Back from a short jaunt to England; here's my little recap, as my compulsion demands.

It's daylight at roughly 4am here, so no trouble at all walking to centraal station at 6 this time. I was there 15 minutes before my train because I am laughably paranoid about these things (but, as my luck would have it—though I hate when people assume their "luck" has anything to do with anything—not quite early enough to catch the previous train) and then checked the sign about ten times to make sure I was getting on the right service. Although, considering my many transportation mishaps, it's probably not a bad idea to be a little paranoid.

But no problems. Got to Schiphol, checked in for my plane. Got a chocolate muffin in departures. Read A Passage to India before boarding. International travel truly is glamorous and exciting.

Again I don't know why I allowed myself three hours at Luton before catching my bus. Please, please, take my word; never fly to Luton even if all the flights are €10 cheaper. People go mad in there...

Anyway, bus to London Victoria (I'm taking way too much time with this. No one cares about my transportation.) got in 45 minutes late. Couldn't find Lani where (I thought) we'd planned to meet. Waited for a half an hour, then got antsy and ignored the first rule on what to do if you can't find the person you're looking for: stay in one place. Not much use if that person is doing the same. So I checked all the 20 other stations there named Victoria: the train station, the subway station, coach departures, coach arrivals. No Lani. Waited another hour or so. It became obvious we were not going to be meeting at the Victoria coach station.

So I called the hostel and asked if she'd checked in. Yes, yes she had. So, navigating along the tube lines which make more sense to spatially-impaired me than I think they should, I first stopped off to get my plane tickets back to the States in June and then made my way to the hostel. I really impress the hell out of myself when I can find things. I know this is sad.

So, we found each other there, in a flurry of probably incoherent greetings and recaps of our lives in the maybe ten hours since we'd talked last. Checked in, changed my (wet, because I'd had to hand wash them) clothes, put on some sunscreen, and we were off.

We saw just about everything in London two people can in two days, particularly considering our late start. Wednesday night we did Trafalgar Square (twice), Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, the Fitzroy Tavern (pub of choice among my beloved Bloomsbury group) and probably a dozen other things I'm forgetting. It took me four months to do the tourist stuff all the cool travelers scorn, so leave me alone.

Exhausted, we went straight to bed. I was the only one in my room (we were separated, unfortunately) when I got in around midnight, and just started to drift off when seven Italian or Spanish BOYS came in and carried on for at least an hour, making no attempt to keep their noise down for my benefit. Not that I escaped their notice: they were definitely talking about me, in a language I don't understand. So, yes, understandably or not, I was really frightened, and really pissed at the hostel that thinks it's "cool" to allow coed rooms. NOT that cool when it's one girl alone with seven guys. No.

So I got maybe 2 hours of sleep. I woke up naturally around 6am, and unable to fall back asleep and undesirous of having to speak with them, packed up my stuff and got the hell out of there. Attempted to shower, but got only cold water. So I merely put sunscreen on top of sweat on top of old sunscreen, changed my clothes, and went down to the lobby to wait for Lani.

The quickest tour of London ever continued with stops at Charing Cross (cheap books will be the end of me), Tate Modern, Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and the Bridge... all right, I have no memory, but we went about 50 different places. Or maybe we spent all day on the subway. Whatever.

Waited at the Victoria station for our bus, annoying and/or frightening other passengers discussing our disgusting living habits and the possibility of planting apple seeds. (I excel at theoretical knowledge; "common" knowledge proves useless to me.) It was "delayed" 15 minutes while it was clearly sitting there in the bus garage. Whatever. Finally we were allowed onto the bus to Nottingham, a 3-hour ride which we intended to use catching up on sleep.

Instead we got into a long discussion of The West Wing, crap about the future, and probably some funnier stuff that I've of course forgotten. For ten minutes there at the end I think I rested my travel-weary eyes.

Pretty much straight to bed, after the rape-friendly trek to her completely ghetto dorm. Shot off an email to Josh and I think Lani uploaded her digital pictures, but I was seriously welcoming the hard floor and a sheet.

Slept till lunch. Lunch was a feast compared to my usual menu of ramen and orange juice. We walked to Josh's dorm and found him in his room, appearing less hungover on tequila than he probably felt. A three-hour reunion flew by before we made plans to meet up the next day (which, unfortunately did not work out) and Lani and I continued our less-ambitious afternoon.

Walked into Beeston to get a few West Wing rentals, and couldn't resist watching one episode before dinner. I cannot tell you HOW MUCH I have missed that show over here. Aaron Sorkin is my god.

Then to Nottingham to watch Troy. Which is at least twice as bad as it looks—though I have not seen the trailer, so it may be exponentially worse than it looks. Horrid. I feel I have become too much of a snob to enjoy entertainment for entertainment's sake. But when you feel the need to begin every line of dialogue with "Father..." "Beloved cousin..." "My brother..." just to make sure the lowest common denominator can follow the ridiculously watered-down story, I object. It makes me long to read Homer; and imagine if you will how little I, with affinities for Woolf and Austen, naturally gravitate toward heroic verse.

The beefcake epic also made me long for intelligent popular culture, and this I found in The West Wing. We watched I think three more episodes before calling it a night. No, we do not have obsessive personalities.

Another late start to the day, off to Nottingham to... well, for business that's a bit embarrassing. Okay, so I do have an obsessive personality, and I've had one since I was a preteen. Way back when, all my obsessive energy was directed toward Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, "Their Greatnessess" if you like, an ice dancing couple who truly set the standard for their sport and completely enraptured me. Well, I won't get started, because half my life later it's pretty easy to get me going all over again. But they're both from Nottingham, and their town loves them, and they named a couple streets after them, and, well...

Yes... I am fully aware how pathetic this makes me. Not only that, there were streets called Jayne, Christopher, Callaway (coach), Courtney (costume design), Crawford (of Barnum musical), Barnum (1983 routine), Bolero (1984 routine)—and yes, I have pictures of all. Pathetic, yes, but it did mean a huge amount to me. For whatever reason; I do realize they are only street signs. Yet and all.

So, some random explorations of Nottingham proper, and then, back to Lani's dorm for still more West Wing goodness. The last DVD we rented was near the end of the third season including the first Simon episode. Again, obsession, and I don't think I can tell you how HOT I think Mark Harmon is, how adorable he was as Simon Donovan, how perfect he was (would have been, dammit) with CJ, and how evil Aaron Sorkin is. So after watching three episodes, seven in two days, we couldn't leave it there, and actually walked all the way to Beeston again to get the final three episodes of the third season and all the Mark Harmon goodness that comes with it. Just the kind of spontaneity with my homegirl I've missed the hell out of.

So, crying over the secret service agent who doesn't know how to watch his back and with Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" in my head, I took the last bus back to Broadmarsh bus station and waited an hour in the cold, reading A Passage to India, for my bus. Thankfully an uneventful wait. Sat with a group of obnoxious American study abroad students evidently on their way home, discussing such things as "what was your favorite part of the trip?" and concluding "vacation, definitely vacation." Paranoid traveler that I am, I wanted to keep wide awake to avoid the nightmare of sleeping through my stop, but I nodded off and jerked awake for three hours while watching the sun rise at a ludicrously early hour.

London Luton, how I despise thee. Down to two and a half pounds, I managed to spend the very last of my third form of currency on a chocolate orange muffin and a café mocha with all the chocolate syrup at the bottom. Stared at the monitor until my flight was called for check-in; was the fifth person to check in. In departures, considered buying some flip flops, which I fear could become a fetish; but once again roughly converting pounds into dollars wisely decided against it. Also Luton's boarding policy is ridiculous: everyone waits in one large room until your gate number is called, and then you get to stand for another half hour, and then you are bussed to your plane. Seriously the dumbest airport. And by now I have quite a few to compare it to.

Alternately snoozed on the plane and avidly gazed out the window for photo ops. I'm not sure if anyone who has been on as many planes as I indeed have is as giddy over taking airborne photographs. But they're very cool.

Longest wait to get through passport control EVER. I wanted to deck pushy Norwegian girl in front of me—except no, she was decidedly BEHIND me until I was five people away from the desk. Oh sure, the rest of your family can push their way in front of me, too. Rar. Humans. I don't know if I'm mildly claustrophibic or exceedingly irritable. Either way, was not happy.

But a mozzarella, basil, pesto and tomato panini will cure that any time. Got me a Coke, a strippenkart and a train ticket and I was on my way. To Duivendrecht, to Utrecht, to my flat. Collapsed on my bed. Intended to wake up and have a day at some point, but I didn't set an alarm and awoke naturally at 1am. At that point it's either screw it or throw off one's sleep schedule permanently, and I always opt on the side of laziness. I said screw it, and all in all slept about 20 hours. But it felt sooo good.

So now I'm back, in this place that marks an end to vacations yet is not a home in any sense. I half-assedly prepared for my class this morning and found I half-assedly prepared the wrong material anyhow, but it was fascinating and energized me as always. I am daily confused by this ambivalence of hating the system and loving the people I meet inside it. I still don't know which is more important. I still don't know which to choose.

That's my last big vacation for my stay in Europe, and now I've got to really get down to studying. A month and two papers left. I do still love every word I read for my classes; I can't forget that. I love what I do. I didn't get my paper back but my instructor (who is too well-known and this forum too google-accessible to feel comfortable naming her) said they were all outstanding on the whole; I told Lani I usually suspect I'm the one who is outside "the whole," but the truth is, no, I wrote a good paper; I am inside "the whole." All that's left is to read, show up, and do that twice more. This much I can do. How much more? remains to be seen.

(Title line, were you wondering, a misheard lyric of "London calling, yeah I was there too." I had nothing else. Go ahead, click the link, amuse yourself for hours.)