The final week in London!!!*

March 6 - March 13

My last week in London and what a sad thought; being my school was such a major part of my experience, I decided to work straight up until I left. I had originally planned I would take the last week off to do my final things in London, but I could not justify this since my school was so great. In addition, it was an extra paycheck to help pay for my traveling.

Monday at school was another day of massive internals…nothing big to report on there. During the evening I stayed low and did not do any major activities. I went into Central London and walked through Regents Park before deciding to go explore the City at Liverpool Street.

Tuesday was another big day of internals, but nothing we could not handle. Tuesday night was going to be grand!! I had been looking forward to this for ages! Adam, JP, and I were attending Adeeb’s fashion show in Central London. Adeeb is a bloke we work with at my catering job. He attends med school and this fashion show was a fundraiser for cancer research. The venue was at one of the up and coming posh clubs along Piccadilly Street. Of course we arrived late, right before the show was to start and the place was packed. We managed to find our catering crowd (about 15 of us) and grabbed a seat just as the show started. The fashion show itself was quite good, loads of clothing and models; it was splendid. However, the MCs for the night were terrible and completely obnoxious. Our friends got rowdy and constantly booed the MCs, they were out of control! The crowd itself was dressed really trendy and I sat there to myself and thought this is what I love about London. I would never be able to do this in the Twin Cities…go to a random fashion show on a Tuesday night and party hard. The other noteworthy part of the night was the raffle drawing. I think maybe 10 tickets were drawn and six of them were from our small, loud group. We were so pumped after one person won and the excitement continued to rise as person after person went up to retrieve their prizes! The night finished up with some good dancing, although I was unfortunately not in dance city mood. I managed to catch the night bus and get home by 2:00.

Wednesday at school was an interesting one. One of our students we had worked closely with had been arrested for attempted murder. We work with some of his friends so they were pretty shaken up about the whole situation. We spent the time talking with his friends to try and get their head around the situation and grasp what was happening. I have never really had to deal with a situation such as this, so it was a great learning experience for me. Since Tuesday night was late and Wednesday was a long day at work, I kept Wednesday night pretty low key. I went for a nice run and sat around with the boys at home.

Thursday at school again was an interesting day. I was in at work on time (but tired) and was near reception when one of the receptionists came out and said a girl had been hit by a car. I told her I too was First Aid certified and asked if she wanted help, indeed she did. We walked down to an office where the girl was and I was preparing myself for the worst: blood, bones, unconsciousness, and the whole nine yards. When we arrived, the girl was sitting in a chair with no blood, no protruding bones, or anything of that sort, she was just in some serious shock and looked as though she was about to pass out. My first instinct was to calm her down, which is what I did. I found out she had been riding her bike, been hit by a car, and was fortunately wearing a helmet. I could see nothing visibly wrong with her but she complained of pains in her knee. I checked it out and said we would wait for the ambulance. Thirty minutes later they finally arrived and I was voted to go to Accidents and Emergencies (A&E our equivalent of ER). I rode in the ambulance and everything; it turns out the girl broke a bone in her knee but everything should work out fine for her.

I had played Wednesday evening lightly in preparation for my last couple of nights in London. Thursday night was one of my planned farewell parties. This get together was in Richmond at my boss’ place with Lynda and Rebecca. We went straight from PSC to Richmond and Foxy threw in his lasagna and pulled out the beer and wine. A teacher and her boyfriend came over for dinner as well and we had a grand time. The dinner was lovely as was the tequila. From here we headed to Molly Malone’s to meet the rest of the teachers that had come out. At this pub was pub quiz night so it was not too rowdy and did not make the best atmosphere for a going away shin dig. After our group finished pub quiz, we went to O’Neill’s where Foxy was not allowed in since he was so slow in getting there. After twenty minutes of three ladies persuading the bouncer, about 15 texts between Peter and me, he was finally allowed in. Lynda and I had a good time dancing, although she was weirded out by me…ha ha. The pub closed and we were all forced to return home. I had decided to return home and therefore had to catch night buses all the way from Richmond. While waiting for my first bus (the stop is right outside of Foxy’s place) he came out with a Stella for each of us while we waited; that is typical London. My bus came and I finally made it home at 3:30.

Friday was going to be a great day. In terms of timetables, it has always been the lightest. Foxy managed to have no internals for us either. With all of this in mind, I did not mind sleeping in a bit and missing my normal train. I arrived to work at 8:40, only 40 minutes late, nothing off my back being it was my last day!!!! Foxy did not mind too much either because I was requested to make a pit stop at the shop for some food and Lucrozade. Once at school I did have to do some work. We had a student in our unit who had never really been over before and I was forcing him to do work. To make a long story short, he was annoyed and fidgeting with a light bulb. As his frustration increased so did the pressure he put on the light bulb. It ended up exploding in his hand so I spent the next 30 minutes pulling shards of glass from his hand and cleaning up the halogen powder. Talk about a trauma filled last three days! After this incident was cleaned up I had planned to bring some things in to cook with two of our regular students.

The three of us made apple crisp (which they call apple crumble) and peanut butter cookies. They had never had peanut butter cookies so it was quite the experience for everybody. We all wore aprons and chef hats!!! Let me tell you, I had an absolute blast doing the baking with my two students. I think they had a great time too because it meant no work for them!!! We even brought the Head Teacher a couple of peanut butter cookies. After school there was a cricket match with the Year 10 boys. I had received a 25 minute lesson on the sport and I understood it pretty much. We showed up in our chef hats and I was ready to play. The kids wanted me to bat straight away and I hit a couple of good balls, but did not score a run. My favourite part of the entire test was whenever we would get a Year 10 out, everyone would run to that person and do loads of cheering, just like on TV. After a bit, I had to head over to Goals to meet the rest of the teachers. There was a pretty good turnout, of course not all for me, but it was nice to see so many people. We all had a couple of drinks and I started to say my goodbyes. It stunk having to say goodbyes to everyone…the first time I have really had to say goodbye, it has been nice knowing you and I may never see you again; kind of weird. Anyways, I said the goodbyes and headed to JM’s place for some dinner with Sarah. We had some wine and chicken stir fry. From here we went to Great Western and met a couple of their friends. After a couple of pints we walked to The Pheasant but unfortunately got there too late to get in. We stopped at an Indian restaurant and ate!!! Man was it delicious. I took the bus and caught the last train home while eating chicken tikka. This ride was not nearly as eventful as the week before and I made it by 2:30. All in all it was a great night!

Saturday I slept in and then Adam and I headed for Angel to take a picture of the infamous stop light…man was Adam unimpressed! Despite this we continued to walk for a couple of hours through High Bury and Islington. The weather was beautiful and we had a great time. Too bad JP could not join us…he was moving flats. That night was Adam’s last hoorah in London (he was leaving the next day). We had Eric, Nick, Adam and a couple of others to our place for dinner. We had a couple of drinks and headed to the West End for a club. The club was not very nice but we still had a good time.

Adam’s flight was early this morning (Sunday) so I woke up to say goodbye. It was pretty nonchalant, a simple goodbye at the door. Of course I headed straight back to bed because I had a big day ahead of me. First I needed to pack, six months into two bags with one of those bags being packed for five weeks in Europe. I put my head down and got it all done because I needed to be in Bayswater by 15:00 for Sunday roast. Faitek, Nick, Sarah, and a couple of their friends met me and we had a glorious Sunday roast. A rugby match was on and after it finished we switched pubs to watch the Arsenal versus Liverpool match. JP joined us late too. After the match I hauled my massive bag to Eric’s for the time I would be in Europe and then headed to the Thames for some last minute sight seeing. My last night in London for a couple of weeks; I was sad but I knew I would be back in five weeks, plus I was excited to get to the continent. I arrived home to a completely empty house being JP had moved the day before and Adam had left for the States.

Monday I left for Dublin at 10:30 out of Stanstead. The next entry will begin my five week epic through Europe with my big backpack.