That afternoon, I went to meet William, someone I had met through couchsurfing. I had already decided that hostels were no longer an option (during the summer in London-an already expensive city-AND during the olympics, the price of accommodation was unbelievable), so I searched on Couch Surfing for someone to host me. I noticed William right away because with all his friends, positive reviews, pictures, and helpful information, he definitely stuck out from the rest.
William
met me at the train station with his bike. My first impression was that he is
extremely outgoing, very in his element talking to people and making new
friends, and was certainly no stranger to couch surfing. We walked to find some
rental bikes and all the while William chatted to me as if we were old friends.
He’s really into bike riding-he actually owns, like, three bikes, but I’m much
more comfortable with both feet on the ground. I’m uncoordinated at the best of
times, but put me on a REALLY heavy bike with 10 extra pounds on my back and
before you know it, I’m on the ground at the edge of a really busy London
intersection pressed between the pavement and the previously mentioned really
heavy bike. Several people ran over to check if I was okay while William stood
at his bike looking amused. They picked me up and dusted me off and I
(bravely) got back on my bike and followed William home (about 50 meters
behind, sweating) through Hyde Park. “You know for a city with famously shit
weather, there are a lot of parks,” William observed.
When
we got back to his apartment in Nottingham Hill, he graciously took me in his tiny blue
car to a nearby grocery store, where I bought one packet of instant noodles for
each of my remaining days in Europe (I call it
the “poor traveler’s diet”) and he bought things like hummus and carrots and
cucumbers and other various healthy type foods and laughed at my dietary choices. I assure you, William, it was more
a monetary choice than a dietary one.
ANYWHO,
William politely accepted me into his home and, much like many British people
I’ve known, offered me a cup of tea before doing anything else. We chatted for
a while, long after the sun had set, until he asked if I wanted to take a walk
through city.
It
was nice to walk around with someone who had lived there for a long time. It made
the city of London, which before had seemed too impossibly large to
navigate, appear more manageable, more familiar, if only marginally. Much like
New York City, the very center of London didn’t seem to slow down at night at
all, in fact with the Olympics in town, it seemed to come alive with all the décor and pretty lights
around, not to mention all the patriotically dressed tourists from all over the world. We
walked and talked for a long time, just enjoying the city before heading back
to his apartment.
I
woke up the next morning and went to the British library
and walked around for hours. It’s a cool looking building, but what attracted
me was the knowledge that the very first drafts of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter
and the Philosopher’s Stone were being preserved here, in all their spiral
bound, hand-written glory. Along with a lot of other interesting drafts, like
the Hobbit, Beowulf, and Jane Eyre.
At
the end of my self-guided tour around the exhibit, I bought a book in the gift
shop and found a coffee shop to sit at and read (and be sad at my quickly
waning trip). It would have been a serene yet nostalgic moment if it weren’t
for the cloudy chill and the persistent drizzling that drove me back inside.
When I returned to William's apartment, we watched the opening ceremony together. William is quite the night owl (even more so than myself), and afterwards we watched a movie. And then had some tea and chatted into the wee hours.
The next day, Scottish Steve returned to London. It was a surprisingly nice day, and I went to meet him in front of Buckingham Palace. We walked for a long while before deciding to check out St. Paul's Cathedral, which is too impressive for words. We decided to go up into the dome, and despite my brief episode of claustrophobia in the tiny winding stair case (a good way of getting over your claustrophobia is the knowledge that you can't go back down the way you came up), it was really cool at the top. St. Paul's Cathedral: Do it.
Later on we went to a pub in Victoria where the Olympic games were airing (though really I think you'd have had a harder time finding a place that wasn't airing the games). This is where I discovered that Smirnoff vodka is seen as bottom shelf liquor in the UK after both the bartender and Steve gave me a look after I ordered a drink. Who knew?
I had to get back to William's in Nottingham Hill before the trains stopped running, so Steve went back to his hotel and I went back to couch surfing. William and I, in true night owl form, went back out so he could show me a bit of his part of London. We walked around quite a lot, and when he drove us back he parked in front of his building but didn't take his hand off the gear shift. "I kinda wanna keep driving. I don't really wanna go in just yet." He said. "Me either, really..." I said. Like a puppy with its head out the window, I love car rides. We continued to drive for another half hour or 45 minutes or so, looking at the lights, talking about life, and counting all the effing round-abouts we passed.
The next morning, my time with William was up. I thanked him for all the tea and the nighttime rides around the city, and went to go check into the Clink hostel for one last night. After all, I couldn't have asked for a better first couch surfing experience, or a better person to host me.
I met Steve a little after midday and together we went to a pub to watch the Rangers game. A note to Steve, if you're reading this: I'm going to butcher this story and I apologize. I'm not going to fact check any of this, so feel free to correct me or yell at me in Scottish expletives. See, the Rangers are not so much a Scottish soccer ("football") team from Glasgow as much as a Glaswegian religion. I couldn't tell you why, but for whatever reason they hadn't played in a long time. I think they were suspended. Or something. I don't know. Anyway, this was their first game since. We met an Australian guy of Scottish descent named Luke, and he and Steve spoke circles around me. I was happy to stand there while they chatted away with fervent conviction that the Rangers were the greatest thing to grace our Planet Earth, because they didn't even notice when they skipped over me in buying rounds of drinks. That is to say, Luke bought a round for all three of us, then Steve, then in their excitement to continue drinking and watching a game with someone just as thrilled about it all, Luke bought another round without even realizing there was a third person present who might have contributed.
So anyway, the good news is that the Rangers won. In my limited knowledge of soccer, it was all just a blur of screaming, drunk Scots heavily squished into a pub. This happened a year ago, but I still remember the very random and unintelligible breaking out into song, like a crowd of pre-teen girls at an N*Sync concert. But boy are there lots of songs about this one soccer team.
It was good that they won because if not, Steve would have probably been a bummer. Instead he pranced happily through the otherwise depressing, cloudy rain on our way to the next bar. I was going to meet my English friend Leon for my very last night in London, and indeed Europe, and Steve needed to get his flight back to Scotland that night. In the meantime, of course, we went for another drink.
We chatted for a long time before I realized I really should be sober enough to go have dinner with Leon. After a subdued cab ride and a sentimental goodbye, Steve disappeared into the London Underground at King's Cross station. I didn't have time to be sad, however, because it was off to meet with my favorite person in the world: Leon.
Leon is a London native so he knew exactly where to go: Nando's. Nando's is a magical place and if you're ever in the UK (or wherever else Nando's may be, really), you should definitely go. I can't explain it with any justice, so I'm going to leave it to Jack Whitehall:
We chatted for a while before going to Oxford street, where we stopped in to a very touristy-looking shop. "Pick something out," Leon said simply. I picked up a tiny little red phone booth on a key chain, and Leon took it from me and without a word, without asking or insisting, bought it for me (I mean it was only, like, a pound or two, but still very sweet). I had it on my keys for a long time afterwards until months and months later I noticed it had broken off.
I didn't want the night to end, nor did I want to go back to my hostel to be alone just yet, so we went to one of Leon's regular bars. We talked for a long time about our travels and our respective hopes to return to the other's country. I know how much Leon misses the US, but hopefully he'll return at a time when our paths can cross.
Eventually, we realized how late it was, and it was unavoidably time to part ways. Leon walked me back to my hostel like a gentleman, insisting that I couldn't walk alone. He, like Benny before, had explicitly told me how uncomfortable I would make him if I cried, and he looked very sincere. I promised him I would be good, but when I saw that we were only a few short blocks from my hostel, I felt that familiar lump in my throat and I knew resistance would be futile. I hate to sound like I spent much of my time in Europe as an emotional nuisance, but it was the culmination of my amazing summer coming to a close, having met some awesome new friends, seen and consequently said goodbye to so many of my existing friends, and the knowledge that I will never have an adventure quite like this one again. Sad because it was over, and extremely happy and thankful and humble that I even had the opportunity to do everything and see everything I had. Leon was simply the unlucky one that happened to be with me when all this came to mind.
I stood in the doorway of my hostel as quiet tears streaked my face, not wanting to go inside. Leon was visibly uncomfortable and unable to quite meet my eye (which is stupid because I wasn't even really crying, just teary eyed, and anyway boys shouldn't pretend they don't have emotions), and it just became funny watching him squirm. Feeling a little better, I hugged him and we promised each other we'd meet again, and he turned and walked away.
So there it is. My adventures as an undergrad wandering around in Spain and much of western Europe. I'm not going to try and get all deep, because I know how much you guys hate that, but I will say this: I did not come back to the United States the same person who left it. It was Noah who said to me on my first night in Brighton, "You spend so much money while you're travelling, you'll go broke. But the wealth that you gain from your experiences is so much more.........innit?"
"El mundo es un libro y ellos que no viajan leen solo una página."
The next day, Scottish Steve returned to London. It was a surprisingly nice day, and I went to meet him in front of Buckingham Palace. We walked for a long while before deciding to check out St. Paul's Cathedral, which is too impressive for words. We decided to go up into the dome, and despite my brief episode of claustrophobia in the tiny winding stair case (a good way of getting over your claustrophobia is the knowledge that you can't go back down the way you came up), it was really cool at the top. St. Paul's Cathedral: Do it.
Later on we went to a pub in Victoria where the Olympic games were airing (though really I think you'd have had a harder time finding a place that wasn't airing the games). This is where I discovered that Smirnoff vodka is seen as bottom shelf liquor in the UK after both the bartender and Steve gave me a look after I ordered a drink. Who knew?
I had to get back to William's in Nottingham Hill before the trains stopped running, so Steve went back to his hotel and I went back to couch surfing. William and I, in true night owl form, went back out so he could show me a bit of his part of London. We walked around quite a lot, and when he drove us back he parked in front of his building but didn't take his hand off the gear shift. "I kinda wanna keep driving. I don't really wanna go in just yet." He said. "Me either, really..." I said. Like a puppy with its head out the window, I love car rides. We continued to drive for another half hour or 45 minutes or so, looking at the lights, talking about life, and counting all the effing round-abouts we passed.
The next morning, my time with William was up. I thanked him for all the tea and the nighttime rides around the city, and went to go check into the Clink hostel for one last night. After all, I couldn't have asked for a better first couch surfing experience, or a better person to host me.
I met Steve a little after midday and together we went to a pub to watch the Rangers game. A note to Steve, if you're reading this: I'm going to butcher this story and I apologize. I'm not going to fact check any of this, so feel free to correct me or yell at me in Scottish expletives. See, the Rangers are not so much a Scottish soccer ("football") team from Glasgow as much as a Glaswegian religion. I couldn't tell you why, but for whatever reason they hadn't played in a long time. I think they were suspended. Or something. I don't know. Anyway, this was their first game since. We met an Australian guy of Scottish descent named Luke, and he and Steve spoke circles around me. I was happy to stand there while they chatted away with fervent conviction that the Rangers were the greatest thing to grace our Planet Earth, because they didn't even notice when they skipped over me in buying rounds of drinks. That is to say, Luke bought a round for all three of us, then Steve, then in their excitement to continue drinking and watching a game with someone just as thrilled about it all, Luke bought another round without even realizing there was a third person present who might have contributed.
So anyway, the good news is that the Rangers won. In my limited knowledge of soccer, it was all just a blur of screaming, drunk Scots heavily squished into a pub. This happened a year ago, but I still remember the very random and unintelligible breaking out into song, like a crowd of pre-teen girls at an N*Sync concert. But boy are there lots of songs about this one soccer team.
It was good that they won because if not, Steve would have probably been a bummer. Instead he pranced happily through the otherwise depressing, cloudy rain on our way to the next bar. I was going to meet my English friend Leon for my very last night in London, and indeed Europe, and Steve needed to get his flight back to Scotland that night. In the meantime, of course, we went for another drink.
We chatted for a long time before I realized I really should be sober enough to go have dinner with Leon. After a subdued cab ride and a sentimental goodbye, Steve disappeared into the London Underground at King's Cross station. I didn't have time to be sad, however, because it was off to meet with my favorite person in the world: Leon.
Leon is a London native so he knew exactly where to go: Nando's. Nando's is a magical place and if you're ever in the UK (or wherever else Nando's may be, really), you should definitely go. I can't explain it with any justice, so I'm going to leave it to Jack Whitehall:
(It's worth a watch, I promise)
(Edit: I did not mean for Mr. Whitehall to make it sound like a date, but after watching this I felt like I needed to clarify that it wasn't)
(Edit: I did not mean for Mr. Whitehall to make it sound like a date, but after watching this I felt like I needed to clarify that it wasn't)
We chatted for a while before going to Oxford street, where we stopped in to a very touristy-looking shop. "Pick something out," Leon said simply. I picked up a tiny little red phone booth on a key chain, and Leon took it from me and without a word, without asking or insisting, bought it for me (I mean it was only, like, a pound or two, but still very sweet). I had it on my keys for a long time afterwards until months and months later I noticed it had broken off.
I didn't want the night to end, nor did I want to go back to my hostel to be alone just yet, so we went to one of Leon's regular bars. We talked for a long time about our travels and our respective hopes to return to the other's country. I know how much Leon misses the US, but hopefully he'll return at a time when our paths can cross.
Eventually, we realized how late it was, and it was unavoidably time to part ways. Leon walked me back to my hostel like a gentleman, insisting that I couldn't walk alone. He, like Benny before, had explicitly told me how uncomfortable I would make him if I cried, and he looked very sincere. I promised him I would be good, but when I saw that we were only a few short blocks from my hostel, I felt that familiar lump in my throat and I knew resistance would be futile. I hate to sound like I spent much of my time in Europe as an emotional nuisance, but it was the culmination of my amazing summer coming to a close, having met some awesome new friends, seen and consequently said goodbye to so many of my existing friends, and the knowledge that I will never have an adventure quite like this one again. Sad because it was over, and extremely happy and thankful and humble that I even had the opportunity to do everything and see everything I had. Leon was simply the unlucky one that happened to be with me when all this came to mind.
I stood in the doorway of my hostel as quiet tears streaked my face, not wanting to go inside. Leon was visibly uncomfortable and unable to quite meet my eye (which is stupid because I wasn't even really crying, just teary eyed, and anyway boys shouldn't pretend they don't have emotions), and it just became funny watching him squirm. Feeling a little better, I hugged him and we promised each other we'd meet again, and he turned and walked away.
So there it is. My adventures as an undergrad wandering around in Spain and much of western Europe. I'm not going to try and get all deep, because I know how much you guys hate that, but I will say this: I did not come back to the United States the same person who left it. It was Noah who said to me on my first night in Brighton, "You spend so much money while you're travelling, you'll go broke. But the wealth that you gain from your experiences is so much more.........innit?"
"El mundo es un libro y ellos que no viajan leen solo una página."
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