Read This With An English Accent

First impression of London: cold. As I de-planed, I found my Moroccan slippers entirely submerged in the snow. Also my hands, as I had to make snowballs to defend myself from the Brazillian peace corps volunteers I had flown with, and a full-on snowball fight broke out on the tarmac.

Second impression of London: big. Though my airport is supposedly 'in' London, the train still took about an hour to reach center city. I chatted with a friendly Londoner on the ride, and she burst out laughing after my first sentence. She spent the next hour trying to teach me to soften my apparently terrible American accent. Once in center-city, I thought it would be easy to find the family I was to stay with. In my city, I can walk from one side to another given about an hour and a half. Not in London! The underground had stopped running, so I ended up on a bus to another station. Still not there, I then had a half hour rail ride before I reached, not even to a place I could walk from, but to an area where my host could retrieve me in a car!

Third impression of London: pedestrian-friendly. Despite its absolute massiveness, once I learned my way about, the underground and rail lines actually proved quite kind. Busses, however, remained a success only when travelling with locals.

I stayed 4 days more than planned in London, and I feel I hit all the important tourist sites. However, I do recognize that said claim opens me up to a barrage of 'did you see this?' and 'did you do that?' so allow me a list before I elaborate.

What I did in London:

Natural History Museum
Science Museum
Telephone Box
Ice Skating Rink
Hampton Court
Westminster Abby
Big Ben
Buckingham Palace
King's Cross Station
London Bridge
Shakespeare's Globe
Southwark Bridge and Cathedral
Tower Bridge
Clapham Common Park
London Eye (big ferris wheel)
St Paul's Cathedral (went to evensong service)
London Zoo
Regents Park
Epsom Downs Raceway

And many nights of salsa dancing!

The family I stayed with, a mum with 3 grown kids, one with his own daughter of 4 years, was so generous and hospitable with me. They live in one of the 'sub-cities' of London, so I got a bit of the cozy town experience as well, on nights when I wasn't salsa dancing.

I also got to drive a London black cab! Only took about a minute for me to come out of a roundabout on the right side - I mean, the *wrong* side - of the road, and for the family's son to realize that it was probably a bad plan to let the American/Moroccan at the wheel. I really couldn't get used to getting into the left door of the car, during the course of the entire week and a half, that threw me off.

Two days before Christmas, I took the bus to Leicester to meet Evan and Nic, friends from uni that I haven't seen in far too long. Nic's family lives in Leicester, and she also has extended family in Ilkley moors, in the north. Evan and I trained to Ilkley to meet them the following day, since the car was full, and had a very picturesque afternoon walking around the cute little snowy town!

Simon and Wendy's house is perched on the hillside looking down into the bowl of the town of Ilkley, built like an oceanfront beach house, but lost on a mountaintop. Wendy told me that, after looking at the house, they just knew it was the right one. However, when asked to describe it later, they couldn't recall a single detail about the structure itself - only the view.

We ate heavy English food, all deliciously savory, and Nic's little sister Alice educated me in the ways of the English. Christmas presents were opened in a frantic mass of chaos, with all 11 people diving simultaneously under the tree and tearing wrapping paper right and left. Since this didn't take very long, we all went for an afternoon walk. Alice informed me that a proper English hike must involve walking to a pub, so we drove off to the next hillside where we could stroll among the mountains and cliffs on our way to a pub that looked like the wicked witch of the west had just dropped it out of a tornado in the middle of nowhere. The snow on the ground was soft powder, and we all slipped and slid along the semi-treaturous terrain with all the other English people who had the same idea of this particular hillside hike/pub.

Our hike was in vain, as the pub was not open, and we were left to enjoy only the beautiful views off the rocky cliff, and the snowy countryside, and shuffle back to the car before our feet froze to the ground.

The day after Christmas is Boxing day, and it is a National Bank Holiday in England. This means that nobody does anything, maybe even more so than on Christmas day. I was due to fly back to Fes on Boxing day. Listen to how well-planned this was: I had a coach that left me 4 hours in London before my flight. During that 4 hours, I was to take the Underground, if it was running, or a citybus, if not, to the rail station where I could catch the Express Rail service to the airport and arrive in plenty of time.

Well. The coach was about an hour late ariving in London. The Underground was, of course, not running. The bus was somehow not going to the right place, to I ended up in a cab to the rail, where I discovered that the rail service was on strike. I resigned. Surely four more days in London wouldn't be the end of the world.

It was an absolutely lovely time.

I got back to some tourist attractions I hadn't seen the first time, and eventually met up with Tracey and the same family I had stayed with before, who once again offered me their generous hospitality! By the last day, I actually felt I could navigate my way through the city fairly effectively, most of my navigation centering either around the Victoria Rail Station, or the salsa club by Tottenham Court. London is a late-night city, and I enjoyed taking advantage of the activity!

When it was finally time to fly home, I must admit to feeling some sense of loss at leaving London and the English culture and people. Arriving in London felt so very foreign, but it must be reasonably close to America, because it felt comfortable by the time I left. I boarded the plane, dragging my feet ever so slightly, ready to sit silently in my seat and just sleep so I wouldn't have to watch the city dissapear out from under me.

I immediately encountered a tiff between an older Moroccan gentleman and a flight attendant in need of a translator, and was able to help. In the first few rows, I saw Sue and Larry, who had also been on my flight TO London, and greeted them. I shuffled back through the aisle, searching for a seat, and saw a space next to a familiar voice in a red coat: my school's fourth grade teacher, Kirsten, who grew up in Saudi and was on her way back from her family's house in Scotland! My spirits rose so much in that five minutes of getting on the plane; it felt like being personally welcomed back to Fes, the city of a million people, where you can't walk down the main street, or even get on an airplane, without meeting someone you know.

My mood continued to lift as I talked with Kirsten on the flight home, just to remember the amazing people that I had left in my city. Fes, it seems, just attracts exceptional people, and I am so thankful for the friends that I have here. I like coming home to a place where the system is familiar. I feel I belong in Fes.