The Thames and Breakfast

My trip this weekend to London was wonderful, and relaxing. As Mom described it when I was telling her about it, kind of a vacation from this quarter abroad. I spent most of the weekend simply hanging out and visiting, remembering stories, swapping photos, chatting for hours. It was a lovely counterbalance to the things that are slightly difficult for me here in Florence – I stayed in the easy, comfortable company of good friends and I spoke in English.

I hadn’t really realized that a small amount of stress comes from the difficulty of having to concentrate every time I want to say anything, or anyone says something to me. It’s become a part of the day for me here, but to be able to drop it, to understand the conversation overheard in a crowd, or what the radio was saying in the background, to be talking and totally relaxed – it was nice.

And of course it was absolutely lovely to see Harriet and Tonya (counselors with me this summer in LPC) again. I’ve never really had the chance to go over camp months after it was over, since no other LPCers live near me, and it was interesting to both think about my views on it now that I have some distance from it, and also hear what the others think now that it’s over. And to get to relive it with people who were there with me.

To be honest, I didn’t really see that much of London. We drove into the touristy area, through Notting Hill, past Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. We parked by the Thames, and spent several hours walking along it. The street performers were out in droves, entertaining passers-by on the cold, windy day. Many people in some sort of costume, pretending to be statues or odd personages like a dinosaur on a bike or Mickey Mouse. If you gave them money they would do something fun, and Micky and Fran (Tonya’s daughters) had fun giving out coins and being part of the performance of these various curiosities. We thought about going on the London Eye, but it was a long wait, an expensive ticket, and being overcast, a bad day to go up. So instead we looked at the Houses of Parliament across the Thames and got a Jedi Knight to take a photo of us in exchange for listening to his spiel about some event he was supposed to be selling tickets for. Then back up the Thames, past the Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge to a café just past the Old Globe Theater which Tonya said was a very good place to get tea and scones. However the café had turned into a bar/restaurant since she had been there last and they didn’t have scones, so we got a pastry and some hot chocolate instead and enjoyed the view of the Thames. The theater was unfortunately closed, but I walked past the outside, which is cool enough for the moment. I definitely hope to come back to England in the future – I must admit I barely saw anything. Hardly a surprise, since I was there for less than 48 hours and didn’t want to rush around.

I did, however, have a blast. Tonya, Harriet and I got to spend some time on our own – we went out to an Indian restaurant close to Tonya’s house, and then out to a pub afterwards. The pub was pretty nice, “posh” if you want to be British. And, as Tonya described it that night “full of blokes!” I hadn’t realized how many words and phrases are different between American English and British. Some of the street signs caught my eye – “Dual Carriageway” apparently means a road with a hard divide between the different directions, and instead of speed bumps they have signs that say “Humps for the next 600 meters.” And little things, like a car park instead of a parking lot, or car hire instead of car rental. So many more than I had ever known!

Above all, I enjoyed how relaxing the weekend was. Dinner with Harriet and her dad in their kitchen, breakfast of toast with delicious multi-grain bread which seems to simply not exist here in Italy. Lunch all together in the candlelit warm living room of Tonya’s house, or lounging on their couches looking at photos. Harriet and I stayed in the attic room of their house, which seemed appropriate and familiar after the attic room the girl counselors shared this summer in camp. And Micky, bless her heart, came up with the idea to bring Harriet and me fruit and tea in bed to wake us up, telling us when we were up there would be pancakes and bacon downstairs. Lying there in the quilts with Harriet, waking up slowly and sipping tea, enjoying the extra hour of daylight savings so that we didn’t have to rush to get to the airport. Downstairs we sang some of the camp songs, sat down to a cozy breakfast, and wrote an email to the rest of the staff. Simple, homey, friendly things. It seemed so luxurious to be so comfortable and taken care of and at ease with Harriet and Tonya and her family. A real vacation, and a wonderful weekend.