Week Seven: England

Moving on, we went to go stay with Gen's friend Owen in a place we thought was a short train ride away from London. Turns out, it was £30 return to get there every day. We arrived at Cambridge station with Owen nowhere to be seen. We walked around trying to find him for about half an hour, realising that we have no way of contacting him. Neither of us have a phone, and theres no wifi in the area. We encountered these kinds of situations too often that it makes me wonder what people actually did when there weren't phones around. How long do they have to wait for someone before giving up? What happens if he had to cancel last minute? What do we do if Owen never shows up? These are the kinds questions that run through your mind as a person without a phone about 10 minutes into the ordeal. But finally, he comes racing in, apologising for being late, being super chill. We get to his house and both me and Gen are just soooooo fucking happy that we get to stay in a normal house and not have to listen to people engaging in sexual activities or have random people come talk to you while you try and play a game of scrabble. (This is what happened in Paris, I forgot to mention that there was this 35 year old man who kept telling us we could have done a better word every time we put our tiles down.) There's a lot of things I took for granted before I went on this trip, having your own bedroom is one of them. 
That night, Owen convinced us to go out with him even though we were still reeling from Lowlands. Gen poured us some shots of tequila, before realising that there was no salt or lemon, so instead she insisted on licking vegemite off our hands, taking the shot and eating a teaspoon of chocolate powder. It didn't go down so easy. That night, we all got happy drunk and went to a club that reminded us of Melbourne's 161 with the disco dance floor. I got the kind of drunk where I danced with a girl in some kind of Haka dance routine (just letting everyone know that after I said that I watched 45 minutes of the All Black's doing the Haka on Youtube) and performed Calisthenic dance manoeuvres like walk-overs and headstands. If you've been out with me, headstands and forming break dance circles are like... mandatory.

The next day, we went with Owen to the Wake boarding park that he works at, and got free lessons. Gen, of course, stood up on her first try and spent the whole time doing laps and like learning tricks. I, of course, spent the whole time face down in the water being aggressively dragged behind the rope struggling to breathe. Later that night, Gen and I ordered an excessive amount of Chinese food and actually giggled in delight the entire time we were eating it. Never, ever, take good food for granted. 

Then, we finally took the trip into London. Our first stop was the London Tombs, which was actually one of the funnest things I've done over here. I was expecting just a historical tour of sorts, but noooooo. At the end, they take you through to this dark room and say "if anyone has epilepsy, heart conditions, pregnant or is easily frightened, do not go through that door." The problem was, that behind us an entire Portuguese family who don't speak a lick of English had no fucking idea what they had said and ushered their group of 5 to 8 year old children through the door. I, of course, was left to the back of the line. They take you through to this maze that is like completely dark except for the strobe lights flashing at you and you all have to hold on to each other and find your way out of the maze. It's terrifying even as it is, until they chuck in a few actors who jump out at places and make weird World War Z zombie noises as they chase you around the maze. Being in the back of the line, I was left to fend for myself and scream in absolute horror as a guy shoved a chainsaw in my face and screamed at me for about 30 seconds straight. Another actor burst out from his mental asylum bed shackles and grabbed me by the arm. I turned around and smacked his hand away and screamed "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO FUCKING TOUCH ME!" But I assumed I didn't have the worst time, as in every moments of silence you could hear all three of the Portuguese children whimpering in terror. And their parents did not give a single fuck.

So we finally made it out, totally exhilarated. We met up with Gen's other friends, Josh and Shayla for some ciders along the River Thames. We also decided to go on one of those giant rides that take you up and you spend the whole time swinging around. Since there was 5 of us, I offered to go on the ride by myself. It was actually quite fun. The men in charge of operating the ride asked me where my boyfriend was and then offered that they be my boyfriend instead. And I was all like "haha shut the fuck up." Then, that night we went to my first Australian bar. Which is essentially an average bar that has the title "Australian Bar." There were like two Australian flags and then some drinks that were like "kangaroo juice" or something. The only Australian bar that would be remotely related to an actual Australian bar would be a bar that resides in Australia. 

The next day, Shayla, Gen and I sat in the back as Josh drove Owen's car to the station. As per usual, it was bucketing down with fog that forbid us from seeing even two meters ahead of us. We played Game of Thrones guess who on the train again, and then we said goodbye to Josh and Shayla. Then me and Gen thought we were going to go shopping at Harrod's all day, which is apparently this amazingly huge shopping centre. It actually turns out that it's just a normal shopping centre, much smaller than Chadstone, that is incredibly difficult to navigate and full of unachievable expensive clothes. Me and Gen accidentally got stuck inside some kind of white carpeted Gucci store and I've never felt more out of place in my entire life. After about 10 minutes of being inside Harrod's, it's tacky ancient Egyptian decor made me feel so uncomfortable that we had to leave. We then proceeded to walk around in the rain for hours. My shoes were soaking wet, so much so that I refused to walk any further so I had to buy the first pair of shoes I liked in Urban Outfitters. 60 pound later, little did I know I bought the most uncomfortable shoes in the world. I spent the rest of the day standing on my tippee-toes with my leather shoes clopping underneath my feet. By the time we left, me and Gen were sufficiently tired and hungry, so much so we reduced ourselves by standing inside the line for McDonald's for like half an hour before finally getting the train home at about 8pm. I asked Gen on the train, "out of all of the people you've travelled with, who have you encountered the most problems with?"
Definitely you.

Cold, tired and wet, me and Gen made it through the train trip and ran to the car. We got in, so over the day, when Gen tried to start the car. She tried to start the car again. Not working. She did again. 
Gen: I think the fucking car is out of battery?
Katie: Oh my god... Josh left the lights on. All day.
Gen and Katie: UGHHHAUHHGHRHGHUHHHHAARRRRRR!!!!!1
Stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no phones, we were fucked. Gen ran back inside trying to find someone to help us, eventually coming back with this young guy who gave us his phone to call Owen. After 40 minutes, Owen finally came. We were like sooo dead sorry, it was awful. Then he couldn't find the battery of his car. So he had to call his other friend to come help, after another 45 minutes his friend came. After about 2 minutes of looking for the battery, he found it in the boot.
"What do you call this then? A fucking ham sandwich?"

We eventually made it home after 3 hours at 12:30am. Gen had to leave for her flight back to Australia at 4am. Fucking nigghhhhtmareeeeee. That morning, Gen woke me up and I hugged her goodbye. We were both pretty nonchalant about it, Gen was really ready to go home, and I was still pretty much asleep. As Gen walked out the door, and I went back to bed, I realised that she was the last old friend I would see for 2 months. That was a weird feeling. I was now completely alone overseas.