Stratford
It’s been a week an a half? Something like that. Time to play the “remember what you did” catch-up game. It’s almost becoming fun to do it that way. Ok so I caught the bus from um…Wells. Yeah, Wells. And it dropped me off in a rainy Stratford-Upon-Avon. I circle the train station for a bit, avoiding the rain/medium drizzle. It rarely pours down rain here, so you can last a good while before you would ever become drenched. So I go inside, it’s a rec-center. With parents and kids going about after some practice or another. As I look at the map and some brosures there are three girls giggling at the door to the parking lot. One dares the others to run out in the rain to the trash can and back again. The other two scurry off into the rain and come back damp and with grins. They do this a few more times, each time going a bit further out. At one point one of the girls ran out with another’s soda drink and left it on top of a trash bin. The other girl stands at the door, holding out her hand and telling the other girl not to take it out in the rain but she goes to fetch it anyway. I sort of wistfully remember doing things like that, activities in the rain. Like on Sullivan’s Island riding bikes back from the park with one of my friends. Or standing out in the rain, or that one time I walked back from classes all the way up to Wolf Village with a big grin on my face as I walked in the suite soaked to the bone. There is a point when you get just so wet you don’t care anymore – but it can be so delightful. Anyway as I was saying, I was checking out the map. I saw that the information booth was a bit of a walk (in the rain) but there were markers to guide me. Yet again I hadn’t booked my hostel ahead, so I had looked at my guide book for hostel guidance. I looked at the bus directions and struck out of the building, following the information booth’s medal markers along the road. After crossing a small bridge I got to the information desk to see it was closed and continued on my way.
I start to look around and a girl asks me if I’m ok, I tell her not really and she asks if she could help me. Truthfully I’ve never met anyone unfriendly or unwilling to help me my whole trip (which is what one would hope for). I ask if she knows where I could find [so and so]# bus, and she points me to the bus stop on the other side of the bridge, I thank her and I’m on my way. So I scoot my way down the bridge and take a gander at the bus times. I wasn’t too far along before a group of youngsters (just graduated high school) are behind me and they ask me if I’m going to the youth hostel. I was thinking it a bit peculiar, after all what’s the likelihood? I say yes and the said they think we missed the last bus, and if I’d want to share a cab with them. Sure, why not? Two girls and two guys in their group look very delightful and charming people – they say great and that they just have to go find some food and I’d be welcome to join them. I say sure and we tug our bags along in a group down the main drag of Stratford. A few steps and we stop at the 99P Store, closed. Awww, we bemoan. Shuffle to the next store and it’s open! So we go inside with our backpacks and me with my dead weight luggage (and backpack). I go down the isle and sort of realize it’s not very convenient to walk around like that and walk up to the entrance and stand out of the way. One of the guys and one of the girls are done while the other half are seriously considering their food selection. The younger of the guys stands next to me as the others drop their bags down at my feet, since I’m not going anywhere. Which I don’t mind. The guy that stands next to me sort of seems gay, like a happy go lucky camp councilor, but nice. One of the girls is very beautiful with brown hair, cheerful and the youngest, the other is blonde and seems a bit authoritative/tom boyish but nice, and the last guy seems to be a leader-type I think the eldest of them 20? and they are all German. German, completely normal, and like me. I didn’t know what to expect, this is fun. Nice people. Ok so they grab food and we find a cab. Cab driver says 20Pounds and we grab our stuff and all get in. I sit in a seat facing backwards and look at them as they make faces. I ask what’s up and they point at the money meter. We aren’t sure how far but the meter is running, jumping from number to number. We get there and it’s 21 Pounds, we pay (I pay, they pay me back since I had no smaller bills at the time) and check out our surroundings.
The hostel is a good hike from town. 10-15 mins by car. As we go up the short walk way we see this white box house with big windows maybe Georgian? sort of looks a bit southern as well. You know, those white houses in Charleston that are sort of boxed up with big windows and the sort of crowning on the edges? I think there’s one on the Battery. Anyway a smaller version of that. We walk in and there is a nice tile floor, apparently this place had a reading room, game room, kids room, and of course a kitchen and a dinning hall. We checked into our rooms, they had a reservation and I booked for a night, thinking I’d be able to contact Val the next day and leave by that next evening. I was booked into the room with the other two girls and was invited to share dinner with them. I pitched in 2 pounds for the dinner. I go downstairs after grabbing my laptop since I thought I’d be able to get service in the kitchen, silly me. We chatted and laughed as dinner was prepared. We had chicken tacos for dinner. After dinner we had some alcoholic cider (I think) and chatted some more. I made a point to wash the dishes since they made dinner and I still enjoy washing dishes, though I wish I had my music on. One of the topics was stereotypes. I was asked if there was any truth to “Family Guy”, I said I really couldn’t tell them. There are many Americans and I couldn’t speak for all of them, I told them that we had normal get up, go to work/school, go home, cook dinner, watch tv sort of lives when we had suburban lives. They asked me of stereotypes I had of Germans. I couldn’t say really, people are people that seem to be like others. I asked them however how they felt towards their history, they said it was history and that they personally did nothing wrong. I thought to myself how I could relate to that. I guess Americans droping the atomic bomb or killing off Indians is history – I didn’t do it. But it felt nice to get that off my chest, to get a question answered. History is history, they say that even today Jews in Germany make them feel guilty and they wish it would stop. The conversation eventually went to Obama and how I felt about him. I stick by my opinion that I’m not totally trusting in Obama. I mean he’s not some savior, it’s impossible. But anyway that died out and eventually two shy Estonian guys asked if they could join us. We said sure, and they sat down with their 70 Proof alchohol. Good grief. They diluted it with fruit juice. One of them started off with guessing ages, yet again I was between the 18-20 group. Oh well. We stayed up until 12, laughing and giggling over silly things. One of them was glitterfied toilet paper. I wasn’t drunk, but it’s fun to laugh and have a good time with people.
After everyone was ready to go to bed, I went to go find the wireless. I’d paid for 24hrs worth of net time. I was hanging out at the door of the dinning hall where the only wireless I could get was. The guy at the desk however let me in and I worked on a few things before heading to bed around 1am or so. When I got in everyone was sleeping so I decided to sleep in my clothes, and quietly made my bed as minimally as possible. I got up at around 7am, which is pretty usual for me. I packed up what little there was to pack and then went downstairs for breakfast. For breakfast there was a great selection, the best so far. We had sausage, a heavenly bisuit and I don’t remember what else but it was surely good as well. After breakfast I waited a bit and then hauled my stuff downstairs, I grabbed my laptop and tried to get in contact with Val. I didn’t go out all day since I was trying to get in contact as well as getting things organized again. I ended watching “The Young Victoria” while waiting, which was a great movie. When I did get in contact with Val she asked me to stay a second night so I slept in my clothes again since I figured I’d be useless to unpack anything anyway. The next morning I meet up with the group and turns out they are going to the train station as well. So I go off on my own since I technically have a few hours before I have to go to the station. Yet I don’t go too far and eventually head over to the station and see my group. They don’t know where they want to go. After looking at maps and brocure, they ask me where I’m going. I’m off to London. So they are going as well. After a while a steam engine rolls into the station. Huh. Never seen a steam engine before. Curiosity takes over and I go to check out the steaming shiny red machine, the front reads “Shakespeare Express”. Interesting. I take pictures and admire it and then go to sit down again as a crowd starts to gather around it taking pictures. The German group goes exicitedly to take pictures and I watch the bags. They come back as I hear some one say, “That’s the train they used for the Harry Potter movies!” – I cock a brow, “What did he just say?”, I ask one of them. “That’s the Harry Potter train! It only runs on Sundays, I hear.” I ask one of the girls to take a picture of me with it but it’s leaving the station, we scrample to get a picture and she takes it. Unbelievable. Perfect. I look at the picture and it has the Hogwarts Express symbol on it, I didn’t even see that! And even more unbelieveable, I look fantastic in it! What luck! We high-five and grin. Great!
