I’m on the move again. Sitting on the train, due to arrive at London Liverpool Street Station in just a short while. From there, I’m somehow supposed to find my way to Clapham South, where Maija lives. Maija, my best friend from my year in Tanzania back in 1999. I haven’t met her for at least eight years. It’s a useful thing, Facebook.
Cambridge was great. My train arrived at the station at around seven, and Abbie was already waiting for me by the platform exit. After dropping off my bag, she took me to a goodbye dinner with a big group of her Emmanuel Collage friends – it’s the end of term and people are leaving, going back to the States, Germany, Korea, London, and all the other places that they call home. It must be very strange, sitting like that with people that you have seen daily for a year, knowing that in a couple of days you might never meet many of them again. I’ve not been in that kind of situation since I graduated high school, and even then I didn’t even mind that much. I didn’t like my class very much and I actually only hang out with one high school friend now six years later.
But Abbie, she’s had a wonderful time in Cambridge. And even I, after haning out just for a couple of hours with her friends, felt that I wanted to stay, just lie on the meticulously cut collage back lawns, drink wine and discuss really smart, intellectual things (that I as a natural science student don’t really have the proper education to discuss, but love to talk about anyway).
After dinner, we went on to meet another group of her friends, mostly old classmates (she’s studied the history of intellectual thought, highly complicated stuff, their degree of interlectuality intimidated me). They were at this wonderful little pub, named after some Norse saint that I can’t remember, with writings in the ceiling, wood panelling on the walls and cosy little booths to sit in. It felt like this is a real genuine English pub.
Another thing that kind of scares me with Great Britain, except for everyone sounding so smart (probably at least partly due to their accents), is how many different kinds of beer that they have. Going to a pub and ordering a beer is so much more complicated than in Sweden, because here, they require you to choose between several different kinds of drafts, ales and lagers. I couldn’t, of course, so I took the same as Abbie: a really dark draft, that tasted like rye bread and could only be drunk in small sips. I must say, after drinking beer here, I actually think I could enjoy drinking beer, but also have a really hard time forcing down the cheap lager that they sell on tap in most Swedish bars.
Now, I need to pack up and venture into the London Underground. Keep your fingers crossed!
Liverpool Street Station
See, I made it into the right underground train, no problem at all. And found Maija waiting for me when I arrived in Clapham South. I survived my first night in the big city!
Katja Malmborg 