6 Feb

I got an early start as planned and managed to make it to 79 Baker Street (221B will have to wait) right on time at 11. The Tube took forever since I was going nearly to the other side of the main part of town. It took me a few minutes to find the correct room, but once I did it was smooth sailing from there. The woman, Reyes, was extremely helpful and we managed to find good timings for all the trains we wanted. I was only there for about 40 minutes but managed to get pretty much all the information I needed. I didn’t book anything then ‘cause I wanted to clear the times and conditions with my parents first before dropping all that money.

I skipped breakfast so by the time I left I was very hungry. I grabbed a sandwich and some juice at a local Tesco and planned on eating said lunch on the Tube. The Circle line (the favorite line of tourists, since it literally goes in a circle and hits about 98% of major tourist destinations including Westminster, Victoria, Tower Hill, etc) was heavily delayed, much to my chagrin. An Indian-looking woman asked me on the platform how often the Circle line runs to this station and I replied every few minutes, which it normally does. Today was an exception however, and the delay allowed us to exchange some information about each other (a rare thing for British strangers to do). Apparently she lives about 20 minutes from Windsor (of the castle fame) and hasn’t been to central London in ages (she forgot the color of the Circle line which every Londoner knows by heart). She was going to a meeting at a hospital near South Kensington and works for Novartis. I told her that I interned with Glaxo over the summer and she said Glaxo was on a slightly larger scale than Novartis. She also kind of freaked out about mobile phone reception and didn’t like the “limited service” message she was getting. At one point on the ride she pulled out her laptop and with combination rolling briefcase and cell phone, she looked like a typical businessperson, which the people sitting across from us noticed and apparently didn’t like by the look on their faces.

When her stop finally came she said “See you!” as a farewell (which is such an Indian thing to say) while I responded with the very British “Cheers!” with a decent accent, and by that I mean replacing the “r” with an “h” and going light on the e’s. I felt quite British for a while, and by that I mean two seconds.

I managed the impossible at King’s and actually waited no more than two minutes at the bus station before my favorite, the 68, drove up. The bus was actually empty for a change and I took the opportunity to sit on the bottom deck instead of the top deck. The view is quite different from there and the ride more enjoyable. When I got back to the dorm I ate my lunch and reported in to my mom on my dealings with the Spanish Rail Service. We talked for a while hashing out details before she signed off for tea and I went back to work.

Dinner was nothing exciting and then it was back to the dorm for some more reading and such. Micah told me about this “Five Guys in a Limo” video in which the five most famous TV announcers or voice-over “artists” ride in limo to an awards ceremony. It’s quite funny. Don la Fontaine (i.e. The Voice of God) is by far the best of them all. That guy really has an amazing voice. Lainey and Sarah tried to get some pre-made cookie dough at Sainsbury’s ‘cause they wanted to bake cookies, but would you believe it? The British don’t have it! These uncivilized folk only have pre-made mixes that you still have to add water to. Seriously. I lent them a tiny pot I brought to *cook* meals in and in return they gave me two of the eight cookies they made. It made my evening. I did some work and some research for Spain for the rest of the night before calling it a night around 12. Cheers!