So today was the day we left for London, flying on RyanAir from Duesseldorf to London. We left the castle at 6am and I don’t think anyone in the entire group slept more than an hour or last night. Travel itself was uneventful, though, except that Jenna’s and my passports got SWITCHED at the ticket counter. We made it through security AND passport control before she noticed. First, it was stupid of me not to check earlier that they had given me my right passport back. What if we hadn’t noticed until three weeks later when suddenly I’m in Vienna and she’s in Copenhagen, and I need my passport? But secondly, security and passport control neither one looked at the photo to see if we had the right passports. Thanks, airport security.
RyanAir is a rather crummy airline and I never want to fly it again. The way it’s so cheap is that there are commercials on the PA every few minutes, and every flat space is covered in ads. But we got to London, made the two hour busride from Stanstead to our teeny, tiny, crummy hotel. I roomed with a wonderfully nice girl, Ashley. Short orientation and then we were released for the day.
Me, Bridget, Amanda, Emily, and Jessye headed off to St. Paul’s to attend Evensong. The church inside is opulent to the point of making me somewhat uncomfortable. It makes you every aware of how small and insignificant you are in the grand scheme of things, and at least gave me the feeling, “In the face of such a big world, why would God care about you?” But the music was goosebump-inducing, bouncing off the dome and tiled floors and mosaics covering the walls and paintings on teh ceilings, every sharp gold-embossed corner of the cathedral. The amount of work that went into the church is undeniable. A sign said it costs 63millionpounds a year to keep the church up and running. It just . . . bothered me. But I was glad we went for the experience, and to see the inside.
After mass, we ambled around town for several hours. Walked by the London Eye, some of Southbank, I thought the girls how to use the metro. Went back to the room early and had a LOVELY evening, sipping tea and coffee in my tiny hotel room and reading A Clockwork Orange. I can’t remember the last book I read for fun. I’m also in love with our room. It’s tiny, but instead of feeling claustrophobic, it feels like a cozy little safehaven in the big city of London.
Quote from my personal journal: “It feels so good to be back in London. That’s all I can say. Maybe I never really left. This is second only to going home. I belong here, at least for some time.”
And another: “Sipping tea now. Traffic still drifting on a breeze through the open window. A tiny room. A TV from the 90s and the faint smell of old carpeting and cigarettes. I epitomize . . . something.” -8:51pm
