Day 3 - London

Breakfast is provided by the hostel so I throw down the toast, cereal, and tea.  I pull out the map I bought yesterday and trace the route the sightseeing bus so I have an idea where I'll be walking today. I circle the highlights: Westminster Abbey, The Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, etc.  A girl asks where the City is and shows me an iPhone that's displaying a page in French except for the word "City."  She tells me there's music at night and wants to see it.  Her English isn't the greatest and she has very little confidence in it.  She asks if I speak Italian and I respond with Spanish. Her English is better than her Spanish so I continue to try and help her in English.  I can't find "City" on my map and apologize for being unable to help her.  I continue circling the places I want to see today, and there it is.. "City," marked like one of the boroughs on my map.  I show here but her map doesn't have that area of town.  She tells me she might get a bigger map today, "maybe."  I ask her where she's from and how long she's been here. 

Je m'appelle Mack.
Tamara.

She's studying law in Paris but she's originally from Senegal, Africa.  It's going to be her first full day here.  We have a hard time communicating, but she seems nice enough so I ask her if she wants to tour together. 

She says yes, and "maybe at night we head over to see the music?"
Sure.

So we walk around London together. The River Thames, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace.. the list goes on.

"Everything is simpatique" she tells me.  Everything.

And I spend the day learning French.  It's nice.

After checking out the sights we headed back to the hostel to relax before going back out.  She says maybe we take a nap and meet back at 6 before going out to dinner and music.

I agree.  I don't realize how tired I am until I lay down.  I set my alarm for 5:15 and I wake up at 8. I must have slept through the alarm.

Not simpatique. 

I feel awful for being late, but she's long gone by now.

I head upstairs and relax for a few minutes, then leave to go get fish and chips.  As I walk down the hostel steps I run into her, but she already has groceries for dinner now that she's waited so long.  We agree to meet back at the hostel at 9:30 and then we'll tour the town together at night.

At the pub around the corner I order fish and chips at the bar and a Guinness.  There's no room in the pub to sit, so I ask a group of people if I can join them.  One girl is from Scotland, one from Providence, the other from Minnesota.  They're all PhD. students in classics.  The Scot is single, Providence "married a Brit," and Minnesota married a German.  They'll all be living in London for a long time they tell me.  They give me a ton of advice and reccommend things for me to see throughout Europe.  Minnesota wrote it all down for me, and Providence asked for my email address so that she can send me an itenerary for Rome.

After dinner I get back to the hostel and Tamara and I walk around town. It's pouring.  We walk to the Old Bailey, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Court of Justice, etc. 

"The monuments have a different kind of spirit at night. It's simpatique."

The photographs are amazing. 

We head back to the hostel after a few hours. We're meeting back in the hostel lobby at 8am so she can help me book a hostel in Paris and teach me more French phrases.  Then we'll be off to see the rest of London. 

My alarm better wake me up.