When It Rains, It Pours, Especially If You're Polish

No pics this time (sorry, Kaitlyn) just a story. Hopefully a GOOD story. A story of my first encounter with this blasted English rain and the ruination (or adventure) of my evening.

First off, it should be noted, that in my specific case, the irony will always be as great as possible. Hence, on the rainiest day London has experienced in the past 500 years (so I say) I will be wearing nothing other than leggings and a short skirt, a short sleaved dress shirt, and a leather jacket, whilst carrying a mock-leather un-close-upable bag, whose umbrella I will have extracted that morning due to lack of use. And my shoes will be ballet flats. Of course.

SO, lovely day, many classes, watched a great/horrendous film called "Mischief Night" about drug dealers in Leeds. (Comedy. Hilarious. Bogie - pick this one up and watch it with yourselves.) Went to Mass in the itty-bitty chapel on the fifth floor of the Centre. (Not the fourth. I donna ceer ha mani times theh sah ootherways. The floor you walk in on is the first floor, not the ground floor. The second floor is the second floor, I don't care if you want to call it the first. Note: Assimilation has never been my strong point.)

Eventually the time came to round up and go to the Orange Tree Theatre (at least I think that's what it's called). Me and my flatmate Claire bummed tickets off the Intro to London Theatre class to go see a play called "The Ring of Truth" (whatever you're imagining, stop). The theatre is far away, in a magical land called Richmond. We bought dinner at Pret a Manger (yes, mother, I know what that means) and boarded the Tube. Note: the whole time we're doing this, it's raining. Not bad, just consistent.

We squeezed onto the Tube with the masses. Now, it wasn't just crowded, it was Tokyo crowded, like, you don't get to move your arms because you might accidentally butter-cut someone. I was travelling in a group of four, and I used the crunch time (literally) to explain the plot of an episode of Bones where a pedophile mummifies girls in subways because it's the only place with a consistent flow of warm, dry air. I'm sure all those in listening distance of me really enjoyed it.

About half way there, the Tube decides to crap out. Well, the track, I suppose. We get alerted that, due to flooding, the train is being rerouted. Far far away from the magical land. We get off and meet up with the other eight or so ND kids who were in a different car headed the same place. We're all hanging out on the platform, which is above ground, under the overhang, waiting for another train to Richmond to come alone.

I took this time to eat my dinner. I bought a baguette (I can never write that word without reading it bag-wetty) with brie, tomato and basil. One of the greatest things about this country is that they put brie on everything. I also bought a "Chocolate Mousse" cup thing. Now, I was expecting to enjoy it, but I was not prepared for the potpourri of unmeasurable delightedly chocolate deliciousness that exploded into my oral cavity. If you are anywhere near a Pret A Manger, you must go, right now, and buy a cup of chocolate mousse. Buy ten. If you can't get to a Pret, get on Amazon and stock your fridge and your bathtub. And steal your neighbor's bathtubs and fill those, too.

That was the highlight of my evening, eating that chocolate mousse on the platform in the rain, if that gives you any idea of how the rest of the night is going to go.

Then someone had the brilliant idea to take a bus to the mythical land of Richmond. We poured out of the tube station and onto the streets, feet slapping the wet cobblestones and umbrellas bumping and bobbing above our motley mob. We heaved into a bus bound for Richmond and were once again transported to Tokyo. Apparently we weren't the only ones with the bus idea.

So I stood. And stood. Mashed up against the side of a bus window. I put in my earbuds (NOT ipod earbugs - SONY earbuds. Fight the man.) and listened to Imogen Heap's new album (more on why this album is singularly defining my experience later). I got through the entire album. So, after 90 minutes on the bus, sloshing through streets and the mind-blowing speed of about three feet a minute, everyone in the bus has pretty much become a fan of the Notre Dame Experience. See, unlike most Brits, L'enfants de Notre Dame tend to TALK while using public transportation. So everyone knew our plight and our personage.

AFTER AN HOUR AND A HALF OF WATCHING RAINDROPS SLIDE DOWN THE WINDOWS OF A STEAMY, OVER-CROWDED BUS we arrived at the theatre. The prof met in the lobby, for we had arrived just as it was hitting intermission (interval, half-time, what have you). He immediately began with, "You poor DEARS!! You must feel DREADFUL!! Your journey must have been JUST awful, how HORRID for you to go through that I do hope you will enjoy the rest of the show I fee just TERrible."

The second half was pretty much all you needed. The show it self was a drawing-room comedy/thriller. It was 1950's England and...bad. Old people laughing at jokes I hadn't the chance of the Diamondbacks in the postseason at understanding. Kind of like Arsenic and Old Lace, but less funny. The only redeeming factor was the cook's Polish husband, who ran in furious because his wife had been investigated by the police.

"Why you hateah de POLES? EVEREbody HATEAH de POLES!! When I comma to dis countreh, I WORK HARD. I marry my wifa, and she WORK HARD. Why you suspect her? Because I am POLISH!! BECAUSEH YOU HATEAH DE POLES!! We are ALWAYS ANGRY!! From BIRT, we ANGRY. In de WOMB, we ANGRY! YOU! You wear HORN-RIMMED GLASSES!! You areah a COMMUNIST!! ANDEAH YOU HATEAH DE POLES!!!"

Basically, it was like watching my mother on one of her my-family-came-to-this-country-from-Poland-with-nothing kicks. Very entertaining. I was positively HOWLing, causing most of the audience to look up my way. Oh well. They clearly did not grow up hearing about the greatness/plight of the Polish heritage. Their loss.

After the show we scrambled to a train station and...well, I don't really remember. At some point we took the tube. I had to buy a ticket somewhere. Oh, well. At this point I was pretty much a sad, wet lemming. But I did get home.

Last night I saw Troilus & Cressida at the Globe. FANTASTIC. Terrible in the reading. Wonderful in the watching. Now off to The Comedy Club for an evening of stand-up for my alternative poetry class.