Well hello, long time no see! I apologize for the horrifically long update absence (ahem 3 weeks), but I have been incredibly busy lately dealing with stupid bureaucracies, stupid flatmates, and yes, lovely drunken people on buses (am I being title-repetitive?). As always, here is my summary of the past three weeks:

1) I deal with the Indian embassy. An old Indian auntie blinks at me from behind large owl glasses.
2) I deal with the Vietnamese embassy. A young Vietnamese woman grovels at my feet and thanks me profusely for applying for a travel visa to her country aka she treats me with *GASP* untold amounts of respect.
3) Once again, I make fun of people from around the world.
4) I witness several massive group sing alongs on night buses. I make a new friend dressed entirely in black.

So, as I like to say every week, let’s jump right in here, shall we folks? Firstly, let’s finish off the story of the Indian embassy, which unfortunately did not end at the close of my last entry. Indeed, after we left off, I spent several weeks calling the embassy to check on the status of my visa, convinced that one day someone would answer and say, “Oh, yes, your visa has been denied and we have lost your passport. Please go back to start.” *Cue videogame music*. Naturally, in accordance with the manner in which the Indian embassy (and, as I’ve been told, the entire country) operates, I continually failed to get through on all three of the lines I was given to call, being told by computerized Indian voices that either the office I was trying to reach was closed or that they were currently “busy” (doing what for five hours, might I ask?). Finally, whenever I got through a very jolly Indian woman would tell me, “Oh no, your application is not yet finished.” “Oh,” I would answer every time, never really learning my lesson. “When do you think it will be ready?” “One to two days!” Since this was the standard answer and was never actually true, I would begin to raise this point to the embassy worker, stumbling past a few questioning words before realized that they had long ago hung up. Rinse, wash and repeat, and over the course of two weeks, I had spent an unfathomable amount of hours calling the embassy, being told “oh one to two days” and hung up on, prompting me to ask all of my Indian friends, “Do Indian Indians not say goodbye?” The answer always came in the form of rolled eyes and the ever constant musing, “Oh, India!”, which didn’t answer my question, but pretty much summed it all up.
Finally, after weeks of this cycle, the woman finally answered me that the visa was ready. I wasn’t expecting this and stumbled in my answer, asking how long they would keep it there as I was currently at work and couldn’t come to pick it up. They answered that they would keep it for as long as I wanted, and when I asked if they would lose it if I waited until my day off on Friday to pick it up, they just laughed me off and said of course not! They kept it very organized!

….

….

I hung up the phone, told my boss I needed two hours off of work to deal with India, and ran to the embassy before they could lose my passport in a mass of saris and old men shuffling by while shouting, “Escuse me sank you please!” Fortunately the embassy was down on the Strand, not far away from I work in Russel Square, so within about fifteen minutes I found myself once again outside The Embassy of Disorganization, facing a window on the outside of its large stone exterior that had a sign saying “Visa pick-up”. I approached the window to see an old Indian Auntie with huge, thick round glasses magnifying her eyes into those of an owl, peeking up over the high counter of the office. Together with this high counter and the many notices posted all over the window, all that came through were these owl eyes, which blinked calmly over and over again. I approached the window and was about to ask for my visa when the eyes blinked towards another sign that said, “CLOSED ⇒” and had a large black arrow pointing to the other window just down the wall where we should instead go. “That’s odd,” I thought to myself as the auntie continued to blink steadily. “I wonder why she’s sitting there if it’s closed.” I quickly put my confusion aside and followed the arrow to the other window, where an old Indian man, the male equivalent of the blinking owl-eyed auntie on the other side, sat behind a sign that said, “NO VISA ENQUIRIES ⇐” and sported an arrow in bold black print pointing right back to the window with the blinking auntie. To the least, this confused me, and I ended up going back and forth between these two windows, reading these two signs before finally asking the old man behind the second window where I could pick up my visa. “VISA ENQUIRIES!” he said, pointing to the window with the Indian auntie.
“Right,” I answered. “But the sign there says ‘closed’ and points to here.”
“VISA ENQUIRIES!” he repeated, and pointed again to the Indian auntie.
“Thank you,” I said rolling my eyes and marched back up to the Indian auntie who still sat there slowly blinking. “Hi,” I said, sliding her my receipt and ticket number. “I’d like to pick up my visa.” She blinked slowly, as if she couldn’t believe what I was asking her, very carefully picked up my papers, withdrew my passport from a cubbyhole (or should I say “pigeon hole” like the Brits?) and slid it under the window. Surprised to see my visa in one piece, I took my passport, checked the visa and thanked her. She blinked slowly, without saying anything. I backed away from the window and voila, I had my passport.
I subsequently celebrated the return of my passport by getting rid of my passport. The very next day I was back at it, down at the Vietnamese embassy to get a visa there. By the way, for those of you I haven’t told here, is my official itinerary: Two months on Eurail all throughout Europe, I think about a week and a half with my parents, brother and Grammy in Italy (sadly, no Kippy the wonderdog!), a bike trip through Vietnam and Thailand, a tour through Cambodia, a bike/hike/train trip through China, two months working in Australia, a month to travel Australia, 3 weeks to travel New Zealand, and one week to travel Fiji. Which uh, rocks. I’m telling you, get round the world tickets, they make travel possible!
Anyway, all these plans have required me applying for a ton of visas (some of which I’ll have to apply for in the middle of Europe in a country where I don’t speak the language, which will mean more stories!), so the next up was Vietnam and let me tell ya, man what a contrast that was to India. While the Indian embassy was in a very grand, stone building on the Strand, this one was near Gloucester Road, tucked away in a very posh neighborhood of Victorian houses. The queue for applications took about five minutes, and when you applied, they (get this!) helped you when you asked a question, they charged you less (though still a lot), and they were (seriously, get this!) were nice. AND organized. I KNOW!!!!! That said, their visa form wasn’t nearly as shiny as India’s, which was quite disappointing, but whatever.
Well, while we’re on the topic of international relations, I suppose the next best story to relate from the past three weeks was that between an English guy where I work (we’ll call him “John”) and a new Chinese post-doc who speaks very little English. The scene I have to relate was very much one of those “whose on first” sorts of situations, or perhaps even more so like that scene from Dude, Where’s My Car? where these two idiot surfer guy types are drunk one night and wake up with tattoos on their backs saying “dude” and “sweet”. They of course cannot see their own tattoos and are depending on the other person to relate to them what their own tattoo says. The scene goes like this (credit imdb.com)

Jesse: Dude! You got a tattoo!
Chester: So do you, dude! Dude, what does my tattoo say?
Jesse: "Sweet!" What about mine?
Chester: "Dude!" What does mine say?
Jesse: "Sweet!" What about mine?
Chester: "Dude!" What does mine say?
Jesse: "Sweet!" What about mine?
Chester: "Dude!" What does mine say?
Jesse: "Sweet!" What about mine?
Chester: "Dude!" What does mine say?
Jesse: "Sweet!" What about mine?
Chester: "Dude!" What does mine say?
Jesse: "Sweet!" What about mine?
[later]
Chester: [angry] "Dude!" What does mine say?
Jesse: [screaming] "Sweet!"

Well, that’s what this scene was similar too, though with two very intelligent people who barely speak the same language. I was in the kitchen washing toys when in walks John and the Chinese post-doc, whose name everyone is trying desperately to remember and pronounce correctly, a feat which everyone is failing at miserably. In fact, I can only say right now that his name begins with “Ya”, so let’s say his full name is “Ya-shoo”, which sounds vaguely Chinese (and yes, I am sorry, ye O! gods of political correctness… let’s not even discuss the fact that he very well may be Taiwanese, not Chinese. God, I’m going to un-PC/South Park hell). John, trying very hard to make Ya-shoo feel welcome, told him his name and asked what Ya-shoo’s name was. This is the scene that followed:

John: Hi, I’m not sure I know your name. My name is John.
Ya-shoo: John?
John: John.
Ya-shoo: John. I. Am. Ya-shoo.
John: Yi-foo?
Ya-shoo: Ya-shoo.
John: Yeh-moo?
Ya-shoo: Ya-shoo.
John: Ya…
Ya-shoo: Ya.
John: Ya…
Ya-shoo: Ya! Yeah!
John (thinking that this finally “yeah” is actually a correction of his pronunciation of “ya” rather than an affirmation that he has pronounced it correctly): Yeah?
Ya-shoo: Ya! Yeah!
John: Ya. Yeah! Wait… Ya!
Ya-shoo: Yeah!
John: Yeah! Ya?
Ya-shoo: Yah! Yah!
John: Right then.

At this point, both men went away proud of their pronunciation and cultural achievements, absolutely unaware of the fact that neither knew the slightest thing about what the other person was talking about. It was, to quote an auctioneer, utterly priceless (or, to quote the English, “a bit of a classic”).
As wonderful as this work scene was, I have generally been finding the work and home scene a bit stressful lately (more details on the home scene in the next couple of entries, there is an absurd saga going on that I would like to complete before I write about it. For those of you who know about it, all I can say is, yes, friends, I am using the dish rack I have been banned from using, and yes, friends, it is entirely liberating). As a result, I have been finding untold amounts of relief from the “going out” scene in London. This has resulted in a ton of fun that will have to wait for the LEAH LUGS CRAP AROUND THE WORLD- UNCENSORED!!! version of this blog, though I can say that over the past three weekends, I have found myself drunkenly contemplating whether or not I could stuff myself into an electronic dummy waiter (I could not), drunkenly wandering around Waitrose at 10:30PM attempting to do my weekly shopping (I did, and the bill was astronomical), and drunkenly watching a ghostbuster bop away on the dance floor while my pirate friends attempted to vanquish me with a plastic sword (they could not, yes, it was a Halloween party and no, I have not turned into an alcoholic, I am just living in Britain).
I have to say though, out of all of these adventures, none could compare to the night bus scene on the way home from these places. Living in the posh area that I do, the night bus down from Central London is often quite empty because most people who would use that route at that hour of the night would just pay for a cab. As a result, I had forgotten just what an amusing (if frustrating) scene the night buses can be. However, in the past three weeks I have been going out in areas of South and East London that my bus didn’t cover (Shoreditch, Brixton… yes, Brixton, and no, I was not stabbed) and as a result was re-exposed to many fascinating scenes of drunken human interactions. Before I tell these stories, you’ve got to understand London’s going out culture. Basically, people in London go out. A lot. It doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, if you’re living in London, you go out to pubs and get “pissed”, you go out to clubs and dance around like you’re actually enjoying yourself (okay, maybe old people get some stares if they go here, but you get my point). Despite the passing of 24 hour licensing laws, most pubs, bars and clubs all close at the same time (pubs = 11/11:30, bars = 12/12:30, clubs = 2/3:30, unless they’re Brazilian/totally gay, and then all bets are off).
As a result, most people get chucked out of wherever they are at the same time of night, at which point the buses are absolutely packed with people, sometimes even more so than during the rush hour commute. During normal day light hours, the unwritten rules on public transport are quite strict. No talking or eye contact is allowed, unless you want to stand out as a tourist or a crazed/drug-addicted homeless person. You just don’t do these things, and that’s that. On the night bus, however, all rules are off. Not only do people talk but they also shout, they sing, and sometimes, they even run about making clomping noises in their hooker boots on the upper deck. Put simply, it’s “a bit of a scene,” and, after four months of living in a very quiet, boring posh area, I’ve been more than happy to witness this.
The first night bus ride was an incredibly long one that began in Shoreditch and ended more than hour and a half later in Clapham Common (night buses are also famously poor services, often with massive delays). When my bus finally arrived, I was lucky enough to snag a seat as people piled on behind me. In a matter of seconds, the bus was unpleasantly packed, with drunk people swaying back and forth to its every movement. As is pretty much par for the course, every time the bus stopped short (which was often), a mass of drunk people went flying in one direction or the other, grabbing on to each and laughing all the while. More and more people piled on to the bus until it finally reached bursting point, at which point the driver refused to let more people on. This, of course, didn’t stop people from trying. At red light near to a recently passed stop, a frustrated party-goer leapt onto the side of the bus, pushed the emergency door release and manually pried the door open, shouting triumphantly as the bus started through the light. “Ha!” he cried, pumping his fists in the air and elbowing someone in the nose. “HAAAAA!” He must have been a regular on the route because a guy on the bus called to him with a smile, “You making trouble Paul?”
“Bloody right I am!” Paul shouted. “We waited there for forty-five minutes, I wasn’t about to let this bus go by!”
“Way to go Paul!” his friend shouted in support, adding, “Where’s your girlfriend?” Paul looked around, rolling his eyes.
“DAMMIT!” he shouted, pounding at the door. “I told her what I was doing, I told her to get on with me! Hey mate, open the doors I have to get off!” he shouted to the driver, who of course shouted back that he’d have to wait until the next stop. “Bloody hell!” Paul grumbled, jumping up to push the emergency release again and leaping out into traffic, shouting, “Bloody wankers!” at the honking cars as they went by. After his departure, the bus for some reason inexplicably broke out in the song, “If you want to touch my body goooooooo for it yeah gooooooo for it yeah.” And we’re talking, literally half the bus singing, here.
Sadly, though, that scene could not even begin to compare to the scene on the night bus the very next week. I had just left a party in Brixton and was waiting at the bus stop, freaked out of my mind because Brixton has quite the reputation. While I was waiting there, several other girls came and sat next to me, which is also par for the course. Late at night in these bus stations and when boarding a night bus, there seems to be an unspoken rule between young women to cling together, lest anyone dodgy sidle up to us. This is mostly an subconscious thing that I doubt most women realize they’re doing, but you can bet that when most young woman board a night bus, they’ll pick out the most unassuming, quiet looking girl to sit next to before they’ll choose most men (unless, of course, the man looks extremely tame or extremely gay).
However, I was a bit surprised that this one girl chose to sat down next to me and strike up a conversation as she was dressed completely in goth style, complete with the black hair, black trousers, black top and black jumper. She looked quite tough, but as we talked more and more, it turned out we had a lot of common. I was American, she was Swedish. I had just been to a fancy-dress Halloween party, she to a leather and chains party. I was once again disgusted by the number of disrespectful drunk men grabbing me and refusing to leave me alone and she was disgusted about the number of bland-looking office workers leadings each other around with dog collars and chained leashes. It was a match made in heaven, and indeed, I was glad to have her with me in this very dodgy area, as well as on the night bus which, when it finally came, was once again, a bit of a scene.
When we boarded, people were sitting in every possible space, most notably a young couple on the luggage rack. The bus accelerated and as the Swedish dominatrix and I continued our heartfelt conversation, the friends of the couple started ragging on them for making out in public, an accomplishment which involved nearly half the bus as the group of friends were split from front to back. Every time the couple began to kiss, their friend who was standing right next to them would shout very loudly, “Oooooooh Ronnie boy! Kissing in public! Shame! ShaaaAAAAAAME!” a cry which was answered by their friends in the back of the bus inquiring of course in thick English accents, “Ronnie Smith is kissing in public? Kissing in PUBLIC?”
Then, answering to a silent cue heard only by this specific group of friends, the friends in the front of bus started shouting, “Give me a D!” and the friends in the back would answer, “D!”
“Give me an I!”
“I!”
“Give me an S!”
“S!”
“Give me a C!”
“C!”
“Give me an O!”
“O!”
Then altogether they sang, “D! I! S! C! O! We don’t want no disco! We don’t want a disco!”
This, very logical outbreak of song, happened every time good old Ronnie and his girlfriend would kiss and altogether looked like so much fun that a very smelly, extremely drunk homeless looking guy (though I don’t think he was homeless), attempted to sing along with them, but couldn’t quite get his syllable act together and instead ended up overtaking the singing with his slurred shouts of, “DdddddddddDDDDDDDDSssssSS!!!!!!”
The Swedish dominatrix and I edged very slowly away from him, a fact which was noted by his wife/girlfriend who was sitting in the back of the bus and who shouted at her partner (who apparently was named “Tev”) in a very Monty Python male dressed as a female shouting at a male voice, “TEEEVVVVVVV! You’re making a bloody fool of yourself! You’re an embarrassment! An embarrassment! TEEEEEEEEEVVVVVV!”
At this point, the Swedish Dominatrix and I, who were both getting off at the same stop and taking the same bus from there, began to wonder if we had missed the stop and began looking frantically through the windows to see where we were. Good old Tev watched us struggle and then said in an inexplicably suddenly non-slurred voice, “Clapham Common tube? Right, it’s just around this corner here, we’re go around this curve in the road and then you’ll see the common on the right, then you’ll see a convenient store on the left and another shop on that side, and there will be the tube.” These were, ultimately, the most lucid directions I’ve ever gotten from a drunken homeless man named Tev while talking to a Swedish Dominatrix.
Indeed, it turned out that the directions were spot on, and it wasn’t long before the Swedish Dominatrix (who, by the way, was a manager at Top Shop and offered to get me discounts!) were boarded on to our sweet number 137, engrossed in a heartfelt conversation about our hopes, our dreams, and what color eye shadow matches best with black.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the London night bus, which ends my entry for the week!

London’s character of the week: This week, it’s a sign, the one that was in London Victoria bus station as I waited for a bus to Cardiff. It read, “When reversing, all rear-ends must be supervised.” Ain’t that the truth!

See you all in a couple of weeks for another classic- bit of a classic!