Overall, my Friday started off at 6:30 in the morning when I got up to go to class. I only got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep because I tried to get some of my homework done before leaving for the weekend. This is relevant because it, of course, is the starting point for my lack of sleep. At 11pm I left my shipping container to meet up with Yubo and his friends who would be my travel group, as I knew no one else in the large group because they were mostly from other other classes or another university (Rouen). One of his friends was Benoit, who I ended up spending all of the day in London with as Yubo was constantly getting distracted and was not an efficient traveling buddy (= (I'll get there too). I just wanted to introduce Benoit so you weren't all confused for the rest of the story. We left Yubo's apartment at midnight and headed to La Maison de l'Etudiant, a building a part of the campus, where we got on the bus to start our journey. And so it began.
Within about 45 minutes, everyone one the bus was asleep except our group of four, because we were talking, and by about an hour and half it was just Benoit and I talking and Yubo listening to music/sleeping. It was good that I ended up sitting next to Benoit because I could not sleep at all and neither could he, so I ended up speaking conversational French for 4 hours! It was the coolest thing. I have never ever ever had the opportunity to speak French conversationally before in my life like that. Normally you tell little stories about what you did yesterday, or what the weather's like, or what homework is due, but you don't get the opportunity to just talk like that. To be honest I don't even remember all of what we talked about, but I certainly remember talking about sleeping habits because we were both so impressed that everyone could sleep on the bus. I could not at all, though we did take sporadic breaks to try, especially since we were in the very first row of the bus and there was a cloud of heat from the driver's controls that kept us quite warm, uncomfortably so actually. Either way by the time we arrived in Calais, where we went through border control and boarded our ferry (in the bus because we kept our bus with us in England) I felt like I had just witnessed and improvement in my French in 4 hours. It suddenly seemed like the natural language to be speaking. It was, as I said, a really cool experience.
Once we were on the ferry we did less talking because Yubo and his other friend (whose name I have forgotten) were asleep within minutes, and Benoit had foudn a couch and so was able to sleep as well. Me I first went to the bathroom where I could take care of putting in my contacts and doing my make-up (because I started the trip with none because I thought I might sleep...) because after the ferry trip we would be back in a bus and then arrived in London, and I did want to look somewhat normal, even with no sleep, in my London pictures. When I cam back everyone was asleep so I tried to curl up in a chair but that didn't work either. Even though I was exhausted, all in all I think I got about 30 minutes of "sleep" between all 6 hours of bus rides and that ferry trip on the way to London. Before leaving the ferry I did go up to the top deck, but as we did all of travel during the night, I really couldn't see anything except the distant lights of England and the water right by the boat. It was still cool though. I have never been on a ferry like that before.
After the ferry ride, we had our remaining 2 hours of driving to get to London, and during that trip Benoit and I did continue to talk a bit, though we tried a little harder to sleep during that part of the trip - to no avail I might add. I just suck at it, I do not understand how people do it - I simply cannot. When we arrived in London we were literally at the foot of the Big Ben and the giant ferris wheel, where we were served a complimentary breakfast of a croissant and orange juice (very typical French breakfast) before being sent off on our own ways. To start off the trip it was the four of us and also the director of the trip because Yubo had been in charge of a lot of the details, meaning that he and the director were basically always together, and the director was young, so it wasn't like some random adult was hanging with us, haha. But unfortunately our group grew bigger by one person who had already lost the person she came with (we are talking like within 5 minutes) and so they were looking for her. She was responding to texts and all, she just had gotten turned around I guess.. either way, I wasn't in London to stand around and look for a girl who got herself lost in 5 minutes, so I was a little mad, but obviously I wasn't going to go off on my own. Well, we were quite close to Westminster station and we bought day-long metro passes and finally we got going. I saw that we were quite close to Westminster Abbey, so I suggested that we start there, and they said we would, and that we would take a bus to get there, and I was surprised because they started walking the opposite direction and also the sign had the person symbol on it which usually means "within walking distance" I told them this about three times but Yubo and the director just insisted this was better. Finally, after never actually having taken a bus, we arrived at Picadilly Square, (which is really funny to hear the French try to pronounce) and there was a map and they were like "oh we were wrong, sorry" I mean, it was fine because I saw another part of London I was just frustrated because the two of them (Yubo and Director) were always too busy talking to listen you know what I mean? After that we went to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards, and after waiting about 30-45 minutes (so that we would have a good position they informed us that it wasn't going to happen today. We still have no idea why, so that was a bummer, but I mean, I still saw the palace and the guards. But, after that, Benoit and I could no longer find Yubo, Director, and rest of group so we tried calling and texting but our service was a bit slow, so finally we decided to go off to keep exploring because I wasn't going to waste my day looking for them. Later when we spoke to them about it they claimed to have looked for us, but we know that they left before we did because of the texts we exchanged, so basically we ended up with a divided group, but I was super grateful in the long run because Benoit and I were much more efficient and saw so much!
At this point it was already about 1 in the afternoon, so we started with lunch (because the others ate without us) and we did a Chinese buffet which was quite good. Even though it was Chinese food it reminded me of America which was good. That was my gastronomical goal in London, to eat something American. Then we went on to see the London Bridge and the Tower Bridge (which is the really famous one) and walked around to see London Tower, which is quite a cool chateau-looking building. After that we went to St Paul's cathedral, which was probably the most gorgeous cathedral I have ever seen. And now that I have done some more touring of France, combined with some of what I saw as a 10-year-old, I have a decent repertoire built up, and this one was by far the most astonishing and beautiful. Also, it was cool to stand in the place were Will and Kate got married. We stayed and listened to "the singing of the choir" which was at 5, but to be honest we both determined that we needed to leave because we were falling asleep in our seats because we were just so exhausted (at that point I had been awake for 34 and a half hours) and the pretty music was too much for us to overcome. As it was I had to wake him up for an exit on the metro and we only had about a three-stop ride. We were just really getting tired near the end. After the cathedral we went to Westminster Abbey and saw it all lit up at night. Then we returned and saw Big Ben at night, and took a little walk over the bridge so we could say we crossed the river, because we had previously stayed entirely on the other side. We had dinner at KFC (SOOOOOOOOO good, I seriously have been aching for American food for so long) and at 9 we were all back on the bus and on our way to Le Havre.
Funny story though, about being in London... I sucked at speaking in English!! I am not even kidding. I spoke to four different people in French by accident, and that is if you only count actual sentences. I don't think I said "excuse me" once, it was all "pardon" (with the French accent) and I said merci instead of thank-you and on and on... so if you count all those people then I sprolly spoke to a thousand people in French while in England, even though I am an anglophone! But, as for the four that I really spoke French to, the first was when I ran onto a bus to ask for directions to the nearest metro stop, because we couldn't find one. I ran on and said the entire sentence in French and then I was like - "Oh my gosh I'm sorry"....and I restated the question in English, but the guy must have thought I was French because he tried to respond to me in French with a simple "gauch, droit" Meaning go left then right, but still I can officially say that I, an anglophone, asked for direction in London, in French, and got responded to in French. Yeah, I suck. Then I asked someone if I could take a picture for them (because it was a couple trying to take a picture of themselves) and I asked and they didn't respond, and then Benoit looked at me and said "anglais" and I was like "oh crap" in my head and I re-asked in English (on the bright side they prolly thought I had an amazing American accent, haha) and I also responded twice to the waiter for our lunch (even though it was a buffet) where I asked a question in English, but then followed with a French response, and I also said something in French to the woman taking my order at KFC even though I tried so hard to remember to speak in English. I guess I am just really out of the habit! even though it is so embarrassing that I kept using French to speak to people in England, I guess it speaks well of my immersion here in France. Also, I don't think it helped that I spent all day speaking French with Benoit. either way, because of all that immersion -- it ended up being a total of like 36 hours of travel -- I vote this as one of my favorite trips ever because I got the best French-speaking experience yet since I've been in France, and I got to do some fun touring at the same time. C'étiat génial!
On the way back I tried to sleep and I achieved a little better than before but mostly I was just trying and failing the entire way back. For the last two hours Benoit and I ended up talking again because by then we had officially given up. We arrived in Le Havre at 7:20 in the morning, and I was back to my box by 7:50 and asleep a bit after 8. Given that, I went 50 hours straight without sleep. That is my record, and I hope never to have the occasion to beat it. (=
Already it is 1:25 in the morning and I have class tomorrow and a bit of homework to do, so I should be off to bed. Here are a few picture for you to enjoy though:
Me blending in the with red phone booths. I loved them!
This is the London Tower, and it has an ice rink right beside it (left-hand side)
This is me in front of the Tower Bridge. I was starting to show my 40+ hours by then I think haha
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