Thursday the first of December I went as always to West Central to drink a coffee with Gemma and Marta. But at one point I got a message from Vicki, she decided that after a hard week, I could get a day off. She could get two free to go ice skating at Summerset house in London. On a normal Thursday are my friends at work, so I sent a message in the au pair Whatsappgroup and in the Facebook group. But unfortunately nobody was free. So I decided to go alone to London I heard so many nice stories about Summerset house.

Because of the train strikes, there were no trains directly to London, so I had to go to Gatwick first. There they announced that the train to London would leave at platform 3. When I came there the sine said it was the train to Brighton, but on the train there was a sine that said that the train would go to Brighton. So I thought that it would be all right. When I wanted to go in the train, a boy asked me, if this was the train to London. I said: It should be. And I went into the train, the train was empty so I took a four sits. The boy came by and asked me: “Do you mind if I sit here?” I didn’t so we started talking. He told me he is from America but half Italian and that he studied over there for a while. He was on vacation her till Sunday.

After a while I thought, why don’t I ask him to go ice skating. I mean I got two tickets and together is always better then alone. He said yes so when the train was by his last station we took the underground to Summerset house. When we came there we needed to find Marc he was the man with the tickets.

After we found him we needed to wait in a long queue to store our bags and to get our ice skates. When we finally went on the ice came the challenge, how to ice skate. I had been ice skating before, but it is always hard! After a few rounds it went better, but I still had a bit of a struggle. Massimo on the other hand, said the he wasn’t good, but his ice skating was mush better then mine.

The ice skating area was super nice and decorated with lots of Christmas stuff. There was a big Christmas tree and lots of lovely lights. After a hour it was already time to leave the ice.

I knew with the trains like this, I would be too late for dinner anywise. So I asked Massimo what his plans where. He said that he would go to his hotel to drop his stuff and then have some dinner somewhere.

I thought why not, so we took to underground to Kings Cross and went to the hotel. It was fun to be with someone who never went to London before, I suddenly felt so English. The red busses surprised him, the fact that they drove on the other side of the road. Even that the steering wheels where on the other side of the car.

This all feels so super normal for me.

His hotel was super modern, there where nice quotes on the wall and other nice stuff.

In the time that I was waiting for him, I asked my host mum for a nice and cheep restaurant. She said to go to Patty and Bun. Near by Harry Potter.

We took an other metro, this time to Camden town. We came by a hip burger restaurant. I think it was our lucky day. When we came inside they said that there where non places left, so we leaved. As soon as we where outside, the waiter came outside and said that there was a table free.

After a burger was it time for me to go home. I wouldn’t take the risk to go later, because of the trains.

And yes, what I thought came true, when I came by Victoria there where everywhere people waiting all the trains where delayed.

I took the risk and went on a train to Gatwick. But unfortunately I needed to wait there 40-50 minutes in the freezing cold for the next train.

In the end I came home!

It was a nice and weird day (:

Lots of love,

Evelien