Strange adventures on the streets of London

The hysterical woman already caused quite a stir in the transit waiting room.

He attracted the attention of waiting passengers and airport workers with his wide movements and cheers.

She was wearing a dress that was so chic, epitomizing metropolitan elegance and just the right amount of snobbery. She ran from one store to another, showed her newly acquired duty-free goods to her husband, who turned around and sat awkwardly between two store visits, and held the contents of the branded shopping bag she had purchased almost tightly with her mercilessly long finger, as if she was afraid that someone would take it from her.

In one store, for example, he found a pair of crocodile leather shoes with stilettos of at least ten centimeters, which he absolutely had to buy, just because of the euphoric shock of the purchase.

She immediately had to try it on and looked at herself several times in the small mirror, from each side, until she decided to buy it.

She even bragged about it on the plane, showed it off, and gave it to her elderly husband for a smile - look, you can live like that.

Suddenly, one of the flight attendants asked what she could do to help.

"Can't you see I'm busy right now?" - the charming, beautiful woman, who was first surprised by the unexpected reaction she experienced, then decided to leave this puffed-up nouveau riche snobby harpy alone.

The snob had already taken his seat, peeked back from there, and watched how the package was arranged.

The harpy also ordered crystal water and champagne - using first class luxury services, of course.

The stewardess brought the mineral water; the snobbish woman emerged with almost condescending contempt: "That's all it would cost if someone paid millions!"

We still haven't started.

Due to the heavy air traffic, we will have to wait for take-off for the time being, the captain humming into the microphone asked for our patience.

Although with a significant delay, we finally took off.

The machine performed great. As if they hadn't just been put together under us.

We reached cruising altitude while some sort of food was being served. The lady blessed with beautiful, exotic features, who was just a few minutes later insulted to the point of blood by the snobbish nouveau riche harpy, kindly touched my shoulder with a smile.

"What can I bring to the Lord?" Do you order something? - his voice was so melodious and tinkling, like that of an angelic being, whose sole task on the planet called earth is to create peace, happiness and harmony in the world of people. But it would have been good now if you could have seen without words the pressure my shipwrecked soul is under.

"Um... thank you... no..." I stammered like a schoolboy.

As soon as I freed the meatloaf bun packed by my mother from the captivity of the packaging, it practically disintegrated into molecules, but it was still edible. I destroyed it in barely five minutes, because I hadn't eaten anything since dawn because of the excitement.

No one was waiting for me, so I will be left to myself, without help I will have to adjust to the tangled pattern, the London subway map. They used to say that everything is clear in London, you can't get lost. Yes, as long as it is not the first time a person sets foot on the island's land.

Three hours after the plane landed with me in London, I unbuckled my seat belt, stood up, looked back to see if I could catch something

I leaned over to the window and looked down. Like a field table. Future-cool cars, railway.

We landed. Some started clapping. Then others too. Soon, the greeting of the pilot who successfully landed the plane grew into a standing ovation.

In the narrow corridor of the plane, every passenger tried to get ahead by competing, even including the rude pushing and shoving. Being a polite person, of course I let everyone go first, and managed to exchange a conniving smile with the beautiful exotic woman, whom I found very sympathetic. "I wish I had a woman with such fantastic radiance as my girlfriend!" I wondered to myself.

If I understood correctly, the snobbish woman complained that her husband had not warned her in Pest that it was raining in London.

There was a huge scramble: who gets out of the plane first. It was as if we were escaping from a burning building.

Although the stake was only this: who would reach the next station first, the snaking line in front of the passport management desk, where there was the prospect of a terribly long wait.

A burly, 120-pound security guard took my passport.

He seemed to be the Lord of Life and Death here. Will he let you into the country, or will he deport you in a cage, like in a mysterious way to Europe? What mood are you in?

After every second page, he looked up from my documents, made sure that I was still standing in front of him, and that I had not escaped to England in the meantime.

I have the head of a UFO in those damn official ID pictures, except I'm not green. They finally let me into England. The smile boldly, like a wild apple theory seemed to fall apart almost immediately.

Everyone was sneezing and coughing on the subway. Young girls shivered in the ten degrees in slippers pulled on bare, limp feet, with deep cleavage. But also men and women dressed in warm sweaters and jackets they croaked and blew their noses in the same way. Mainly English films immediately started flashing angels: Four weddings and a funeral, actually love, Pride and Prejudice, and Simon Templar's Angel. And of course adaptations of most of Nick Hornby's novels.

After two transfers, I already felt like someone who was going around in circles and, of course, quite lost.

The metro line was not much different from the metros found in Budapest, perhaps on a scale of five it was much more modern and innovative. Nowhere is there a squeaky wheel or other unpleasant rust stains that would have significantly damaged the city's tourist logistics.

I landed. Perfectly identical English suburban houses, brick-lined, unplastered buildings.

Semi-detached houses, five- and ten-year-old twins. Behind each of them was a yard, four two-year-old children can play soccer in them, not very comfortably.

I found the apartment easily. it turned out. At least as shocking was the order and cleanliness that greeted him in his rented apartment.

It's like I came to the wrong address.

As soon as the door opened, I was greeted by the same pair of exotic eyes and a smiling expression, which was already noticeable to me on the plane.

"Oh, would that be you?" - the exotic flight attendant, who was now mostly dressed in sweats, had her dark brown hair tied up with rubber bands, and was still a bombshell, at least in my eyes, was shocked more by surprise than by anything else.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm looking for a librarian who told me to inquire about book publishers at this address." - I told him with great difficulty making all-encompassing eye contact. The exotic woman still clearly showed that she couldn't identify. Maybe he thought I was some kind of spoiled, pitiful loser who just wanted to get ahead of his friends or score good points.

"Then you, if I understood correctly... are you looking for a book publisher..." he asked her again to be safe. I nodded violently several times, like some confused, stupid child who only understood a lot of simple human words.

"If you think so, I'll be happy to help!" - he offers to help almost immediately, then he reaches for his little black coat and without saying a word takes his arm, and we walk out the door of the small apartment.

While we crossed numerous zebra crossings and quite a few intersections, while in the morning rush hour - I'm not exaggerating - cars pulled past us almost every second, and some red double-decker buses, the beautiful, exotic-featured woman started chirping and humming almost immediately, as if she were a big , he wants to share confidential secrets with me, and while I had to concentrate on what he could say with his somewhat aggressive, yet charming English accent, it didn't hurt if I tried to ask him in English, of course, what he knows about the current situation of book publishing in the archipelago? Well, as it turned out, he was fantastically sparkling and had a wide education, mainly mentioning the writers and poets of English literature and some authors who mainly publish in English, but when I tried to get to the original goals of my arrival, he seemed to back off a little, and in his stubbornness, he was immediately offended that I dared to ask the most important information that concerns me.

"I saw right away, even on the plane, that you could be a very philosophical person!" he remarked, looking deeply into my eyes.

"Yes?" I timidly asked back. - This is interesting…

�" You know, I have some girlfriends who have many Hungarian acquaintances and friends, and they say that you have very little money now, and your salary is also very little.

"Well, what's true is true!" Unfortunately, we are increasingly in that particular jam! - I stated with sincere sadness, because when I thought about it, my situation wasn't rosy back home either.

"...I know this is a private matter, but do you have a girlfriend?" �" he was so cute, doe-eyed in his half-heartedness at this moment, that I should have kissed him right now romantically, heroically, and of course in every conceivable way. I didn't, because I was distracted by the sight of the huge-looking Tower Bridge and the rushing Thames.

"You're in London for the first time, aren't you?" he asked openly.

"How did you know that?"

�" You can see in your every move that you are trying to find your own place and that you want changes, but you don't even know how to make them happen! �" he was so precise and keenly aware of the minor and major mental troubles and conflicts in my soul that I gave him an extra hundred points on the good-natured and friendship list. If an initial relationship can be called a friendship at all.

Soon we arrived at a cozy, cobbled street, which at first reminded me of a narrow long corridor, and where once only one person could fit comfortably, and I noticed that cars were also strictly restricted here.

I let the beautiful lady in front of me, who kindly even puked a couple of times in front of me, like a real upper-middle-class English lady.

On the roof of the small editorial building was decorated a kind of old logo decorated with initials. Some kind of "Publishing" building. As soon as we entered the fully glazed building, we were immediately greeted by two Marcona security guards, who asked us what we wanted, in the manner of important zealots. Who are we looking for?

The beautiful flight attendant was not embarrassed for a single minute, in fact! In an easy, relaxed, almost joking social style, he announced that the man next to him was an internationally known writer and poet, and that we had come for a meeting with one of the book editors, whose name, of course, fell out of our patchy memory.

The two guards looked at each other for a long time, scratching their heads, then one of them spoke on a mobile phone, and barely eight minutes later, a chubby figure with small glasses and a bald head stepped out of the large elevator, which later took us up to the offices above. I felt like I couldn't let go of my new girlfriend's hand for a single minute, and like a slightly scared, half-hearted, desperate chimpanzee cub, I tried to cling to her tender but determined fingers, and she looked at me confidentially with those huge brown eyes and reassured me that today she would be exceptional, and in everything it will help me. After all, what are good friends for?