The. Last. Blog.

Grab your tissues.

Ha. Just kidding. After this, my goal is to finish up blogs from study abroad and last September that I never got around to. Especially The Great Missing Paris Post of 2015.

But for now we’re in London. Here are some shots of the plane ride, on which Kristina and I snagged an empty row in the back for the umpteenth time.

We were supposed to meet my flight attendant cousin, Pauline, shortly after landing. She had waved the magic fingers and scored a shift that would take her straight to our door, but, alas! Another delayed flight! My poor friends just couldn’t catch a break. And because I was only in London for a day this time around, it meant I wouldn’t be seeing Pauline at all. Meh. Next time, Pauline!

Kristina and I found an apartment in Camden Town, described by Pauline as a ‘hipster’ district of the old British city. We were practically on top of the Underground station, so that was nice, and we were right in the middle of bunches and bunches of little cafes and restaurants tucked into busy and dilapidated streetsides.

We had a real struggle trying to actually get into the apartment. We couldn’t get ahold of our host, and I hadn’t had the sense to contact them ahead of time to figure all this out. We stood outside the door for a solid five to ten minutes, fumbling and knocking and knocking louder, until a girl magically appeared before us!

She was just another tenant, and she assumed (quite ignorantly and kind of dangerously) that we were also tenants. She told us exactly how to get into the building and then held the door for us. Hopefully she wouldn’t do the same for some random passersby!

The apartment was nice but small. Our room was essentially just the bed, and the housekeeper was an absolute mess. She was sweet though, and she gave us the host’s phone number so we could actually figure out how to get in and the details of WiFi and checkout. The bed set-up was a bunk bed with a double on bottom and a single on top. Room for three.

But who was the third, you ask?

Why, none other than John Jeff Jeng! J^3!!!

I had been looking forward to dancing with this weirdo once I got back to the States, but I noticed on some bus ride somewhere that this would not be possible. Scrolling through Facebook, I came across one of his posts, declaring, ‘Bye, America! See you in three months!’

Luckily, timing was on our side, and he just so happened to have nothing planned for essentially his entire trip. Cue: Day With Lizzy in London! Yahoo! He found us. We relaxed a bit, and then we planned our half-day of adventures.

I really wanted to see a show. John and Kristina didn’t really care. And, ta-da! Due to planning, sell-outs, and prices, we ended up buying tickets to a very random show that none of us had ever heard of, with hopes that our money and time would not go to waste.

And then, dinner. Yummmmmmmmmm. Fancy Indian food at a very reasonable price point. We each got a lassi (smoothie-ish yogurt drink). Mango is the most common, and in fact, I have never seen anything else. But here, there were several flavors to choose from! John went strawberry, I went ‘sweet,’ and Kristina stuck with the mango. This was all in spite of the fact that the waiter insisted mango was the best anyway. When we got our drinks, we played musical chairs for a couple minutes until finally settling on our original orders, though we technically all liked the mango the best. We should have listened!

The food was delicious, and the wait staff was super nice about us being in a hurry (in order to get to the other side of town in time for the show). We scarfed down two different curries, two different rices, and a coconut naan. Gah. So good.

And then we were off! To the Westside! To see a new show called Half a Sixpence. Our seats were beautiful. Top row, smack in the middle. The thing about London theaters is that there just isn’t a bad seat in the house. Even from the farthest rows, we were still close enough to see everybody’s faces. No such thing as second, third, and fourth mezzanines here.

Review of the show: loooooved it! The songs were great. The jokes were hilarious. The protagonist was adorable. He was having some lady issues throughout the show, but I just wanted him to come offstage and pick me! 10/10. Would recommend. Would see again. John and Kristina were also big fans. Sometimes spontenaety pays off!

After the show, we made our way back to the apartment to chill off a bit before John and I set off again while Kristina did laundry. Bahahaha. It was by choice, I swear.

Why would John and I leave the house at 11:30, you ask? Well, dancing, of course! John had already been in London for a few days, so he’d already had time to go dancing a few times and had heard about tonight’s venue by word-of-mouth. The dance was supposed to last until two or something crazy, so we were just on time showing up at midnight. And the place was still hoppin’!

I had some seriously great dances here. Everybody was good. Everybody was nice. Plus, I got to dance with John, who is arguably one of my favorite people (and dancers) on the planet. John was a little less enthused than I, but he was comparing the venue to Seattle, where he still has the energy to dance approximately many times a week. I was tickled pink, and I tired quickly.

I knew it was my last dance when my partner began apologizing profusely immediately after our song ended, sometime around 1:30. I couldn’t figure out what he was apologizing for until he told me I might want to check myself for blood.

Blood?? Am I bleeding?? Where??

Nope! It was his blood! And it was everywhere.

He had a giant scab on his finger that had opened up during the dance (yuck!), and there were about three dozen giant drops of blood on the floor around us, plus some on my hand and some dripping down my forearm that I wouldn’t notice until John and I were comfortable on a double decker bus. If that doesn’t signal the end of a night of dancing, I don’t know what does.

John and I made our way back to the apartment, stopping for fried chicken along the way. (Dancing makes you hungry!) And then we took some much-needed showers before snuggling into the ridiculously comfy clouds that were our bunkbeds.

I awoke at nine, just in time to shove everything into my backpack for one last time, and then Kristina ran out for a quick goodbye breakfast. I was leaving her all by her little self to explore the terrors of London for a few solo days. We hit up Costa Coffee, London’s Starbucks, and grabbed croissants, berry things, a smoothie, and an americano at about five times the cost of the coffees in Spain. Still good, though!

And then the goodbyes. ): I hugged a groggy and underweared John (at least there weren’t six of them like in Portugal), hugged Kristina about three times, and then hit the Underground.

My flight was a nonstop to Vancouver, and I managed to book another of those wonderful windowless window seats. I got four and a half blogs written by the time we landed, plus a bit of a nap. The bus from Vancouver to Seattle was a bit more eventful, if only because my seat was slightly unhinged from the bus itself. Every time the bus stopped, started, sped up or slowed down, my seat went catapulting abruptly and violently forward or backward. What a mess! There was no way to sleep on that, and bracing myself with my feet on the back of the seat in front of my accomplished next to nothing because that seat was experiencing a similar, if less violent issue.

I felt a little bad about it, but after the bus unloaded at border control, I sneakily snagged the seat behind me. Whoops! No more violent rocking for me. Can’t say the same for the other guy. (:

So.

….

I guess that’s about it…

….

Yep! A wrap on the Third Annual Europe Extravaganza. ‘Twas extravagant, indeed. Very hot. Fairly busy. Lots of friends. Even more food. Many alcohols. Even more fresh orange juices. And art. And Kristina. And languages! And…. Yep.

(:

Until next time…

 

Venlig hilsen/ cheers!

Lizzy-wa