once again, sorry i am so terrible at updating. yes, i am alive and well, and things are going fabulously here in germany. but more or less i want to blog about my amazing trip to the united kingdom, because that is on my mind right now.
i doubt anyone has experienced the UK like me and my travel companions did. me, wendy, and diana all decided before we left that we would try to make this trip as cheap as possible. we booked with Ryanair, three flights, totalling 56 € (Düsseldorf to London, London to Glasgow, Edinburgh to Düsseldorf). we also decided to try and couchsurf instead of staying at hostels.
i bet you're asking "what the heck is couchsurfing?" welll, couchsurfing is this website where travellers create profiles, and you're able to search for people who are offering up their floors and couches for travellers to stay for free while they're in town. in return you are also supposed to offer up your place for travellers to stay when you can. none of us had ever done this before, but we were open to the idea of meeting some interesting locals in the UK. (and don't worry mom, it is safe...people need to get verified, and it has millions of participants..we wouldn't be doing it if it weren't safe)
so last week we sent out this email to about 20 girls in london who were offering space for three couchsurfers.
"Hello!
>
>I'm really new to Couch Surfing, so my profile is
>pretty limited at the moment. I'm a 21 year old
>student from the U.S. Right
>now I'm studying abroad in Dortmund, Germany, and some
>friends and I just planned a little trip to the UK. We
>will be in London from this Wednesday (May 27) til
>Saturday (May 30), so three nights. Sorry this is such
>short notice, but I was wondering if you would have
>space for two other female college students and me?
>Even if you had one night available that would be
>wonderful.
>
>Feel free to look me up on Facebook (my name is Tori
>Klein) or to email me if you have any questions.
>
>Hope to hear from you!
>
>-Tori"
after one day we got back about 8 responses...7 unavailable, and luckily one availability! we got a response back from a girl named theresa. wendy, diana, and i were all very relieved to have a place to stay while in london, but there was a little something different about this place. here's the response email:
"Hello,
we have some space at the moment so you are welcome to
come but I'm working on Thursday and Friday and my mum
is coming on Saturday so I won't have much time to show
you around or anything.
There are just a few things/practicalities you ahould
know: I live in a squatted social centre so there are
always lots of poeple around. You might not get very
much sleep but you'll definately meet lots of people.
Although everything seems pretty stable and secure at
the moment there always is the slight possibilioty
that we might be evicted. Sqatting is not illegal in
the UK but it's unlawful and always a bit unstable and
sometimes the police seems to think that it is
illegal...
Anyuway, let me know if you want to come and stay. My
number is 07716510148 so just send me a text or call
(that might be too expensive, I know).
Maybe see you on Wednesday,
Theresa"
wow, squatting? this would be a side of london (or anywhere) that we had ever experienced before. with an email like that, who could deny that sort of call from adventure?
so we arrived in london around 11 at night, and successfully took the #149 bus up to the Dalston neighborhood to meet Theresa. we met her by the kingsland street train station, and her mannerisms and stories eased our minds a bit about staying with a complete stranger. theresa had just graduated from the university of london, but had previously lived in Iran for a year doing charity work, but originally from germany.
when we arrived at the place we would be staying, an indian guy in his 20s met us at the gate of the house. we passed through a gate covered in fake flowers, with two signs posted: one advertising free english lessons on tuesdays, and the other advertising that the place was currently inhabited. when we got through he closed the gate, and then secured it shut with a thick bike lock (this is their security system).
we walk into a large community room filled with bikes and a few tattered couches. the walls are covered in graffiti, but not alarming graffiti at all. it was more artsy and comforting. as we're walking up to the second floor, theresa is telling us about the history of their home. this massive place is three stories tall, and used to be a factory, and then a community center. now there are 20 squatters living there (not illegally, remember...just unlawfully), and they have been living there for about 6 months now without any problems or worries.
i bet you're all wondering exactly what the difference is between illegal and unlawful? well, in london squatting is not a criminal matter, but a civil matter. so the police cannot come in and kick you out right away if you are squatting, the owners need to get an order from the city. and you won't get jailtime, but the owner of the building can take you to court.
back to describing the house. we walk up the staircase to the second floor where there are about 8 college aged people sitting around on large, ripped up couches, watching a movie on a laptop. the room has high ceilings, a kitchen, a few single bulb lamps set up around, and the walls are also covered with art and tapestries. a few different coats of paint have been put up, so different colors can be seen peeking through where the paint has peeled off. as chaotic as this room sounds, it was very comforting and inviting. they even had a little american bulldog running around! :D
we didn't really know what to expect with this place, but we were very glad to find out that they had working water and electricity. but we're not really sure how they get it? when we asked one of the people about how they get this place up and running with water and electricity, they just chuckled and responded, "it's very complicated."
we got to talking with the people who live there, and to my surprise, none of them were bums. petty much all of them had their university degrees, and some even had their masters degrees. one of them was the president of the student union at the unversity of london. not all of them had jobs, but they were all very active in politics and charities. the week that we were there, they were organizing a charity party to help 2 ugandan refugees in canada receive a college education (more about this party later). this place was truly inspiring.
the room we stayed in was very comfortable. it was on the third floor, which was also a very large room, but sections of fence and sheets stretched from one side of the room to the other to create several different bedrooms. our temporary room had two mattresses with bedding and stuffed animals on them, and the floor was puzzle-pieced together with carpet remnents. although chaotic, this room was very warm and comfy. again, the walls were covered in art, quotes in different languages, and colorful tapetries and ribbons.
the three of us felt like we hit the jackpot. it was basically a sorority/fraternity filled with politically active, charitable, earth-conscious, wonderful people...except they weren't paying rent.
then our trip got into full swing the next day. we decided to buy food at grocery stores instead of going to restaurants so we could save money, so most of the days we got large loaves of turkish bread, and different kinds of cheese and hummus. our first day there we ate our lunch by the river thames, and then spent a few hours browsing around the tate modern art museum. it was really really wonderful. it was also fun figuring out the london public transportation system, and the double decker busses make any simple bus trip feel like you're on a city tour. in the evening we were going to go to an experimental indian music concert at the university that the folks in the squat had told us about, but the three of us ended up going to a coffee shop and getting wrapped up in caffeine and conversation for a few hours, so we missed it. then we went back to the flat and just chatted with our temporary roommates for a while, and they gave us a bunch of recommendations for things to see around the city. we also offered to pass out some flyers for their ugandan refugee benefit party.
friday morning we woke up, ate bagels that we had purchased the night before, and then we went on a free walking tour and saw all of the touristy stuff..big ben, houses of parliament, changing of the guards, westminster abby. it was all okay, but we already felt like we were involved in the real, gritty side of london, so all of the touristy stuff felt a quite beneath us, if ya ask me. we ate lunch in the shade by the Abbey, and then went and got lattes before we would head to the National Gallery. me being a klutz, i spilled my lattee ALL OVER myself (on the day that i was wearing a white t-shirt, of course). luckily i had a black tank top on underneath it, so i was able to just take off the white shirt. people were looking at me very strangely when i was washing my shirt in the bathroom sink of the art gallery. we stayed at the national gallery for an hour or so, but then had to go to the University to meet one of our new friends to pick up flyers for the benefit party. diana decided to stay at the national gallery for another hour or so, and me and wendy headed to the university. of course we got lost on the way, but luckily there were so many people offering to help us get there!
an hour later, we met up with diana at the british museum, and then went to a grocery store and bought dinner for ourselves (a very british dinner if you ask me, including something called cornish pasty...basically a meet and onion filled pastry pocket). we then ate our dinner by london bridge, and then went to a pub called the Market Porter for a drink and to pass out a couple flyers.
then we headed back to our place because it was the night of the party! only me and wendy ended up going to the party becuase diana had some school stuff to work on, but it was probably the best party i have ever been to! it was at a church/community center, and it had two different floors of music. there were probably about 400-500 people there, all dancing and chatting. the first floor was the dancable music -- experimental gypsy music, mostly. upstairs there was more chill music -- student bands with people playing cellos, acordions, and violins. we chatted with other party-goers, and met some people who lived at a different squat. we then went back downstairs and met up with paolo, a squat-mate from brazil with a huge afro and passion for dancing, and went crazy on the dance floor with him while the band played some sort of jewish-ska music, complete with the sax player using two saxaphones at once! it was a spectacular night.
saturday was our last day in london. we wandered around the portobello market for a few hours. the vendors had out all sorts of stuff, ranging from clothes, antique jewelry, leather stuff, clocks, dishes...ANYTHING you would want. after buying stuff for myself and some gifts for others, we headed back to our squat because it was time to head to the airport. we were so sad to leave becuase we had gotten to know our squat-mates very well, and we felt so at home there. the parting line from paolo almost felt like a movie -- "next time you won't be couch surfers, you are our friends."
we arrived in glasgow, scotland pretty late at night, so we had just booked a hostel for our first night. the next night in glasgow we had a couchsurfer lined up, so we only stayed in the hostel one night. oddly enough, it was our least favorite night on our trip. the hostel messed up our booking, and we had to go to a different place, and our beds were uncomfortable, and the breakfast was sub-par.
our next host ended up being just as interesting as the first place we stayed. in glasgow, we were hosted by Jo, a 38-year-old Canadian born male-to-female post-op transexual living with her 18-year-old girlfriend. although Jo now had a "designer vagina" (her words), she was still quite androgynous, with short hair and dressed in boots and cargo pants. it was kind of difficult to always use the correct pronoun, because she still looked more like a "he", and even went by a pretty uni-sex name. after we chatted for a little while with jo and her girlfriend, michaela, we went to the nearby grocery store and picked up food for a picnic. we brought our food down to a large park called the botannical gardens where hundreds of people were laying out basking in the sun. we lounged around and ate for a couple of hours and hecked out a pretty greenhouse they had in the center of the park.
then we went down to a public library to check the internet for some travel information, and the cute scottish guy behind the desk gave us some recommendations for where to go. he told us that there was some live jazz going on down the street at a pub called The Three Judges, so we decided to go check that out. it ended up being a BLAST! this tiny bar was filled with grandmas and grandpas, all sitting around laughing and listening to the jazz band play. one really cute tiny old lady wearing all white started dancing on the tiny dance area in between the tables with her husband. and then she pulled me onto the dance floor with her, and the two of us boogied a few steps before i pulled wendy and diana up onto the dance floor with us! our arms and hips were swinging all over, we were spinning circles around eachother, and the whole pub (remember, all octogenarians) was buzzing with excitement and liveliness. a few people even got up and sang songs with the band. one of the women was amazing, and she sang patsy cline's "walking after midnight" (which ended up being stuck in our heads for the rest of the trip). an adorable tipsy old scottish man, Bill, who had sang a song ended up sitting with us and chatting for a couple hours after the band ended, telling us stories, singing songs.
seeing how happy everyone in that pub was made becoming old seem not as bad. the only unfortunate part of The Three Judges Pub was when some middle-aged scottish guy named Andy came and joined our group, and would not stop hitting on me. he kept on reciting poetry, and even said he wanted me to come to his house so he could show me some of his artwork. he then told me, "i like your friends, but i fancy you." how cheesy! it was pretty funny, though. and he was only an inch or two taller than me and i had two friends iwth me, so i wasn't too threatened.
although scottish people speak english, it was still difficult to understand everything people were saying. the accent is very thick, so we found ourselves often having to ask people to repeat what they just said. but the glaswegians (people from glasgow) have to be the nicest people on earth! everyone we met was just so eager to help us and chat with us, it made us feel very welcome. then we went back to jo's apartment, where she sang and played guitar all night long.
monday morning we woke up, and jo cooked us a traditional scottish breakfast complete with 5 different kinds of meat, as well as some black pudding. it was super filling, and i couldn't finish it all. none of us are used to eating that much meat, either, so we felt pretty bogged down and lethargic for a couple of hours. after checking our emails quickly at the library, we headed down to the Kelvington Art Museum, and then went to a wonderful coffee shop nearby, got some caffeinated iced beverages and chatted for a couple of hours. following our coffee boost, diana wanted to get some more schoolwork done, and wendy and i attempted to go to Loch Lomond. wendy and i ended up getting completely lost again, and somehow wandered into the national piping museum. it was very hot outside, so we just chilled inside the small airconditioned room and watched a video with some scottish man describing the history of bagpipes.
when we left, we decided that we were going to do some fun photo project. wendy's fiance's birthday is coming up soon, so i came up with the idea that we make a sign that said "happy birthday noah!" and get as many pictures as possible of people holding this sign. it ended up being a BLAST! we got about 15 pictures of different people holding this sign -- old ladies, nurses, people with funky hair or clothes, so many people... and no one turned down the request (well, one guy did).
we met back up with diana and decided to splurge and get some nice dinner somewhere to celebrate our last night in the UK. we went to a really funky artsy pub called the Drawing Room, and got some delicious and beautiful food. we got three different plates, and kept on passing them around the table to share with everyone. then we split to desserts, and played some of the board games they had available. then we went back to jo's apartment and fell asleep pretty soon after we arrived because we had to get up to take a bus to edinburgh the next morning. we were also exhausted from walking all over the city getting people to take pictures with the sign, so i was sooo ready for sleep.
after the goodbyes in the morning and a nice light breakfast of tea and cereal (no meat, haha), we got on the bus and headed to edinburgh. edinburgh is a very touristy town, but for good reason. it is a very beautiful medieval town that has been very well preserved. there are so many curious allies and streets you could wander around there for hours. we ended up going to a cute little tea-room in an alley that a friend of ours from dortmund had recommended called Forsythe's. we drank tea and ate soup and different meat pastries, and the cute old lady who owned the place even gave us three purple yarn and ribbon braids that smelled like lavendar. it was so quaint!
then we went and saw the outside of a castle (we didn't go in because it was about 12 £ to get in, and we didn't have enough extra money to spend), and then wendy and i went to some spooky tour about a haunted crypt. it was soooo much fun!
we got to the edinburgh airport without any problems, and then spent the entire plane ride home looking at our pictures (which i will get from my friends and post on here ASAP) and reminiscing about how much fun we had.
all in all, the most wonderful week of my life. we experienced so many new and exciting things, talked with interesting people, got a little sunburned (which we weren't expecting in the normally-gloomy UK). also on another wonderful note, our trip was extremely cheap! before we left everyone warned us about the high prices in the UK, but with our grocery store meals and couch surfing we only spent about 240£ each (about $400), including all of our transportation, food, and souveniers over the span of 5 days. i think that's pretty awesome. the whole time we kept on saying that this trip didn't feel real, like stuff this cool was almost like a movie and shouldn't be happening to us. the three of us were also wonderful travel companions, all of us meshing extremely well and complimenting eachother's personalities perfectly. best. week. ever!
soo theres the end of the long post. i will post pictures as soon as i can (don't i say that everytime, though?). i hope you all enjoyed my novel about my UK trip!
Crazy girls on our way home.
Me looking lady-like in the tearoom!
Our good friend, Bill, who told us stories, song songs, and told jokes to us for hours.
portobello market.
me by buckingham palace!
The three travelers! 
Another photo of our squat room...i loved it there!
Me with a bunch of bags sitting on a tilted bench by some castle in Edinburgh.
A glimpse of our 'happy birthady noah' project.
One of the living rooms of the squat. The kitchen is on the left.
Us walking through...some..important place by the house of parliament? Eeek i forgot!
so british...
Of course we need a photo of us in a telephone booth!
Hummus is yummus!
Our lunch on the River Thames by the Tate Modern Museum our first whole day in London. 
The view out our window in the squat...lovely!
Our room in London at the squat. The mess reminds me of home :D
The BVB (Ballspiel-Verein Borussia) fans having a few drinks before the game. That is Andreas, Stefan, Vesna, me, Wendy, and Simon. International support of BVB, Germany, USA, and France all represented! 
Their stadium is MASSIVE. Signal-Induna Park holds over 80,000 spectators.
Too bad we kept on spilling beer on the people in front of us.. whoops! this was after the first time we scored...
Me riding the bike that was originally WAY TOO LARGE for me...until she lowered the seat. then it was managable. 
On top of the tower, and a little scared!
