Sadly, I don't tend to take a lot of pictures of myself, so this is the best one I've got.
On February 1, 2000, at 10 o'clock in the morning, on the
subway to the train station, going to the airport to catch a 2 o'clock flight
back from England to Boston, I discovered that my passport was missing.
It all began January 24. Jose Sandoval, one of my best friends at
Harvard, had been taking a class on the English Revolution, and so it was
not completely out of the blue that he and a group of his classmates should
decide to make a trip to England during the 1 week intersession between the
fall and spring semesters. I, however, was not one of those classmates.
I had planned on just putzing around Harvard for the week. This plan was
shattered the evening of the 24th.
That evening found me and a girl named Sarah Moss sitting in front of a
blackboard studying for a math final that the two of us had. Sarah, it
should be said, is a very interesting and brilliant person, and maybe just a bit
of a flirt. She appears in a couple of the pictures as the one with
short curly hair and a red jacket. Anyway, during one of the breaks
we took from studying, we were chatting--just the generic sort of conversation,
since, though she and I had taken classes together since the beginning
of our Harvard careers, we had never really spent that much time together,
and so didn't know each other all that well. So, of course,
the question: "So what are you doing over intersession?" "Actually,
I'm going to England!" "That's cool! Jose's going to England, too.
You guys going in the same group?" "Nah. It's just me and this
other girl from Leverett, Sarah Hines." Leverett, by the way, is the upperclassmen
house in which we live. "Yeah, I know Hines. She lives right next
to me in F-63." And so on, and then a pause, then "So what are you
doing this intersession." "I think I'm just going to hang around,
take it easy." "You don't have anything planned?" "Nope."
"You should come to England, too." "Yeah... that'd be fun."
"No, really, you should. I got a ticket for real cheap. There
might still be some available." "I don't know..." "C'mon, be
spontaneous." And that, to me, is like calling Michael J. Fox chicken
in Back to the Future. It was 4 days before departure, but sure enough,
when Sarah showed me the web site: still available, 1 round trip ticket
to Gatwick Airport, cost $280. A quick call to my parents and my
good friend back home, coincidentally, also named Sarah (there are entirely
too many Sarah's in my life), and I purchased the ticket. After
all, it's not every day that you get asked to accompany two lovely ladies
to England and back.
 |
 |
| If you don't recognize Big Ben, then something's wrong with you. | And this is a cityscape in London that I must be fond of, because I've taken this exact picture both times I've been to England. |
So that's how it started. You might imagine on 4 days
notice, I might not have been able to plan my trip very well, and should you
have imagined such a thing, you would have been correct. I had vaguely
figured on bumming off of the Sarahs plans, but things went quickly awry.
Sarah Hines had a different flight to England, and so was already there by the
time Moss and I had to catch our flight. Well, by the time I did, anyway.
A storm in the Washington DC area prevented Moss from making it to the
airport. So I wasn't even in England yet, and I could see I was in trouble.
I now had no plans and no one who knew what he/she was doing. But I
boarded the plane, and as it turned out, luck was on my side, for in the back of
the plane sat none other than my friend Jose Sandoval! We had not ordered
our tickets together, so this was an unlooked for, though fortunate, turn of events.
Things were looking up again.
The flight was enjoyable. If flying overseas, I would choose Virgin Atlantic
again in a heartbeat. Free wine with meals, shots of brandy afterward, good food,
roomy seating (I got an entire row to myself), and to top it all, yellow and purple
booties so you don't have to wear your shoes.
Upon our arrival at Gatwick, we all took an hour long train ride into
the city, and then made our way toward the hotel at which Jose and his company
would be staying. I had planned to stay at a hostel with the Sarahs, and
with remarkable foresight, I had jotted down the address as I was dashing out of
my room. So I made my way to the hostel and agreed to meet Jose at Westminster
Cathedral a bit past one. Sarah Hines had checked into the hostel, but was
nowhere to be found, so noon found me in front of the cathedral, working on one of
my sketches.
A bit past one, Jose and his group showed up. We went through the cathedral,
and then decided that we wanted to see the Queen's Life Guard, on their horses, a
short distance away. On the way over, we grabbed ice cream cones. As we
neared, Dmitri, one of the group, grins. "There is no possible way," says Dmitri,
"that a horse can resist ice cream." We're skeptical, figuring since these guards
were so well trained, so must be their mounts. So as we near, all of us hover a
little way off while Dmitri nonchalantly strolls over toward one of the horses atop
which one of the guards sat. Various tourists were around. With remarkable
casualness, Dmitri walks up to the horse and stops in front of it, facing off to the
side. Had we not known that he was going to try this, none of us could possibly
have suspected he purposely had the cone in front of the horse's face. And sure
enough, Dmitri was right. The horse took a step forward and SNARF--the ice cream
disappeared. Dmitri, in mock surprise, steps back with his mouth open and says
"It ATE my ice cream!" in a hurt voice. The horse, meanwhile, was trying to
follow, and the guard, his cool demeanor broken, was reining it back. Dmitri
was now facing the crowd which had coalesced around him. "It ate my ICE CREAM!"
he said, still hurt. We had to leave before our laughter ruined his moment of
stardom.
The evening ended with a visit to the National Art Gallery, which was full of Monets and Van Goghs and everything in between.