On Thursday, September 16, two of my WNEC classmates and I decided to take the last train into London and stay overnight in order to see the Pope. Unfortunately, we misread the Pope’s itinerary on the website and ended up spending a horrible, freezing night in London (we were fairly under-dressed for the cold) only to find out that the Pope was not coming into town on Friday morning. He was showing up on Saturday morning.
Events of the night included my two friends calling all of their friends back home (I didn’t have a phone at the time), getting McDonald's, wandering around ALL NIGHT (in the 40 degree weather), getting a bit of sleep on the benches outside of the Supreme Court building (see picture), getting McDonald's again, getting coffee at sunrise, hanging around Westminster Abbey, and realizing that the Pope was, in fact, not going to be able to fit us into his very busy schedule. We went home disappointed, but the story ends happily as the three of us and three of our other friends all got up early on Saturday and went to see the Pope at Westminster Abbey.
This experience, as awful (and fairly hilarious) as it may have been, was an extreme lesson in culture shock for the three of us. We literally learned what it’s like to spend a night as three homeless people in London (I wouldn’t recommend it, by the way). The whole night was a terrific learning experience for me and, while I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be doing with my life, I’m fairly certain that I am not interested in living on the streets of London.
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