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London
By Wednesday night of my fall break, I was sitting in London’s palace theater, surrounded by Duke friends and watching “Priscilla,” a crazy new musical about an Australian drag queen’s quest to find his son. Think Mamma Mia mixed with a little bit of Rent.
My trip to London certainly provided a huge contrast to the 5 days I’d spent in Greece, yet the trips were unified by one very important thing: I was visiting people I loved and enjoying the treat of being shown around a city by people who live there! These kinds of trips are by far the best. I’ve heard it said “its not where you are, but who you’re with that matters.” Even in the context of traveling Europe, this couldn’t be more true. For all I cared, I could have been hanging out in the basement of my house with all the EWH and Duke friends I was visiting! (as a result, we did spend a lot of time just sitting around dorms and coffee shops, laughing, chatting, and having intense debates, just as we did on all the busses in Central America). Felt just like old times (where by “old times” i mean 4 months ago…), and I was so happy to experience how easily we all clicked back into the swing of things. Though hanging out was the best highlight of the trip, we managed to pack in countless tourist sights:
Victor and Albert Museum
National Portrait Gallery
Tate Modern
Science Museum
British Museum (interesting to see the rest of the Acropolis marbles after being in Athens!)
Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Big Ben, and everything else you see on a walking tour.
Even better than any of those tourist activities though were discovering what wonderful hosts Sarah and Marcello are! Sarah woke us up on Saturday morning with an amazingly delicious breakfast - crumpets (first time trying them - yum!) with jam, fresh fruit, and incredible blueberry pancakes. Despite all this hospitality, she kept apologizing that the pancakes weren’t “perfect circles.” Ha! In the evening, Marcello had us for a dinner party at his apartment, where we enjoyed pasta (of course), one of Outi’s traditional Finnish recipes (speaking of which, I also got to go to her flat to finally learn how to make korvapuusti!), tiramisu, and Sarah’s brownies. Then we spent the rest of the night laughing and making fun of each other. I’m really going to miss our EWH community, and I can’t wait to be reunited again!
