Wow, so it's been over a week... but what with lab work and class on Monday, more lab work on Tuesday, on top of preparing for Thursday's presentation, I have some very good excuses as to why I did not update earlier. So let's see, where shall I begin...
Friday: In the morning, I packed my favorite heavy duty backpack for a 3-day London Synaesthesia conference. If you remember, Hannah (a friend/classmate) found the conference advertized on facebook a while back and thought it sounded interesting, so we registered, reserved a hotel room and bought train tickets, and it seems in no time at all, it was time to go.
Jana, in an uncharacteristic energy, agreed to accompany me to the train station that afternoon. I would be traveling alone, and Hannah would meet me later that evening because she had some last-minute lab work to do. I figured I would get situated at the hotel and go to a lecture that evening that would be given by the keynote speaker at the conference, then meet Hannah back in London for a show.
So, with my bag full of conference clothing and bedtime reading (Sensory Deception by Slade and Bentall), we tramped the 20 minute walk to the station. Everything went smoothly here-- I bid Jana goodbye and got on the train with no trouble.
As I said, Hannah and I were interested in seeing a West End show (if you don't know, London's West End is kind of like Broadway, except apparently not as good), so I spent most of the train journey calling ticket bookers who didn't think the play we wanted to go to existed. After texting Hannah the problem, she did her own research and found some relativey unexpensive tickets to Chicago instead, so we bought the tickets and that was that. Looking forward to a great show later that night, I spent the rest of my train journey in happy peace.
I arrived at St Pancras and decided to spend much of the afternoon getting acquainted with the underground. I found the theatre we were going to that night (I thought it wouod be smart to find it in the daytime first), then headed off to East London, which was where the conference was going to be held.
This is where things got weird...
So I exited the train station and saw a sign pointing right that said University of East London. Since my hotel was close to the university, I headed off in that direction. I walked. And walked. The sidewalks were enormous, the buildings towered above me-- the air was hazy and warm, and I felt kind of like I was in a dream. I soon passed a small branch of the campus (about the size of a fast food restaurant), but figured the rest of the university would be further along. I walked some more. After about a half hour, I came to a ring road, and like a mirage in the desert, a McDonalds was positioned right in the middle of it all. A man was sweeping up outside.
"Excuse me," I said. "Can you tell me the way to the University of East London?" The man pointe down the road I had just come. "No way," I said. "I just came from that direction. The sign was pointing this way."
"The university is in that direction," he said. "I am 100% sure." That was when I realized the sign I had passed must have been indicating the small branch of the university, and the rest of it was somewhere else. So, dejected, I started the long journey back towards the train station, while a couple of ambulances whizzed by (foreshadowing what was to come-- but don't worry now, it had nothing to do with me -- but I will tell all in a bit).
So I made my way back to the train station, wound my way down confusing roads, and started to see more and more students with backpacks (I knew I had to be getting close). Finally, after a few more wrong turns, and about an hour and a half later than I expected, I found the main campus of the University of East London. OK, one place down... now for the hotel.
I knew the hotel would be further down the same road, so I kept walking. But as I reached the next block, I could see a crowd of people stuck on my side of a police barrier that stretched from one end of the street to the other, and about 10 blocks or so were completely empty save for the odd police car. I approached the barrier and flagged down the nearest officer.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"There's been a serious incident here," the policeman informed me. "Nobody's getting through here."
"I need to get to my hotel," I said. "It's right down this road."
"You'll have to go around, I'm afraid," the officer said, indicating a residential road off to the left. So I started to walk, and soon found myself weaving through slums and back alleys, trying to stay parallel with the road I had to get to. Every now and then I looked down a rightward facing road only to see my road was still blocked off, and people were gossiping all around me.
"They won't let anyone through."
"What happened?"
"I don't know."
I walked for about 10 blocks and suddenly found that stretched across the entire neighborhood, was more police tape. I followed it until I reached my destination road again, which was still blocked off. I turned around and headed one more block down, but it turned into a dead end. There was a guy walking his dog.
"Is the road still blocked?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Do you know what happened?"
"Someone was shot," he said. He walked with me toward the road I needed to get to, and was stopped by a neighbor.
"Man, did you hear someone was murdered?" the neighbor said. I gawked.
"Nuh uh," I interrupted. The guy turned to me.
"Yeah, the whole neighborhood is waiting to get out but the road is blocked from here to Sainsbury's."
I walked back to the police tape and flagged a female officer. I could see my hotel from where I stood.
"Excuse me," I said. "My hotel is right there. Can't I get through?"
"Yeah, let us through!" someone in the crowd piped up.
"Unfortunately no," she said. "The incident happened right across the street from that hotel. It's still a crime scene, so until we get it cleared up, nobody's allowed on this road, not even the buses are running here right now." (The English and their dependable bus system.)
I saw a couple of policemen hop the tape with a k9 unit and my imagination suddenly decided to tell me perhaps the killer had escaped and they were now searching for him through the back alleys I'd just traversed.
"Are we in danger here?" I asked.
"You're safe on that side of the tape," the female officer informed me.
I had been fervently texting Jana and Hannah this whole time, updating them on the situation, texting things like: i saw the ambulances shoot past as i was walking in the wrong direction... what if i had gone in the right direction!?!
Jana texted back: ya, u woulda been a witness, u would b stuck w the police for hours
Hannah, ever the scientist, texted things like: it was probably a directed murder. dont worry. also our hotel should b the safest place in the world tonight. the chances of a murder happening twice in the same place are astronomically low.
I backtracked through the alleys toward the university. Hannah called me then.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm trying to find the university. I think I can still make the keynote lecture before the show."
"I called my brother," she said. "He's looking up different hotels for us now."
"The police said the road should be OK again by this evening," I told her.
"Oh," she said. "I thought you might not want to stay there anymore after what happened."
"No, that would be a big hassle. Besides, I'm brave."
"Why don't you just come meet me at St Pancras?" she said.
"OK sounds good. I've been wandering around enough as it is without having to find the building where the lecture is being held." It was also getting dark at this point.
"All right, see you soon."
"See you."
As I walked back toward the train station, I came to a crossroads and didn't know which way to turn.
"Excuse me," I said for the third time that day, this time to a young, well-dressed black dude. "Is the train station that way or that way?" I asked, indicated each road in turn.
"It's that way," he said, pointing left. "I'm heading that way if you want to follow me!"
As it turns out, this guy was really chatty.
"I'm a maths teacher at one of the schools here," he said. "I'm originally from Guyana."
"Cool, I have a friend from Guyana!" I said, thinking of Chantal, a girl who was part of my friend group the time I'd studied abroad. Guyana, if you don't know, is the only native English speaking country in South America, a tiny country up on the northeastern coast.
"Maybe we could go out sometime," the man said.
"I don't live here," I told him. "I'm only in Stratford for a conference. I'm leaving in a few days."
"Oh, well... that's too bad," he said. "It was nice meeting you." By this time we were outside the train station. We shook hands and parted ways, never to see each other again.
Soon enough, I was at St. Pancras again. I changed into my nice clothes in one of the station bathrooms, only for Hannah to emerge from the crowd of women.
"You know, people don't dress up for shows here," she said as I powdered my nose.
"Oh well," I said, "I've been walking in bad shoes all day I needed an excuse to get into my Clarks anyway." Comfy Clarks.
We hauled our luggage through the underground and made our way to the West End. The show was great. The singing was good, and the dancing was excellent. The fake American accents were laughable, but easily overlooked. We had a generally good time the rest of the night, took a taxi from the Statford Station to our hotel around 12AM, and went to bed, eager for the next day's conference.
But the conference, I will save for another post-- now I must go practice my presentation a couple of times. Stay tuned for more in a bit!
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