ROSE FORSTER
Having so many breaks in between my classes can be a little disorientating, but it also allowed me to plan a trip to one of my favorite places in the world: London. I lived there from 2004-2006. My Australian Dad and American Mom met there, and now we have posters of London bus schedules in our living room. London carries a lot of sentimental value for me, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to revisit a place that defined a part of my life from when I was six to when I was nine years old.
London
My friend Tristan and I flew into London on a Thursday night, and somehow miraculously navigated to our Airbnb, despite the app giving us the wrong address. The first day we explored Camden markets. Amidst the knockoff designer brands and generic suits we found a few beautiful stalls of handmade items. As we were exploring, we were approached by MTV UK, who interviewed us for a series called “Asking for a Friend”. They asked us a lot of personal questions about relationships and sexuality in adorably thick accents.
On the second day we met a family friend of mine, Lily. She’s from Los Angeles but she’s studying in Manchester. We hadn’t seen each other in almost three years, but as soon as we were reunited it was as though no time had passed. Together we explored London, stopping for marzipan fruit, seeing the most beautiful autumn trees, and running through the streets while it was raining harder than I’ve ever experienced in my life. Everything was set up for Christmas, so it was all beautiful.
Liverpool
We also took the train to Liverpool, where we watched the Liverpool vs. Fulham soccer game. I’m well aware that I might be flayed by Brits for calling it “soccer”, but it’s less confusing when I’m writing for an American audience, so I refuse to apologize. Fulham is my family’s team. We lived near them when we lived in London, so we participated in a lot of camps and workshops. The club was always incredibly friendly and eager to get families involved in soccer, so watching this game had a lot of sentimental value for me. Tristan is German, so he’s obsessed with soccer, and told me it was his dream to go to a Liverpool game, so it worked out fairly well for both of us, I’d say.
Fulham is at the bottom of the Premier League and Liverpool is near the top, so I wasn’t expecting a miracle. We lost 2-0, which is actually a lot better than most of us expected!
All in all, it was a really fun weekend. It only took two hours to fly from Oslo to London, and so we made it back on Monday morning in time for Tristan to get to his 11am lecture (I don’t have class at all on Mondays, thankfully). Being in London was really nostalgic for me, but even so I had a lot of new experiences, and got to connect with someone I hadn’t seen in years.
Rose Forster studied abroad in Oslo, Norway in Fall 2018: http://eap.ucop.edu/OurPrograms/Norway/Pages/university-oslo.aspx?_ga=2.244262156.824257592.1560270235-1375738892.1559938340
