The week that changes London 倫敦七七紀念日

Dear everybody,

I've received several texts and emails enquiring about my safety regarding to the awful incident happened in London yesterday. I would like to thank everybody who was concerning about me and as I've said in the subject - I am perfectly fine but was extremely exhausted after all the troubles of trying to get home. I'm sorry that I couldn't give you guys an instant response since I was doing labs for the whole day - what made things worse is that I was doing clonning yesterday and that has to be done in a very isolated room with no internet access. What's more, my mobile was dying and I really need to save the battery to contact my friends who lives in central London later in the day.

Some of you probably have heard that I am undertaking a virology project in Surrey. I need to start my journey at 7.30am every morning to catch the train in Waterloo. Therefore in fact, I was outside London when the first explosion happened! Actually I know nothing about the incident at all till lunch when I got out of the lab. I remember receiving a text from one of my coursemate saying,
"R u all right? R u stuck in the station somewhere? Need any help? This is scary and I am freakin out a bit". Since I've no idea what the hell had happened in London I texted back,
"Have you texted to the wrong no.????? What r u talkin' about??".

But surely the incident did affect everybody who lives in London to some extents, especially the people who doesn't live in the central (i.e. me!). According to my flatmates who tried to get back in the afternoon when all the public transport had been suspended, the only option left was taxi (or just go around and ask people for a lift in the car). The problem is: There were nobody willing to drive to Stratford at all. Lots of people thought that the explosion might be related to the fact that we won the olympic bid and Stratford is where the olympic village gonna be. I mean - we have even got a huge olympic statue built in the centre of the town (But it's quite an ugly one I have to admitted), which is rather tempted to be destroyed in the terrorist's point of view...Come to think about it, I was really lucky that the bus service was resumed by the time I got back to London. Plus, my supervisor did several phone calls and search for me so I had had some ideas of what I should do if I am stuck in central London. Some of my friends who live in the central offered me to stay overnight in their place as well, which I really do appreciated. Eventually the staff from the London bus service told me that there were buses available to Startford so I think that I might as well give it a try instead of getting stuck in London doing nothing. Well he's right, but they were exteremely busy. It was raining, and I waited for 2 and a half hours. 8 buses turned up but I still couldn't get on to any of the bloody bus. Some of the buses were so saturated that they didn't even bother to stop at the station! Anyway, I successfully "squeezd" onto the 9th bus and managed to arrive home roughly around 9.30pm (my supervisor allowed me to leave early because of the incident and it was 4.30pm when I left!). I was so tired that I felt asleep in the middle of my meal till the next morning (and hence I did not response to any text or email at all yesterday!)
So that's the whole story but both Lonon and I are perfectly fine. The attack was absolutely inhuman but obviously London is back to action again in less than 24 hours time. The British public, NHS and the emergency serivce handled the situation brillantly (and the public transport was completely free in the evening!) so there's no need to worry at all . Thank you all for your concerns and I guess I should get back to work now.

Regards,
Sammy

這封是去年七月七日後寄出的一封電郵。
在英國住了這麼久, 搬到倫敦不夠一年就發生了這件事。其中被炸的Liverpool Street是我每天上學乘地鐵時必經的站; 另外其中一架被襲擊的巴士就在我大學後的Rusell Square爆炸。對於那時住在倫敦但每天都要乘火車到另一個郡做Project的我來說, 真的不知道是可幸還是不幸。可幸的是爆炸未發生時我已經跳了上火車離開了倫敦; 發生爆炸後倫敦交通全面癱瘓, 整天下午我在lab一邊手忙腳亂地做實驗一邊聽着電台廣播一邊着急, 大部分的倫敦人不知道何時才回得了家, 每半小時廣播的死傷人數不斷地增加, 手機不停地響但又不停地斷線....那天的倫敦真的混亂到不得了。
身邊很多的同學朋友都有被影響: 有同學看見巴士爆炸; 同系的學長被困在地鐵要跟着人羣沿着車軌走出來待救; 在我們大學進修的醫生成群結隊到了附近的爆炸地點幫忙....

我們不會忘記七月七號, 不會忘記當晚為我們提供免費股務的休班巴士司機及火車站員工, 不會忘記那些忙碌了整個夏天的警報人員, 不會忘記那幾天差不多通宵達旦為我們倫敦市民服務的消防員, NHS醫務人員, paramedics, 以及那些義務工作的紅十字會急救員。感謝你們!