Oh, the interesting people you see at the airport...

All will be well...

I bet you all were expecting my next post to be from Spain, right? Well, here I am. It's 1AM, and I'm in London. We woke up fairly on time this morning (after for sleeping an entire hour or two) and took the tube to Buckingham Palace. The Queen was NOT home according to the lack of flag flying above her place, but we think that Prince Charles may have been residing in his little ole shack. If he wasn't, he waves some crazy, random flag on the roof for no reason!


We decided to take a different tube back to Earl's Court, but when we got to the new station, we noticed that this tube did not go where we wanted it to go, but it did lead to Piccadilly. There had been something in Piccadilly last night that had caught our attention and reminded us of two certain boys at Missouri State, and we decided to take the fact that we were standing in front of the tube leading straight to Piccadilly as a sign from God that we needed to return there and buy the said presents. Back we went to Piccadilly. We picked up the presents that probably only we will find to be this funny (and the boys will probably find offensive), and we stumbled across a Pizza Hut with a buffet! That's an amazing thing when everything is extremely expensive and you're very hungry. It wasn't quite as good as Pryor Pizza Hut, but whatever.

We took the tube back to the Scholars kids' flat, grabbed our stuff, and got back on the tube back to our bus station. All was going well. Then, our bus got delayed by traffic. And then it got delayed some more. We made it to the the airport 45 minutes before our flight, so we thought everything was fine. That thought didn't last long. I went up to the desk to get my boarding pass, but none of the screens were displaying Valencia, so I decided to just ask what to do. Well, the guy told me that they had just taken it down, but he would go ahead and give me my boarding pass. As he was doing so, the computer locked him out, and it was unable to process my pass, so he directed me to the ticket desk. The lovely employees of Ryanair proceeded to tell me that even though our flight wasn't leaving for a good 30 minutes, we couldn't get on the plane because they couldn't get our passes. They told us we could reschedule. That doesn't sound too bad, right? WRONG! Rescheduling co 50 pounds ($100), and we can't leave the airport until tomorrow morning. We were supposed to sign the lease and move into our apartment at 10am tomorrow, but our plane doesn't even land until 11:00, so hopefully that'll all be rescheduled to 1:00pm! We definitely went back to the bus company to complain, but they just sort of looked at us and said, "Maybe you should have left earlier." I was a little upset about having to spend an extra $100 and getting to spend another night in the airport, but fortunately, my parents were both calm and reassuring about it, which in turn made me calm. As my dad told me, I just have to chalk it up as a lesson in traffic jams and computers locking up! Little things go wrong, but we are simply blessed to be here - in Europe!

The airport's really not that bad. We sucked it up and paid money to get the internet because we're going to be here for 14 hours. This may have been a bad idea because it keeps me from sleeping, but who can honestly sleep in an airport? And as my mom pointed out, sleep may also be a bad idea because we don't want to sleep through our flight! So Emily and I are camped out on a less-than-comfy leather couch, instant messaging people, and observing all of the weird people around us. It's actually sort of fun. I miss friends, and observing weird people in airports is quite possibly one of my favorite activities to do.

Ironically, my dad also told me to watch out for the kooks in the airport. I was watching, but they found me anyway. Tonight this boy approached me (bear in mind that I was watching him before, and I thought he looked sorta creepy/weird):

He looks normal enough, right? Listening to an ipod, typing on his computer, hanging out in the airport like everyone else waiting for their flights (p.s. this is ipod boy to those of you we were camming with before, but it is NOT the same ipod man as the hostel).. Yeah, nice and normal until he TALKS. I'm jamming out to itunes and chatting over the webcam when he interrupts my sacred session to ask me if he could use my internet for a few minutes. Supposedly it wasn't working on his computer. He offered to buy me a cappucino, but I declined and just told him to do what he needed to do. Well, that's all fine and well until he continues to talk. He tells us that he's from Estonia. When we tell him that we're from the United States, he asked us if we just thought of Europe as one big country. Do people really think Americans are that stupid? When I told him no, he asked why we were in London, so I asked him the same. He didn't really give me an answer other than it was "sort of for fun". He asked if we could ask for milk in a grocery store in Spanish. That's a pretty simple thing to do. He must think we're really stupid. Then, he informs me that he has tons of movies on his hard drive, and he asks if I would like to watch one. By this time, I find him annoying; he's been really conceited in everything he's said, and he appears to also be very condescending, and if I had to choose between talking to friends or watching a movie with weird boy, I'd definitely choose friends, so I decline, and he then tells me that I don't have to watch it WITH him. So I guess he wants me to just take his computer and watch them by myself? That's even more awkward. Whatever. I told him I had my own movies if I wanted them, and he told me his were better because they were European. Nice! He finally left the little sanctuary that we've set up here in the airport and returned to his respective seat, and after he left, I looked to see what he had done on my computer. He had look up stuff about the "Red Symphony". I'm not really sure what that is, but it appears to relate to communism. Interesting. It now appears that I have a stalker interested in me and communism. He's still near us, but he gets up randomly and frequently and just walks off and leaves his laptop sitting in his chair. It's very strange... as is he. Why can't we ever seem to escape the creepy men? And why are they always listening to music and bobbing their heads? Maybe I should have just taken the free cappucino. I mean, we are in London. A cappucino here costs around $8, and what's wrong with using a boy I'm never going to see again? :)
Actually, that's sort of my motto while in Europe. I don't really think twice about what I say or my actions because I just say, "Oh well! I'm never going to see these people again!" It's a nice way to live life, let me tell ya. What's not nice about the current lifestyle is the lack of hygiene. We now have not showered in two days. We were planning on doing that tonight, but it appears as if God had other plans for us than cleanliness. Thus, my hair is gross, I sort of look like Mufassa from the Lion King, and no matter how often I wash my hands, I still feel oily. It's gross (It appears that this attracts Estonia boy, though!)! I can't wait to take a shower in our own little apartment for as long as I want and SHAVE MY LEGS! It's been two weeks. It's sick. Maybe if I REALLY want to scare away Estonia boy, I should just raise up my jeans (Please keep in mind that I've only worn two pairs of jeans the past two weeks because I have been living out of my carry-on suitcase.) and show him the threads of leg hair that are growing so beautifully. However, we are in Europe, and a lot of women don't shave here, so that may not have the desired effect that I'm looking for...

K. Back to the internet. And overpriced M&Ms. And webcams. And watching Estonia boy jam out as he studies communism! PRAY WE GET TO MOVE IN TOMORROW!!!And maybe we'll even change clothes AND shower AND sleep tomorrow, but we wouldn't want to overdo it, would we? :)

P.S. One of my favorite things about London is that not only do the people drive on the opposite side of the road, but they also walk on the opposite sides of the sidewalks! :)

...you can ask me how, but only time will tell.