london love

ahhhh...i am so rejuvenated.
Shabnam (from the famous Spain road trip adventure) just happens to be in London right now so when I arrived I found an email inviting me to come and hang out and stay at her cousin's place. just fabulous, after 6 weeks or so of wandering around it was so great to see someone I know and eat a delicious and incredibly well presented home cooked meal with warm and wonderful and welcoming people. thanks nanaz and eric and raphaelle!
plus Shabby and I have been going through some of the same things lately and it was really good to be able to talk to someone I can relate to on this. I feel much better now.
so we hung out for a couple of days and just wandered the city, slept late, had long discussions over beers in pubs, and then I got on a train and came out to Stowmarket to spend the day with Jane and her family. Also wonderful and warm and welcoming (her dad printed me out a map of Iceland!).
There are some strange things swirling around like how I was magically presented with 10 pounds by an Underground ticket machine (I tried to yell for the guy whose change it was to come back but he didn't hear so I just gave it to an attendant), and then how I missed my train today and had to sneak onto the next train which technically I wasn't allowed to be on with my 'cheap' ticket, but the ticket guy didn't even say a word, like how I accidentally came away from the chocolate shop with two bonus bags of chocolates instead of one...

Iceland is going to be expensive and the conversion from ISK to $ is going to be a tough one to do in my head (63 to 1) so I guess what it means is that I should just not bother with conversions at all.

Tomorrow Jane will drive me to the airport and then I'm off to (one of) the ancestral homeland. Jessica whom I met in Inverness might be renting a car so our tentative plan is to drive around the country.