Chapter 3 - London - really and truly!

This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me! I thought I’d die last year when Mom said I was too young to go on the band trip, but then it was to Montreal and I’d already been there. Which makes this year even better. I take back all the bad thoughts I said about her.
Packing was impossibly hard. Mr. Holmsmith said we were only allowed to bring one suitcase and only what we absolutely need because the musical instruments count as our second piece of luggage, but it was sooooooo hard to get everything I absolutely needed inside only one suitcase. There’s my two pant suits and the navy peasant skirt Mom bought me. And then one clean blouse for each day and some sweaters and I simply couldn’t not bring the new dress I got last week at Eaton’s. It’s baby blue with big white lapels and a tie in the back, the perfect thing to wear for a play or concert. The shoes were the hardest. I have only three pair, and I’ll wear the chunkiest ones, but the others are a tight fit. Platforms are so much heavier than the old style of shoe. But I want to be as stylish as possible in London, England!

Our flight left at 4:35 in the morning. It’s a charter flight which I guess means it’s cheap. Too hard to sleep before so I just sat up and read my National Geographic and Seventeen magazines until it was time to go to the airport. Mom was so excited you’d think she was going. Fussing around my suitcase and asking me over and over if I’d remembered to bring this or that. She must have asked me if I had my passport a hundred and fifty times! She almost made me late, which almost made me cry, but then at the airport she started to cry herself. I was shocked. My mom never cries. She hugged me in that ‘grab and thump’ way she has and when she moved away I could see she had real tears in her eyes. Maybe it’s because she really wishes it was her going. I can’t imagine it is because she is sorry to see me go.

I had to sit next to Joel Wiggan who spent the flight either sleeping on my shoulder or punching me on the arm. I just know I’m going to have a huge bruise there. I guess he probably wishes Shari could have come, and me being the one who sits next to her in the french horn section was why he sat next to me on the plane, because he talks about her a lot. I can’t think of any other reason he’d sit next to me. I’m trying to act cool, ‘cause I kind of like him. He’s good looking and a bit tough. But of course I can’t let him or anyone else know how I feel. It wouldn’t be fair to Shari because she liked him first and besides, I’d just die of embarrassment if people knew and made fun of me. I wish I was like other girls who walk around holding hands with guys in public. I could never do that. Once, I even saw Shari kiss Joel right in the middle of C wing. I wish I had that kind of courage.

We’re staying in a big hotel called the Grosvenor Victoria. There are eight of us girls sharing one big room all together. It took forever to get sorted out. There was only one drawer for each person and two left over and the senior girls took those. Some girls were getting really nit-picky with the others. Especially the juniors. They’re worse than the seniors for bossing everyone else. And we sophomores get treated like little kids. Why is it we are equal when we do things like protest against nuclear testing on Amchitka Island but get treated just like little kids for everything else? It’s not fair. There was no way anyone’s stuff could fit inside only one drawer. It was a total mess. I left my suitcase open to pretend it was another drawer and that works ok as long as I remember where it is and don’t trip over it.

My cot bed sinks in the middle and I can feel the ground when I lay on it. But I don’t want to say anything in case someone makes a big deal about it or thinks I’m showing off. There’s a sink in the room. I’ve never seen a room with a sink in it before. The toilet is in a tiny room down the hall. That means we have to get completely dressed just to go to pee. The toilet has this big tank way up on the wall with a long cold, wet chain that you have to pull to flush it. The toilet paper is the worst though. It feels just like waxed paper and certainly doesn’t clean up anything; it just smears it around. Which is kind of disgusting but intriguing because it's so different to the toilet paper at home. I have saved two squares to include in the scrapbook I intend to make of this trip. Maybe I will save samples of all the different toilet papers I see in every English toilet I visit - that would be unique and might break the ice at cocktail parties in case I'm ever invited to one that allows me to bring a scrapbook. Which seems a bit of a long shot at the moment but I live in hope for the future.