For once, I was having a hard time sitting still in class not from the thrill of some sort of dirty sexcapade of mine and Lynn's creation. I could hardly contain my excitement! I was headed to the airport first thing the next morning for a two week long summer course in England with my World History class. There were only eight of us going, including the super-nerd Dr. Gilson. He was only an inch or so taller than me at about 5'7" but was easily double if not triple my weight and sported an obvious toupee that was as awful as his sense of style in general. Besides him it was a decent group to travel with: there was a slightly less than equal split of girls and guys, in my favor. Jim, Steve, Eric, and Brian were all to share a room while Lindsay, Amy, and I took the other room.
Of the boys Steve was the cutest; he stood about 6'3" and was on the hockey team so he was in crazy good shape. Brian had a sexy nerd thing going for him and was always very quiet in class, but I could always count on him to sneak peeks my way when I felt like showing off during class. Jim was your classic funny guy and, like many of his kind, was a bit on the chunky side, but made up for any unattractiveness with his sharp sense of humor and hilarious stories of drunken debauchery. Eric seemed to be in constant competition with Jim for the spotlight, but was unaware that many in the group found him more annoying than funny and often tried to avoid him when possible. He wasn't horrible to be around, just a little overbearing and tried a little too hard at times for laughs and adoration. All in all the boys complimented each other well and it seemed like they would have no problem getting along in a room and would probably have a blast.
The girls on the other hand were in stark contrast to each other. Lindsay came from money and made everyone well aware that they were beneath her both socially and in economic status. She was a natural blonde but would follow whatever trend the Kardashians were currently pushing. She was always nice enough to my face, but if how she talked about others to me was any indication, I'm sure she had plenty to say about me behind my back. She had shot me disapproving looks on several occasions when I was being more flippant with my exhibitionism. Amy was a tight ball of stress in a tiny package. She was barely five feet tall and couldn't have weighed much more than 100 pounds. She had jet black hair and always pulled it back in a tight pony tail. Four out of five days a week she wore baggy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with some obscure band on the front, but despite her best efforts to hide her frame, it was obvious she was more than well-endowed in the chest region. She very seldom spoke during class and when she did it was to make a snarky remark and return to her phone as soon as humanly possible.
Our last class before the trip Dr. Gilson went over the general rules of behavior that he expected us to adhere to as well as a run through of the day's events, which had much more free time built in than I had expected. There was to be a nightly curfew of ten clock when everyone had to be in their rooms, but our daily museum or historic site visits were typically over by 5pm. All of the students instantly got on their phones or laptops to do research on how to fill the hours of 5:01 - 10pm. Dr. Gilson could sense that he had lost the group and said he would email an itinerary out to the group and reminded us we were to meet back in the room at 6am to be shuttled to the airport in the morning and gave us the remainder of our time to come together as a group to decide on some group outings.
As if on cue Amy put her headphones in, hood up, and melted into her seat as she pulled her phone out to find whatever goth hole she could spend her entire trip in. Lindsay checked her make up in her phone's camera setting and then excused herself to a corner when a facetime video call came in to go over whatever the newest catty gossip was. Looking around I saw Steve, Jim, and Eric were huddled together around Jim's laptop while Brian had gone up to Dr. Gilson's desk and was asking about some sites he thought would be on the list of excursions we would be making that must have been overlooked. I decided my best, and honestly only, option was to join the group of boys to find something of interest.
As I got near, I saw Eric jab Jim in the ribs and Jim flinched and looked up at me then shot a look at Eric.
"What the hell dude, it's just Jade," he snapped as he turned his screen towards me showing a list that read -20 best pubs in London-. "Besides dude, drinking age is like ten over there".
"Wow, knowing you guys I was expecting a list of nude beaches to visit," I joked and struck my best pin-up girl pose.
Eric spun his laptop back to him and feverishly typed as Jim looked at his feet and Steve shook his head at both of them and rolled his eyes as he smirked at me. After some back and forth between the four of us we eventually found several cool looking spots to check out we eventually devolved into just sitting around and talking about how psyched we were to get away from campus and see something new. Lindsay overheard and made a comment about summering in Greece growing up and how much fun they had on their yacht. Everyone else (minus Amy who was still in her own world) sang in unison that this would be their first trip out of the country.
Dr. Gilson reminded us all, "Please make sure you all have your passports. Also, Jim, please remember to-"
"I know Dr. G, no saying bomb in the airport".
"Just answer exactly what they ask and no jokes at all please. I don't want to have to explain why you ended up on the Do Not Fly list to your parents," he joked. "Okay, well if there isn't anything else...when do we meet here in the morning?" he asked putting his hand to his ear.
"6am," shouted the chorus (other than Jim of course who yelled 10 over everyone).
Dr. Gilson waived his hand toward the door and started to pack up his things. Lindsay spun on her heel and hopped toward the door. Amy slumped out of her chair and shuffled after her. Brain once again swam against the current and went back up to Dr. Gilson to further discuss the trip as the rest of us gathered our belongings and went our separate ways.
My suitcase was laid out on my bed and a heap of clothes sat beside it on the bed. Lynn was sitting cross legged on her bed facing me as I held up clothes to which she would nod or shake her head to. Typically, I agreed and would toss them either into my suitcase or into a separate pile on the other end of my bed. So far my suitcase was filled with four sun dresses, two pleated skirts, three pairs of skimpy shorts, three spaghetti strap tank tops (two of which were crop top cuts), and one halter top shirt with a plunging v-neck that always turned heads around campus. I threw my favorite tiny bikini in with my towel and realized I was already fairly cramped for space in my bag. I grabbed a fistful of socks and thongs from my drawer and tossed them on top of everything with the only three bras I owned, though I never found much use for them anyway. I took a look at my bag and saw there was no way it was going to close with all of that in there. I pulled it on to the floor and sat on top of it while trying to zip the bag, but it wouldn't budge.
"Crap," I finally sighed and put my bag back onto my bed, utterly defeated. "Let's go back through and see what I can do without".
Lynn got up from her bed and crossed over to me, "didn't you say your hotel had a laundry room anyway".
"Well, yeah, but I was hoping I wouldn't need to do any laundry. It's only two weeks".
