I woke
up a little before 10:00 AM on Friday, and I walked over to Cam’s room to wish
him goodbye since he was leaving by 10:30. As I was hanging out with him, the
cleaning lady came into his room. I knew that I had to have left my phone in
Mackenzie’s room, and since Mackenzie had left early that morning, I needed
another way back into her room. The lady was nice enough to let me in and, sure
enough, I found my phone in the only spot in the couch cushions that I hadn’t
already checked. Relieved, I kept hanging out with Cam. Renae joined us and
when Cam was all packed we walked to the main gate with him where we said
goodbye to the rest of the group leaving with Cam. It was sad, but since we are
all OSU students we were able to take some joy in the fact that we would all
get to see each other again in only a few weeks. I went back to my room and
began to pack my things. I got in the shower as soon as it was free, and
finished packing just minutes before the taxi arrived to pick up Phil and me.
Our
cabbie was friendly and had all kinds of questions about American Football,
specifically the NFL. He was excited for the NFL game in London this year, and
he gave us the impression that he had been to all of the NFL games played in
London. He was curious about college football and he had no idea how big it
was. He even asked Phil and I if we played college football. I almost snorted
in laughter, but forced myself to hold it in because this man obviously just
had no idea. We explained to him how college football was only for the best
athletes, and he went on to ask how we played if we wanted to play sports. I
tried to explain intramurals to him, which seemed to confuse him. I almost
stumbled into explaining Greek Life and how that factors into intramurals, but
I stopped myself because I was pretty sure his head would explode if I started
to talk about “bigs,” “pledgeship,” and “date parties.” He dropped us off at
the train station and we bought tickets for the direct train to King’s Cross.
The train ride was smooth and simple.
Phil and I sat across from each other, happily remarking on the English
countryside, Cambridge, and how much fun we’d had studying in one of the
world’s oldest paces of higher learning.
We
arrived at King’s Cross with a three point checklist of things we needed to do:
Find a Barclay’s ATM for me, find some food (preferably cheap and quick), and
find an Underground stop not far from the other two. We exited King’s Cross,
turned up the street and checked all three off in a single glance. A Barclay’s
ATM was right next door to a Burger King which was right next door to an
entrance to the large Underground stop housed under King’s Cross. I thought to
myself, as Harry often said in Spain, “nailed it!” After a delicious lunch
(they really do fast food better here at the restaurants they have), we rode
the Underground to the Hyde Park Corner stop. This was right outside of our
hotel, the dazzling “Inter-Continental.”
It was legitimately dazzling, a serious five-star hotel which always
caused my Chacos and Phil’s frequent bags of gummi candy to look extremely out
of place. We went up to our room and put down our bags. We checked our social
media while lying on the lotion-soft bed. From there we were off to Camden
Town, the cute/hipster/artsy/Boston-esque little part of town where Phil’s mom
lived when her family lived in London. We walked through a park and climbed a
giant hill named “Primrose Hill.” It
provided a striking view of the London skyline.
Phil and I sat on a bench at the top, enjoying the quiet and the
pleasant breeze. We looked at the city and chatted while a little boy nearby
flew a kite with his grandparents. We
smiled at the pure joy on the child’s face.
We were happy to once again be traveling and exploring as Phil and I enjoy
traveling. That is, we walk with our eyes moving more than our feet, and are
frequent to stop for half an hour just so that we can enjoy the beauty of a
place.
We
walked down the hill and up a few streets, eventually finding Phil’s mother’s
old home. Phil took a couple pictures and we walked back down into Camden Town.
We stopped at a movie theater and saw “The Dark Knight Rises.” Now if you’re someone who knows me at all then you’re aware of my deep
appreciation for Batman. I’m not going to go into a rant about it here, but I
will just state that Batman is one of my favorite things on Earth and probably
my favorite story. Aside from two stupid and loud Europeans next to us, the movie was perfect. I cried a lot in it. That’s basically
all I need to say. We returned to our hotel to rest, eventually deciding to
venture out to find some food. It was late, so not many restaurants were open,
and we ended up happily at McDonald’s. I thought it was funny how as we tired
of being away from home, our bodies happily reached out to the familiar tastes
of American fast food since we didn’t have the hugs of our families and loved
ones to satisfy our physical yearning. A q-p-chee (quarter pounder with cheese)
can only satisfy your homesickness so much, but it does it a whole lot better
than British dairy does.
Feeling
bloated from our dinner, we opted to walk back to our hotel rather than take
the Underground and we returned to our room tired. We knew we only had one more full day in
London, so we wen to sleep hoping we’d get enough rest to be able to truly
enjoy it.
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