"Don't worry...be happy..OooOOohhHH..." This is the song that Stena Line uses as an alarm clock via the loud speaker, not too shabby. 5:30 am wake up announcements had us wishing we could stay in our dark warm cabin for days. But we managed to get ourselevs up and off the boat (not last this time). Jenny noticed on our ferry ride that we had re-emerged into an english speaking country for the first time in months! What a luxury it is...but also strange that everyone can understand us now as well. ah oh!
Our rail and sail passes had us jump right on a train from Harwich to London; from there we bought train and tube passes for the day. We took the tube to Waterloo station, hoping to take the train to Kingston, change, drop off our backpacks and head back into London. We quickly realized there were NO trains leaving and an announcement on the board said someone had been hit by a train at Charing Cross. What a sad story! We gathered it would be a while before we could set off, so we made an executive decision to stash our bags in lockers and go shop despite our appearence and dirty clothes and scraggle hair. Hungry hippos as usual, we popped in a bar at the station for a 4£ english breakfast to start the day off right.
Zara, Top Shop, H&M, boutiques...we hit all the major spots and left happily at the end of the day, each with one new item to treat ourselves. Backpacking is not a pretty sight on your blogging hosts, and we became enthralled with women in Top Shop who were threading eyebrows (it's weird, google it). We are usually wax girls, but this opportunity to look a little more human was too tempting. Ouch...but we feel like new people with shaped brows :) awww coming back into the real world.
We finally made our way to Kingston around 7, with plans of going back into London to meet Sam and James, our friends from San Sebastian who live in london. We showered, fell in love with the suitcase of clean clothes we had left here, and chatted with Tim, Shirley and Louie. It felt so nice to be back here, and a bit surreal as well. Opening our suitcases was like every Christmas and birthday ever. We have been living in the same 5 t-shirts, 3 pairs of pants, 1 fleece and a few misc. items for 2 months. Our prior overpacker selves had stuffed everything we could into giant suitcases, and coming back to these was the ultimate ecstacy. Honestly a feeling that we can't describe and most likely won't remember, but we are sure a feeling that every backpacker knows.
We quickly showered and got ourselevs together but our timing was pretty off tonight. By the time we made it to London, we only had an hour before we had to catch the last train back to Kingston. Poor Sam met us at a bar by the station for quick Mojitos in Cubana, and a brief game of catch up. He was a great host for the 45 minutes we were with him! We decided it just wasn't enough time with good ole Sam, so we made plans for lunch tomorrow in town.
Luck was in our favor as we parted ways with our friend and caught the train. We watched a drunk couple scarf down food and pass out while we dozed a bit ourselves. The couple bolted off nearly missing their stop about 30 minutes later and we couldn't help but crack up and a guy across from us joined in. We struck up conversation with this tattoed, british young man about our story and his. He recently started his own music company and plans to move back to L.A. by the end of the year... such a nice guY!
We paced home quickly, not fans of English weather. Alice's new room was the next best thing to our own beds...only 1 more nights.....
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