Friday 1st April: Going to London and then to Paris

This is a long entry because some strange things happened.

I woke up a bit early. Not a nice morning really. I still had stuff in my room to pack up and I had to catch a bus at 10am.

I frantically got it sort of done. I put my suitcase of stuff into the storage room in my block, then walked toward the coach station.

I wanted to leave at 8:45, to give a comfortable amount of time. I ended up leaving at 9:20. Not nice. I really should have caught a bus or paid for a taxi. But I was really tired and so I justified not doing so. The walk over was quite tiring. My bag is really heavy and walking fast is a bit sweat-inducing. I was sure I would not make it in time. I walked past a building with a clock on it that started chiming to tell me it was 10am. I still had a few minutes to the station so I should miss it surely. I got to the coach station and there was one National Express bus there. It said it's going to London. Wow, I didn't miss it. The bus was late. Hooray!

On the bus journey I did a tiny bit of sleeping.

We eventually got to London. I was feeling very hungry and tired and thirsty. I sat outside a Subway store on their chairs and ate some stuff. Then I walked into the Victoria train station and got a tomato and cheese pannini thing. It was good. I ate a few apples too. I was feeling very tired, so I sat at the train station for quite a long time. I was in no rush.

Eventually I got up and wandered along some streets for a while. I arrived at Westminster Abbey. The weather was really really good this day. It's spring now! The grass in front of the abbey looked very fluffy and nice, so I decided to lie down on it for a while.

These people are freaking out that I'm clearly intending to get them in the picture. If they don't want to be in the picture then they should not sit in front of Westminster Abbey! Also, people in photos adds some sense of scale.

I thought it might be cool to ride on the ferris wheel. This would combine a not energetic thing with something 'london-ey'. So I walked over there to check it out.

I got to the eye and I started to change my mind. It was a little expensive and I didn't like the idea of waiting in a line for a long time. So instead I laid on the grass by the eye for a while. (I'm feeling a little tired)

It was really nice lying out there. There were lots of families on the grass letting their kids run around. Some kids were trying to capture pidgeons by surrounding them. But pidgeons can fly, so they didn't find success.

I felt like I really should do something. Plus, my next mode of transport was leaving at 21:30, so I had a non-trivial amount of time to occupy. I decided that the British War Museum would be good to see. I've been told it's really good. Plus it is in the same general area as I am. So I walked over there.

Unfortunately the museum was closing in 15 minutes. I'll have to go again sometime. I walked back to the eye in a rush because they have the only toilet I'm aware of in the local area.

I then walked across a bridge thing. Then came something which makes me really embarassed to describe because it's a foolish thing. I came to some people playing a game. There were three black rubber circles. Underneath one was a silver circle. They would stack two, show the underneath of the bottom one, then put the bottom one down where the top came from, etc... Because they showed the bottom each time, it was very easy to keep track of where the silver one was. Some people were standing by betting money. They kept losing lots, even though at each instance I was felt certain I knew where it actually was before they made their incorrect guess, and each time I was correct in where I thought it was. It was very easy! I hesitated for a while, but after correctly guessing very many in succession, and not being incorrect about one, I decided it was easy money. I bet 20 pounds since it's the only note I had. My guess was incorrect. I was astonished. I waited a while longer. My guesses were correct again. Maybe i just lost concentration. I bet 10 euro. Incorrect. I was distraught then, so I left and was very upset at myself for losing my money. I think I should have been more intelligent here. If the game was so simple then the people running this game would lose a lot of money. I think it is rigged somehow. Maybe the other people playing were in on it. However there were 3 people running the game (bodies in case someone got angry, probably) and three people playing. That doesn't sound profitable. This put me in quite a bad mood that lasted quite a while. I hate doing stupid things.

I needed to find some food. I went wandering around and didn't find anything. Then I wandered through King's Park because I had to go back that way to get to the coach station.

I got some food from a Sainsbury's express, then waited at the coach station. It was almost time to go now so waiting wasn't too bad. While waiting I met an American guy, who I think was called Jimmy. He is travelling with 3 friends also from the US. They are from Minnesota. They're doing a strange kind of exchange here. They are university students, but the exchange they're doing is one where they just learn all about UK stuff. E.g. government structure, history, etc.

Eventually the bus arrived and we got ready to get on. Everyone was being a bit pushy so I let them go for it and was consequently one of the last to get on. No point to rush. While waiting, I saw a guy of kind of middle-eastern appearance. He was wearing a normal scarf covering his mouth and nose. I'm not sure what that could be for. After I'd put my bag on, I noticed he also was putting something on the bus, because he came back from there but fell and dropped lots of tiny bits of paper (50 pieces or so). His scarf also fell off his face, and he looked very uneasy and anxious. One of the American girls from before offered to help him pick the paper up but he was quick in saying that he didn't want help.

I got onto the bus and found a seat next to a girl from the UK. She is from Leeds. She studies middle-eastern culture and is interested in activism.

The bus has the whole upper floor for just passengers. The driver sits below. While waiting for everyone to be ready, I noticed that the guy from before was standing at the front of the bus, in the corridor between the seats, staring back at us. He went to someone and told them that they can use their light if they want "you use, you use". He was standing in that position staring at us all with a really intense expression. It looked like he had something in his jumper. He kept fidgeting with it. He kept pulling up his pants. I noticed that he had orange shopping bags coming out from the top of his pants for some reason. A few people told him that he can sit down, and that actually he should sit down. He didn't seem to understand, or was reluctant to sit down.

This whole situation was quite scary I thought. I thought maybe he had a weapon under his jumper, or that he was staring down the corridor waiting for a signal from someone else on the bus. I whispered to the girl next to me "what's he doing??". She didn't think there was anything wrong with it. I was looking around me for expressions from others to confirm that I wasn't just being paranoid. The guy behind me saw me looking and asked me "what on earth is that guy doing??" I said that I have no idea but that it is very unusual. He said "...bugger this, I will tell the driver." I was very pleased at that.

Some people spoke outside the bus and then the guy was made to go out of the bus and talk to some people. Everyone on the bus was really relieved at that. A French lady at the front was very expressive in her impressions of someone pulling out guns, and proclaimed that she was terrified. She was at the front right next to the man.

The police then spent some time talking to the man. His things were taken out of the bus, and we drove away without him.

For some reason I thought that there was a road underneath the English Channel. I thought that cars could just drive through there after paying some kind of toll. But it seems that actually there is a train which you can load your car or bus onto at the entrance to the tunnel or there is a ferry. We went over on the Ferry. It was really interesting. I think this would be better than just driving actually.

It turned out that at this exact time lots of universities from England do a combined skiing trip. So there were lots and lots of coach loads of university students with us on the ferry. They rejoiced in drinking as much as they possibly could. It was a bit ridiculous. In the channel, there are no taxes on the sale of these things, so they really went to town. I found the Americans I met earlier and talked with them for a while. I was feeling really delirious from being tired at this point.

We eventually got back on the bus and drove through France the rest of the way to Paris. I slept for about 1 hour I think. Terrible amount of sleep! The structure of the journey really disrupted that: 21:30 (22:00 after delay from incident) leave London. About 12am leave England on ferry. about 2-2:30 arrive in France. 2:30-5 drive toward Paris.