Thanksgiving in London: Trains, Telephone Booths, Turkey, and Tons of fun

I spent Thanksgiving weekend in London. I was so excited to finally be going to an English speaking country. Wednesday morning, the signs at the airport greeted me in English, and only English. A lost Spanish guy asked me for directions in bad English, and I told him I was lost too, but, I said it in great English, I felt so competent! I was all ready to say “Hello, please, and thank you” to the bus driver, to be polite, to make casual small talk, and to belong! I hurried up past the line of busses, crossed in front of them to the right side of my bus, and reached for a non-existent door handle. I was about ready to knock, when I realized what a foreigner I was. Totally crestfallen, I crossed back to the right side of the street, (which is really the left side, and the wrong side), handed my ticket to the driver, who said something so britishly that I didn’t understand, and took my place as just another outsider.

With a few exceptions, like the fact that the driving is inside out, or that pudding is whatever desert you want it to be, it was amazing how much more familiar England seemed compared to Spain. From the very beginning England fulfilled expectations that I didn’t even know I had. The fields looked just like they should, full of Mary’s little lambs. The neighborhoods all looked like Privet drive, and Wallace and Grommet could have been living in anyone of the houses. I think even saw Nana barking outside of the Darling’s house as the bus arrived in London.

Without even trying I experienced all of the most important British things that all tourists dream of in the first day. My friends, Holly and Glynnis, met me at the bus station. On our walk to the train we saw BUCKINGHAM PALACE, a real life MOTHER GOOSE, and BIG BEN. Then we took the Train from London to Egham, where Holly goes to school. About five minutes after getting off, Glynnis asked me where my backpack with everything I needed for the next four days was. It was on the train. The scary man at the station told us to check back in an hour, even though he was sure it would be stolen. IN the meantime I had no pounds so in the meantime I went to an atm and to make matters worse, it wouldn’t let me withdraw. Then I got my next British experience using a TELEPHONE BOOTH to call the bank, with my brand new phone card which didn’t work either. Thank God I was staying with Holly because at that point I had absolutely nothing but an empty purse and the clothes on my back. Luckily when we went back to the station the big man instructed us to go to Wokingham station, platform 1, and ask for Matt, who would be waiting with my bag! So we took another LONG TRAIN RIDE, got my bag, and it started RAINING just in time for our twenty minute walk to Holly’s Castle. I could have gone home satisfied after only my first five hours in England. I had seen the biggest sights, used a phone booth, ridden the train twice, and walked a mile or two in the rain (up hill)!

But the trip only got better from there. That night we met all of Holly’s friends, and had a lot of fun at a huge Royal Holloway school dance, on the university’s friendly residential campus that reminded me a lot more of BC than my huge city of a school in Madrid.

The next day Glynnis [Holly’s friend from home, who also happened to be my friend from home’s freshman year roommate at Holy Cross (small world ex. #1)], and I toured Winsor Castle, a beautiful castle in a cute little town outside of London, where the queen loves to stay. It was the prettiest castle I have ever seen. And admission came with both a tour guide dressed for the part and an audio guide supplement. It would have been easy to spend the entire day touring the castle. They began building it around 1100 or something and every surface of the entire castle is beautifully decorated and has a story behind it. Our attention spans didn’t hold out quite as long as the little four year old boy ahead of us and after a couple hours we left to pick up "pudding" for thanksgiving dinner. Holly had promised us that her friends were planning a feast but we were a little skeptical so we made sure to get a good amount of desert.

We should never have doubted her friends. Two boys, one from Citadel and one from Bentley, had taken charge of the Turkeys and almost everyone else brought something. The dinner was enormous. Close to thirty people showed up and there was plenty of turkey, potatoes, squash, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce and gravy, to go around. Surprisingly, if you could look beyond the fact that one of the turkeys was still bleeding, everything tasted great (not as great as the usual but really good for amateurs). The best part was that everyone was too full for desert so we got to bring almost an entire chocolate cake back to Holly’s room, which I ate as a breakfast, snack, and desert for the rest of the trip. Later that night, we went to an American themed party in someone’s apartment that coincidentally turned out to be hosted by a British guy who had come on exchange to BC last year and had some friends from BC visiting (small world ex. #2).

The next day we went on a tour of the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Outside the theatre Holly and Glynnis ran into a friend from high school (the world is getting smaller, ex. #3). The theatre was really only a replica but they spent ten or fifty years trying to build it the authentic way and it was cool to see what all those English teachers were always talking. And it just so happened that in our little tour group, were two of my friend, Caroline’s, best friends from home, who I had hung out with in Buffalo last winter (really small world, ex. # 4).

From there we walked along the Thames and across the lovely London Tower Bridge taking in the city. Next we checked out the some of the so called "art" at the Tate Modern Museum where there is a mix of really cool art, really strange art, some famous art, and a lot of art that makes you wonder who makes the call on what's is art and what's not. One of the most interesting things was a clip of a guy tripping over a dog in the street that was shown filmed from a different perspective in each room. But the best thing by far was watching the tourists memorized by a huge crack that ran the length of a long, plain, gray, concrete floor, as if it were going to unearth some incredibly profound idea if they stared at it long enough. Whether or not any of those painting actually had a message to gain, after a while, the only message we were getting was from our hungry stomachs and we hurried to the first Indian restaurant we could find. I was blown away when my picky eater friend Holly had suggested we eat Indian, I was even more shocked when she ordered the spiciest chicken on the menu. I followed her lead and ordered the same but the lamb version. I was amazed at how Holly calmly savored every bite as I ordered glass of water after glass of water, sweating, and turning red. The meal was the really hot but great. And I finished with a special New Dehli dessert that tasted like donuts but looked nothing like them. Afterwards, we had a great time dancing at a popular Australian club until close when I rounded off my English transportation experience with a colorful double-decker bus ride to Heathrow airport and a taxi ride back to Holly’s.

We rallied the next morning to fit in some more sightseeing. We took a tour of Kensington palace were there was a special exhibition on Princess Diana. We took a ride on the gigantic London Eye to see the amazing view of the city. Then we stopped at a Sports Bar and ate 7 lbs of wings while we watched a really exciting BC football game and looked for our friends in the audience.

Afterwards we tried to go shopping at Harrods but the time we got there it was closed, probably a good thing since the exchange rate is horrible. Finally, we took a short walk through Hyde Park, and made one last stop to see Platform 9¾ at Kingscross station, before saying goodbyes.

I got to the airport that night I curled up on a chair and slept right through till morning. My dreams of London, and orange easy jet flight attendants serving cheery passengers with polite British accents who were all singing in unison, were only interrupted long enough to board the plane. And next thing I knew the singing flight attendant was me shaking me, asking me to bring my seat into full upright position for landing. My four days in London had flown by with no stopping for rest. When I arrived in Madrid, I was a little disappointed to see the signs were in Spanish again. But I realized it wasn’t so bad when I ran into a friend who was lost in the airport. This time, I was not lost, and I was able to give directions, to say “what a small world!” all in awesome American English. Running into him only reinforced what I learned in England: that the world of juniors abroad is so tiny that you can never feel too far from home. This connectedness made London the ideal trip for Thanksgiving. I got a little helping of home with all the Americans I saw, the thanksgiving feast, the wings, the language, and the football. At the same time, I experienced a lot of what England has to offer: the sights, the university, the trains, the telephone booths, the rain, and even got a taste of India and Australia too. And the best part of it all was I got to do it all while catching up with my friend Holly. Even though I missed being home for thanksgiving, I was very thankful to be where I was!