Inglaterra!
Let’s see…so I think I Tuesday after school I went to the café so that I could write in my journal and catch up since I only get around to it like once a week now. On my way home, something was going on in the Plaza for Carnaval (it was Mardi Gras), but I’m not exactly sure what. Then on Wednesday, we had our first class with Pilar, our new grammar teacher. Our other teacher, María Jesús, apparently got a better or different job somewhere else, so PIlar, the other grammar teacher, is going to teach our class for the rest of the semester. We’re all sad, because we liked María Jesús a lot, but oh well. It was kind of a chaotic day, but I’m sure once we get to know her, it’ll be better. Then we had dance class. We learned part of the second sevillana, which is cool, and I like that one a lot. On the way home, Dane, Monica and I went by the Plaza…they were having the Entierra de la Sardinas, in other words the burial of the Sardines I think. It was supposed to signal the end of Carnaval and the beginning of Lent. There was a little parade type thing, and there were guys on stilts with torches and then a group of people carrying the “Sardines”, paper fish, and behind them half the town dressed up in their costumes. It’s hard to describe it, but it was pretty funny and reminded me of Fete de la Carrote in Croissy.
Thursday was the start of the adventure to England. First, we had to get through school which was kind of boring. I came home, ate lunch, packed my bag, and headed out to the bus station where Monica, Stephen, Lance and I were meeting. We got on the bus, and this time Monica and I knew where to get off for the airport since we had taken the bus to the airport for Italy. We got to the airport, waited around for a little bit, finally checked in, and Monica and I checked our bags since we weren’t sure if they would fit in the overheads. Her sister’s boyfriend had given her a bag, and just the girl took it and put it on the conveyor belt thing, she realized that she hadn’t put a name tag on it. That would be important later. So anyways, we waited for our flight, and finally got on. The flight wasn’t too bad, although there was someone sitting behind Monica who smelled really bad and a flight attendant who we think was a transvestite (we couldn’t figure it out, but “she” seemed pretty masculine). We got to Customs, and we got held up because we didn’t know the address of the hostel where we were staying. Monica didn’t have any problems, but Lance, Stephen, and I were all interrogated by our customs officers. First they asked us where we were coming from, so we said, Madrid, Spain. Then they asked where we were staying, and we said London. They asked us where, because London is huge, and we didn’t know the name, address, or anything of the hostel. Todd, Monica’s boyfriend, had made all of the arrangements. I was afraid they were going to send me back to Spain or something, but finally they let us through. Mom, you are probably shaking your head reading this now, but we realized that we were pretty stupid not to have that info. Then, we went to baggage claim so Monica and I could get our bags. I got mine pretty quick, but Monica’s never came. We finally had to go to the desk, and tell them that her bag was lost. That was a nightmare, and once again we didn’t have any of the hostel information. We called Nicole, my roommate, here in Alcalá and had her look up the info on the computer for us. We couldn’t get ahold of Todd the whole time since he doesn’t have a cell phone, and was waiting for us in Victoria Station in London. We gave them the address we found for the hostel, the address for Keele, and then her address in Spain, and hoped that one way or another she would get her bag, but they had no idea where it was. We headed out towards Victoria station, and finally got there and found Todd. It was after midnight by the time we got there, so the Tube had already stopped running. We all got some money at the ATM, but Lance’s card wouldn’t work-odd. We weren’t sure if it was the ATM, but he tried a couple times and two different ones and it wouldn’t work. So, we were going to try to take a bus to get to the hostel, but that didn’t work, so we ended up taking a taxi. We got to the hostel, which looked kinda like a frat house. We checked in, and went downstairs, and there was one other kid staying in our room. He was doing a high school exchange program in Germany for a year, and he was 17. He had come to London and was going around by himself for a week. We were all pretty amazed by that, and decided we wouldn’t have been able to come to London alone for a week. It was funny because his name was John Thomas Vaughan. Anyways, we went upstairs to the bar for a little bit to chat and hang out, and we went to bed around 3am, which was really like 4am for us, since London is an hour back.
On Friday morning, we got up and after breakfast headed out to discover London. We went to Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, all over. We had decided while we were still in Madrid that we wanted to do the London Eye, the ferris wheel they built for the millennium, so we went and did that. It was really cool, and we were really glad we did it. Then we went to Big Ben, and were going to try to go into Westminster Abbey, but there was a line and we didn’t want to wait a long time to get in. After that, we went over towards Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We finally got hungry, so we found some little pizza place where we stopped to eat, and it was pretty good. We left the pizza place and went towards this open air market type thing. There were some street performers and stuff, and then we found a Mark and Spencer’s that we went into. Monica got a couple things since they still hadn’t found her bag. We went to Harrods’s, but we got there right before it closed, so we didn’t really get to see it. We headed back towards the hostel, and just kinda hung out and played hearts in the bar for awhile before going to sleep.
On Saturday morning, we got up and went to Buckingham Palace first. We were hoping to see the changing of the guard, but it turned out we were there on an off day, so we didn’t get to see it. We went back to Harrods’s so that we could spend a little more time there. We went up to the toy department and pet store, which was fun. We left Harrods’s to find the Hard Rock, which is the original one. We finally found it, and went down to the Vault they have there, where they have things from Elvis, John Lennon, Jimmy Hendrix, and some other people. The boys went crazy down there, especially Stephen and Todd since they play guitar and got to play them. Lance’s bank card still didn’t work, and Easyjet still had no idea where Monica’s bag was. We went to Camden Town to eat before catching our 6:00 coach to Stoke-on-Trent and Keele. Camden Town is something that cannot really be described, you have to see it with your own eyes to understand. I guess the best description would be the alternative part of town, but it was ridiculous. Every other person had Mohawks or different colored hair, there were just all kinds of people. The boys got Indian food, and Monica and I got Chinese, which was good. Then we had to make our way back towards Victoria to get our bus, which was about 3 hours. We played some cards and slept a little bit, and got to Stoke-on Trent around 9:30. We took the bus up to Keele, and then went to the Pig and Rat or something like that, the student union to chill out and play a little pool, which was fun. Monica and I slept in Todd’s room, and Todd slept in a friend’s room with the boys.
On Sunday morning, Todd made us breakfast, crepes with a strawberry sauce and eggs. It was so good. After breakfast, we went back into town to get our coach to Liverpool. We got to Liverpool and didn’t really know what we wanted to do. We saw a free museum, and decided to go in there so we could go to the bathroom. It was kind of like a COSI, but it ended up being a pretty cool museum, plus it was free! We came out and discovered that it had rained while we were inside, so we got lucky that we missed the rain. We went to find somewhere to eat, and ate at a restaurant where the boys could get fish and chips, and Monica and I got Chicken Cumberland pie, which was sooo good. We had a really good lunch, and then afterwards headed down towards the water. We went into a couple little museums since they were free, but they weren’t really that exciting. We saw the harbor, and the Beatles museum, but we didn’t go in. We were kinda cold, so we decided to go into McDonald’s, and as crazy as it sounds, we got ice cream and apple pie, it was good though. We saw and talked for at least an hour, and decided that we were ready to go. It was like 7:30 or 8, but our coach didn’t leave to go back to Keele until like 11. We went back to the station and were going to try to get our tickets changed, but it was too late, so we had to wait. We played various card games in the station for the next 3 hours or so, and it was actually a blast. It probably helped that we were really hyper too. We got back to Stoke-on-Trent, and took a taxi home.
On Monday morning, we were supposed to get our coach back to London at 8am. We planned on getting up so that we could leave at 7am to get into town for our coach. Well, apparently Todd had gotten locked out of the dorm where Lance and Stephen were staying. They hadn’t woken up and come over yet, and they had the key, so Todd went and threw rocks at the window to wake them up and make sure they were up, and then they showed up a couple minutes later. We didn’t end up leaving until about 7:15, and by that time we were pretty sure we were going to miss our 8am coach to London since it took a half an hour to get into town. The bus finally came to take us into town, but then it took an hour to get to the station. We got there about 8:30, so we obviously had missed the coach, great. We tried to go to the ticket office to see if we could get on the next bus, but it didn’t open until 9. We waited around until 9, doing our Sevillana dance for Todd, and then went back to the ticket office after it opened. At that point, we were going to find out if we could try to get the next bus or if we had to go to the train station and pay for train tickets since we were running out of time. The lady told us that we could get on the next coach at 9:30 if the driver would let us and there was space, so we waited for the coach. It finally came, and we thought we would have to beg to get on the bus, but luckily there was space, even though we didn’t get to sit together. We were just glad we were able to get on the bus and didn’t have to pay again though. It was kind of a long ride, and our busdriver took off someone else’s side mirror, I think a small truck. There was this loud crack and then we heard him on the phone talking about a mirror, so that was interesting. Todd had gotten us tickets for the 1pm coach to London Gatwick airport. The coach from Stoke-on-Trent didn’t get into Victoria until about 1:30, so we obviously missed that bus too. We went to the ticket office and were able to change that so we got on the 2pm bus to the airport. Our flight left at 4:55 and it took at least an hour and a half, so we were just hoping the traffic wouldn’t be too bad and we would get there in time. Luckily, we got there around 3:30, we had plenty of time, and this time I decided not to check my backpack and took it on the plane with us. Easyjet still had no idea where Monica’s bag was, great. Our flight to Madrid got in really early, so we took the metro home and got home around 10:30ish. It was a lot of fun, and a great trip, definitely an adventure, despite the couple little problems. It was kind of funny because sometimes we had trouble understanding the English, and now I can understand better why the Spanish have trouble understanding us, since they are used to English accents. We all pretty much decided we would never want to go to school in England, even though it was a lot of fun, and we love Spain. After I got home, Nicole told me that grammar class had actually been cancelled, so we didn’t miss anything on Monday.
On Tuesday, I had to go back to the library after school to research for my paper for Susana’s class. We had a 4 page paper due on Thursday, and of course I didn’t do anything while I was in England, so I had all of Tuesday and Wednesday to do it. I was at the library for awhile, and then came home and ate and whatnot.
On Wednesday, Nicole and I went back to school to do some more work on our papers before dance class. We had dance class, and we learned the rest of the second Sevillana, and put it together with the first. It was a lot of fun, and I really enjoy our dance class. We worked a little more after, then came home and finished it up.
On Thursday, we had class, but our civ class was cancelled so we could go to a museum in the afternoon. We went into Madrid with Beatriz, our teacher to the Archaeological museum, it was kinda boring. Since we were already in Madrid, Dane, Monica, Juanito, Nicole, and I went to the Hard Rock since it was close and got a couple things. Then we went to Funiversal, the travel agency, to pick up our tickets for Las Fallas in Valencia next weekend. That took kind of a long time, but then afterwards, Monica, Nicole and I called Laura, Araceli’s sister. We went and had milkshakes with her, so that was fun to talk with her. We got home around midnight, ate dinner, and went to sleep.
Yesterday, I slept in and it was really nice. I didn’t do much all day, so it was nice to take a break and relax. I ate lunch with mamá, Nicole wasn’t here because she went to Segovia. Then Monica and I went to the centro comercial, we wanted to look for stuff so we can start making our scrapbooks. We didn’t find anything for that, and then we ended up going to the other side of town to Carrefour. We both bought a couple of cd’s, and I’m excited to listen to them. We came home, ate dinner real quick, then we went back to the centro comercial and saw Brokeback Mountain. It was in Spanish, so it was kinda hard to focus, and I think I missed some stuff, but it was nice to just see a movie, since I hadn’t done that in awhile. We weren’t sure if the bus was going to come, so we walked home, and got back around 1:30.
Today, Monica and I went with Araceli, Javier, and Laura to the Sierras de Madrid, some mountains. We weren’t really sure where we were going, it was a surprise destination road trip. It was really pretty, we mainly drove most of the day, and went through some little towns and stuff. It was really windy though. There were signs for cow crossings all over, and at least once or twice there were cows in the middle of the road so we had to stop and wait for them to cross. There was even a little bit of snow. It was fun hanging out with them, and the landscape was all really nice. We listened to some Spanish music, and Laura gave us a cd of Spanish music she had made for us. So anyways, that’s pretty much it. Tomorrow I think we are going to go to the Rastro in Madrid, so that should be fun. I’m looking forward to it!
Thursday was the start of the adventure to England. First, we had to get through school which was kind of boring. I came home, ate lunch, packed my bag, and headed out to the bus station where Monica, Stephen, Lance and I were meeting. We got on the bus, and this time Monica and I knew where to get off for the airport since we had taken the bus to the airport for Italy. We got to the airport, waited around for a little bit, finally checked in, and Monica and I checked our bags since we weren’t sure if they would fit in the overheads. Her sister’s boyfriend had given her a bag, and just the girl took it and put it on the conveyor belt thing, she realized that she hadn’t put a name tag on it. That would be important later. So anyways, we waited for our flight, and finally got on. The flight wasn’t too bad, although there was someone sitting behind Monica who smelled really bad and a flight attendant who we think was a transvestite (we couldn’t figure it out, but “she” seemed pretty masculine). We got to Customs, and we got held up because we didn’t know the address of the hostel where we were staying. Monica didn’t have any problems, but Lance, Stephen, and I were all interrogated by our customs officers. First they asked us where we were coming from, so we said, Madrid, Spain. Then they asked where we were staying, and we said London. They asked us where, because London is huge, and we didn’t know the name, address, or anything of the hostel. Todd, Monica’s boyfriend, had made all of the arrangements. I was afraid they were going to send me back to Spain or something, but finally they let us through. Mom, you are probably shaking your head reading this now, but we realized that we were pretty stupid not to have that info. Then, we went to baggage claim so Monica and I could get our bags. I got mine pretty quick, but Monica’s never came. We finally had to go to the desk, and tell them that her bag was lost. That was a nightmare, and once again we didn’t have any of the hostel information. We called Nicole, my roommate, here in Alcalá and had her look up the info on the computer for us. We couldn’t get ahold of Todd the whole time since he doesn’t have a cell phone, and was waiting for us in Victoria Station in London. We gave them the address we found for the hostel, the address for Keele, and then her address in Spain, and hoped that one way or another she would get her bag, but they had no idea where it was. We headed out towards Victoria station, and finally got there and found Todd. It was after midnight by the time we got there, so the Tube had already stopped running. We all got some money at the ATM, but Lance’s card wouldn’t work-odd. We weren’t sure if it was the ATM, but he tried a couple times and two different ones and it wouldn’t work. So, we were going to try to take a bus to get to the hostel, but that didn’t work, so we ended up taking a taxi. We got to the hostel, which looked kinda like a frat house. We checked in, and went downstairs, and there was one other kid staying in our room. He was doing a high school exchange program in Germany for a year, and he was 17. He had come to London and was going around by himself for a week. We were all pretty amazed by that, and decided we wouldn’t have been able to come to London alone for a week. It was funny because his name was John Thomas Vaughan. Anyways, we went upstairs to the bar for a little bit to chat and hang out, and we went to bed around 3am, which was really like 4am for us, since London is an hour back.
On Friday morning, we got up and after breakfast headed out to discover London. We went to Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, all over. We had decided while we were still in Madrid that we wanted to do the London Eye, the ferris wheel they built for the millennium, so we went and did that. It was really cool, and we were really glad we did it. Then we went to Big Ben, and were going to try to go into Westminster Abbey, but there was a line and we didn’t want to wait a long time to get in. After that, we went over towards Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We finally got hungry, so we found some little pizza place where we stopped to eat, and it was pretty good. We left the pizza place and went towards this open air market type thing. There were some street performers and stuff, and then we found a Mark and Spencer’s that we went into. Monica got a couple things since they still hadn’t found her bag. We went to Harrods’s, but we got there right before it closed, so we didn’t really get to see it. We headed back towards the hostel, and just kinda hung out and played hearts in the bar for awhile before going to sleep.
On Saturday morning, we got up and went to Buckingham Palace first. We were hoping to see the changing of the guard, but it turned out we were there on an off day, so we didn’t get to see it. We went back to Harrods’s so that we could spend a little more time there. We went up to the toy department and pet store, which was fun. We left Harrods’s to find the Hard Rock, which is the original one. We finally found it, and went down to the Vault they have there, where they have things from Elvis, John Lennon, Jimmy Hendrix, and some other people. The boys went crazy down there, especially Stephen and Todd since they play guitar and got to play them. Lance’s bank card still didn’t work, and Easyjet still had no idea where Monica’s bag was. We went to Camden Town to eat before catching our 6:00 coach to Stoke-on-Trent and Keele. Camden Town is something that cannot really be described, you have to see it with your own eyes to understand. I guess the best description would be the alternative part of town, but it was ridiculous. Every other person had Mohawks or different colored hair, there were just all kinds of people. The boys got Indian food, and Monica and I got Chinese, which was good. Then we had to make our way back towards Victoria to get our bus, which was about 3 hours. We played some cards and slept a little bit, and got to Stoke-on Trent around 9:30. We took the bus up to Keele, and then went to the Pig and Rat or something like that, the student union to chill out and play a little pool, which was fun. Monica and I slept in Todd’s room, and Todd slept in a friend’s room with the boys.
On Sunday morning, Todd made us breakfast, crepes with a strawberry sauce and eggs. It was so good. After breakfast, we went back into town to get our coach to Liverpool. We got to Liverpool and didn’t really know what we wanted to do. We saw a free museum, and decided to go in there so we could go to the bathroom. It was kind of like a COSI, but it ended up being a pretty cool museum, plus it was free! We came out and discovered that it had rained while we were inside, so we got lucky that we missed the rain. We went to find somewhere to eat, and ate at a restaurant where the boys could get fish and chips, and Monica and I got Chicken Cumberland pie, which was sooo good. We had a really good lunch, and then afterwards headed down towards the water. We went into a couple little museums since they were free, but they weren’t really that exciting. We saw the harbor, and the Beatles museum, but we didn’t go in. We were kinda cold, so we decided to go into McDonald’s, and as crazy as it sounds, we got ice cream and apple pie, it was good though. We saw and talked for at least an hour, and decided that we were ready to go. It was like 7:30 or 8, but our coach didn’t leave to go back to Keele until like 11. We went back to the station and were going to try to get our tickets changed, but it was too late, so we had to wait. We played various card games in the station for the next 3 hours or so, and it was actually a blast. It probably helped that we were really hyper too. We got back to Stoke-on-Trent, and took a taxi home.
On Monday morning, we were supposed to get our coach back to London at 8am. We planned on getting up so that we could leave at 7am to get into town for our coach. Well, apparently Todd had gotten locked out of the dorm where Lance and Stephen were staying. They hadn’t woken up and come over yet, and they had the key, so Todd went and threw rocks at the window to wake them up and make sure they were up, and then they showed up a couple minutes later. We didn’t end up leaving until about 7:15, and by that time we were pretty sure we were going to miss our 8am coach to London since it took a half an hour to get into town. The bus finally came to take us into town, but then it took an hour to get to the station. We got there about 8:30, so we obviously had missed the coach, great. We tried to go to the ticket office to see if we could get on the next bus, but it didn’t open until 9. We waited around until 9, doing our Sevillana dance for Todd, and then went back to the ticket office after it opened. At that point, we were going to find out if we could try to get the next bus or if we had to go to the train station and pay for train tickets since we were running out of time. The lady told us that we could get on the next coach at 9:30 if the driver would let us and there was space, so we waited for the coach. It finally came, and we thought we would have to beg to get on the bus, but luckily there was space, even though we didn’t get to sit together. We were just glad we were able to get on the bus and didn’t have to pay again though. It was kind of a long ride, and our busdriver took off someone else’s side mirror, I think a small truck. There was this loud crack and then we heard him on the phone talking about a mirror, so that was interesting. Todd had gotten us tickets for the 1pm coach to London Gatwick airport. The coach from Stoke-on-Trent didn’t get into Victoria until about 1:30, so we obviously missed that bus too. We went to the ticket office and were able to change that so we got on the 2pm bus to the airport. Our flight left at 4:55 and it took at least an hour and a half, so we were just hoping the traffic wouldn’t be too bad and we would get there in time. Luckily, we got there around 3:30, we had plenty of time, and this time I decided not to check my backpack and took it on the plane with us. Easyjet still had no idea where Monica’s bag was, great. Our flight to Madrid got in really early, so we took the metro home and got home around 10:30ish. It was a lot of fun, and a great trip, definitely an adventure, despite the couple little problems. It was kind of funny because sometimes we had trouble understanding the English, and now I can understand better why the Spanish have trouble understanding us, since they are used to English accents. We all pretty much decided we would never want to go to school in England, even though it was a lot of fun, and we love Spain. After I got home, Nicole told me that grammar class had actually been cancelled, so we didn’t miss anything on Monday.
On Tuesday, I had to go back to the library after school to research for my paper for Susana’s class. We had a 4 page paper due on Thursday, and of course I didn’t do anything while I was in England, so I had all of Tuesday and Wednesday to do it. I was at the library for awhile, and then came home and ate and whatnot.
On Wednesday, Nicole and I went back to school to do some more work on our papers before dance class. We had dance class, and we learned the rest of the second Sevillana, and put it together with the first. It was a lot of fun, and I really enjoy our dance class. We worked a little more after, then came home and finished it up.
On Thursday, we had class, but our civ class was cancelled so we could go to a museum in the afternoon. We went into Madrid with Beatriz, our teacher to the Archaeological museum, it was kinda boring. Since we were already in Madrid, Dane, Monica, Juanito, Nicole, and I went to the Hard Rock since it was close and got a couple things. Then we went to Funiversal, the travel agency, to pick up our tickets for Las Fallas in Valencia next weekend. That took kind of a long time, but then afterwards, Monica, Nicole and I called Laura, Araceli’s sister. We went and had milkshakes with her, so that was fun to talk with her. We got home around midnight, ate dinner, and went to sleep.
Yesterday, I slept in and it was really nice. I didn’t do much all day, so it was nice to take a break and relax. I ate lunch with mamá, Nicole wasn’t here because she went to Segovia. Then Monica and I went to the centro comercial, we wanted to look for stuff so we can start making our scrapbooks. We didn’t find anything for that, and then we ended up going to the other side of town to Carrefour. We both bought a couple of cd’s, and I’m excited to listen to them. We came home, ate dinner real quick, then we went back to the centro comercial and saw Brokeback Mountain. It was in Spanish, so it was kinda hard to focus, and I think I missed some stuff, but it was nice to just see a movie, since I hadn’t done that in awhile. We weren’t sure if the bus was going to come, so we walked home, and got back around 1:30.
Today, Monica and I went with Araceli, Javier, and Laura to the Sierras de Madrid, some mountains. We weren’t really sure where we were going, it was a surprise destination road trip. It was really pretty, we mainly drove most of the day, and went through some little towns and stuff. It was really windy though. There were signs for cow crossings all over, and at least once or twice there were cows in the middle of the road so we had to stop and wait for them to cross. There was even a little bit of snow. It was fun hanging out with them, and the landscape was all really nice. We listened to some Spanish music, and Laura gave us a cd of Spanish music she had made for us. So anyways, that’s pretty much it. Tomorrow I think we are going to go to the Rastro in Madrid, so that should be fun. I’m looking forward to it!
posted by steph at 3/11/2006 06:25:00 PM
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