Monday, 2-5-96
12:03 AM London
6:03 PM E-Town (2-4-96)
Well, the best of time do usually tend to be those you didn’t plan &/or weren’t expecting… Lori & I decided to go on our first (of many, yet to come, we now believe…) “London Walk!” We took the Central Line tube to St. Paul’s & met our tour guide, Liz, for our Ghost Walk Tour “Ghosts of the Old City!” It was awesome! It is right up there w/ “Warwick Castle” for my favorite things I’ve seen here in Merry Ol’ England!
Well, I’m on some kind of natural high right now… adrenaline rush & a glass of wine from the “haunted” pub on the walk & Pringles that I have been munching on all day & leftover chocolate cake! It couldn’t have anything to do w/ the above mentioned or my not having had really eaten dinner & my being tired, yet giddy, from lack of sleep!
I got up early to make church at 10:30 AM & then came straight back to Notting Hill Gate. I piddled around a music shop for a bit & found a great CD I may have to purchase one day soon… and then headed over to “Europa” for a fresh roll & an onion bagel (What else would I get? Besides water &/or Cresta?!) Actually, I did get Cresta, as well as Pringles, McVities Choc. Digestive Crackers, & even a donut! Okay, I’ve got it! I must be on a sugar high! I remember feeling this way at home over break & mom saying that might why…
This afternoon I worked on Int’l Business coursework.
Now, working back to Wed. night — last time I wrote in here:
Last night Lori & I set out to go dancing at “Club Fantastic” (an 80’s music joint), but didn’t find it till midnight. The line was super long, the crowd looked older, & it was £8 to get in. We opted to take a night bus home. We considered going to a later movie, but remembered we still had the choc. cake mix Lori’s mom had sent her for her B-day! ☺︎ Since I had made Lori brownies we had saved the mix!
Well at 1 AM this morning, after getting back from Oxford Circus safe & sound and waking up Will & Molly to fix our door (the lock was broken & Lori got locked in the room & I got locked out — simultaneously!), we busted out the cake mix… We made it & a sugary glaze! We proceeded to scarf down half of it before crashing into our beds about 2 AM…
Sat. day I had spent at the Birkbeck computer lab — my best friend for this weekend — where I typed in my rough draft of my British Society essay, more like research paper, comparing the U.S. & U.K. Higher Education Systems! I also did quite a bit of e-mail for study breaks…
Fri. night I stayed in to read up for the essay & take notes. I also decided to hand wash my socks & underwear w/ Woolite in the sink & then let them air dry! I also read some more of Waiting to Exhale & ultimately finished it before resting that night… a really cool quote was near the end about rain & storms being God’s tears & then one of the characters had a neato thought about God & weather…
I’ll put it here later…
(which unfortunately I never did)
I have started a new book. I gave it to Lori for her b-day & she finished it already! It is Danielle Steel’s The Gift. I read the first chapter this morning & bawled when a sweet 5 yr. old girl died in it of meningitis… It is a quick read & while shoving down the last of the choc. cake & `smore Pringles a lil’ while ago, I read the second chapter! The way I ate today you’d think I was “bulimic,” except I binged w/ out the puking… ☺︎
Oh, Sat. I talked to Mom & Dad & Debbie & Jess! It was great to hear all their voices… Alex turned 16 Friday & Debbie “40something” on Saturday! Wow! Where have the years gone? My little Alexie can drive now! Debbie & Alex arrive Thurs. night, but I may not see them till Fri. If nothing else, the plan is for me to meet them at their hotel in Covent Garden Fri. at 4 PM. Then we will go to dinner & to see the “Royal London Ballet!”
Friday day I worked on my essay at school & then wandered over to daily mass… I was in a state of homesickness & knew being there would comfort me — even if my soul continued to ache… It happened to be more than just “Groundhog Day” & Alex’s 16th birthday, it was a special holy day celebrating Jesus’s interactions w/ Simon & Anne, if I remember correctly. So mass was more than a usual daily service… it was a lovely candlelit ceremony that began in the lecture/discussion room outside the chapel. It was just what I needed to give me that extra boost of strength… I felt like time to myself that night & as God has done so much lately, God answered my prayer for solitude. When I got home, Lori was all dressed up to go out! It’s not that I didn’t want to be w/ her, I didn’t want to be w/ anyone but myself, God, & my music, books, & then some Woolite!
Okay, I’m definitely needing sleep right about now… so I’ll wrap this up! Thursday afternoon I spent way too long on e-mail followed by a trip to Covent Garden. I checked out the “Transport Museum Shop” & all the groovy underground tube wear: like tube map boxers & t-shirts that read “way out” & “mind the gap!”
Met Lori at the “Doc Marten Dept. Store” at 5 PM! We tried on lots of Docs before I bought a pair of typical low top black ones w/ the yellow stitching… I love `em, though their a bitch to break in! They were only £40 ($60)! ☺︎ Then we went out to dinner at some Italian restaurant & both had some yummy Lasagna! ☺︎
After I went to a pub in Piccadilly Circus w/ Lauren & Leslie! The highlight was playing cards w/ them & chatting, in a pretty relaxed atmosphere… Some skanky Brits came over a few times, including one drunk old bloke who wanted us to call him “Uncle Gary” & he kept kissing & holding our hands! (Yuck! ☹︎)
They both drank a lot, I however wasn’t in the mood… so I headed home in time to catch one of the last tubes back to Notting Hill Gate! They stayed to go out & try to get Lauren’s cute bartender “Vic” to go w/ them!
Okay, as Dynamite would say/does still in her letters…
ENOUGH!
CHEERS! ☺︎
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Note from Present Day Kathy: Reading about the adventures my roommate and I had in this entry is so fun and nostalgic! It makes me want to time travel and relive some of these memories, if that were somehow possible.
I’d love to go on another “London Walk” someday, maybe with my family during our planned trip in the summer of 2020?! I don’t recall going on any more guided tours that semester, but I can see why we thought we would.
Also, as someone who tends to over-plan and has often struggled with expectations throughout my life, my intro to this entry continues to ring true for me.
I think it’s too funny seeing how I was trying to figure out why I was feeling “high” and ultimately decided it was a sugar rush, which makes sense! I’d be so sick now, if I ate half a cake with someone else, as my tolerance for sugar is nowhere near what it was back then.
I vividly remember going to Europa, near our tube stop and around the corner from where we lived in Notting Hill Gate. We wouldn’t go there for big grocery shopping trips, but loved to stop in for a few things we needed or were craving, such as their awesome fresh/warm french bread (which sometimes I’d eat straight out of the bag on our way home), and the chocolate digestive crackers (that I mention in this entry) which was another fav/special treat for me back then. I just looked up McVities on Amazon and the kind I used to buy are available! I might have to order some soon.
I love that I was reading for pleasure, outside of school, something I didn’t do a ton of in my college days, but appreciated more during my semester abroad.
Also, I think its cool how resourceful I was at times, washing socks and underwear in the sink with Woolite, as well as how money conscious I knew I had to be, do my best to live on a tight budget that semester.
I still have the Doc Martens I bought there! I haven’t worn them in years, but tried them on recently. I forgot how heavy they are! Also, I find it amusing that I swore in my entry, as though I swear some IRL, I rarely do so in my writing now and I don’t think I did much back then.
Likewise, I find it interesting how I was picking up words and phrases that Brits I met there used in conversations. I definitely did start incorporating some of what I learned into my own speaking, as well as writing. Though I am not sure how much using them in my writing was becoming habit or if I was just doing it for fun.
To this day playing cards with friends at a pub sounds like/is a great night out to me, so I am not surprised how much I enjoyed it back then.
I love that I referenced how my paternal Grandma Dynamite would often end her letters, with the word, “enough!”
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Reminder: Unless I’ve been given permission to use people’s actual names, in most cases I’ve removed or replaced the names of the real people who were part of my journey/experience there, in effort to protect and respect their identities/privacy in my London Semester Journal entries. I will also not share details that I think and feel are too personal for anyone I interacted with, my loved ones, and me.
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Here’s the back story of My London Semester Journals from 1996, including what prompted me to revisit and decide to share them here in 2018. And here’s a list a list of the entries, which I will update as I share them.
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