LONDON!

Alright, here´s the post that should have happened yesterday.

Well, I took off From Santander by bus on Thursday evening with 5 girls from my program. We arrived a little more than an hour later in the city of Bilbao, where we headed to the airport and got on our plane. Here´s a picture out the window midflight. That bright ball isn´t the sun, that´s the moon above the wing.

Flying over big cities at night is unlike anything I´ve ever seen. You can see every road lined with street lights, you can see every city block intersection. If the cars were big enough, you could see their headlights rolling along too. The most amazing part is that you can see NOTHING else. There´s just these puddles of golden light spackled across a black landscape. And from so high up, they look like forest fires burning and spreading. But these cities are NOT small. It´s deceptive. When we finally made our way over London, the puddle of golden fire turning into a burning ocean. It was MASSIVE! From so high up, I felt like it was all a miniature model of something real, but the scale of it was too big for me to really wrap my mind around. All I can say is that is was beautiful. Sorry the pictures are a bit blurry.

When we landed we got off the plane to something like -3º Celsuis. I don´t know the exact tempurature that is, but 0º C is 32º F. It was below freezing. We´ll just put it that way. Fortunately I had a hoodie, a windbreaker, and a beany. I was wearing my basketball shorts and flip flops on my lower half though. Just kidding. Good old Pumas and Jeans. I had a really nice flight. It was only a 2 hour trip. The rest was a 45 minute train ride to downtown London to the Liverpool Street Station. Once there, I said goodbye to the girls and headed off to the entrance to the tube (subway), which was mere feet away. I grabbed the right line and headed off toward Uxbridge, the small town just outside of London where my good friend Theo (a British guy who studied abroad in Eugene with us during our senior year of high school at North Eugene) was studying to get his Masters. It was super late, and hardly any one was riding the subway. I kept reading these signs that said the subway closed at 12:45 AM, and I was getting worried, cause I was about 40 minutes away still, and it was already 12:30. I really thought I was going to have to get off and take a taxi the rest of the way. Fortunately, I have little understanding of how subways work, so when 1:00 AM finally rolled around and we were still headed to Uxbridge, I figured I´d get there without getting kicked off. Apparantly they stop letting you into the subway at that time. But wow, it was an empty subway line. And when I stepped off, and was outside again...it was COLD! London is a cold place this time of year.

At this point, I was in Uxbridge, and had a vague idea of where my friend Theo was staying. He lives in the dorms at Brunel University. I had seen a town map on the computer before I left, so I knew which direction to go, but I wanted to be sure. So, I asked a night shift construction worker guy (I have no idea what he actually does) where Brunel was, and he didn´t understand was I was saying at first, then a light bulb clicked on in his head, and he shouted up at his buddy in this super thick cockney accent that almost made me laugh outloud where the university was, then the guy responded in the same flawless inner London accent. It was a beautiful sound. They pointed me in the right direction, so off I went, down a street in downtown Uxbridge at 1:30 AM.

I wasn´t that cold, seeing as how I was walking at a good pace, keeping myself pretty warm. When I got to Brunel, I ran into a bit of a problem. Theo had told me to look for a pond, then a big building behind it, then the phone booths to the left of that building and to call him from there, where he would then come out and get me, but the sad thing was, I couldn´t find a pond. I looked for a solid half an hour and still...nothing. I was thinking that maybe I was on the wrong side of campus, so I started walking to get to the other side, when I ran into some people coming back from the bars or something. I asked them where the building called Wilfred Brown was and they weren´t responding to me, like I was a bum or something, and I think I scared some of the poor girls that were walking cause they cringed away from me (refer back to the Bilbao picture to see what they saw) but one of them pointed back to where I had been looking so I was feeling stupid that I had missed it. So I turned around and kept looking for another 15 minutes and still, nothing. I was tired of looking by that point, and it was getting awefully cold, so I decided I´d try once more to find the other side of campus and I ran into somebody in the same spot again, and asked this guy, and he told me to keep walking the way I was, and I´d find everything I was looking for. I was on the wrong side of campus. That dumb girl lied to me outright. I must have really scared her or something. People will point anywhere when they´re scared, you know.

Finally, Theo, who had fallen asleep waiting for me, came out to get me, and we went back to his dorm, and we talked for a few minutes. We were so tired though, that we decided to save 4 years of catching up that we had to do for the morning. So I laid down on the hard floor and slept.

The next morning began my first official day in England. The feeling was so strange. After having been in Spain for 2 months, I was used the idea that foreign countries have different languages, both in speach, and wherever there are words to be read. But being in Uxbridge felt like home, but what a twisted joke that was. I was still as far away from Oregon as ever before. I couldn´t quite get over it. Well, Theo and I took off to go to grab some food on campus, and then hit downtown Uxbridge. We ended up going to go see the new Harry Potter movie. Afterwards, we walked around the malls and such, and I took the classic picture in front of their red telephone booths. We stopped at the grocery store on the way out of town, and picked up a few items to last the weekend. The sun was setting as we walked back, and the cold was returning fast. We cooked ourselves some mini pizzas and dined like kings.

At night, we headed out to the...get this...on campus bar. We grabbed some pints and enjoyed the company of a few of Theo´s friends and some horrible karaoke. There was apparantly some live music in the...get this one too...on campus club. So, Theo and I paid an entrance fee, and headed in to dance it up to the underground sounds of British hip hop and some drum and bass techno stuff. The speakers were ripping my insides to smitherines, but the live DJ´s and free style rapper were pretty awesome. I couldn´t hear a thing when we finally left. We headed back to his place and I crashed with a bang onto the floor and slept again.

This is a long one, I know.

The next day, we ate a small breakfast, and headed out to Theo´s basketball game, near central London. From there, we took the tube into the heart of downtown, and this is where the true sightseeing began. Before, everything I had experienced was a local, small town English atmoshpere. I hung out with college students my age and took part in the local hang out. Now though, this was the city, and my camera came out in full swing (more to come on that, and how my camera´s swing had a dead battery midway through).

DOWNTOWN LONDON...

This place was BIG! The frist thing we went to when we got off the subway was St. Paul´s Cathedral. The dome of it looked exactly like our capitol building in D.C. I couldn´t believe how big this thing was. It was too late to go inside, but the outside was good enough.

St. Paul´s 1

St. Paul´s 2

St. Paul´s 3

That last shot's from on the Millenium Bridge. Notice the couple kissing in the foreground. I´m pretty much a professional photographer by now...I mean, just look at that shot! Anyways, I was pretty much in awe of what I was seeing as I stood on the bridge that stretched across the River Thames. It was amazing...especially at night with the moon hanging low over the city. Theo and I continued on, but I had to get one hard core photo of us and the cathedral before moving on. The Tate Modern Art Museum was looming in front of us, but I didn´t really want to go in. It would have been nice to go see a DaVinci or two, but I didn´t have that many pounds to spare. So we took off walking along the river, and I was about to take another picture when...GASP!...my camera battery died. I hadn´t even gotten to Big Ben yet! We were in the middle of this beautiful tree-lined path, lit up with blue and white Christmas lights, and a guitarist was plucking away to the tune of My Funny Valentine, while this girl was singing it with such a beautiful jazzy voice, that I nearly wept not being able to take any pictures.

We moved on though. I was extremely distraught, but we had a plan. We were just going to go find a café and sit down to a cup of tea and a battery charge, provided we could sit next to an outlet. But this plan was going no where fast, as all the cafés were closing. So, we walked around looking for a suitable place for a charge (while simultaneously searching for a fish and chips restaurant, which we never found). Finally, I looked into this arcade, and thought to myself, "Hmmm, there´s got to be a spare plug-in in there somewhere." So we walk in, and I didn´t have to look very hard, because right there near the entrance was my golden outlet. I then proceed to take out all the equipment for charging my carmera...British plug adaptor, power converter, battery charger, camera battery...and I assembled them like some kind of James Bond assembling his sniper rifle from different parts of his 3 piece suit. My outfit was a little less glamourous, though (notice my British spelling). Anyways, we stood there for about 20 minutes worth of charging with our mouths dropped wide open, watching these British dudes play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR for short. Note to older generation: That´s the game where you use your feet and the rhythm of the song to tap the right footpad when prompted to by the game). The kid playing it in that picture was so good, he stopped looking after a while and just turned his back on the screen, while still hitting every beat. He was out of control. I felt sorry that his level of nerdiness and lack of a life had gone to such extremes. We got a good laugh out of the situation though. Plus my battery charged for the next pictures.

We went out to this HUGE ferris wheel type thing called the London Eye, and from there, I could finally see Big Ben. I´d been waiting for that moment for a long time.

Big Ben 1

Big Ben 2

Big Ben 3

Big Ben and I

Big Ben and Theo

The background´s still pretty dark in those last 2 photos...sorry. But wow! I was there! I didn´t have too much else to see on my sightseeing shopping list, so we headed over to Oxford Street to see some Christmas lights. I finally snapped a shot of a double decker bus while we were there, too. What´s London without a picture of red telephone booths and a double decker bus? Well, we were starving, so we stepped into a grocery store to get a snack, and lo and behold...A Krispy Kreme donut section. I was simultaneously overjoyed and horrified. I disagree with Krispy Kremes going global, but I was glad to see them. After the quick bite to eat, we grabbed a bus (sat on the top section of the double decker) and took off to go meet Theo´s brother, Ben, at a bar. His brother´s girlfriend, his brother, Theo and I, all took off after a while, and we stayed at Theo´s brother´s flat, as they call them, and ended up getting a nice cup of British tea, and a another free place to stay at night for me.

The next morning, we got up early, because I had to get to the Liverpool Street Station to take the train back to the airport for my Flight back to Santander. It was as cold as it ever was that morning, but the foggy park we walked through at dawn was amazing...absolutely brilliant, as Theo would say. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful...just a trip back to my home, which will actually only be my home here in Spain for 10 mores days as of right now. I got a couple good shots over England while we were flying away (this time in the daylight). I´m not sure, but I might have capture a shot of the White Cliffs of Dover, too.

Over England 1

Over England 2

Over England 3

Over England 4

The flight back into Santander was an easy one. We hopped on a bus, headed back into downtown (I had met back up with the girls at Stansted airport in London), and went back to our houses from there. I have to say, the weekend trip to see Theo and London has been a major highlight of this whole studying abroad experience. I was so in awe that I was actually in England. It was everything I saw that was so amazing...the way they drive on the other side, the way the steering wheel is on the other side of the car, the way the words are the same, but some things have different names, the way they all have some form of British accent or another, the double decker buses, the telephone booths...everthing! It was an experience from every movie scene I´ve ever watched that had to do with London. What a treat! I missed you all so much while I was there. I´m glad I had Theo to help guide me around town, and just to hang out with, but I´m ready to see you all again. Like I said, I have 10 more days here in Spain, then it´s off to Dublin for about 9 days, and then Vienna, Austria for about a week more. After that, you'll all see me again...in the flesh! Well, that´s my trip. Comments? Questions? This has been the longest blog entry of all time...K, Laters!

Oh, and Amanda Carter, I miss you a ton!