Londres

English? Wow. Finally back into a country whose language I speak fluently. Now my spanish improved tremendously while abroad but at that time my english decreased. Unfortunately I find myself in England and Spain struggling. Picture this: It is 4pm in Madrid, our day was spent battling the metro to downtown, asking directions, reserving hostels and ordering menu al días. After no sleep and an excursion in Madrid I am only a figure of my imagination. My communication skills are shot. We go to enter the terminal and of course our metro cards do not have enough money. I explain to the metro man our problem and he asks me “do you understand spanish?” Thats a first. I say sí sí sí angrily, thinking about it now I would have loved to see my tired face trying to comprehend and translate his spanish directions.

Onward we go… next stop changing euro/dollars to pounds. Pounds in spanish is libre, which I learned at the change place. They change my money and sent me on way way… after asking if I understood spanish. Twice in an two hours… I really must need sleep. Our plane was delayed 45 minutes but we pasted the time analyzing our new british money and chatting with a native. Our dear friend Alex detailed his trip to Madrid. These details were incomplete as he sipped his Mahau, a spanish beer. After 2 hours of traveling we were in London. 10 quid later we are on the tube towards Carolyn’s flat. This is where we meet our second friend of the night. Shannon, or that is what I think he said, who tells us his travels from South Africa and how he is planning on making his way in London. After leaving our new friend we continued onward down Piccadilly Line. After exiting the tube, I felt like a conquistador on new territory. The wind blew down the tunnel and I walked high and proud confident in the language and my location (although barely awake and hunched over from my luggage).

Carolyn meets us and we board a overcrowded bus. Sandwiched against brits I take in the dialect. These last 2 months have been filled with Catalan, Spanish, Galician and  British. London has even more with African and Indian languages, things I have near heard before fly through my ears. Observing languages has become a new past time for me. Finally we get to her apartment and our day of traveling finally ends.

Tomorrow would be London site seeing which means getting lost and stumbling upon places…

traveling. learning. loving. europe.