Bingo in Birmingham!

Today is my fifth day in the UK and it’s been quite an adventure so far! If London has taught me anything it would be patience! After waiting one hour for my baggage, I waited in line for the bus that would take me to the city center for over two hours (supposed to run every 20 mins!). I then got on the subway (“tube”) which would be taking me to where I was planning to meet my friend. Well, half way through the ride the train broke and everyone had to get off. So here I am in this HUGE city alone and lost. These are the type of situations that make you want to cry but you know you can’t because it’s all a part of traveling. You have to take the good with the bad. I finally made it to the building where my friend was but I had no wifi to call him (my phone only works if I have wifi) so I started walking around the city trying to pick up a signal. Five hours after landing I finally found my friend! I can’t pass much judgment about London because I was only there for about 12 hours but from what I did see it seemed all too similar to NYC for me. I was able to meet up with friends from Herkimer and Oswego, which are the two colleges that I attended!

The next morning I took the first bus to Birmingham at 8:30am. Of course it ended up being more like 9:30 – I don’t think anything is “on time” in London. I stayed with my friend Peter who is from England for the rest of the weekend. I met him two years ago when he was traveling in the US. He brought me to a Premier League Game which was definitely a special experience. You don’t know how crazy sports fans are until you see how passionate Europeans are about football (soccer)!

Peter and his friends showed me a proper night out in Birmingham and we certainly had a blast! The following day I was exhausted to say the least. We did do some sightseeing but we actually spent a majority of the day playing bingo! And I won £10! If winning at bingo isn't the best feeling ever, I don’t know what is! As we were leaving Bingo I said to Peter, “How crazy is it that I’m in England and out of all things we could be doing I just spent the afternoon playing bingo!?” This is just another example of the beauty of travel – when you’re on the road you genuinely have NO idea where you’ll end up or what you’ll be doing. Quite an exhilarating thought if you ask me ;)

Monday morning I made my way to Kelmarsh where I am now volunteering for a week at the Meditation Center Café. I serve food in the café from 9-4 and in return for my work I get my own room and free meals. So far, so good! I have already met some very interesting people. More to come about my experiences here =)