Jimmy. Buffett.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I met him. I'm going to put down the whole story here so that I don't have to keep retelling it. Not for my sake; I could tell it till I die. So the story begins with church. We went to St. Paul's for service last Sunday and afterwards to the British Museum. We thought we'd go back to the hostel for a quiet evening of homework and reading. Hahahaha... anyway. There were four of us on the tube and I decided to get off a stop earlier than the other three. I was just taking a different route to see who got home first. It turned out that the tube I decided to take was about ten minutes delayed, but in this time I noticed a man with a Buffett shirt on waiting for the same train. I was a little hesitant to talk to him, but I figured he had to be from the states. Before our train arrived, the other girls I had been with showed up. They had gotten on the wrong train and come back to where I was. Now that I had someone to fall back on in case he wasn't from the states, I asked him. He said yes, he was, so I told him how much I loved Jimmy Buffett. On hearing this, Anna, a fellow parrothead, joined the conversation. Eric, we found out was his name, said he was in fact going to a Jimmy Buffett show at that very moment. Disbelieving, Anna and I asked where it was and how far that was from us. Turns out it wasn't far, so we followed him there. :) As soon as we got there, he asked people in line if anyone had extra tickets. There were only about fifty people there, but the show was sold out. The theatre held 2,000. One couple saw Anna's pretty floral maxi dress that she wore to church, and overheard us, so they called us over. They had standing tickets that they sold us for face value, and we got in line. We were like 20th in line for the standing room, and it was all sorts of fun. We were there like 2 hours early, so we made friends in line and everybody took turns holding places and going to the bar next door to buy beer. The lady who sold us our tickets gave me her lei because I was wearing my black dress from church that morning. Not parrothead attire at all. A friend of theirs who was ahead of us in line, named Bob, came back and said that he'd save us spaces at the stage. He'd been there since noon, so he was 2nd in line. He talked to the people behind him and they didn't mind if we waited with him because they had seats anyway. So we moved up to the front of the line and ended up being about tenth through the doors.
Somebody had brought a flat stanley of Obama and dressed him up with a sign asking for tickets. Anna grabbed his lei, and somebody else got his grass skirt, and we headed to the stage. I bought a shirt first thing, and whoever took Obama's skirt handed it to me. I don't know who, they were just like "Hey, you want this?" So now I was dressed. Anna and I were the youngest on the first row, save the little boy down to my left. Jimmy Buffett was very impressed that two young ladies would know the words to his older songs, like "Why don't we get drunk." I made Nadira Shakur jump when I screamed for Manana. I was excited, I love that song. He looked at us when we were singing extra loud a couple of times and smiled. He winked at me once and I thought I was gonna faint. I'm gonna look at Anna's set list, which Jimmy handed down from the stage, and find out which song it was, but during one, he gave the little boy I mentioned earlier one of his wristbands. He sang a verse and then walked over to me. He looked me dead in my eyeballs, and smiled his perfect Jimmy Buffett smile, took off his other wristband and handed it to me. I cried I was so excited. Somebody got pictures, when they email me I'll post them.
At the end of the show after all his encores he signed autographs from the stage, and Anna and I got our shirts signed. When he came over, he said, "Ladies! You're beautiful, beautiful! Keep rockin'!" I told him I loved him. Bob gave me a guitar pick he had thrown off the stage, too. He said that I'd enjoy it more than he would.
I'm seriously considering a parrot tattoo. If you had asked me before this trip to name two people I wanted to meet before I died, it would be Steven Tyler and Jimmy Buffett. Since Dad always sang me Jimmy Buffett when I was little, and now I've met him, it seems appropriate. I don't know, I have to talk to mom and dad ;)
So now, I have all my Parrothead attire, a guitar pick, a signed Buffett shirt, and Jimmy Buffett's wristband, with a memory I'll NEVER forget. All of this, because I spoke to a stranger in the tube station. Lesson learned. Talk to strangers.

Cheerio from London!

So I've been in London for a week now and it's absolutely magnificent, as were Switzerland and Paris. Switzerland was more beautiful than I ever gave it credit for. I looked out of my bedroom window at the Swiss Alps and two beautiful waterfalls running down them. We hiked up one mountain, and I promise, it was hardly a leisurely stroll. If I don't look like a track star by the time I'm through here I will be highly upset. We stayed in Switzerland two nights and left for Paris on Saturday morning. We got there Saturday night and I was a little apprehensive; I still wasn't quite sure about all this Paris business. However, it turned out to be quite beautiful and very comfortable. We stayed at a cool hostel and saw the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre in our one day. We did some shopping, but alas, my body isn't made for the fabulous european clothes. (My shopping efforts have been highly unsuccessful until yesterday, I did get a dress in London)
We arrived here in London around 6:00 Monday evening. On the trek from the station to the hostel, laden with our enormous backpacks and travel bags, we ran into some fresh MC girls in all their cute new clothes that they haven't been wearing, febreezing, and handwashing for a month...we felt very cosmopolitan. All our woes were alleviated when we saw our rooms. Each lady gets her own room: her own bed, her own desk, her own closet, her own chest of drawers, her own bedside table, her own sink. There is a laundry room with machines downstairs and free detergent to boot. This place is a palace.

We kicked off the stay with some fan. tastic. theatre. We saw Billy Elliot and it was one of the finest productions I've ever seen. I've never cried so much over a work of theatre in my life. You must go see it. The next day we went to the National Gallery and saw artwork from the early Italian frescos up to Van Gogh. We saw Phantom of the Opera two nights ago and have tickets to see Waiting for Godot (starring PATRICK STEWART AND SIR IAN MCCELLAN. I WILL MEET PATRICK STEWART AND SIR IAN MCCELLAN) next Saturday. We actually got to meet the Phantom, dream come true, after the show. He liked my scarf. And my smile. Oh yeah, he dug me.

We're all having a great time; it's really nice to actually speak the language in a country, and really makes you appreciate your own. I can't wait to see you all in a couple of weeks!