London

Ah, London.

I saw you and I crossed you off my list.

London was lovely. The weather was pleasant and I saw two more museums: the National Gallery (yes, I *finally* saw my beloved Marriage of Arnolfini) and the British Museum (the Rosetta Stone is overrated).

Christmas was a lot of fun. We took a walking tour around London and sang a Christmas carrol at each monument. Jon has some American friends who have apartments to die for. We had a turkey dinner and watched this cheesy old 60s Christmas movie and Mean Girls.

Jon and I took advantage of the post-Christmas sales. Zara was the worst of them. H&M was pretty bad too. Imagine vultures at a dead wildebeast carcass. That's what the British consumers were like in these stores. Looking down into the basement of TopShop, I was reminded of millions of ants scurrying around.

I tried on a mesh shirt in Benetton and asked the sales associate's opinion. We started talking and then he asked if I had a boyfriend. "No, why?" "Can I have your phone number? I saw you when you came in and I wanted to get a chance to talk to you".

My New Year's resolution is to not give my phone number to strange guys, but since it was only December 29th, I gave it to him.

I was so psyched to go to Portugal. I was at the train track, waiting to catch my train to Gatwick. My train was supposed to come at 8:20 am. 8:20 am came and no train. At 8:21, a train pulled up and the sign announcing its arrival flashed "Gatwick - Brighton".

Logic would dictate that this would be the right train...right?

Wrong.

We passed through Croydon, but this just made me relax more as we had entered through Croydon. However, we seemed to be getting further and further away from civilization. After 40 minutes, I didn't see anything remotely resembling an airport. I asked another passenger if this was the right train.

It wasn't.

I got off at the next stop. I had 40 minutes to get to the airport in time to check in. I rushed to the train station to see if there would be another train to Gatwick. Nope. A man at the station called a taxi for me. He told me he would arrive in 5-10 minutes.

Almost twenty minutes later, the driver pulled up. I was hysterical. It was going to cost 30 pounds to drive me to Gatwick. Yes, 30 pounds. That's almost $100 CAD. 30 pounds to go twenty kilometres. Twenty minutes. I really turned on the waterworks but the driver wouldn't budge with the price. At that point, I didn't care. I just wanted to get on that plane! I arrived with two minutes to spare, but I checked in and arrived in Portugal safe and sound.