Gabi Goes! Adventures of a JMU Student Abroad, Vol. 7

Day the Eighth: Fear and Loathing in London

Late last night I had met an scarred Egyptian dental student named Shady who taught me three phrases in Arabic and why the Egyptian revolution might be beneficial. Today, I thought, would be a quiet day. Get up fairly late at nine, collect my money from Dr. Falk, head over to the special bookstore where they sell comic books for fifty pence, collect a few, get a croissant from the bakeshop, write a new chapter on my book, head over to the British Library to read a 18th century sailor’s diary regarding Botany Bay and more of Strachey’s work. All this I accomplished, and then afterwards spent three hours in the British Museum half-asleep looking at mummies, Welsh swords, and Chinese jade work. Later that night, the boys and I went to a casino where as an entrance prize we got a 10 pound chip, and I managed to judiciously bet my chip and not spend any of my other money. We were taught the rules of gambling in Black Jack by a wizened Lithuanian man and the rules of Three Card Poker by a very friendly Italian named Omar. After the casino, we watched the big Chelsea game in Rising Sun pub, crushed by so many English people that it was impossible to move. I learned the Chelsea war chant and how to make friends with Londoners at football games. My roomate is going out for the night, but I rather think I`ll stay in.

Nighty night. Cambridge tomorrow.
Day the Ninth and Tenth: Punting in Cambridge and Oxford Street

On Sunday, we were up at 7:45 to go to Cambridge, and after an arduous journey (during which I amused myself with a few Deadpool comics and a 3 pound throwaway paperback) we arrived in the quaint, almost medieval looking down of Cambridge. Allow me to set the scene. It was rather dark, and the sky was that particularly hazy shade of grey that it gets when it absolutely refuses to rain. It was cold enough for me to perform a rather haphazard dance from foot to foot as we gathered by the Cam and a young man who seemed as if he had just stepped gracefully from a Ralph Lauren catalogue introduced himself and told us that we were to go punting. Punting is a bit like what they do in Venice with the gondalas. You sit tight in the boat whilst a person propels you through the water with what it basically a glorified stick. We all decided that we would punt ourselves, and democratically switched out punters. First lesson, the boat goes in the opposite direction of applied force: easy. First lesson did not check out. We spent as much time in the beginning drifting gently into walls and picturesque weeping willows then we did breezing through the water. Punting is hard work: the back of the boat is slippery, the resident swan is territorial, and the water is replete with toast. Enough muscle power and leverage is required to lift the pole, not to mentioned, propel a boat through the water. But it was fantastic fun to see Cambridge University and St. John’s College from the banks, and to steer oneself through the arching bridges and half-heartedly prod an oar at times to keep the boat from knocking into a wall. After punting, we went to a nice pub (where I had Indian food) and then spent the majority of the day shopping around Cambridge and visiting an absolutely amazing sweet shop that sold mint frogs. Later we met a very nice man from Cheshire who taught us all about the South African battle of Blood River (we really have to start hanging out in the lobby more often)Today, we went to a small art gallery, saw some Omega rugs from Robert Fry’s Omega workshops, and then went shopping on Oxford Street over under the omnipresence of Union Jack flags. Tonight, we spent some time in a park playing frisbee with a hat, and later are going out to the Court pub. Afterwards, I`ll be cleaning up my Lytton Strachey presentation: tomorrow it’s show time.
It is really odd. It is not that I am not happy here, I feel more at ease here than nearly any other place I’ve ever visited. But the days are starting to run together. The pace of that first week was so frenetic and we saw and did so many things that some of the novelty is beginning to wear off. Tomorrow Billy Elliot the Musical should shake that up, as it marks the third out of the four shows that I`ll probably be seeing in London. Les Miserables is on Thursday, much to my mother’s chagrin, but I am excited.

I wonder if it will be anything like the book?

Anyway, enough chat for now. Updating later.
Museum of London and Billy Elliot tomorrow!