If only it had been that easy. I needed to leave the IMA a little early, but my Arabic prof insisted that I stay and fill out a questionnaire that I could have turned in any day since I work here… and I got to the metro to line 4 at Saint-Michel to go up to Gare du Nord… but I was on the extremely crowded train, and should have been up to the station in about 20 minutes… but there was an “accident grave” farther down on line four. I am not exactly sure what that means… did a train break down? Did someone jump in front of the train (that happens actually) needless to say the one time I needed everything to run smoothly to make it to my 6:13 train… they didn’t. There are only two lines that go to Gare du Nord, 4 and 5 so after sitting in a tunnel for almost 20 minutes and freaking out about missing my train, they let us off and I had to run to line three to get to line five… and I had 10 minutes till I needed to be there for check-in… and I was running, with all my stuff and sweating and breathing really hard and looking ridiculous… and I made it to Gare du Nord with 25 minutes until the train left… which even I couldn’t believe, after sitting under ground for like 20 minutes I was sure I could never make it… but hope had returned!
I got my ticket checked and the French man barely glanced at my passport, I thought I was home free… until I met the grumpiest British customs lady ever… and I lost it. I needed to fill out a form (which I didn’t realize) and she barked in my face to do that… so I did quick as I could… and I handed it to her. She looked at it, and asked me for my address where I was staying in London. I had 11 minutes at this point, and of course I didn’t know Annie’s address, it didn’t occur to me to ever even ask her for it. I have travelled all over Europe without once being asked for an address, but the UK is different I guess. But when I told her I didn’t know it she barked again “well that isn’t very clever now is it? Just why don’t you have it?” And like I said, the stress of the past hour and disappointment of the past ten days caught up to me, and I lost it. I proceed to recount how I was supposed to stay with my mom but there was an ash cloud then the metro broke down, all through a stream of stressed out, disappointed tears of frustration… and after a lecture of how if it ever happened again I couldn’t go to London… she let me through (I couldn’t believe it), I ran through security… and sat down in the farthest car possible with approximately 2 minutes 30 seconds to spare before the train pulled out of the station. And the weekend only got better from there. But that was definitely the most stressful travel experience I have had yet in my séjour en France. Good lord.
The chunnel itself was rather anticlimactic. I guess I was randomly expecting for the tunnel to be transparent, so I could see all the little fishies swimming around in the channel… but even if the tunnel had been transparent, it would be too dark down there to see anything right? I don’t know, but it is funny how we imagine things are going to be, even if our imaginings are not very rational… but I did have time to get myself back together before I got off the train and met Annie and Matt at the station in London. We proceeded to leave the station, and go out into the rain (London was being very cliché for us, because what story or movie that happens in London does not take place in the rain?) and we walked in the rain to the closest street full of wonderful Indian restaurants… and we feasted on curry and Naan and had a wonderful dinner with the Brauer family and Annie there. I was so happy to see some familiar faces from the states… but I couldn’t help but miss my mom and my grandma who should have been there too, even if they wouldn’t have wanted to go to an Indian restaurant. But after dinner on the rainy Friday night, Matt, Annie and I delivered the ever-so jetlagged Brauers to their hotel, and the three of us went to have a pint in a pub. It was very fun, very British and very chill, until I was tired myself and Annie and I bid farewell to Matt and trekked to her apartment, which I still don’t know the address of. And I don’t want to know it either, so there customs lady.
Saturday morning dawned, still wet but not raining and a little chilly, but comfortable with a pullover, so I left Annie at home for the morning and headed back down to downtown London (Annie lives in a nice little neighbourhood in north London about 20 minutes on the Tube north of central London.) I met up wit the Brauer family at the British museum and we explored all of the wonderful things that the British empire stole from cultures from all over the world, and in many cases today, they still refuse to give the items back because they believe them to be safer in London…if you ever want to have a conversation about this debateable topic I would be more than willing to talk about it, we studied it in my anthropology class last semester and it is actually a very compelling debate… but the museum was cool with the Rosetta stone and many other outstanding objects from all over the world.
After the museum we stopped at a little place to have some delicious fish and chips… and another random British speciality… mushy peas. How did this get to be so popular? I don’t know, but if you like peas, which I do, then you will like mushy peas.
It was random, but wonderful at the same time, and we then headed over for a stroll in Hyde Park since the sun was actually out and the flowers were in full bloom. I must of taken a gajillion pictures in the gardens of all of the flowers, near the entrance and by the pond and in Kensington garden which we walked down to, but here I will put up only my favourite flower pictures… they were gorgeous, but can you see the ominous sky in the background? It was threatening to rain at any minute by that point… and as we made our way over to Liecester square to buy theatre tickets for that evening (we bought tickets to see Sister Act) and then we went over to Trafalgar square to meet Annie… and the sky made good on its threat to pour, and pour it did. So we jumped inside the National Gallery, and actually got to see all kinds of really cool paintings that I studied in my Modern Art and Modernity class, and we tried to stay out of the rain as long as possible. The nice thing about museums in London is that they are all free… so it is not a big deal to jump in one for an hour and another for another hour. I like that.
But we left the gallery to grab a bite to eat at a pub restaurant before the show. The show was at 7:30 at a theatre over by Oxford circus. So we headed over there to take our seats right before the show started. We had great seats, and we were seeing, like I said, Sister Act the Musical.
If you have seen the movie from the 90’s (I think) with Whoppie Goldberg then you know basically the plot of the musical, but the music was fun and up beat and there were lots of glittery costumes to admire, and dynamic characters (including an old nun and the actress had to have been like 80, but I guess I don’t know exactly how old she was…) But the show was great and we were all thoroughly entertained! We left the theatre in the rain of course, and walked over to Picadilly to see the lights, 
and then jumped on the tube to take a walk along the river at night… which could have been more pleasant if it hadn’t been pouring and the trucks hadn’t kept driving by and splashing us… but we were there and nothing was stopping us, and I did get some pics of the London eye and Big Ben at night in the rain.
We shortly thereafter bid good night to the Brauers (who returned to their hotel to a surprise of their own, a lovely leak on the bed, but you will have to ask them about it if you want to hear about it in more detail…) and Annie and I headed back to her room, tired and happy and a little bit wet.
Sunday morning was spent relaxing, something both of us needed, and then at around 1:30 pm we met Matt at the metro stop and went and had a lovely afternoon tea at a very quaint little place in Annie’s neighbourhood.
Tea and scones and chocolate cake…. So yummy! And then we headed back down to central London to drop Matt at the train station since his train left earlier than mine, and the Brauers were flying. So we bid him farewell, and Annie and I got on the Tube and went over to see the Tower Bridge which was really cool! 
Here are the pictures I took, or at least some of them! It was really a fun (if not a little bit cold afternoon, and it went by much too quickly before I had to go to the train station myself to come back to Paris. It was an easy time of it going back… not a single hitch or grumpy custom lady. And somehow coming back to Paris always feel like coming home again, where everything is familiar, even if the language isn’t English (I am just as comfortable with French most of the time) and I made my way to bed, after a fun but quick weekend in London. London is the last trip I have planned before the big trip at the end, now it is really time to focus on my Memoire du Stage… so wish me luck on that in the next week!
À bientot!
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