Sunday, October 21st
Woke up very early and caught the Eurostar train from Rome to Florence/Firenze, which was expensive, but it got us there in half the time and was worth it because we only had Sunday to explore Florence. Our "hostel" was only four or five blocks from the train station, which was fantastic, and it was right in the heart of Florence as well. I put quotations around hostel because when at least when I think of hostels now I think of the Dublin-health-code-violation-waiting-to-happen that I stayed in. Our Florence hostel had a private bathroom, free internet, free Skype (which helped out a lot with my developing homesickness), and free room service breakfast. Most of all, I got to sleep on a bed, which was obviously quite an upgrade from a cold tile floor. We rested up for about half an hour and then the hostel owner gave us a map and pointed us to all of the sights. We saw the Uffizi and the Academia, but didn't want to pay the 15 euro and wait in line for two precious hours. Besides, we saw Michelangelo's David through a doorway for free anyway. We made the hike to the Piazzale Michelangelo to get a great panoramic view of Florence. The downside to the day was that the weather was horrible. It was about 40 degrees with 25 mph winds, and we all packed for a warm Italy, so needless to say we were a bit chilly - even I was. We walked along the River Arno and the Ponte Vecchio at sunset, which was picturesque to say the least. Then we headed back to the hostel for a quick warm up and rest, and asked the hostel owner for dinner recommendations. She pointed us to "The Porcupinno" or some other Italian name very similar to porcupine. I hate to rely on the superlative again, but that dinner will probably be one of the best meals I will ever had. They served us a wonderful bruschetta, a fantastic house red, and I I had the gnocchi con pesto - which took me about what seemed to be an hour to eat because I wanted the experience to last as long as possible. Our waiter was wonderful, but the manager wouldn't give us the student discount that we were promised, but that couldn't put a damper on such a lovely meal. After dinner we walked back to our hostel and just had a very good time, even though we didn't "do much", I think my day in Florence was the most fun I had in Italy. The three of us were in great moods even though we were freezing, and went to bed early in preparation for another early morning and day of travel.
Monday, October 22nd
Once more we got up early and took the early train, this time to Riomaggiore and the Cinque Terre ("Five Cities"). I'd been told by friends that this was one of the most amazing places in the world, so I obviously had to go there. The five cities are perched on cliffs on the Mediterranean coast and the only things connecting them are ancient footpaths and a train, before the train came the villages were only accessible by sea. It was enjoyable to stay in such a unique and beautiful place. Not to mention that the apartment that we rented in Manarola was fantastic, I got my own bedroom with a king-sized bed, we had a kitchen, and it cost as much as a hostel. Jenny, Lisa and I spent the day on our balcony playing cards and talking, which we ended up doing until about midnight. We ran to the top of the town to catch the sunset, which was a good call because we didn't see much of the sun for the next five days. We ate dinner at a touristy little restaurant, where I witnessed yet another case of a horrible American tourist. The pasta was superb and the waiter was actually nice (even though we didn't order an appetizer, which is what they expect). My roommate Tim was supposed to meet us in Manarola, but all he had was our address and he was supposed to find his way from Venice - so I actually didn't think he would make it. But at midnight we heard a knock on the door and we couldn't believe it was him, we gave him a hero's welcome. It was nice that my good friend joined the travel group, but it was also very nice that I was no longer the only male that would have to figure out what to do while the girls went shopping.
Tuesday, October 23rd
Woke up rather late compared to the other days, which was nice. We hiked to Corniglia, which was a hike indeed, especially with the 400 or so stairs that made up the last leg of it. Corniglia was unique because it didn't have a harbor, it was just perched high up on a hill overlooking the sea - it made me wonder how the town got started in the first place, it must have been by people that either enjoy exercise or don't like leaving their town. The weather was decent, but not swimming friendly. We hiked back in the late afternoon and cooked dinner in our apartment, and then proceeded to play a card game called "Euchere" for the next four or five hours until bed. Wow, these Cinque Terre posts are going to be easy.
Wednesday, October 24th
I woke up to the sound of what I thought was the river that ran underneath the town, but it just so happened that it was pouring down rain (oh and my laundry was on the line outside). Looking out my bedroom I saw swarms of tourists in flourescent ponchos holding technicolor umbrellas and knew that it was going to be an interesting day. The problem with travelling with girls is that while I may be ready to go five minutes after I wake up, they fit the stereotype and take more than an hour. So at about noon we finally left for Vernazza, we hopped on the train without paying for our tickets, and then explored Vernazza in the cold rain - which was more enjoyable than I make it seem. We ate lunch at a wonderful restaurant where I had a delicious salmon pizza, again, another Italian dish that I will be telling my grandchildren about. Lisa and Jenny decided that they wanted to go back, and I wanted to stay but I couldn't feel my feet so we got back to Manarola a little before dark. We then did our newfound routine of cooking and eating dinner, and then playing cards and talking until we were too tired to think. And I think that is why Tim and I decided to go swimming in the Mediterranean at midnight with the cold rain and wind and all. We swam around Manarola harbor and found that the water was warmer than the air, and had a great time. Walking back through the semi-deserted town in our towels, some Italians just laughed at us and gave us thumbs up.
Thursday, October 25th
Today we went to Monterossa, the northernmost of the towns. Again it was raining but we didn't let that deter us from playing on the beach and the rocks like eight year olds. It was a lot of fun. We ate lunch in a restaurant that was forgettable and ate gelato afterwards. After only a few hours we headed back to our apartment and did our routine. Everybody else went to bed early, but I was up all night stressing about money, so I wasn't to excited with the 4am wake up call.
Friday, October 26th
We took the 4:30 train from Manarola to La Spezia, where we had to wait for an hour in a McDonalds dining room. We changed trains a total of four times to get to Sermione by noon. Today was the worst weather by far, and it just so happened that we walked 6km from the train station to our hotel. Let's just say that none of us were in the best of spirits. Sermione is a peninsula that sticks out into Lake Garda and has wonderful views of the Italian Alps and is a Summer tourist destination. We finally mustered up the energy to move again at about 5, and went to explore the town. We ate dinner at a tourist restaurant that had picture menus and an Italian stereotype for a waiter. Afterwards we ate gelato, naturally. We ate gelato once or twice a day, which meant that all of the walking I was doing was just cancelling out that delicious ice cream. I had to sleep on a cot in the hotel room, which made me miss my room in Manarola.
Saturday, October 27th
We woke up with the sunrise and were lucky enough to grab some free breakfast at the hotel before we left. It was a continental breakfast buffet with rolls and deli meat, which meant that we were horrible people and we discreetly packed sandwiches for the day. When we walked outside we saw something we hadn't seen since Monday, the sun! The girls wanted to get a head start on Venice, but I wanted to actually see the Alps and Lake Garda, so we postponed our trip about an hour - which was well worth it. We took the train from Desenzano to Venice and were there before noon. This was also where we parted ways with Tim, who took the train back to Milan Airport (he'd already visited Venice before he came to Cinque Terre). The train ride was comfortable and the people watching was fantastic. The train was laid out into separate compartments of six seats, a train that you would see in a movie, and we were sitting with a middle-aged Italian man and a pretty Italian girl. The Italian man somehow managed to get his zipper stuck on the fabric of his jacket, but obviously didn't know how to fix it because he wrestled with it for about thirty minutes. By the end of it he was standing and screaming Italian obscenities at his zipper, it was one of those situations in which you try your best not to laugh. Upon our arrival into Venice we took a bus back across the Long Bridge and went to find our "hostel", which was actually a campground with the lost-in-translation name "Camping Jolly". We stayed in a bungalow or something along those lines, and it was comfortable and cheap - which is always good for me. We headed back to Venice and the girls spent the first three hours shopping, and when I say shopping, I just mean that they bought about five things - but somehow it took that long, I guess I have a lot to learn about women. We managed to move about five blocks in that amount of time, which was quite frustrating. I couldn't go off and explore by myself because Venice was horribly confusing, so I just looked at this time as being preparation for marriage.
Once they were done shopping we went to find somewhere to eat dinner, but instead ended up getting lost for about an hour. And not lost in the nice little tourist town of Venice, lost in the real, gritty part of Venice covered in graffiti and lacking street lights - it was fantastic. The girls decided that because this would be our last real Italian meal that we should eat on the Canal Grande, so after asking a few English-speaking people where we were we managed to find the Rialto Bridge and thus the Canal Grande. It was the worst meal of the trip. The restaurant was overpriced (and I am broke), the waiter hated us because we didn't order enough food, the gnocchi was chalky, the house wine tasted 10 euro cheaper than it cost, and it took them twenty minutes to give us our check, which in turn managed to leave me with 5 euro to live on for the next two days. On a lighter note, we realized that the girls sitting at the table behind us were from Richmond, and spent the rest of the evening with them. They were a lot of fun, and it was nice to mix up the group dynamic a bit, oh yeah, and we grabbed one last gelato before boarding the bus back to Camping Jolly. The bus ride redeemed the dinner. Halfway through the ride everybody started saying "Camping Jolly?" to each other, and soon we were all talking to each other about our lives and where we all came from. I met a wonderful Australian girl who was on her way to Austria, two girls from Mexico that were working on learning their fourth language, and some more Aussies, Kiwis, and Brits - I love the English language. We all made the half-mile trek back to Camping Jolly together, and I was the only one that knew the way, and felt a bit like the Pied Piper walking through the darkened Venetian streets.
Sunday, October 28th
We woke up rather early and decided that we would explore Venice some more, we checked out of Camping Jolly and took off to the bus stop with our heavy backpacks. It just so happened that today was the Venice Marathon, which meant that the busses weren't running, which meant that we had to walk the mile and half to the train station, where we hopped on and rode it into Venice. We checked our backpacks at left luggage and took off to explore Venice some more. We walked to the Piazza del San Marco, which was brimming with tourists and pigeons - two of my favorite things. The girls then did some shopping while I watched the marathon runners near the finish line. There were three types of runners, those who look understandably tired, those who look like they've only run a mile, and those who look like me after I run a mile. We spent the better part of the day just wandering and getting slightly lost, which is my favorite travel activity, and somehow found our way back to the train station. We took the 5:00 train to Milan, and it was a regional train, so that meant that it was two hours slower than Eurostar, but 20 euros cheaper, so that was just fine with me. It was a comfortable five-hour ride, even though a drunkard decided to stare at me through one of the partitions for ten minutes or so. From the Milan train station we took a coach to Milan Bergamo airport because we were flying out at 6am the next morning. We decided that we would "sleep" in the airport, which I am no stranger to. We staked our claim on a few uncomfortable bench seats and Jenny tried to sleep on the floor, then the security guard kicked all of us out. He sent us across the street to what felt like a refugee camp for airport passengers, people were everywhere, lying on the concrete, on their luggage, on each other. I was lying on a bench when a Frenchman got a security guard to kick me off of it. I sat up and apologized, it made sense, there were a lot of people. Then the Frenchman stretched out exactly as I had, what a horrible human being. I finished On the Road and then tried to sleep by holding my head in my hands, this didn't work so I decided to move to the floor, as many other people had done. It was dirty cold concrete, but I was tired. I began to doze off, and then for reasons I'm still not privy to, the security guard yelled something in Italian and kicked me in the side, then stormed off.
Monday, October 29th
Needless to say, I didn't get any sleep. They kicked us out of the refugee camp twenty minutes later and sent us back to the actual airport. We checked in at 4am without any hiccups, and boarded the plane two hours later. An emergency exit seat was open, so I chose legroom over friends, naturally. Two hours into the uneventful flight I realized that 1) we should have landed already and 2) we had been flying in a circle for some time. This is when the pilot came in over the intercom "Due to fog, we are being diverted to London Luton". We landed at London Luton 30 minutes later than we should have landed at Stansted. So it was shaping up to be a fantastic day. I had already booked a cheap ticket on the Stansted Express train and had everything figured out, which I had to do because I had class from 1:30-8:00 that night and a presentation in Parliament on top of that. When I disembarked from the plane I waited for a few minutes for the girls, but figured out they just went on without me, which bummed me out. Those few minutes meant that I was at the back of the passport control line, I got stuck behind an Eastern European man and his son who talked with the official for 30-40 minutes, it was horrible and I was grumpy. When I was done being grilled by the passport official I went and bought a bus ticket to London. I caught the bus twenty minutes later, we were later stuck in traffic for thirty minutes driving into London, and were now running well behind schedule - I had to be in class in three hours. I got off at the first London stop and took my chances on the Tube, just when the Piccadilly Line was closed for security concerns. So after another thirty minutes of waiting at the Green Park station I finally caught a train back here.
I didn't realize how much I would miss London, but coming back to my dorm room couldn't have made me happier. I showered, polished up my presentation for twenty minutes and then headed off to class on no sleep. I got an A- on the British Politics midterm that I thought I failed, so that definitely brightened my mood. That night I went to Parliament and gave my presentation on devolution in Committee Room 8, my professor didn't show, but John Hayes MP was there and said that he really enjoyed it. Thank God for espresso. He then took the class to see the House of Lords and House of Commons, which was great. He got us into the special viewing gallery in the House of Commons, told us to have fun, and then left. They were debating about the situation in Burma, and it was so very interesting to see Parliament in action. About twenty minutes after we sat down a familiar voice came over the speakers, it was John Hayes, it was quite nice to see him in action - he actually reminds me of Churchill. After hanging out in the House of Commons for another half hour I headed back to Kensington, finally got to Skype home, and got some much needed sleep.
Tuesday, October 30th
Slept until noon, wrote on this thing throughout the rest of the day.
Wednesday, October 31st
Went to St. Paul's Cathedral with my History of London class, and climbed to the top of the dome - it was a shame that I didn't bring my camera because the view was amazing. Although I could have done without the 450 stairs and having to duck for 20 minutes straight. Hung out with the girls downstairs and had a little Halloween soiree, it was really nice to see everyone again, it made me realize how much I'm going to miss these people when we go our separate ways next month.
Thursday, November 1st
I can't believe that it is November already, and that I'm more than halfway through this wonderful experience. I just wish I had a bottomless bank account so I could just do this forever. Tonight we're all going to a nice pub in Piccadilly Circus for Tim's birthday, which will be a good time. And I know I just finished writing about Italy, but I am going to Paris tomorrow. When I called home from Florence my dad said something to the effect of, "How did you get your life?" I'm still trying to figure that out.
Woke up very early and caught the Eurostar train from Rome to Florence/Firenze, which was expensive, but it got us there in half the time and was worth it because we only had Sunday to explore Florence. Our "hostel" was only four or five blocks from the train station, which was fantastic, and it was right in the heart of Florence as well. I put quotations around hostel because when at least when I think of hostels now I think of the Dublin-health-code-violation-waiting-to-happen that I stayed in. Our Florence hostel had a private bathroom, free internet, free Skype (which helped out a lot with my developing homesickness), and free room service breakfast. Most of all, I got to sleep on a bed, which was obviously quite an upgrade from a cold tile floor. We rested up for about half an hour and then the hostel owner gave us a map and pointed us to all of the sights. We saw the Uffizi and the Academia, but didn't want to pay the 15 euro and wait in line for two precious hours. Besides, we saw Michelangelo's David through a doorway for free anyway. We made the hike to the Piazzale Michelangelo to get a great panoramic view of Florence. The downside to the day was that the weather was horrible. It was about 40 degrees with 25 mph winds, and we all packed for a warm Italy, so needless to say we were a bit chilly - even I was. We walked along the River Arno and the Ponte Vecchio at sunset, which was picturesque to say the least. Then we headed back to the hostel for a quick warm up and rest, and asked the hostel owner for dinner recommendations. She pointed us to "The Porcupinno" or some other Italian name very similar to porcupine. I hate to rely on the superlative again, but that dinner will probably be one of the best meals I will ever had. They served us a wonderful bruschetta, a fantastic house red, and I I had the gnocchi con pesto - which took me about what seemed to be an hour to eat because I wanted the experience to last as long as possible. Our waiter was wonderful, but the manager wouldn't give us the student discount that we were promised, but that couldn't put a damper on such a lovely meal. After dinner we walked back to our hostel and just had a very good time, even though we didn't "do much", I think my day in Florence was the most fun I had in Italy. The three of us were in great moods even though we were freezing, and went to bed early in preparation for another early morning and day of travel.
Monday, October 22nd
Once more we got up early and took the early train, this time to Riomaggiore and the Cinque Terre ("Five Cities"). I'd been told by friends that this was one of the most amazing places in the world, so I obviously had to go there. The five cities are perched on cliffs on the Mediterranean coast and the only things connecting them are ancient footpaths and a train, before the train came the villages were only accessible by sea. It was enjoyable to stay in such a unique and beautiful place. Not to mention that the apartment that we rented in Manarola was fantastic, I got my own bedroom with a king-sized bed, we had a kitchen, and it cost as much as a hostel. Jenny, Lisa and I spent the day on our balcony playing cards and talking, which we ended up doing until about midnight. We ran to the top of the town to catch the sunset, which was a good call because we didn't see much of the sun for the next five days. We ate dinner at a touristy little restaurant, where I witnessed yet another case of a horrible American tourist. The pasta was superb and the waiter was actually nice (even though we didn't order an appetizer, which is what they expect). My roommate Tim was supposed to meet us in Manarola, but all he had was our address and he was supposed to find his way from Venice - so I actually didn't think he would make it. But at midnight we heard a knock on the door and we couldn't believe it was him, we gave him a hero's welcome. It was nice that my good friend joined the travel group, but it was also very nice that I was no longer the only male that would have to figure out what to do while the girls went shopping.
Tuesday, October 23rd
Woke up rather late compared to the other days, which was nice. We hiked to Corniglia, which was a hike indeed, especially with the 400 or so stairs that made up the last leg of it. Corniglia was unique because it didn't have a harbor, it was just perched high up on a hill overlooking the sea - it made me wonder how the town got started in the first place, it must have been by people that either enjoy exercise or don't like leaving their town. The weather was decent, but not swimming friendly. We hiked back in the late afternoon and cooked dinner in our apartment, and then proceeded to play a card game called "Euchere" for the next four or five hours until bed. Wow, these Cinque Terre posts are going to be easy.
Wednesday, October 24th
I woke up to the sound of what I thought was the river that ran underneath the town, but it just so happened that it was pouring down rain (oh and my laundry was on the line outside). Looking out my bedroom I saw swarms of tourists in flourescent ponchos holding technicolor umbrellas and knew that it was going to be an interesting day. The problem with travelling with girls is that while I may be ready to go five minutes after I wake up, they fit the stereotype and take more than an hour. So at about noon we finally left for Vernazza, we hopped on the train without paying for our tickets, and then explored Vernazza in the cold rain - which was more enjoyable than I make it seem. We ate lunch at a wonderful restaurant where I had a delicious salmon pizza, again, another Italian dish that I will be telling my grandchildren about. Lisa and Jenny decided that they wanted to go back, and I wanted to stay but I couldn't feel my feet so we got back to Manarola a little before dark. We then did our newfound routine of cooking and eating dinner, and then playing cards and talking until we were too tired to think. And I think that is why Tim and I decided to go swimming in the Mediterranean at midnight with the cold rain and wind and all. We swam around Manarola harbor and found that the water was warmer than the air, and had a great time. Walking back through the semi-deserted town in our towels, some Italians just laughed at us and gave us thumbs up.
Thursday, October 25th
Today we went to Monterossa, the northernmost of the towns. Again it was raining but we didn't let that deter us from playing on the beach and the rocks like eight year olds. It was a lot of fun. We ate lunch in a restaurant that was forgettable and ate gelato afterwards. After only a few hours we headed back to our apartment and did our routine. Everybody else went to bed early, but I was up all night stressing about money, so I wasn't to excited with the 4am wake up call.
Friday, October 26th
We took the 4:30 train from Manarola to La Spezia, where we had to wait for an hour in a McDonalds dining room. We changed trains a total of four times to get to Sermione by noon. Today was the worst weather by far, and it just so happened that we walked 6km from the train station to our hotel. Let's just say that none of us were in the best of spirits. Sermione is a peninsula that sticks out into Lake Garda and has wonderful views of the Italian Alps and is a Summer tourist destination. We finally mustered up the energy to move again at about 5, and went to explore the town. We ate dinner at a tourist restaurant that had picture menus and an Italian stereotype for a waiter. Afterwards we ate gelato, naturally. We ate gelato once or twice a day, which meant that all of the walking I was doing was just cancelling out that delicious ice cream. I had to sleep on a cot in the hotel room, which made me miss my room in Manarola.
Saturday, October 27th
We woke up with the sunrise and were lucky enough to grab some free breakfast at the hotel before we left. It was a continental breakfast buffet with rolls and deli meat, which meant that we were horrible people and we discreetly packed sandwiches for the day. When we walked outside we saw something we hadn't seen since Monday, the sun! The girls wanted to get a head start on Venice, but I wanted to actually see the Alps and Lake Garda, so we postponed our trip about an hour - which was well worth it. We took the train from Desenzano to Venice and were there before noon. This was also where we parted ways with Tim, who took the train back to Milan Airport (he'd already visited Venice before he came to Cinque Terre). The train ride was comfortable and the people watching was fantastic. The train was laid out into separate compartments of six seats, a train that you would see in a movie, and we were sitting with a middle-aged Italian man and a pretty Italian girl. The Italian man somehow managed to get his zipper stuck on the fabric of his jacket, but obviously didn't know how to fix it because he wrestled with it for about thirty minutes. By the end of it he was standing and screaming Italian obscenities at his zipper, it was one of those situations in which you try your best not to laugh. Upon our arrival into Venice we took a bus back across the Long Bridge and went to find our "hostel", which was actually a campground with the lost-in-translation name "Camping Jolly". We stayed in a bungalow or something along those lines, and it was comfortable and cheap - which is always good for me. We headed back to Venice and the girls spent the first three hours shopping, and when I say shopping, I just mean that they bought about five things - but somehow it took that long, I guess I have a lot to learn about women. We managed to move about five blocks in that amount of time, which was quite frustrating. I couldn't go off and explore by myself because Venice was horribly confusing, so I just looked at this time as being preparation for marriage.
Once they were done shopping we went to find somewhere to eat dinner, but instead ended up getting lost for about an hour. And not lost in the nice little tourist town of Venice, lost in the real, gritty part of Venice covered in graffiti and lacking street lights - it was fantastic. The girls decided that because this would be our last real Italian meal that we should eat on the Canal Grande, so after asking a few English-speaking people where we were we managed to find the Rialto Bridge and thus the Canal Grande. It was the worst meal of the trip. The restaurant was overpriced (and I am broke), the waiter hated us because we didn't order enough food, the gnocchi was chalky, the house wine tasted 10 euro cheaper than it cost, and it took them twenty minutes to give us our check, which in turn managed to leave me with 5 euro to live on for the next two days. On a lighter note, we realized that the girls sitting at the table behind us were from Richmond, and spent the rest of the evening with them. They were a lot of fun, and it was nice to mix up the group dynamic a bit, oh yeah, and we grabbed one last gelato before boarding the bus back to Camping Jolly. The bus ride redeemed the dinner. Halfway through the ride everybody started saying "Camping Jolly?" to each other, and soon we were all talking to each other about our lives and where we all came from. I met a wonderful Australian girl who was on her way to Austria, two girls from Mexico that were working on learning their fourth language, and some more Aussies, Kiwis, and Brits - I love the English language. We all made the half-mile trek back to Camping Jolly together, and I was the only one that knew the way, and felt a bit like the Pied Piper walking through the darkened Venetian streets.
Sunday, October 28th
We woke up rather early and decided that we would explore Venice some more, we checked out of Camping Jolly and took off to the bus stop with our heavy backpacks. It just so happened that today was the Venice Marathon, which meant that the busses weren't running, which meant that we had to walk the mile and half to the train station, where we hopped on and rode it into Venice. We checked our backpacks at left luggage and took off to explore Venice some more. We walked to the Piazza del San Marco, which was brimming with tourists and pigeons - two of my favorite things. The girls then did some shopping while I watched the marathon runners near the finish line. There were three types of runners, those who look understandably tired, those who look like they've only run a mile, and those who look like me after I run a mile. We spent the better part of the day just wandering and getting slightly lost, which is my favorite travel activity, and somehow found our way back to the train station. We took the 5:00 train to Milan, and it was a regional train, so that meant that it was two hours slower than Eurostar, but 20 euros cheaper, so that was just fine with me. It was a comfortable five-hour ride, even though a drunkard decided to stare at me through one of the partitions for ten minutes or so. From the Milan train station we took a coach to Milan Bergamo airport because we were flying out at 6am the next morning. We decided that we would "sleep" in the airport, which I am no stranger to. We staked our claim on a few uncomfortable bench seats and Jenny tried to sleep on the floor, then the security guard kicked all of us out. He sent us across the street to what felt like a refugee camp for airport passengers, people were everywhere, lying on the concrete, on their luggage, on each other. I was lying on a bench when a Frenchman got a security guard to kick me off of it. I sat up and apologized, it made sense, there were a lot of people. Then the Frenchman stretched out exactly as I had, what a horrible human being. I finished On the Road and then tried to sleep by holding my head in my hands, this didn't work so I decided to move to the floor, as many other people had done. It was dirty cold concrete, but I was tired. I began to doze off, and then for reasons I'm still not privy to, the security guard yelled something in Italian and kicked me in the side, then stormed off.
Monday, October 29th
Needless to say, I didn't get any sleep. They kicked us out of the refugee camp twenty minutes later and sent us back to the actual airport. We checked in at 4am without any hiccups, and boarded the plane two hours later. An emergency exit seat was open, so I chose legroom over friends, naturally. Two hours into the uneventful flight I realized that 1) we should have landed already and 2) we had been flying in a circle for some time. This is when the pilot came in over the intercom "Due to fog, we are being diverted to London Luton". We landed at London Luton 30 minutes later than we should have landed at Stansted. So it was shaping up to be a fantastic day. I had already booked a cheap ticket on the Stansted Express train and had everything figured out, which I had to do because I had class from 1:30-8:00 that night and a presentation in Parliament on top of that. When I disembarked from the plane I waited for a few minutes for the girls, but figured out they just went on without me, which bummed me out. Those few minutes meant that I was at the back of the passport control line, I got stuck behind an Eastern European man and his son who talked with the official for 30-40 minutes, it was horrible and I was grumpy. When I was done being grilled by the passport official I went and bought a bus ticket to London. I caught the bus twenty minutes later, we were later stuck in traffic for thirty minutes driving into London, and were now running well behind schedule - I had to be in class in three hours. I got off at the first London stop and took my chances on the Tube, just when the Piccadilly Line was closed for security concerns. So after another thirty minutes of waiting at the Green Park station I finally caught a train back here.
I didn't realize how much I would miss London, but coming back to my dorm room couldn't have made me happier. I showered, polished up my presentation for twenty minutes and then headed off to class on no sleep. I got an A- on the British Politics midterm that I thought I failed, so that definitely brightened my mood. That night I went to Parliament and gave my presentation on devolution in Committee Room 8, my professor didn't show, but John Hayes MP was there and said that he really enjoyed it. Thank God for espresso. He then took the class to see the House of Lords and House of Commons, which was great. He got us into the special viewing gallery in the House of Commons, told us to have fun, and then left. They were debating about the situation in Burma, and it was so very interesting to see Parliament in action. About twenty minutes after we sat down a familiar voice came over the speakers, it was John Hayes, it was quite nice to see him in action - he actually reminds me of Churchill. After hanging out in the House of Commons for another half hour I headed back to Kensington, finally got to Skype home, and got some much needed sleep.
Tuesday, October 30th
Slept until noon, wrote on this thing throughout the rest of the day.
Wednesday, October 31st
Went to St. Paul's Cathedral with my History of London class, and climbed to the top of the dome - it was a shame that I didn't bring my camera because the view was amazing. Although I could have done without the 450 stairs and having to duck for 20 minutes straight. Hung out with the girls downstairs and had a little Halloween soiree, it was really nice to see everyone again, it made me realize how much I'm going to miss these people when we go our separate ways next month.
Thursday, November 1st
I can't believe that it is November already, and that I'm more than halfway through this wonderful experience. I just wish I had a bottomless bank account so I could just do this forever. Tonight we're all going to a nice pub in Piccadilly Circus for Tim's birthday, which will be a good time. And I know I just finished writing about Italy, but I am going to Paris tomorrow. When I called home from Florence my dad said something to the effect of, "How did you get your life?" I'm still trying to figure that out.
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