Adventures of a Gringa...

I'm always surprised every time I step off an airplane. I mean, when you think about it, it's sort of like a time machine. If you're not sitting next to a window, you don't see the outside. For all you know, the clouds and sky and patchwork pieces of earth you see below could be a movie someone is cleverly broadcasting outside your window. I always think about the movie French Kiss, at the beginning when Meg Ryan is sitting in an airplane and freaks out because she's afraid of flying and busts the door open and falls out of the fake plane that's simulating flight. It definitely looked real to me. Anyway, it's just amazing to me how you can step into this box with a couple hundred other people, sit for 5 hours or so, and step off into a completely different country, a completely different world. I wonder sometimes if maybe it's really not different at all... maybe the sets and actors have just been changed.
I made my first friend in London before I even got here. We met at the Newark airport while charging our cell phones. I asked him about what train or bus I should take to get downtown and he politely gave me directions. We didn't sit together on the plane and I had all but forgotten about the conversation when he found me at the baggage claim to ask if I wanted to go with him since he was taking the same train. I couldn't have been luckier to find such a nice person to help me. He must have thought I was an idiot when he asked me where I was going and I was like.... I dunno. I told him I had a distant friend who lives in London and told me that his roommate would be home if I wanted to go hang out or leave my luggage at his place. I figured I would keep my fingers crossed and if worse came to worse I could go sit at a cafe somewhere and read my book until the evening when I would be meeting up with my host for my work exchange. The guy furrowed his eyebrows with a semi worried expression on his face and gave me his email and phone number, telling me to call him if my friends weren't home. Then he helped me get a pass for the Tube (or the Subway) and even took me to get a sim card for my cell phone so I wouldn't be without technology. This all reminded me that there still are people who sometimes do nice things for no reason at all.
Later on when I was telling my friends at their apartment about my experience and how everyone was so nice to me, they told me that everyone I must have spoken to wasn't from London because Londonders are not really friendly people at all. I think maybe it's something to do with the weather and the sunshine and warmth outside that has everyone in a better mood. Either that or they can't help but smile back at me with the big goofy grin I've had plastered across my face since I arrived. This is when I am at my happiest, completely lost in a totally new world.
You never think about how the 8 hour time change messes with you. I passed out on my friend, Alberto's, couch pretty much as soon as I got there and got showered. At one point one of his roommates walked through the door and I groggily lifted my head, mumbled a hello, and crashed back into my coma. I guess they didn't mind too much. Later on I listened to the neighbor kids outside cuss each other out. But it's so much prettier when they have an English accent. And the kids were running around the neighborhood with camouflage masks over their faces and face automatic weapons pretending to shoot each other. In the states I think they probably would have been arrested playing around like that. But it was pretty funny to watch.
Today I am wondering around Notting Hill. It sounds so cliche, and I couldn't be happier wandering around by myself, staring in all the windows of the little shops around the area, listening to the pretty accents of the people here. I hate the sound of my own voice now. I even love the way people way toilet here. So far the food I've had is complete shit, though. I'm hoping that it's not all so bad.
The woman, Angella, who I am staying with is nice enough, and I have a cute little room to myself. My first job at the work exchange with Angella has been to take all these children's clothes that she has from a clothing store she used to own years ago, and organize them to be sold on E-bay. Not too bad at all. I spent the morning going through kids pyjamas and tracksuits and underwear, writing down sizes and taking pictures of them. Then I set out to explore the area. It's cool outside today and fairly windy. Everyone in the area walks around with their dogs and it reminds me of 101 Dalmations... all the dogs do resemble their owners. And I just got a library card so I could come and use the internet here in a library the size of a small bookstore. Here there are small libraries like this all over the place. And I feel like a dork when I have to ask a dozen questions to understand the system. But when people hear my accent, they must be like, oooooh, I get it!!!