Saturday, 24 September 2011

Week Three - Thursday, September 22nd

Over the weekend I got my first look at the dark side of these London streets.  I went out and had a little too much fun and found myself in a tight spot.  Turns out guys aren't exactly the same as Iowa boys, that's one thing I will not get used to.  As our director told us English men don't know how to talk up the ladies.  Basically they just get drunk and throw themselves at women.  Sadly, that's not always too far from the truth.  I had one particularly persistent guy even offer me a cab ride back to my hotel.  Being left alone and in a part of town I didn't know I gave him my zip code and reluctantly hopped in the cab.

Imagine my surprise when half an hour and 50 pounds later we arrived at his flat.  He paid the taxi and it drove off and by that time I was headed in the other direction.  I tried to flag down a taxi but they told me they were not heading in my direction and sped off leaving me on the side of the road.  The "nice English man," as he described himself, caught up to me and grabbed my arm.  He offered to let me spend the night.  After he got the hint that wasn't going to happen he walked me to a bus station and told me it would take me where I needed to go.  Wrong!  It took me back to almst exactly where I came from.

In the early hours of the morning, alone, lost, and a little terrified I had no idea how to get back to my hotel.  With my dead phone stuffed useslessly into my purse I took off.  I ended up sticking to the well lit streets until I finally found someone who told me how to get to Buckingham palace.  I practically ran the entire half hour it took me to get back to my room and had never been happier to be home!

Despite my one bad night I had to move on with my life.  I started my classes this week and love only having them two days a week.  The fact that they are three hours lond is a bit of a downside, but for my art class we go to galleries and for my religion class we rarely meet in a classroom.  None of the courses I'm taking here are really my strong points (I'm more of a math and science girl) but I enjoy them somewhat to my suprise.  The one thing I can't wait for though is my internship.  I made the hour and a half journey this week to find the hospital before my interview next Tuesday morning.  I got to travel to zone 3 and explore a few of the outer areas of the city.  They are lovely, but are a totally different maze of streets just waiting to be explored.

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