A Lazy Day...Wherein I NEVER Struggle with Understanding or Speaking for the First Time in Six Months

My hair salon

Day #2 in UK, Day #16 traveling
Seeing as how I woke up a bit under the weather my second day in London, I decided to take it easy and soak in the wonderfulness of being in an English speaking country.

I started with a haircut.  It seems a bit silly to fly all the way to England to get a haircut, but when I lived in Warsaw I had I very unfortunate experience with a hair salon that spoke zero English.  Although my Polish has gotten a lot better, since I was where English is spoken fluently, I decided to go for my first trim in six months.   Strangely enough, my hairdresser spoke not so good English, and was Italian.  He gave me quite a bit of sass when I told him I wanted layers (something I've done for like the last ten years).

Crazy dude on a unicycle

On my way to some photo ops with Big Ben, I walked through Covent Gardens.  It used to be the gardens of a convent, but is now a pretty sizeable marketplace.  My wanderings were distracted by a street performer about to mount a six foot unicycle with the help of two strangers from the audience.  The guy was hysterical, so I stuck around for a bit to watch.

Big Ben and me :)

Lunch was at Chipotle!  It's the most American thing I could think of doing while I was in England.  And it was a great decision, until I realized I've never been to Chipotle by myself before.  And thus started the waves of homesickness.  Note to friends...Chipotle is always better with good friends and conversation.  Luckily, the workers were fascinated that I came all the way from Poland to eat Chipotle and chatted with me while I ate.

After lunch, I wandered through a bookstore...and just absorbed the English texts, which was amaaaaazing.  I then proceeded to a massive photo shoot with random people capturing me in little red phone booths with Big Ben in the background.  It took a few passerbys to get a decent shot though.

The London Eye from a
bridge somewhere in London

All in all, I loved London but mostly because people spoke English.  I've enjoyed the life and culture of many other European capitols much more.  I'm probably marginally bitter that I got sick in London and sicker in Oxford and thus was sick when my best friend Theresa arrive...but I just wasn't sold on the magicalness of England.

This evening, I took a bus out to Oxford to meet my friend Anna (the one who spent New Year's Eve in Hungary with me!).  Two nights away from a Theresa (Best Friend)-sighting!