Saturday morning I found myself at St. Pancras waiting for
my mom and sister to arrive. Time was dragging on and I was beginning to wonder
whether or not they had gotten on the right train. I wandered back and forth
for a while and eventually sat myself down on the stairs. I hadn’t gotten any
sleep at all the night before because my insomnia was especially bad that night
and caused me to pull an all-nighter and I was becoming a little anxious about
where mom and Haley were. I had not been sitting there for long when a guy (black
guy, seemed at least several years older than me, but not middle aged) who was
walking by stopped on his way up the stairs and leaned on the middle railing to
ask me if I was alright. I told him yeah, just waiting but he didn’t go away,
instead, he struck up a conversation with me.
I can’t remember his name, but he said he was from Angola. We talked for
a while just casually, he was waiting around also before he needed to go take
some sort of qualification test for his job. Friendly, and interesting but
again, not my type and also the fact that I am just not looking for anything
right now. Still too raw and I am in no shape for another go. So when he asked
me for my number, I simply told him that I was already in a relationship (just
the easiest thing that came to mind) and he seemed fairly understanding.
I waited a bit longer before deciding to head back to NIDO
to wait. I was there, practicing guitar when I got a text from a payphone
telling me that mom and Haley were here, so I ran back down to St. Pancras and
found them there. I got them to their hotel before we set off on a tour of
London. First, we took the Tube down to Tower Hill, we then did a LONG walk
from the Tower of London, across Tower Bridge, through Borough Market, past the
Globe and the Tate, across Millennium Bridge, and eventually stopping at St.
Paul’s. We then took the Tube from there to Westminster where we walked by Big
Ben and Parliament, across Lambeth Bridge to the Southbank near the London Eye
and crossed back over on the bridge directly underneath Big Ben. We then found
a pub to eat at and mom and Haley got to have their first meal at a pub as well
as see all the major sights. When it got dark that night, we went on another
walk from King’s Cross to IES so that I could show them where I go to class, we
passed the British Museum and then caught a bus back from Tottenham.
Yesterday, we went to Camden Market and spent the vast
majority of the day there. As always, I could not leave without buying
something and ended up with a pretty ring with a large red rhinestone and a
bracelet with an Iron Cross on it that mom bought me. We tried the food and
explored for several hours before deciding to head toward Soho. However, when
we were trying to find the bus stop something really rather strange happened.
We were on the next street over from Camden High Street because we needed a bus
going the opposite way and Camden is a one way (also the Tube Station was
closed). As we were standing at the bus stop reading the route information I
heard mom exclaim, “what’s your problem dude!?” and turned around to see a middle
sized and rather normally dressed black guy standing right behind us staring
hard at her as though offended. She had exclaimed at him because apparently she
had turned around to see him standing right behind her with a fist raised in
the air as though he were going to punch her. When she turned to look at him,
he did a medium speed punching motion toward her face that he pulled back
before actually touching her. Mom’s exclamation was what caused Haley and I to
turn around and he just stared at her for a few moments, during which time I
was doing a scan of his hands to make sure he didn’t have a knife or something
and also wondering what to do if he made a move toward mom. But then he turned
around and walked away without a word. It was REALLY strange and we suspected
that he may not have been completely mentally well, because there was no reason
whatsoever and no sense in his actions.
From Camden, we made our way to Soho and I gave mom and
Haley the same tour that my British Youth Culture professor took us on and
which I later took Hannah on sometime back, and showed them all the history of
the area. We did not get as far as Abbey Road. But this morning, mom and Haley
went there while I was in class (apparently mom did not know what Abbey Road
was however and needed some explaining after enduring Haley and my laughter).
After class, I met them at Holborn Station, we got lunch and
then took the Tube to St. Paul’s. The next few hours were spent inside St. Paul’s
Cathedral (the third time for me). After St. Paul’s we consulted the map in mom’s
guide book that she had to figure out how to get to Brick Lane. I had not taken
the Tube to Brick Lane before (always having taken the bus from NIDO before),
and was slightly confused by its suggestion to get off at Aldgate East rather
than Shoreditch. But trusting the book, that was where we went. As it would
have it, the map then did not show the way to get to Brick Lane from there and
cut off the area where we were. There were also no maps on the street, as our
luck would have it. So we explored down one way because I thought I could see
it from a distance. But apparently we were terribly wrong and ended up walking
and walking and walking looking for a bus stop to get us back in familiar
territory. The neighborhood started to turn a little less than desirable which
I was by no means pleased with because I didn’t know the area nor how to get
out of it and after guys in two passing cars shouted “compliments” at us, I was
rather done. Finally we found a bus that would return us to downtown and it was
then that we realized just how far we had gone, apparently the entirely wrong
direction as we had somehow managed to come close to Wapping which is on the
way toward Greenwich. Back in familiar territory once again near St. Paul’s,
that was where we got dinner at a pub and then decided to call it an early
night on account of sore feet.
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