London part two- new friends

Museum, museum, castle, park, church, museum, church . . . While there is a lot of great things to see in London, I think I realized this week how much I don’t really like to travel alone. On the one hand, it is nice because you get to make your own schedule, see what you really want, spend as much time as you’d like staring at one thing in the museum . . . on the other hand, it’s nice to have someone to talk to about all the great things you are seeing. Luckily for me on this trip, I had a lot of great people to meet up with and talk to (although not sightsee with L). First, there is Diana and Adrian, the couchsurfer couple that I stayed with. Couchsurfing is a great website for budget and adventure travelers (like me) that would rather stay with real people than pay for a hotel room. On the other side, you can open up your home to people passing through and help them out while meeting new people. The concept is great and so far I’ve had good luck with it (except the mishap in Manchester, but that worked out for the best- me sleeping on the tour bus). The couple that I stayed with in London was great. They are vegetarian cyclists getting ready to embark on bike trip from India to the UK. They were great hosts and it was great to get to know them a little bit. Much better (and of course cheaper) than staying in a hotel or hostel.

Next, on Thursday night I went outside London to visit Kris and Alison, the British cyclists that I met in Albania on the 4^th of July. They successfully completed their trek to Istanbul and raised 3,500 £ (about $7000) for Cancer Research. I enjoyed a lovely dinner with them and discussed Kris’s upcoming trip to the US- cycling from San Francisco to Miami.

My other new friends are Blerta, the sister of one of my Albanian friends that lives in London and Louisa, my cousin-in-law (my brother-in-law’s cousin). Blerta epitomized the Albanian ex-pat community with the question “why do you live in Albania?” Albanians I’ve met often have very contradictory feelings about their country- on the one hand people will say things like “Albania is the best place in the world, the best people!” and then in the next sentence, “Why do live in Albania, American (UK, Italy, Germany etc) is so much better!” Anyway, Blerta is great- free, independent and excentric- I don’t think I could picture her coming back to Peshkopi, getting married and having a bunch of kids . . .

Louisa was also a fantastic person to meet in London. First cousin of my sister’s husband on his mother’s side, she is part of the family that I have never met before. She met my sister a few years ago when they were both visiting family in Jordan at the same time. Also quintessentially a Londoner, she is miles away from the traditional family in Jerusalem. We had a great evening of eating and smoking nargila (hooka) with her Egyptian boyfriend.

Honestly, the British museum is great, seeing a Midsummer’s Night Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe was wonderful, shopping in Notting Hill was fun, but the best part of my trip was meeting these new people (well, that and the super fast trains, buses, and underground . . . I miss schedules!). And after a crazy week of non-stop action, I was actually a little bit glad to get home to the slow life back in Albania (and after traveling for 18 hours- I was ready for a good sleep.)