London, Part-o uno

Okay let’s get down to it. First off, Thursday morning started well. And by that, I mean I slept through my phone alarm. Good thing I set an alarm on my iPod (which I never do) to go off a half hour later than my phone! But STILL . . . eek! I had gone to bed Wednesday night earlier than usual. I even cut short the video chat with mom, and I feel like I didn’t fall asleep near as early as I woulda liked. That’s when the voice at the back of my mind suggested that I set the second alarm, because it would NOT be pretty if I missed my ride. So I woke up at 4:30 instead of 4:00, and had even LESS time to shower, throw last-minute stuff in my luggage, and walk to the Hauptbahnhof by 5:30. But I made it. With a minute to spare! :) The girl who I rode with dropped me off at the Ost-Hauptbahnhof in Munich at 7:00. My next ride was leaving Donnersbergerbrücke at 7:30, so I somewhat had plenty of time. WELL, the map of U-Bahns and S-Bahns in Munich is somewhat confusing, and when I saw that U5 went to the Hbf, I got excited and misread the map and convinced myself that it went to D-bridge as well. WRONG!! So I’m sitting at the station 1 stop beyond the Hbf, FREAKING OUT because it is now 7:35 (the U-Bahns don’t run as often on holidays, which Thursday most certainly was (Siemens was off, it being Ascension Day and all. Or, auf Deutsch, Christi Himmelfahrt, which means Christ drives to Heaven)), and my ride calls me saying WHERE ARE YOU? I tell her the station name and she’s like Well I’m not from here either so I have no clue where that is. If you’re not here in 5 mins, I’m leaving. I would like to leave soon.” And I say “Me too!” Which makes her laugh, so I think that bought me a few more minutes, lol. :) So I’m still on the verge of hyperventilation because I have no clue how I’ll get to the airport if I miss this car ride. Luckily, the U-Bahn going back to the Hbf was there shortly, and I raced over to the S-Bahn, which was waaaaay on the other side of the Hbf. (WHY!?) And even MORE lucky was that the S8 was just pulling in, and it was going in the direction I needed! THANK YOU, GOD!! I hop on, and silently urge the train to go faster than a speeding bullet. Two stops later, it’s at D-brücke! I push the button to open the doors. Nothing happens. Wieder die Taste drücken. NOTHING IS HAPPENING!!! Oh! My! GOODNESS! IT CAN’T END LIKE THIS, I HAVE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN! I run over to the next door, push, and send another prayer of thanksgiving to my Lord in heaven (and I’m being serious) because these doors behaved! Woot! I think I started breathing again. When those first doors didn’t open, I don’t think I’ve been more scared/panicked in my LIFE. I then run up the stairs and out onto the bridge, and there sits my ride! So relieved that I made it. Christina

Christina und Uli

and Uli were very nice to ride with. I’m glad I was by myself for that entire fiasco; I might not have been too pleasant to travel with for that half hour of Angst (ein deutsches Wort). By the way, how is it that stress causes ulcers? Is there some sort of bile-sprayer that just lies dormant until the brain says “Alright, something big is going down, cuz she’s freaking out. Let ‘er have it!” Just a thought.

So the moral of the story is: I made my flight.

The UK had the most legitimate customs and security yet; I had to fill out a border card and tell the guy why I was in the UK and everything. Rome/Italy had diddly squat, as well as Baden-Baden, on the return from Rome/Italy. We just hopped off the plane and walked straight out the doors. Here at the UK border, you had to navigate a 20-mile-long labyrinth until you get to this huge customs area, followed by a place to claim items. It looked super serious!

Some nice ladies walking past saw me taking
pictures of myself, and offered to
put me out of my misery. I like the result!

I got to Liverpool Street Station. Okay, now what? Jamie doesn’t get off work until 4:30. Sigh. Okay. So I pull out the iPod, and open my Map App ($2 on iTunes, and as of now, it has been a life-saver in at least two cities, so I am saying it was worth every penny. And yes, it was bought in DOLLARS.) and find places to walk around to kill time. Apparently, it was lunch hour (12:30/1 PM) because sooooo many people were walking around, and they were all wearing suits and jamming all the food places. So there was all of them, then there was me. Toting two bags and taking pictures of EVERYTHING. iiiii’m not a tourist... not at all...

Tsk, tsk.

Jamie and I meet up eventually, and she walks me over to her building, which is this enormous high rise that I’d passed about 5 times (okay, maybe just once). So I follow her closely to get in past the stupid card-activated gates. She says it’s okay to just do that the entire weekend, because everyone does it, and the guards aren’t really attentive, and they hardly speak English (“...which is ridiculous! Someone should tell them they’re in bloody ENGLAND, for goodness’ sake!”). So we chill for a bit while I get situated in Jamie’s room. I meet Allie (Jamie’s roomie) and Katie (Jamie’s neighbor) and Charlie (lives on the 7^th floor). Allie went last year on the same international internship that Jamie did, in Berlin. It was the same thing as she’s doing now in London, where she interns somewhere culturally enrich-ful Monday through Thursday, and attends a culturally enrich-lichkeit lecture Friday mornings, with two more culturally enrich-ifying activities throughout the day. But that’s all on FRIDAY, and right now, I’m disgusting THURSDAY!! ((yes, that typo was on purpose)) Anyway, Jamie, Katie, Charlie, and I walk downstairs and I try 

to slip out like I slipped in before, but somehow, somebody messed up with the card swipe thing, and I was confused and couldn’t make it past the gate in time before it closed in front of me. GARRR. And the guard starts yelling at me in broken English, so I turn around and walk to the elevators again. And we go to retrieve Allie’s key card, since she’s in the shower and said we could take it. So we go to this bar on the corner called Dirty Dick’s. It was soooo cool! Quaint little English Pub, that it was! And I ordered a burger, American Style (which apparently includes salsa. They called it relish on the menu, but it was NOT green!!), with chips (stupid British nickname for French Fries). The beer/cider thing I ordered turned out to be SWEDISH! MAJOR WIN!! :D and it was deeelicious. Then Colin and John join up with us! Keep in mind, all these people are from UK, in the same internship/class that Jamie is, too. There’s another girl, Bonnie, who actually grew up in London, then went to UK. And she is also doing this thing, but I didn’t meet her until Friday.

Charlie, Katie, and Jamie!

Since this is taking forever, and since Grace has requested blog posts in multiple installments, thus ends the first post about London. Thus ends Thursday.