Lesson 2: Ask for directions before you're lost [or: know exactly where you're going, and don't try to go there on Carnival day].

Wow. What a crazy day- crazy but good. Actually, it's been a crazy couple of days. My Spanish is getting much better- it's all coming back! Last night I had a real conversation with my Spanish roommates. Apparently, Paco lives and works in Andalusia, on the Mediterranean Sea where he and his male family members are olive oil farmers. We all sat around last night and ate cookies and walnuts that their father grew and talked about culture and accents. One interesting thing that I've noticed is that you can have two accents at one time- a British accent and a Pakistani accent, for example. I guess it never really occurred to me before, for some reason.
Today is my last day in London- I leave for Ghana at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. I have had an interesting time here, but it is much too expensive, and fairly impersonal. I have taken to wearing my iPod earbuds and sunglasses a lot. This makes me look like a Londoner, but then I get out my tour books (which have been indispensable, thank you Daddy and Lucy!) and give myself away. Oh well. It seems like half the people in London are tourists, just like me, so I don't care. It seems to be a very anonymous place
Yesterday during the day I went to a music festival, where I saw M.I.A., The Go! Team, Peter Bjorn & John, and if I had stayed longer I could have seen The Streets (a UK hip-hop act which is really quite excellent), but I was tired and wanted to go home. I finished reading 'All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes' by Maya Angelou and watched 'Flight of the Conchords' (a TV comedy show about a novelty band from New Zealand in New York) on my iPod.
Today I intended to go to the Rough Trade record shoppe, but unfortunately it is in Notting Hill. Usually this would be a good thing- a convenient location, interesting neighborhood, etc. Today, however, the Notting Hill Carnival was happening. This is a huge celebration of Caribbean culture. I figured that I would go and hope for the best- maybe the shoppe would be open and not incredibly crowded. Well, first I had to find the stupid thing, which I didn't actually accomplish (I found the street, but then it was too crowded to walk through and I couldn't find it again). So I bought a beer (at 1:00 in the afternoon) and walked around the Carnival, getting exhausted by the crowds and music and people blowing horns. There were rasta's and people in flags and people smoking pot and selling pot and police at every corner. The police were really there functioning as direction-givers. I asked one of them how to get to the nearest Underground station, and he directed me. Then I got on the train and then got off, tried to find the other station to board another train, couldn't find it, and then walked around Hammersmith for a while. That's where I am right now, in an Internet Cafe. I bought food, juice and socks at a grocery store.
I am debating whether I should go to the British Museum this afternoon, or just go back to my hostel. Probably I will go to the Museum because I don't want to appear a loser to the people at my hostel, staying in every night. But really they don't matter much to me, and the hostel owner insists on calling me pet names (baby, angel, dear, etc), and you all know how much I like that. I know that I'm going to get a lot of that in Ghana. Maybe I should start dressing in a bourka. It'd probably be too hot, though.