World Travel Guide Online

London Calling
England

Paula at Buckingham Palace.

OK, so I am studying in Northern France and we are planning a trip, right?

Of course, everyone wants to go to Amsterdam. Me? Not so much – I would love to see the canals, Anne Frank, and the Van Gogh museums. However, as I always end up with a group of guys, the idea of coffee shops and girls in windows did not really appeal to me. So I was like, London, London, London!

But everyone else was Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Amsterdam! So then, My friend Tiff says that she has friends in England and that we should totally plan on London. Yes! Eurostar! Big Ben! Sexy accents! Indian Food! Pints of lager! Tate Modern! Top Shop! I am so, so excited.

Then Tiff tells me that she’s skipping our going-away party at school to go to London the following weekend, because of some friends in… Islington, I think it was? Anyway, her friends are throwing another party. I was already set to dance Shakira (don’t ask) at the closing party, and was going to Nice the very next day, so there was no way I could make it that weekend. I so didn’t want to go by myself. Luckily, a few days back at Dupon, I met Alex. Alex is the coolest and says that he’ll come to London with me. We go to buy our tickets for London and then Nice, we’re set! So that weekend, Alex picks me up in my dorm at 8:30. We are at the train station having breakfast by 8:45, totally ready for our 9:15 train. I am telling Alex how cool he is to travel with, our train leaves and then… he realizes he left his passport in his dorm.

Did I freak out? Completely. So we are clearing French customs and British customs in Lille to board the Eurostar, and they don’t let him get on the train. I continue freaking out. We debate whether to ditch London and do Paris instead that weekend. My friend Dan was in London that weekend, so I leave a frantic voicemail telling him we are stuck in Lille, and that we may be in Paris instead. Then the British customs guy, who I thought to be completely mean, turned out to be really nice. He signed Alex’s ticket to be able to take the train the next day, and allowed me to get on the following train, since I had lost the 2:15 one because of all the drama. Alex promises he will meet me in London the next day, after going back to Angers to get his passport. Alex gives me a hug, and watches me get on the platform to leave.

More drama – I am all sniffly to be leaving him behind, scared to go by myself and feeling awful. Alex is saying not to worry, he will be in Waterloo the next day at 2:45. People are looking at us like we are on a soap opera. So I go to board the train, still sniffly. A nice British man and his wife ask me what is wrong, so I tell them the drama. They are leaving the train in Hartford, but the man still explains how to take the tube from Waterloo train station to the Barbican center, where my hostel was.

Seeing how upset and clueless I was, he decides it is better for me just to take a cab from the station – “right, a small thing like you would just get swallowed in the Tube,” he says. So I board the train and sit next to this guy Chris, a German who hates Germany.

Crossing the tunnel was beyond amazing – It is incredible how much the scenery changes minutes by minutes from France to England. So Chris continues to tell me how much he hates Germany, I continue to whinge about the passport incident, and we arrive in London. We exit the train, and I immediately meet two guys from Spain. Yes!

Notting Hill train station.

I tell them what happened, they say “Vale tia, pero que mala leche. Quedate con nosotros.” I agree to hang with them, and help them exchange money since their English was not that great. I debate whether to go with them to their hostel, but I already had reservations in mine. As I debate, I Hate Germany Chris comes over to give me a hug and say bye! Aww. I wish I had remembered to get his email. Anyway, so I take my cab, and off I go. I have the coolest Jamaican cabbie ever. I have to tell him to charge me, because he didn’t want to! He even stopped at a camera shop, since my camera’s battery had run out.

So I make it to the hostel, and I can’t even figure out where to sign in. Then it hits me: homesickness. I miss my friends back in France, who are probably having red wine (stolen from school) by the chateau and getting ready to party at Dupon. I miss my dad. I am scared, tired, and freaked out. Then I meet Matt, who is part owner of the hostel. I tell him the passport story, and he could not have been cooler. He tells me he is cooking dinner, that everyone gets together at Basement, the hostel bar, and not to worry about a thing. I then meet Mike, who signs me in. He introduces me to Juan and Inma, a Spanish couple who are trying to switch rooms. I translate a little, and chat with Mike. Then I notice a cell phone just lying there. I ask if there is a payphone close by, and Matt says to use the cell, it’s cool. So I leave another voicemail for Dan, who by now probably thinks I am nuts, telling him I made it to London and I am in Sundial Court.

Inma and Juan, seeing that I was the most pathetic person on the planet at that point, offer to take me out, to leave with them in 20 minutes. Mike shows me to my room, I throw my stuff on the bed and… call my dad. The conversation went as follows:

Dad: Hello?

Paula: *sniffle, sob* Daddy!

Dad: *alarmed* Pau? what’s wrong?

P: *full-on whinge mode* am in London by myself! My friend lost his passport! I don’t know what I am doing tomorrow! *little sob*

Dad: *upset, yet used to his daughter’s antics* Are you crazy?! London? Why are you there? Why are you there by YOURSELF?! Go back to France!

P: *sniffle, whinge* I want to go back to Angers!

Dad: Go straight to the train station and call me from there.

P: Daddy! I just got here! *sniffle* And I can’t get a refund on the tickets! Besides, I’m going out in 20 minutes!”

So I leave to meet Inma and Juan, who could not have been sweeter. We saw the Monument and the Tower bridge. We saw a pub overflowing with people that looked like a pirate ship. There were all these awesome cobblestone side streets with shops and pubs, and I wanted to go to every single one. But Inma and Juan had been job-hunting all day, so they were very tired. So we go back to Sundial Court. When we get back, I tell Inma and Juan I am buying them drinks because they were so incredibly nice. So we go to Basement, and everyone’s there – so Matt and I tell them the passport story. For some odd reason, everyone finds the story hilarious. They say they are not leaving me by myself, and that they are all going to Play, a club nearby. They ask me along, so I rush to my room to change. We get to Play, and I meet Jeremy and Marc. Jeremy and I agree to meet at 9:30 the next day for breakfast and to see the sights. I am so relieved people have been so cool! It is only after I am feeling ok that I start feeling totally hungry – I’d been so stressed and upset I hadn’t eaten all day. I tell Matt – and this is how cool he is – and he takes me to get a kebab, at 1 in the morning, at this place around the corner from Play. We sit in a little bench and chat for about an hour. The next day, I meet Jeremy and Marc at breakfast, and we hit Portobello Market.

I love French food, but the grilled veggie quesadilla I had at Cafe Grove was incredible, and there was no way I could have gotten that in France. Whoever said English food wasn’t good is a wanker. I had the yummiest food in London.

After lunch we decide to go to Waterloo to meet Alex, but we get to the tube 10 minutes late. We decide to go back to the hostel to see if Alex showed up. So when we get there, I ask Matt and Mike if my friend showed up. They say yeah, he left a note. I see the note, and it is not from Alex, it is from Dan! He’d stopped by the hostel to see if I was there! That was the most amazing thing, because he was working in an advertising pitch, and I didn’t know if I would even get to see him. Matt lends me his mobile and I ring Dan straight away, and we make plans to meet back at the hostel. So we leave to see the sights – Trafalgar square, Buckingham Palace, High Street Kensington, Westminster Abbey, Parliament – and Harrods. We are back at the hostel, and I am talking to Mike in the office when Dan walks in. We sit down and chat, when… in walks Alex!

After Dan, Alex, Paula and “cute tshirt guy” (on Paula’s lap) and a spur-of-the-moment singalong, this Indian restaurant will never be the same.

Apparently, when he didn’t see us at Waterloo, he took a tour by himself. I can’t believe he made it. He says he had promised to come, and so he did. He also wants to know why everyone is calling him “passport guy.” (Heee!!) So Dan, Marc, Alex and I go on to a pub, and then on to a yummy Indian Restaurant. At the restaurant, there is just us – and a table of about 15 people across from us. It’s a bit weird, since I notice a guy in a red tee kind of staring.

All of a sudden, completely at random – and led by cute red t-shirt guy, they start singing happy birthday when they get to the “happy birthday dear…” they all stop and look at me. In my tiniest voice, I say ‘paula’ “….dear PAULA!”

They then launch into “for she’s a jolly good fellow.” I think I am blushing bright pink at that point. One guy jokingly takes the piss out of my accent, and I joke right back about his British accent. Cute red T-shirt guy says, “ohh, and he’s Irish! that’s a double insult!”

I literally can’t stop smiling, and we can’t stop laughing. I tell them I lived in Mexico and they immediately think “Shakira”. She’s Colombian, but anyway. Alex cracks up, since he and Javi came up with my “petite shakira” nickname that I have not been able to live down.

My frat boy Alex, always macking, somehow ends up with a girl on his lap. Then cute t shirt guy says he needs to sit in my lap as well. By that point it had gotten really late, and Dan needed to catch the last train out. I didn’t know how far away he lived; it was totally cool of him to make the trip out and hang out with us.

I never would have believed things would have worked out so great, after being so freaked to be in London by myself. It was an amazing time. I can’t say enough about Matt, Mike and Spence at Eurotrip. Spence even gave us a ride to Waterloo in the Eurotrip Landrover. Marc even decided to come back and chill in Angers with us, before moving on to catch the Tour de France. I am as much in love with London as I am with Paris. Angers feels like a second home, and I have been to Paris four times, so it would definitely be cool to get to know London as well. There’s so much left to see.