and embark on another adventure...

London Part 4

I didn’t eat that much food in London that was anything special. However there was a jacket potato place called Spudulike that was kind of awesome. It was a fast food place that only sells baked potatoes. They have a ton of different toppings to choose from: beans, chicken tikka, chili con carne, cheese, coleslaw, cottage cheese and chives, egg mayonnaise, prawn cocktail, & tuna and sweet corn mayonnaise- or any combination thereof. (That’s right, I copied the menu down into my notebook in order to reproduce it here. How’s that for forethought?) I had cheese and coleslaw because I couldn’t pick just one. I knew I wasn’t doing my body any favors as there was an ad for Weight Watchers right on the menu! It was like, enjoy our food and then go take care of yourself afterwards.

Speaking of fast/fat food, I went up to the Camden Markets one day and there was a food cart with the most intense donuts I have ever seen. I walked by on my way into the huge market and the drool was instantaneous. At 2 pounds each though, they were way too expensive for me. The market was gigantic. It reminded me of a flea market with tons of food vendors (meals from every part of the world it seemed like) and off beat little stores. I saw a guy trying to sell Troll dolls for upwards from 30 pounds each! I have collected Trolls since I was a kid, so I was astounded to see that people would pay that kind of money for them. Part of me was angry that I did not have any to sell and yet part of me was angry that the price was so high because I wanted to buy one and have it be the British Troll in my collection! After a little while the snow started to come down and all of the outside vendors rushed to get their products inside and to close up shop. I walked by the donut cart again and he was so desperate to get rid of the donuts that he was selling them 4 for 1 pound! I couldn’t pass that up. I picked out 4 huge donuts that were flavors like black forest cherry and triple chocolate pecan. I pretty much had to eat two right away because the bag broke, and then I ate the other two later on in the week- I think they each served as lunch. Awful, I know. When it came to food sometimes I often ate what was cheapest, which was usually the least healthy. Once my life is somewhat settled in Boston and I have a steady source of income I promise I will join a gym to work off all of my vacation padding.

I tried to get some exercise when I went into Harrods, a gigantic very upscale department store in downtown London. This place made me feel like the poorest person in the world. Whilst walking through the food court a waiter burst out singing Italian opera. In the pharmacy nothing was labeled with a price. I wondered if they were operating on the “If you need to ask you can’t afford it” principle. After some shuffling of my feet and deep breaths, I did actually ask for a price check on something. I actually tried to fake an English accent, thinking that if I could appear to be somewhat of a local I would be judged less harshly. I didn’t want to be seen as little miss tourist, but I probably was anyway.

It was most likely just my own racism acting up, but I started feeling like most of the employees of the store were minorities, mostly Asian and seemingly of African descent. (I almost said African-American, as that is what has been programmed in my head to think when I see a black person. It was interesting to be in London which is much much much more racially diverse than any other European city I’ve visited and see black people and have to remind myself that they probably weren’t African-American.) I think it was my own discomfort with dealing with notions of race and class that made me exceedingly uncomfortable when the black woman bathroom attendant was serving me and a bunch of other white ladies. I don’t like anyone doing things for me that I can do for myself, but in the context of a super rich department store I especially didn’t want someone of a minority race waiting on me. It just felt wrong. I hate feeling white privilege. I look too much into everything. Clearly.

Sure there were great things about Harrods, plenty of insane things to look at and fantasize about one day owning. There was even a section called Pet Kingdom, which had designer clothing for pets and pet sized dressing rooms. I fell in love in The Writing Room where all of these pens were in glass cases just begging to be used to write the next best seller. Pens should be used, not stared at! I wanted to liberate them from their cages! But I didn’t have hundreds and hundreds of dollars to spend on something that probably wouldn’t even functionally work for me as I’m left handed and always smear ink from regular pens.

The environment was just strange to me. London itself seems very modern when you walk down the streets. It reminds me a lot of Boston with the juxtaposition of buildings and parks. The last thing I wanted to feel was more class distinctions and exclusion.

The one thing I knew would make me feel like part of this city would be to find some improv. My withdrawal symptoms had been lessened by the improv in Madrid, but improv in my native language would have to help a million times more. I found a place that was having an improv performance all the way up in Little Venice and decided to give it a try. Again, I was taken aback at how critical I was of the improvisers’ performances. Because the show was entirely in English I could really pick apart the show and recognize both its flaws and successes. It amazed me how even in England when the audience is asked for a style of film the first response is always film noir. Why the hell do people want to see film noir so much? It is my least favorite genre (and that’s saying a lot if you know me, that I’d rather do fantasy or sci-fi than film noir) and in my opinion one of the hardest to keep up throughout an entire scene. In addition, when asked for a location, the audience wanted Montana. It was interesting to see that these folks were just as clueless about how Montana really was as I am. All of those states in the middle of the country just sort of blend together for me. And yet because the setting was Montana, the actors put on their “best” American accents and really amped up American stereotypes. They almost seemed like they were doing too good of a job!

I’d have to say the most unexpected experience I had in London was when I went to the Hard Rock Café. The HRC in London was the first, and as such has the most impressive and extensive collection of memorabilia- so much so that there is a separate room for it called The Vault. You can take a free tour of The Vault as they start every 20 minutes from inside the gift shop. It just so happened that a group of Italian tourists were waiting at the same time as me for the next tour to start. The found out that the tour guide was from Italy and pretty much demanded that the tour be given in Italian. The guide then asked me where I was from and when I told him the U.S. he said that he would have to give the tour in English because we were in an English speaking country and not everyone in the tour group could understand Italian. I don’t know why, but I offered up the compromise of having the tour in Spanish and much to my surprise the Italians accepted! They would rather have the tour in Spanish than English- and the tour guide obliged! The tour was given in Spanish and I understood everything. I talked to the guide afterwards and he said that was the first time he gave the tour in Spanish, that he barely knew the language itself but had recited the script so many times that certain words just stuck with him. We had an interesting conversation about expectations of language availability in that the Italians expected to have access to their language even though they were in an English speaking country. It reminded me of my frustration when I was in Italy and there was no English translation of the information for some of the museums. I expected Italy to cater to my language, and yet it seemed different somehow, more ridiculous that Italians would expect to encounter Italian in London. I was happy that my knowledge of Spanish reduced some of the pressure on me as it would’ve been really awkward to have all of the Italians starring at me disapprovingly while the tour was given in English because it would’ve been all my fault. At the same time it made me question the superiority of English as a language. In all of the countries I have visited where English is not the dominant language, it was always available in many venues- along with several other European languages. Yet in London it was very rare for any other language to be present. The expectation that anyone who wants to visit London should learn English is interesting to me, as you would think its proximity to mainland Europe would necessitate a more tolerant view towards a multi-linguistic society.

At the end of my time in London I actually had some extra cash on me. I had taken full advantage of the relationships between Bank of America and Barclays (NO FEES FOR ATM TRANSACTIONS!) and gotten a little carried away with withdrawals. I treated myself to a nice meal at the airport and bought an extra box of strepsils. As I waited for my plane back to Barcelona I knew that my adventure had more or less come to an end. The 2 ½ days I would be in Barcelona would be spent organizing and planning for my triumphant return stateside. There was little I wanted to do in the city. Being away from Barcelona really taught me how much I didn’t like the place. I had no desire to return, but it was a necessary next step in my European adventure.

London Part 3

It is interesting to think about how different countries report on other countries’ problems and tragedies. I went to an art gallery in which an entire floor of the space was an installation piece depicting each American soldier that has been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The artist draws a portrait of each person onto an index card and writes details such as name and hometown. The index cards are colored to match the deceased’s skin tone. So you walk into this enormous room and there are different colored cards all around the room from floor to ceiling. They are currently arranged chronologically by date of death. Theoretically if you knew someone who died in Iraq or Afghanistan you could go into the room and locate that person’s card. However, many of the cards are far above the eye level of even a relatively tall person and since much of the writing on the cards was done in pencil, it was often difficult to read. I don’t understand why the cards aren’t better preserved. I wondered if the families of the soldiers knew that this installation existed. I was angry that a makeshift memorial to Americans killed in action was located in England. How does that make any sense? I feel like everyone in America should see the installation, should see how many cards are up on the walls. Numbers in death tolls don’t mean much until you see a physical representation. Those fallen soldiers deserve to be remembered, but especially remembered by the fellow countrymen that they died in order to protect. (This isn’t the time or place for me to get into a debate about the merits of these wars, much less the concept of war in general, but I just had to put it out there that a representation of fallen American soldiers like this should be made accessible in America. End of story.)

After Madrid I was a bit hesitant to let the weather goad me into spending a ton of time in museums, but the abundance of free exhibits drew me in out of the cold. At most places general entry to the museum was free. Best part about free entry to museums is of course- free access to restrooms! London, you get an A + for the cleanest and most convenient restrooms I have ever had the privilege to use in all of Europe (and most of what I’ve seen in the U.S.). One of my most important tidbits of travel advice is to always take note of where there are free public restrooms available as you are walking through a new city. You never know when the need might strike!

I managed to get to the Tate Modern Art Museum, The Museum of London, The National Portrait Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art and The Museum of Brands, Marketing and Packaging. That last one was mainly just an odd curiosity since my mom works in the packaging industry. I never knew there could be an entire museum dedicated to the different ways that goods have been packaged (and thus advertised)- such as designs and common motifs. The museum of was arranged by decade. It was very unnerving to see a decade I lived through, the 90s, depicted in a museum with products that I consumed on display like relics. It was the first time that I had a real connection with what was being presented as history. The vision in my head of school children walking through in 10 or 20 years and being perplexed by a Spice Girls thermos was both highly amusing and terrifying.

One of the most interesting things I saw in a museum in all of Europe was actually in the British Museum. The Rosetta Stone was just as impressive as I thought it would be. I felt honored to be able to look at something of such significance. Seeing evidence of the plurality of languages dating back to 196 B.C. is an indescribable experience. It’s just another example of history becoming something more than words in a book. Once you are actually sharing space with a famous artifact, you develop a greater sense of appreciation and wonder for it. The stone itself was a decree from the government and it was written in hieroglyphics, Demotic (everyday Egyptian), and Greek (the language of the ruling government). So as Greek is still a known language, the stone could be used to unlock the code of hieroglyphics after it was discovered in 1799. However, because the stone was only a fragment it took 25 years to decipher the hieroglyphics. Then people could translate all of the hieroglyphic writings that had been found over centuries. The exhibit said that this breakthrough allowed us “to understand the past in its own words.” The importance of language is something that keeps coming up for me throughout my time in Europe. The Rosetta Stone is number one on the British Museum’s list of must see artifacts and judging from how everyone made a bee-line to its case shortly after entering, I’m not the only one drawn to the stone and mystified by its power. There is an appreciation for the different languages of the past. When a language dies out, an entire culture is lost with it. That is why everyone can’t “just speak English” like so many frustrated tourists kept exclaiming on the streets of Spain, Italy, France etc. And as much as Catalan has annoyed me, I must realize that if the people of Barcelona suddenly stopped speaking it- the Catalan culture would be irreparably damaged. Everyone is entitled to their language. It’s not easy to balance the need to communicate with others and the need to preserve one’s own culture. It’s not possible for everyone to know every language. So where is the compromise? I’d have to say that Americans typically don’t compromise at all. We want everyone to speak English so they understand us. We believe that English should prevail because it would be easiest for us.

America and England are obviously two different countries, but there were some similarities other than language that comforted me as I prepared to return to Boston. I missed CVS so much while I was in Spain. Those sorts of pharmacies just don’t exist. But in London they have a chain called Boots that is just like CVS, except better because they have Strepsils, bigger Cadbury chocolate crème eggs and chicken flavored potato chips! I brought some Strepsils back and savored more than my fair share of huge Cadbury eggs and delectable chicken chips. The only other place I’ve seen chicken flavored potato chips is in New Zealand, where a large part of my heart still resides. So I was comforted by Boots on many levels, as it was both familiar in its design but also extraordinary in its product line.

I was most satisfied when I found a place that sells bubble tea. I had been dying for some bubble tea the entire time I was in Spain but no one there even understood what I was talking about. I had a feeling that I might be able to find some when I stumbled upon the Chinatown section of London. Not only did I find a bubble tea place, but they had a flavor that I haven’t tried before! The cashier must’ve thought I was crazy because I was so overjoyed at my culinary discovery. The watermelon flavor was delicious and the tapioca balls were cooked to perfection. At the time it was great, but it sort of took away something that I was looking forward to do when I got back to Boston. Now I didn’t miss bubble tea that much and had to try to find something else small and silly to pin my homeward bound hopes upon.

London Part 2

My degree is in English literature. I have spent countless hours reading, contemplating, interpreting and writing literature. It is pretty much a requirement for anyone with a BA in English to know and have some sort of appreciation for Shakespeare. Even if you don’t buy into all the hype, you have to recognize that he was wicked talented and his plays continue to have significance in modern times. (All you have to do is take stock of the modern movies that are updated versions of his stories.) In order to graduate from Northeastern with a BA in English you have to take a class devoted to Shakespeare. In summer 2007 I took my Shakespeare class with an amazing professor who tried with everything she had to inspire her students to enjoy the bard. I’ll admit that I needed cliffnotes to clarify some things, but overall her enthusiasm really helped me get over my aversion to Shakespeare. She told us about the Globe Theatre and what a great experience it was for her when she was able to go to London and see the reconstructed theatre in person. Later on in the term, a girl in my class took a random vacation to London and came back with pictures and lots of information about the Globe. I knew from then on that I had to go see the theatre for myself. It was one of those “someday, someday” type of goals.

I can’t adequately explain what it feels like to actually accomplish one of those types of goals. The first real thing I did in London was walk over to the Globe Theatre and take the tour. The walk over was great, as I walked by Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and then across the Westminster Bridge. It felt so good to be walking, even though it was about 25 degrees out the entire time I was there. My only regret is not getting a picture of myself inside the theatre. That’s another drawback of traveling alone, you don’t have someone you trust to take your picture anywhere. I can take as many pictures of things as I want, but it’s not the same as having proof that you were somewhere with your smiling face in the frame.

It was also disappointing that I couldn’t see a show at the Globe. Because it is an open-air theatre, they can’t have performances in the winter. I suppose I will have to find the time and money to get back there in warmer weather.

Don’t feel too bad for me; I was able to see some Shakespeare in London. Twelfth Night was playing down in the theatre district and I scored a great seat for only 5 pounds (about 9 dollars) as a student rush ticket. I only vaguely knew the plot of Twelfth Night from watching the entertaining but woefully juvenile She’s The Man (starring Nickelodeon’s own Amanda Bynes). However, I had a wonderful time and was just so happy that I had the opportunity to see a Royal Shakespeare Company production. The performances and the set design were dazzling and you really can’t beat the ticket price. It felt great to do something a little geeky that I wanted to do and not have had to con/bribe/beg someone else to do it with me. Could I have seen a Shakespeare play in the U.S.? Of course. But how often would I actually make plans to see such a play, to actually seek out the opportunity and then act upon it when I’m not on vacation? Seeing the play represented me being able to do whatever I wanted on MY vacation. For those two hours or so I didn’t have to think about anything other than the action unfolding before me. My life ceased to exist and I was able to escape… far far away until the play ended and I was shoved into the frigid air…

London cannot handle cold weather and its associated properties. For one, there was a severe shortage of rock salt and thus walking anywhere in the city was often difficult and dangerous- especially across most of the multitude of bridges over the Thames River. I was so disappointed after I walked for over an hour over snow and ice to get to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard and it was cancelled due to ice. The city will let everyone walk about town over untreated ice but the guards can’t do it for a few feet?

Somehow I managed to be in London in the freezing cold with intermittent snowfall for a full 7 days and never take the tube. I wanted to make the most of walking around in order to see things. If you spend all of your time on the subway you never get a sense of where things in the city really are. I think I was just so happy to be in control of the map again that I wanted to prove to myself that I could get myself from point A to point B multiple times in a row. When you start out walking each morning from the same spot and walk back to the same place each night, you do get a sense of where you are located in relation to the city in general and feel a certain connection to what very temporarily is your neighborhood. Even though the hostel lost power and water at times (the pipes froze!) I still very much felt at home there. I just stole some blankets off unoccupied beds and relied on my laptop’s battery. The hostel was the place where I could relax after walking for several hours and seeing amazing things each day.

Despite the weather, I did walk in Hyde Park and peruse the Kensington Gardens. I saw the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and was deeply moved by the memorial to the people who died in the terrorist attack back in July 2005 on London’s subway and bus systems. I felt a little strange going to a memorial for people that I didn’t know, and in a country that I wasn’t a citizen of- but in a way it comforted me to have a place to reflect on all of the innocent people who have been murdered in such awful terrorist acts. I do not personally know anyone who died in the September 11^th attacks, but I know people who know people and I think most people can agree that we were all affected by it just by seeing it happen on TV. I think it is important to have a place to go and remember and reflect.

Madrid has a memorial to the people that died in the terrorist attack on the train lines in March 2004. That was also a place prime for reflection and remembrance. I did feel like an intruder there, that a memorial should not be a tourist attraction, but at the same time I greatly benefited from being able to take a step back from a vacation and think about the reality of the world we live in today. I am grateful that I was able to visit the memorials in Madrid and London and hope that things will get resolved and going on a memorial in New York. As I have traveled to more places and gotten to see the similarities and differences, I realize that the relationship between countries is really complex. The world is getting smaller thanks to technology and improved democratic sentiments but the concept of insider vs. outsider will always remain.

When I visited these memorials I felt like I had masqueraded as an insider in order to receive something that my own group cannot yet provide for me- a physical place of peace. I do wonder what someone who saw me at the memorial in London thought of me. I do not pray, but I did bow my head and close my eyes for a moment as I stood next to the plaque with the names of the deceased. I was careful not to step on the earth that had been built up for the memorial. I treated the place with the utmost care and respect and I hope that those actions make up for the fact that I was co-opting another country’s tragedy in order to process feelings about my own.

London Part 1

I was absolutely fried when I got to the Madrid airport to catch my flight to London. The flight was delayed by about an hour and I was ticked off because I figured it would be a given that I wouldn’t make the bus I had reserved to get me into London. There is a bus that goes from London Stansted airport into the city itself, and the stop is pretty close to where my hostel is so I figured it was my best choice. The airport is a good 1 ½ hours from the city, that’s why it is cheaper to fly in/out of Stansted than either Heathrow or even Gatwick. If you wanted to get the cheapest price for the bus and guarantee yourself a seat, you had to book online in advance. I thought I had given myself plenty of time to catch the bus, but a delayed flight was not in my plans.

I wandered up and down the halls of the Madrid airport, trying to amuse myself. I realized that I hadn’t purchased a Madrid postcard and was really upset. The one souvenir I allow myself is a postcard from every city I visit. I had got so caught up in doing things in Madrid and then things got crazy busy towards the end that I had forgotten to stop at one of the numerous newsstands or souvenir shops to buy my 50 euro cents or less postcard somewhere in the city. I finally found a shop in the back corner of the terminal that sold postcards and bought the one that I determined was least ugly. Something about not having a nice postcard from Madrid really upset me. It was a little thing that just put my emotions over the top. I kept choking back tears as I waited in line for the flight to board. I was so tired and emotional. I just wanted to be somewhere familiar and comfortable. It was very difficult to get used to being alone again. There was no one to share my frustrations with and no one that could attempt to get me excited about going to a city I have always wanted to visit.

London was the one city that I knew I had to see. There was nothing that was going to keep me from London. Everything else I had seen and done was great, and I am very thankful for all of the opportunities I had, but every other city was just a whim. London was the city that I had dreamed of. I remember when I was in fifth grade I planned my “English speaking countries tour” in which I would visit every country that had English as an official language. The first time I studied abroad I was able to cross New Zealand and Australia off the list, and then two years ago for my birthday I made it up to Canada. But none of these countries had the same mystifying hold over me as London, England did.

I was cranky on the plane. I cried in the bathroom and was inexcusably rude to the flight attendant and the mother and daughter next to me. Well, they probably didn’t think I was being rude, but I could definitely notice a difference between how I usually act and how I was behaving at the time. I flew with Ryanair, which is a low cost airline with not the best reputation. It wasn’t awful, but the seats were plastic, the air conditioning/heat was messed up and even though I’m only five feet tall my knees were squished against the seat in front of me. I was in a pretty judgmental and unforgiving mood. It infuriated me that none of the announcements on board were made in Spanish. How can you operate a flight and not include information in the language of the departing city? The expectation that anyone flying to England would be proficient enough in English actually angered me. It is interesting how your views on language can change after you’ve been in the linguistic minority yourself.

When we landed I rushed off the plane as soon as I could. There was still a chance I could make the bus if passport control and baggage claim didn’t take too long. For once I was happy to be an American citizen as passport control was separated into two lines- one for EU residents and one for everyone else. Me and three other people from my flight went to the “everyone else” line, therefore I got through rather quickly. It took a little while to get my bag from baggage claim, and then there was a long line to get through customs. I was starting to get really nervous that I wouldn’t make the bus while waiting in that line. The area was hidden by opaque walls, so I couldn’t see what the customs process in the UK entailed. In New Zealand, it was a big deal, everyone was interviewed and bags were screened. In Spain, it is almost non-existent- as if you have nothing to declare you just walk right out of the airport. All of a sudden the line rushed forward and I saw that there really was no customs here either, in a few minutes I was in the lobby of the airport and had to find where the busses pick up passengers.

The signage was awful and I went around in circles a few times before I realized that I could easily ask anyone that asked at the airport- as I was in a country that spoke English! I ended up finding the bus stop by myself, but it was interesting that I had the most difficulty finding where I needed to go in a place that shares my native language.

The bus hadn’t even shown up yet. I was there at 6:25 and it was supposed to leave at 6:35. I was initially happy that I had made it, but then got increasingly worried as the time passed and no bus arrived. There were other people waiting for the bus so I knew I was in the right place, but it was still pretty annoying. London was a good twenty degrees cooler than Madrid so my body was in shock. I hurried to find my hat and scarf and was a little taken aback when I could see my breath in the air.

Eventually the bus did arrive (nearly an hour late) and I got into the city and I even walked from the bus stop to the hostel without any problems. (Thank you googlemaps!) The hostel was pretty quiet and empty because it was the off-season. The guy at the front desk was really helpful and I was just so happy to finally have a place to rest. Initially I had booked a 7 person mixed sex room because it was the same price as a 10 bed female only room. But when the guy led me up to the room I saw that there were 5 guys already in the room and the other bed would remain empty for the night. I was offered the option of going to an all girls room and I decided that would be best. It was a 10 bed room but because the hostel was only about half full there were only 6 girls there that night. I met people from a bunch of different countries and was happy that they were the type of people who wanted a quiet place to rest just like I did.

Wireless internet was only 9 pounds for an entire week so I took advantage of that and was on the internet for the next 3 hours or so. I had so much email to catch up on and honestly was so happy to have the time to read CNN and check facebook. I even watched a TV show because it just felt so good to do something normal and low key. When you are traveling for so long at one time your vacation starts to feel like work because you are always pressured to be doing something extraordinary. But now that I was by myself I could do whatever I wanted- even if that was nothing. So my first night in London I ordered some thai food from the bar downstairs and went on the internet. It was glorious. I slept for a solid nine hours and then was completely ready to accomplish my main goal for London- go to the Globe Theatre.