Away for two weeks

  Two weeks away from England and everything including my dormitory looks so new! I took a nap on the bus from the Stansted Airport to London city centre and when I opened my eyes I wondered if I was in Wan Chai or Central of Hong Kong. I never knew driving on the left and all these familiar designs of highways and traffic lights would make me feel so much like at home. But I miss the Swedish krona because its rate makes much more sense than the British pound to me.

  It was -2 degrees in Stockholm when I left there. Both sides along the road to the Skavsta Airport were beautifully covered with snow. So when I reached London, which was then 9 degrees – an 11-degree surge from my previous location, I literally sweated despite it was a temperature at which someone from a subtropical region like me should be shivering. Just yesterday I was wearing two hats and two pairs of gloves!

  The journey back to Bristol was a long one. I set off from my hostel at 8am Swedish time, took a bus to the Skavasta Airport and caught the midday flight, flew to the Stansted Airport, waited in line for more than an hour at the customs, had a quick lunch, commuted to the London city centre, waited for another hour for the intercity bus and rode for almost 3 hours and finally arrived at 9pm British time. (It’s really no fun commuting via London. Anyone thinking about visiting me because you happen to be travelling somewhere in Britain or in Europe should seriously consider such exhaustion. Of course I’ll deeply appreciate our friendship if you go through all these to see me.) When I entered the lobby of my dormitory building it looked unusually bright. Have they put up new lights or was it just because I stayed in the dark for too long in Scandinavia? Then when I entered my bedroom it looked so unfamiliar… It was so empty that it didn’t look like my bedroom at all! But even emptier was my fridge. I was starving but didn’t want to cook after 14 hours of commuting… At this point of time my sweet flatmate came into the kitchen and cooked noodles for me. I felt so beloved!