Day one of my Europe trip: 5/18/05

5/18/05

We got to the hostel yesterday, and found out we’d been duped slightly. The “nice little area” the guy at the desk was describing turned out to be the shady part of London. Shadiest I’ve seen so far anyways. It being our first good look at the city, we were slightly disappointed. There were tiny ethnic fast food shops all up and down the street, and within moments of walking, we were whistled at by several cars. The men looked shifty, there was garbage everywhere, and a lot of the buildings were tagged on. We saw some beautiful architecture, but the windows were broken because people had thrown things at them.

The hostel pretty much fit into this neighborhood quite nicely. Since we went straight there from the train station (it was across the street), it was where I first began to have doubts. “Maybe I’m getting over my head with this whole thing…” Anyways, the whole place was filled with cigarette smoke, and the whole process of checking in was very informal, in a careless way. The lounge downstairs had a bar in it, and dark corners occupied by boys with searching eyes. At least, that was my first impression. That night, after wandering the town and getting situated, we went downstairs to find a party there. Disco lights, booze, bad American hip-hop, and a room full of people (and cigarette smoke of course). We didn’t have much of a chance to decide whether we were going to stay, because someone grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor. I don’t remember his name (insert: I actually found out later it was Russ), but he was a good-looking 34-year-old from SE Asia. I danced by him most of the night, cus he was the first friend I made. I noticed a lot of eyes on me, and this was in part because I made up a large fraction of the girl population, in part because I was dancing, and I figured later that it was also because I was one of the new faces. I’m off to bed….more on this tomorrow.