***The Street***
I currently have enough information on "the street" to fill several blogs! This weekend I had quite an interesting experience: I ended up spending the majority of my weekend by myself in London. Yes, (to the dismay of my parents, I'm sure) I had to rely on my own wits and navigational and people skills. It turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done. To discover that I can indeed learn to use the underground, navigate bus systems, and find my way around was most valuable! The highlight of the weekend was Saturday afternoon. I was supposed to meet up with some Texas kids at noon to go see Les Mis, but they were nowhere to be found. So, I came up with an alternative plan, which was to try to find a music festival happening in southern London somewhere. After some tube confusion, I made it to Clapham Common, which is a lovely park. The music festival was put on by Ben and Jerry's, so there was free ice cream of every flavor (quite a few) everywhere! Ice cream! FREE! Every flavor! Also, there was a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN. A fountain of melted chocolate, people!
In addition to all the sugar, the music was incredible. One of my favorites, Badly Drawn Boy, played. It was such a cool experience to see someone you love play in a foreign country. In addition to Badly Drawn Boy, Echo and the Bunnymen played, and a variety of others including the Pipettes.... my new favorite girl group!
But even in all of this excitement, I began to feel a little lonely. Miss Independent was ready to make some friends. Just my luck, a tall kid wearing a UT t-shirt walked past me. "Hey, hook 'em!" my dorky self shouted. He turned around with a smile and we ended up sorting out that he was not, in fact, from Texas, but loved Texas and Texans as he had stayed in Austin for South by Southwest music festival with a bunch of Texas guys. I was then introduced to all of his buddies and we all hung out for the rest of the day.
What an absoultely delightful experience! This is exactly the sort of thing I had always hoped would happen on "the street" in England. Beautiful surroundings, good music and new friends. What more can a gal from Texas ask for?