Tea, scones, and a long bus ride

London

I woke up late, and Pi the cat showed me to Webster's room. After a bit of waking up time, we took the train to richmond, to the tea house, called the tea box, where webster works. Yes it was his day off, but we went there anyways. It's a really cute place, with a green theme, chandaleers and cool wooden tables. And I had my first proper tea the meal, although perhaps a bit early to really be tea the meal. Green tea, a ham and camembert sandwich, followed by more tea, a blueberry scone with lots of cream, and half a brownie. All of this was eaten very slowly over maybe three hours in a proper tea house like maner.

After concluding we couldn't eat or drink one more thing, we returned to Webster's house, and Webster's dad attempted to solve the puzzle of why my computer wouldn't connect to the internet. It turned out to be an unsolvable puzzle. Later that night I took what should have been two tube trains and ended up as four to liverpool street station to meet nick (another awesome c venues person). Concluding rapidly that there was nowhere to go at liverpool street station, we headed back to the tube to camden town, home to many more pubs, as well as shops, and in my opinion, a much cooler place. Apparently there was a major fire recently, but it was dark and I couldn't really tell. We had some beer, and talked about c venues, life, the universe, everything. It was really great to see him again.

My return to kew only took two trains. The next morning I got up early to see Webster off to work, hung about, packed my bag, printed my ticket, and then once again took everything on the tube, and lugged it to Victoria Coach Station. This time, not for a megabus, but a eurolines bus (gray with no markings) to Berlin.

And so began the 21 hour journey to Berlin. I was sitting next to a german woman with purple hair who spoke very little english. Getting out of london took forever and a half, and then we continued on to dover. There was some confusion about which lane we should be in, and our diver had to back the bus about 500ft, out of the lane he was in. At which point the other driving jumped out, and stood in traffic with his hand out, trying to get all the semi-trucks to stop so that the bus could merge. In Turkish style everyone on the bus stood up to watch and perhaps offer advice, and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. We then waited in this line for a bit as the boat docked and the other cars drove off. And then we all did burst out laughing, as the woman telling cars to go had to walk up to a van and wake up the driver who had fallen asleep. The woman looked a bit startled, confused, and a bit embarassed. I hope she didn't realize she had an entire bus watching her.

The boat ride took a bit over an hour, and as we were still in the UK, dover was covered in mist. The white cliffs at dover are very impressive though. And standing on the top deck I realized that I had been on the ferry from Dover to Calais once before, and that it had been 10 years ago. 10 years!! It made me feel old. I stood outside on deck most of the time to avoid being sick, and as the boat approached calais reboarded the bus. It was nearly dark by this time, and everyone started trying to sleep. At lille I got my own seat, and sometime later in the night the seat accross from me emptied and I could put my feet on it and lay down more or less. We stopped about two hours outside of berlin so our drivers could have breakfast, and then we were in Berlin. All things considered, I think I slept more than I usually do on buses.