This entry is about my trip to England two weekends ago. I went to visit my friend Ali who is studying through a USD program in Oxford, England. I spent two nights in Oxford and one in London. I encountered a few 'minor setbacks' related to this trip, but we overcame them and "turned lemons into lemonade," if you will. Thus, the title of this blog entry. Thursday, October 8th started off wonderfully. In my morning Spanish Conversation class, our professor, Estrella, said that for the second half of the class we would all go out for coffee and speak in Spanish! All of us (Estrella + only about 12 students) went down the street to Vips- this Americanized restaurant (I would compare it to an IHOP) and got a table inside. Some students just ordered a drink and about 4 ordered food, including myself. I got this combo that consisted of a grilled ham/cheese sandwich with café con leche (coffee with milk) and orange juice for only about 4 Euros. To top it off, Estrella insisted on paying for all of us! She said she understands that we are college students and don't have much money. That was so sweet of her!! I already viewed Conversación and Estrella as my favorite class/teacher combo this semester, but that sealed the deal.
Later that afternoon was my flight to London-Gatwick. I was really nervous for it because it was my first time flying out of Madrid.. and the first and only time I would be flying out of Madrid by myself. I just wanted to get there with plenty of time and understand everything. I got through security with 2 hours to spare! I sat in a chair and called my dad to assure him I was fine and had just as much time as he likes to have before a flight. I was relieved. Until I went to look at the screen to find my gate number and it was nowhere to be found. I went up to a customer service representative and asked about my flight. A representative for EasyJet (the airline I was going on) said "don't worry, your flight is delayed a little. Only 3 hours." WHAT?! I was annoyed and stressed because that meant that I was going to miss my 2-hour bus trip from the airport to London that I had previously ordered online. I had Ali call that company for me, and she was able to pay 5 pounds to change the time for me. She gave me a new confirmation code that I was supposed to show to the bus driver when I arrived in London.
Later that afternoon was my flight to London-Gatwick. I was really nervous for it because it was my first time flying out of Madrid.. and the first and only time I would be flying out of Madrid by myself. I just wanted to get there with plenty of time and understand everything. I got through security with 2 hours to spare! I sat in a chair and called my dad to assure him I was fine and had just as much time as he likes to have before a flight. I was relieved. Until I went to look at the screen to find my gate number and it was nowhere to be found. I went up to a customer service representative and asked about my flight. A representative for EasyJet (the airline I was going on) said "don't worry, your flight is delayed a little. Only 3 hours." WHAT?! I was annoyed and stressed because that meant that I was going to miss my 2-hour bus trip from the airport to London that I had previously ordered online. I had Ali call that company for me, and she was able to pay 5 pounds to change the time for me. She gave me a new confirmation code that I was supposed to show to the bus driver when I arrived in London.
As I was waiting in the airport with 5 extra hours to spare, I started talking to a Spanish couple. They didn't really know why our flight was delayed either. After a few minutes they found out from EasyJet representatives that they were providing a free pre-packaged sandwich and drink to the passengers on our flight for the inconvenience. We just had to walk down a little ways where there were different sandwiches and bottled drinks for us to choose from. It was nice of EasyJet to give us something for our inconvenience, (I honestly don’t think that would have necessarily happened in the US) but I think they should have been better about communicating it. I noticed that a lot of passengers didn’t go get it because they probably didn’t know about it. Onthe actual flight they didn't provide anything for free (not even a complimentary drink). I didn’t really think they would, since it’s a ‘cheap’ airline, but I think they should have given us a complimentary beverage for our inconvenience while we were all on the plane and there to understand. Also, there wasn’t really an explanation about why the flight was so late. I think something about how the plane was late all day going from England and other destinations so everything got backed up.
Instead of reading my book in all of that free time, I made conversation with some other American students who are also studying in Madrid! They didn’t know about the free sandwich/drink. They were really cool and I sat with them on the plane. I would have been a lot more stressed if I hadn’t made these 'new friends' to wait with and navigate through the Gatwick Airport with. We finally arrived in London at about 10:30pm (original flight was supposed to arrive at 6:50). My new bus journey was set for 11:15, so I had just enough time to get through customs (where they hardcore interrogate you: "Where are you flying from?" "Where are you staying?" "What school does your friend go to?" "What do you plan on doing in London?", etc.) and find my way to the bus area. I showed the bus driver my confirmation print out and the new code, and he said he could not accept it. This is when I almost started to cry. I thought I was going to be stranded at Gatwick. He said he could still take me, but I'd have to pay him for another ticket (which was about 25 pounds.. 40-something dollars). Naturally I didn't have pounds, so I had to go in to the airport at his next stop to get cash out of the ATM. I paid him and was finally almost there.
Instead of reading my book in all of that free time, I made conversation with some other American students who are also studying in Madrid! They didn’t know about the free sandwich/drink. They were really cool and I sat with them on the plane. I would have been a lot more stressed if I hadn’t made these 'new friends' to wait with and navigate through the Gatwick Airport with. We finally arrived in London at about 10:30pm (original flight was supposed to arrive at 6:50). My new bus journey was set for 11:15, so I had just enough time to get through customs (where they hardcore interrogate you: "Where are you flying from?" "Where are you staying?" "What school does your friend go to?" "What do you plan on doing in London?", etc.) and find my way to the bus area. I showed the bus driver my confirmation print out and the new code, and he said he could not accept it. This is when I almost started to cry. I thought I was going to be stranded at Gatwick. He said he could still take me, but I'd have to pay him for another ticket (which was about 25 pounds.. 40-something dollars). Naturally I didn't have pounds, so I had to go in to the airport at his next stop to get cash out of the ATM. I paid him and was finally almost there.
I arrived at the Gloucester Green bus stop after 1 a.m. in Oxford where Ali, and her friends Cole and Carey met me. The first thing I noticed is that it was a lot colder than Madrid, and certainly colder than the weather I'm used to. I was just so happy to see them and finally be there. We took a cab (which was odd, because they drive on the right side of the road and the driver's seat is on the right side of the car) to their dorm. We hung out in Carey's room for a little and I met her roommate, who is from Venezuela. All of the USD students in the program there have roommates from another country, who are all trying to learn English!! I talked with Carey's roommate a lot in Spanish and it was really cool. I didn't think I would speak any Spanish that weekend, but I got a little practice with her and I think she liked it.
Friday, October 9th was a wonderful day in Oxford. Just walking around the cute little town, knowing I was in England with Ali made me so happy and made me think that all the hassle getting there the previous night was worth it. It was so pretty and nice to be in a new environment, in a completely different country that I had never been to.
On the public bus on the way to the city center, Ali gave me a little heads up about what I had to look forward to that weekend: She said, "While you're in England, you're gonna see the cutest old people here. Exhibit A, the woman behind us" and "We have a lot of options today:the best coffee of your life, the best cookies of your life, or the best milkshakes or your life."
Since I have possibly the biggest sweet tooth on earth, I was very excited. And we got 2 out of 3! (cookies and coffee). The 'best coffee' she was referring to was at a place called Cafe Nero, a Starbucks-like chain in England. I got a vanilla latte with caramel. It was really good (probably not the best coffee of my life..) and cute. Instead of "for here or to go?," they say "eat in or take away?" Isn't that precious? I had to restrain myself from getting a baked good there because Ali assured me that it would be worth the wait to wait for the cookie place. The cookie place was Ben's Cookies, which was in the covered market in Oxford. (I later found out that this is also a chain in England when I saw one in London!). This place lived up to my expectations moreso than Cafe Nero. The cookies are amazing.. they are big, freshly baked cookies that are soft and still somewhat gooey/dough-ey inside. I think I got double chocolate chip... and 2 other chocolatey ones for later. These quite possibly were some of the best cookies I've ever had, next to my mom's homemade chocolate chips. :)
After these sweet indulgences, we walked around the covered market, went in other shops, saw some pretty sights, and took pictures. Ali took me to the biggest, most unique music shop and book shops I've ever seen, owned by a company called Blackwell's. Both were about 4 or 5 stories. The music shop had CDs, sheet music, music theory books, compositions, and everything with music notes on them like pens and cards. We were talking to a worker in the music shop and he was a really nice guy. We found out that he's 19, and he told us how he is going to work in New York for a few months doing something with music. His travel, room & board, and food will be paid for. I asked him for his name so we could find him on facebook (may seem creepy... but have you ever met someone once and talked to them a lot and have never seen them/heard about them again?) It's so interesting meeting local people and hearing a little bit about their story/life/experiences/ambitions/goals.
The Blackwell's book shop was also really cool. It seemed like they have any kind of book you could want. They have old books in cases from about 400 pounds; some were back from 1600s!! One of the old ones that struck me was "Pooh Corner." After being in the coffee, music, and book shops, it made me think that British people are very sophisticated. I felt sophisticated. Their accents make them seem proper and polite.
Some of the sights we saw (and took pictures of/in front of) include the Radcliffe Camera, which is the school of History at Oxford University, Church College and its beautiful gardens, St. Mary the Virgin church, and Alice's Shop, which has every kind of souvenir you could ever want that has to do with Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I bought a small book with both stories by Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. I've actually been wanting to read the original story because I heard that it is crazy and so different from the Disney movie.
As we were riding on the bus back to Ali's place at the end of this lovely Oxford day, Ali said “let’s look at all the pictures we took today.” I turned on my camera and my memory card said it had to reformat, aka all pictures were deleted. !!! So that was setback #3 to this trip, but hey, we looked on the brightside! I was actually thankful that it happened at the end of the first day of my trip, and not at the very end of my trip when all the pictures from London would have been deleted too. And, we came up with a solution. Ali actually has 2 cameras: a newer, more professional one, and her older Sony Cybershot. For the rest of the weekend, she let m
e take pictures with the Cybershot and she took her own pictures with her other camera.
e take pictures with the Cybershot and she took her own pictures with her other camera. That night we went out to a couple bars in the main area. It was a lot of fun and interesting to notice differences between nightlife there and Spanish nightlife.
Saturday, October 10th- “Speed London” 
Carey, Kelly (Ali's new friend who I had a few classes with last year), Ali, and I left early in the morning to take the bus from Oxford to London.
We got there in about an hour and a half and went to the station to get our tube day passes. The "Tube" is the name of the London subway system. It was really stressful since most of the machines only take coins, and there was an insane amount of people in there. After we got through it, we headed straight to the TKTS booth to find cheap seats for Les Miserables, the musical we all wanted to see! We split up and tried 3 different lines, and the one Kelly and I were in had tickets for 25 pounds! We were so excited that it worked out. When I saw how many people were in London when we arrived, I was skeptical about being able to get tickets for that show, and with the luck I had been having on the trip, I had a bad feeling about it.
Carey, Kelly (Ali's new friend who I had a few classes with last year), Ali, and I left early in the morning to take the bus from Oxford to London.
We got there in about an hour and a half and went to the station to get our tube day passes. The "Tube" is the name of the London subway system. It was really stressful since most of the machines only take coins, and there was an insane amount of people in there. After we got through it, we headed straight to the TKTS booth to find cheap seats for Les Miserables, the musical we all wanted to see! We split up and tried 3 different lines, and the one Kelly and I were in had tickets for 25 pounds! We were so excited that it worked out. When I saw how many people were in London when we arrived, I was skeptical about being able to get tickets for that show, and with the luck I had been having on the trip, I had a bad feeling about it.
After that was worked out, Ali and I ventured off to find our hotel. Carey and Kelly joined us for the day and wanted to see Les Mis, but planned on going back to Oxford that night.
It took Ali and I sooo long to find the "Lords Hotel" because we kept getting different directions from different people. When we finally found it around 1pm, the worker at the front desk told us we couldn't check in until 2. I asked him if he was sure there wasn’t one room available (and kind of expressed my frustrated attitude) and he was able to let us check in to 2 separate smaller rooms instead of a double! The hotel rooms were different from hotels in the States. Our single rooms were very small, with a very small bathroom that I compared to an airplane bathroom with a shower. It made me miss so many things about American hotels! This was a cheap hotel, granted, 30 pounds, but even at the cheap hotels in the states you still get certain things. You usually get soap, shampoo, towels (usually different sizes: big for drying off, medium hand towel, and washcloth), a glass to at least drink tap water, and sometimes mugs & a coffee maker. This hotel only had one tiny bar of soap, one larger towel, and a towel for the floor. Neither Ali nor I brought shampoo, and I asked the front desk if they had any (NO) so we just decided not to shower. Nevertheless, we were able to check in and get our own rooms for the same price before the official check-in time, so that was the good part and we were on our way to sightseeing.
Ali took me to see some of the major sites: Big Ben, the London Eye, the Parliament Building, 
Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, and Buckingham Palace. The Parliament Building was amazing and St. James park was very pretty and peaceful. We made it a point to take lots of pictures (with both cameras), and I formed the number 7 with my fingers while posing in front of the Big Ben. Get it? Go Steelers.
Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, and Buckingham Palace. The Parliament Building was amazing and St. James park was very pretty and peaceful. We made it a point to take lots of pictures (with both cameras), and I formed the number 7 with my fingers while posing in front of the Big Ben. Get it? Go Steelers. After the quick sightseeing for about 2 hours, we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and Les Mis with Carey and Kelly. We left a tiny bit late for dinner, but ended up being an hour later because our tube line- the circle line- didn’t come. We were waiting for it for about 20 minutes and then finally decided to walk to another tube stop and go from there. At this point we were jogging and swerving around people left and right. We basically stairmastered up the escalator and Ali, in her dress and heels, says “this is what I call POWER-TUBING.” Haha
We finally got to Bella Italia-where Carey and Kelly were waiting- and ordered our food really fast. The food was honestly not that good, and it made me miss Italian restaurants from home, especially chicken parmagiana and free bread (and I missed the bread we get everyday for dinner at home in Madrid). When we sat down at Bella Italia, I was thinking “No bread? What kind of Italian restaurant is this?” But then I was reminded that that is how it is in pretty much all of Europe.
We finally got to Bella Italia-where Carey and Kelly were waiting- and ordered our food really fast. The food was honestly not that good, and it made me miss Italian restaurants from home, especially chicken parmagiana and free bread (and I missed the bread we get everyday for dinner at home in Madrid). When we sat down at Bella Italia, I was thinking “No bread? What kind of Italian restaurant is this?” But then I was reminded that that is how it is in pretty much all of Europe.
LES MISERABLES at the Queen’s Theatre was amazing! Our seats were way up there, and a little part of stage left was out of our view, but it didn’t matter. Ali and I shared plastic binoculars that you could rent for 50 pence and it was so worth it! The whole play is in song. The music and vocals were incredible. They were so powerful and moving, especially when the whole ensemble sang together! This was definitely my favorite part of my time in London. On another note, I found it odd and disappointing that the Playbill was not free!! I've been to my fair share of musicals and Broadway shows that always include a program. I felt that this was maybe why I didn’t understand the story line completely throughout the first half. But Carey and Kelly did a great job 
explaining everything to me during intermission since they had read/seen the book/play before! I’m not sure if this is the reason why they charged for the playbills, but the performance we saw was a few of the main actors’ last performance with the company of Les Mis! Our favorite actor was David Shannon, who played Jean Valjean, and then when the show ended, we found out that it was his last performance as a castmember of Les Mis! (He is joining the cast of Phantom of the Opera in London). We were sooo lucky to see him!! One of the actors made an announcement after the show and talked about him and 2 other castmembers that were moving on. It was kind of sad and I was reminded of our last shows during high school. Ali and I were not up to going out after the show because we were so exhausted from getting up early and running around all day, so we went to a cafe near our hotel and split a slice of cake. We hung out a little in the room, looked at the pictures we took that day (which were still there.. yes!), and set a time to wake up the next day for some more speed sightseeing.
Sunday, October 11th
Sunday, October 11th
Our hotel included free breakfast that consisted of baguettes with butter and jam, and a choice of coffee or tea. You could buy other things, like cereal and juice, for more money. As I am also a big bread fan, that was fine with me, and we were on our way.
We quickly saw Tower of London, and then Ali took me to the Spittelfields Market/Brick Lane. It was really cool. There were all kinds of vendors' booths with clothing, books, fresh food, baked goods, accessories, etc. They also had stands selling all different kinds of food, including cultural food like Japanese, Thai, etc. We got food from a barbeque-type stand. I got a chicken sandwich and potato wedges.
We quickly saw Tower of London, and then Ali took me to the Spittelfields Market/Brick Lane. It was really cool. There were all kinds of vendors' booths with clothing, books, fresh food, baked goods, accessories, etc. They also had stands selling all different kinds of food, including cultural food like Japanese, Thai, etc. We got food from a barbeque-type stand. I got a chicken sandwich and potato wedges.
Then we headed to see St. Paul's Cathedral, which was incredible! We couldn't look through all of it, because it was blocked off for Sunday services, but I really liked it. It was up there with the Cathedral in Toledo for me. The architecture of this cathedral is the Renaissance style, so it was cool to see something different but just as extravagent and breath-taking.
We had a little bit of time before we had to go back to get our bags, before I had to go 
to the train station to the airport. Ali wanted to show me this expensive store called Herod's, but where we got off on the tube was a little farther from it. I really just wanted to relax and get some good tea/dessert in a cute cafe while I was still in London! We found this cute place called Cafe Concerto and it was so good! I got Earl Grey tea and chocolate cake. I was so happy, and it was the perfect way to end my trip.
to the train station to the airport. Ali wanted to show me this expensive store called Herod's, but where we got off on the tube was a little farther from it. I really just wanted to relax and get some good tea/dessert in a cute cafe while I was still in London! We found this cute place called Cafe Concerto and it was so good! I got Earl Grey tea and chocolate cake. I was so happy, and it was the perfect way to end my trip. So overall, despite the minor challenges I faced throughout this trip, I had a great time. I am so grateful that I got to experience a country I had never been to with one of my very best friends. I also learned a lot. Despite little problems or setbacks, there's always some kind of bright side. You can't take anything too seriously because most likely, in retrospect, the good outweighs the bad.
On the train to Gatwick I felt very content as I listened to some of my favorite British artists on my iPod: Adele, James Morrison, and Jamie Cullum.
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