Down and Out in London (long)

[Amy Z]

Ebony wrote:

>Amy, now that you've brought it up, you MUST tell your London horror story. 
>  As far as India and Nepal are concerned, I think I need to develop a 
>thicker skin and a higher resistance to maladies than I have now.  ;-)

Well, since you insist . . . <g>

But first:

Ebony wrote:

>(One girl who I sat next to at dinner said some of the kids actually >threw 
>those fireworks at her feet.)

I went to a locally famous fireworks display near Denver, Colorado a few 
years ago.  Everyone gathered around a lake and watched the fireworks over 
it--tried to, that is, since the major attraction of this event was that 
everyone brought their own and set them off wherever.  Not just 
firecrackers, which were loud and annoying, but actual rockets and things 
going off all around this crowd of families.  That's the wild, wild west for 
you, I guess--basic safety precautions like "you may not set off rockets 
near 2-year-olds, nor give them to 6-year-olds to set off" are an 
infringement of our civil liberties, you know.

It was one of those experiences where I realized, "So THIS is why people do 
stupid things out of peer pressure," because my dh and I were there with 
some of his family and we kept looking at each other, both thinking, "We 
have got to get out of here!  But they'll be upset with us!  But we could 
lose an eye!  But what if they think we're a pair of party-pooping ninnies?" 
  Finally a firework went off in the sand in front of us and burrowed under 
the blanket of the kids sitting there, and we decided to stop pleasing the 
family and split.  I have never seen anything like it in my life.

Okay, on to London.

I and the other students on my semester study program in India, who were 
from all over the States, were to convene in London for two days' 
orientation before flying together to Delhi.  I thought I'd get there a 
couple of days earlier and get used to that much jetlag before bopping on to 
the other side of the world.  I'd been to London for a week once before, 
when my sister studied there, and she had written to her housemates from a 
later period to tell them her sister was coming and could I spend a couple 
of nights on their couch?

Right before I left the U.S., I had my first inkling that all might not go 
so smoothly.  My sister hadn't actually heard back from anyone, and it was 
the typical 20-something group living situation, with no one really making 
the decisions and who knows who sleeping there any given night.  But I 
figured I'd call them when I got there, remind them who I was, and crash on 
the floor if necessary.  I had everything I needed for four months in my 
backpack (it must have weighed half as much as I did) and, stupidly, a small 
but heavy extra bag, including (unfortunately) some required books, about 
three changes of clothes, hiking boots, a sleeping bag and foam pad, quinine 
tablets--I was headed to India, for heaven's sake!  I could handle anything.

I called them from Heathrow, but got no answer.  No big deal; it was early 
yet.  I would grab a bite and call again in a couple of hours.

Well, the day wore on and I got nothing but ring, ring, ring.  I must have 
called them from half the phone booths in London.  I don't even remember how 
I killed most of the day; after I'd wandered the streets in a state of high 
excitement for a couple of hours, my shoulders were no longer wild about the 
whole adventure.  I just recall that after my umpteenth phone call, when 
dark was falling and I was really starting to wonder whether I was going to 
spend the night on a park bench, I headed for Chinatown in a state of great 
self-pity and got myself a nice meal; I remembered the area from our 
theater-laden visit a few years earlier.  I think I had the fleeting thought 
of hitting a show afterwards and just passing the entire night that way.  
The waiter's professional kindness reduced me to tears, and I wept into my 
wonton soup, which seemed like a sacrament from heaven.  Thirteen years 
later, I can still remember the taste vividly.

It was pitch dark by the time I finished dinner.  Somewhat fortified, I 
headed for a tube station and called one more time.  Ring ring ring.  Ring 
ring ring.  I called the youth hostel.  Ring ring ring.  A friendly-looking 
man saw me leaning wearily against the phone box and said, "Looking for a 
place to stay?"  All my NYC streetwisdom went on red alert.  (Yes, he has a 
charming British accent, Amy, but that doesn't mean he isn't a serial 
rapist.)  Still in that friendly way, he started showing me his wallet 
photos of the other girls who stayed with him.  Lovely sex kittens in 
seductive poses, all.  I said "No, thank you" in an insanely polite tone, 
and fled.

That was when I decided I was going to head to the house and sleep on the 
stoop if need be.  I got to the right track in the station and stood gazing 
down into it in a nightmarish haze of bleariness.  As if to put the cherry 
on the marshmallow hot-fudge sundae that was this glorious night, two 
enterprising rats suddenly appeared and scuttled along the track.  The 
fluorescent light and rumble of the trains notwithstanding, I thought I'd 
been transported to Dickens' London.

I got to the neighborhood they lived in (I've repressed the name) around 
midnight, was pleased to see the house was standing, and rang the doorbell 
for a long time.  No reply (no surprise).  So I unloaded my pack off my back 
and leaned against the banister, fully expecting to spend the night that 
way.  The street seemed quiet enough:  pleasant, working-class, a bit creepy 
because there was absolutely no one around, but at least free of lurking 
bands of hoodlums.  After about an hour, one of the residents arrived home 
and expressed great surprise that I was sitting on the doorstep and that no 
one had answered the phone or bell, since there were people home.  I was 
supremely ticked at all of them, but was not above sleeping on their couch.  
The next morning one of them vaguely recalled something about my plans to 
stay there.  I got back on the phone to the hostel, successfully, and booked 
a bed there for that night.  When I spilled half my saga to the kind man who 
answered the phone, he expressed dismay and admiration that I'd planned to 
sleep outdoors in *that* neighborhood.

The trip over to the hostel wasn't terrific either--there was no escalator 
up from the tube and I walked up what seemed like hundreds of stairs, 
stopping about every ten to pant in a self-pitying way--but a kind person 
insisted on taking my extra bag up for me at least.  I had long since turned 
off the red alert, and in fact wouldn't greatly have cared if he'd run off 
with it.  And the guy at the hostel was so nice, and it was near a lovely 
park (Hyde Park, IIRC, though I might not), and I just went and sat amongst 
the flowers for the entire afternoon, feeling the utter bliss of having a 
place to stay and nothing to carry on my back.

By comparison, traveling in India and Nepal was a piece of cake, though I 
wouldn't do the bus from Kathmandu again in a hurry--I wonder to this day 
how many tourists are lying amidst old bus wreckage piled below certain 
hairpin curves--and I got felt up by a creep on the train while I was 
asleep.  As for the maladies, the key is to be careful about what you eat:  
no untreated water, no ice cubes, no uncooked street food, no exceptions.  
Slip up once and you'll pay the price.  I was fanatical, and I was the only 
person on my program who didn't get ill.

Amy
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