Hello from England
I’m sitting in a hotel in Portsmouth, playing with their highspeed internet connection, and generally resting up a bit. It’s been a busy weekend.
Let’s start with Saturday. I, of course, got no sleep whatsoever on the plane. It was way too crowded for that, and I had to sit right in the middle of the plane. Fun, fun, fun. When we landed things went alright, we got the rental car, and I navigated my dad to South Ealing. That went well, but it felt weird riding on the left side of the car. And I kept looking at the other cars on the M25 thinking, “There’s no driver in that car! Oh… nevermind.” Thankfully I never said it or anything. 🙂
As soon as we (meaning my dad and I) reached the apartment we were both dead tired, and on top of all that, I felt really sick. I fell asleep, though, and slept for a few hours. But when I woke up, ickies. After that calmed down just a bit we went out for a late lunch. We went to my favorite pizza place in London – Pizza Piazza on Gloucester Road. Mmmm. It’s so authentic. Like a good little Italian, I folded the pizza in half and ate it that way. MmmmmmMmmmmm.
We walked around for a while, went over to Westminster, then over to St. James Park and Buckingham Palace. We were both sore by then so we sat down in Green Park for a bit. I love the trees in there. I took only a few select pictures – sorry, I won’t have 19 rolls of film to display this time. 🙂
Sunday was much more relaxed. We went to church in the morning, then at 2:00 I met my friend Alastair at a train station. Neither of us arrived there by train – we drove, he walked there – it was just an easy place to meet. Dad waited in the car as I paced the sidewalk waiting for him. I was feeling a bit like Marilyn Monroe; it was so windy outside I kept having to hold my skirt against my legs (I was still in church attire – a lovely little brown dress.) He showed up, he met my dad (eeps!) then we went back to his place for lunch and to meet his sister and her kids. That was loads of fun. Alastair’s niece and nephew are way too funny. The nephew’s 6, and the niece is 4. Immediately the niece grabbed my hand and walked me over to the couch and her brother instructed me saying I would be the number one and the letter F. (I’m still not sure what that was for.) We played and ate and had some fun. The funniest thing was when the nephew pulled me over saying, “Let’s play a game.” He made me lay down on a fainting couch, then covered me in cushions, and before I could say no, he and the niece climbed on top of me. It was okay until the niece decided to stand up on my stomach, and the nephew started rough-housing on my legs. I couldn’t get them off because the niece decided it’d be fun if she pretended to fall off me, making me catch her from the most awkward position on earth. Then the nephew started playing with my bad left foot, which wasn’t good. Needless to say, Alastair had to come rescue me.
Even with the Heather-Climbing session, Sunday was lovely. We ended up staying at Al’s until 10:00ish, just chatting. That was nice, except I started to get the ickies again. By the time we got home I had to sit on the bathroom floor for a while cause I thought I was going to lose all three courses of the lovely lunch Al’s sister had made for us, and that would have been sad on so many levels.
Today I felt just as icky, but I had stuff to do. We went to the Courtauld Institute of Art, the school where I’m looking into going, and dropped off my portfolio. They’re going to have an admissions counsellor look at it, then I’ll pick it up on Friday. The school’s lovely, and the courtyard is phenomenal! Very Italian. Then we went through the art gallery, which was just as impressive as I was expecting. They had a whole room full of paintings by Sir Peter Paul Rubens! It was amazing. After that we went to see Star Wars at the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square – the same theatre where I saw Harry Potter. That was okay – it was a pretty movie, but the dialogue and some of the acting was just a bit, erm, over-the-top.
Finally, we had to drive out to Portsmouth, where I am now. Hehe, and we just recently got back from dinner where I was the victim of the most rude dining experience in my life! It was rather comical, though, but two seconds after I’d eaten my last bite I wanted to get out of there. We went for Italian, and I got another pizza. And of course, I cannot get a real oven-baked pizza without eating it Italian style – folded over and eaten almost like a sandwich. Apparantly, the people eating around me don’t get out much. From one particular table, I was the center of attention. There was a complete running commentary from two women; “OOo, lookee that! She’s eatin’ it like ah samwich! OOoo.” “She’ll spill it, she’ll spill it…. Ooooo.” It was *so* aggravating! Every bite I took there was another “OOoo” and another comment. I couldn’t hear half of them, and I’m rather glad for that. I was so tempted to walk over and go, “Stupido Anglaise!” and slap one of the women. She was being so nasty about it. “Imagine eatin’ a pizzah like tha’.” Imagine having a brain. Hehehe. They even commented on how my father signed the bill. He writes really tiny, and of course one of the women mimicked him and said, “Imagine writin’ that tiny! OOooo.” Imagine that the reason I was returning your stares was to get you to stop, not to make you giggle. Oooo. I can’t stand that. And, of course, they weren’t eating through any of this. They had already finished by the time my dad and I entered the restaurant. As soon as we left, so did they. It was most decidedly weird. Stupido Portsmouth Anglaise.
You know what’s sad? I think I might be allergic to London. Ever since I arrived I’ve had this horrible ache from my, erm, intestinal problems. It feels like a giant knife is constantly sticking through my stomach, between my sternum and my belly-button. It stings, burns, and hurts like heck when I move at all. Ever since I got over the first bad bout of ulcerative colitis it has only flared up like this when I’ve been here. If I don’t find out why and figure out a way to correct it I can’t see myself coming here for school, which is rather depressing. Getting all psyched about a school and not being able to go why? Because of my intestines. How silly is that?
I’m getting tired now, so off I go. More when I get back home.