5/20/05

5/20/05

Right now we have a bit of a break because we’re on the train on our way to Dover, where we’ll catch the ferry to Calais. We’re traveling through the green and yellow countryside, I put some Cake on, and I have 2 hours to continue my account of the past few days.

Ruby and I somehow managed to wake up early enough to get ready and check out before 10 and we immediately bought a day pass and went downtown. When we stepped out of the Piccadilly Circus Underground station, our jaws dropped. That was how I’d pictured London to be…tall, gorgeous old buildings, people everywhere, read phone booths, red buses, black cabs. There was a fountain right beside the station, and we immediately headed towards there. It was not even 5 minutes before 2 guys offered to take a picture for us. we found out they were tourists too, and they were from Israel, but were studying in Greece. We decided to join parties and tour London together. their names were Ron and Dean, and they were nicely dressed and very gentlemanly. Ron was actually just out of his service in the Israeli military, and he scoffed at the English guards and all their ceremony. He says “In Israel, the fighting is real. People actually die, 10 a day at least.” They both told us to visit though, and said how wonderful and safe it was. “Safer than here,” they said. This turned out to be true, for them at least, because after we had walked our feet off visiting Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and everything in-between, Ruby and I split to find our hostel, agreeing to meet in the evening to go out. When we met at 9, the boys were late, and they came with an unbelievable(well, almost)story of being mugged. All of their money, except for two tickets-worth to Amsterdam and a few pounds. Apparently it was by a group of guys, right there in central London! They were so cool about it that we almost didn’t believe them. “Everything happens because God wills it to. Smile! It was only money.” They would say. It makes sense though, they had nice cameras, nice clothes, nice shoes…they looked like rich tourists. So I believe them. when we met them though, they still wanted to hang out, and we went to my first bar.

----> 7:33 Europe time

What have we gotten ourselves into? We’re in France now, and language has abandoned us. “tu parlays anglais?” we say to each passerby with desperate hope. We left our last English companions in Calais, and now we’re traveling to Dunkerque or doom…whichever we can find our way to.