The new year had not yet arrived when I decided to take Fernanda, one of my housemates, for a walk around central London. I needed to buy some fancy dress costume or at least some fake fangs to play a stylised vampire at my club's new year party and it seemed to be a good time to go around with this girl who really needed to go out to wander and eat some roasted chestnuts at street and help me with the vampire accessories.
As far as I came to know, she had got into some trouble the night before in a pub when an English girl became really angry with her because my housemate was insistently staring at her. Staring at people you don't know is certainly impolite but it is no reason for that. They were arguing and almost fighting when friends of both came up to calm them down, but just after that, Fernanda run away from the pub weeping.
After walking a few minutes with any sense of where she was going, a guy in a car, completely strange to her, asked why she was crying and after that they spent the night together talking about existential issues and the meaning of life and similar matters. She came to know that the man was a psichologist, he tried to help my confused and homesick friend with some supportive talking and a lift home when the sun was to rise. In the next morning she as feeling still worse for getting inside a strange's car and opening her heart to him. Just too guilty to enjoy life.
I took the girl with me so going to central London with someone is funnier and it would be nice to be useful to someone who needs some attention and fun.
We took the "pick-pocket" bus, the one you don't need to touch your travel card to have access and is usually appreciated for subburban pick-pocket criminals. After half hour we were at Oxford Street and went for the souvenir shops, where I had seen some vampire stuff a couple of times before, however not for a cheap price!
Many of these shops had just British related souvenirs (including some funny Scotish flag stamped pants) but no vampire stuff and I was getting a bit worried as the party would be the next day and I needed to work the next day so I probably wouldn't have time enough to keep looking for it.
Fortunately we saw some rubber vampire teeth through a window and the problem was finally solved.... well, at least untill a certain point because these teeth were just horrible! I looked as a really uggly vampire who should find a dentist urgently! Fernanda loved it and laughed out of loud every time I tried the fake rubber teeth. Nice fun but I was £3.00 poorer and looking really stupid but not whithout hope: we still needed to find some make up to complete the vampire style of being: pale and with deep black eyes and of course some blood coming out of the sides of the mouth.
Going up at Oxford Street, Fernanda, now more relaxed and a bit hungry, went for some Belgium wafles, which I got a bite, before continuing. She told me then about last night and what happened. I said she had her lesson and shouldn't take more lifts with strangers, above all, it would help a lot if she stopped thinking about Brazil and her family and friends and everything she left because if you leave your home country for longer than a couple of months, you really need to get involved with the things of your new country and it includes making local friends and having a social life there. "Well, this is food for thought", she said.
Further towards Marble Arch, we saw at our left a beutiful street, still decorated for Christimas with giant angels made with little lights: this was South Molton Street. We didn't resist to take a look and right inside I could see a quite remarkable house: "Here lived the poet William Blake - 1757-1827" says the old board attached on the wall. She likes Blake's poetry so do I and that was enough to start talking about him: Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity - it is my favorite Blake's quotation and conveys his rebellious spirit. Imaging the poet walking around that place, going for an ale and coming back late at night to write made my night: finding the vampire stuff for the party wasn't anymore important.
Even though we had gone for the make up, I was already happy with our going out.
Back home Fernanda was smiling and talking about new year's evening and although I was not yet a decent vampire, I could feel poetry flowing in the heart and ready to enjoy the arriving of a new year here in my sweet old England.
