The Time I Literally almost ran into Orlando Bloom

Warning: Written very quickly, may contain grammar mistakes.  Please forgive me, Martha.

One of the perks of living in Kensington, a.k.a  the swanky part of London, is that swanky people live there, including my favorite elf and yours, Orlando B.  Throughout my summer in London my flat-mates, as we like to call them in the motherland, would bang open the front door and re-enact thier dramatic encounter with the hunky pirate.  One girl twitched with adrenaline as she described her impromptu football (a.k.a. soccer to the un-schooled yank) game in Hyde Park with the star.

Another group jumped up and down as they told our enraptured group how they skillfully blended in with a fruit stand as they watched Orly eat his lunch at an unsuspecting cafe.  I admit it.  I was jealous.  Second only to J.K. Rowling herself, Orlando was the person I wanted to see most during my adventure in the Great Britain.  After all, it happened to the other girls in my flat, why not me?  Dang it! Why not ME!!  The weeks went by, however, and my Orlando was no where to be seen.  I had given up.  It was a pipe dream.

As my time in London was quickly coming to an end, I began to plan my backpacking trip through the rest of Europe.  I was crazy excited to see the rest of the continent, but also weirdly nervous to leave the city that I had grown to feel safe in.  The continent was foreign in every way possible and as the day came that I had to jump on the Chunnel to Paris, I was so scared I wanted to barf.  I had even called my parents the night before and had a breakdown.  My father calmly reassured me as I bawled like a toddler who had been left at a gas station.

Nevertheless, I packed my bags with shaking hands and began the journey to the train station.  My breathing quickened, my heart rate spiked, my stomach was in knots.  What was I thinking?  I couldn't jettison myself to a place that was full of American hating, snail eating, nude-sun bathing europeans!  I was no longer aware that my feet were still placing themselves in front of one another.  I was going to hyperventilate any moment and pass out cold on the stone street.  Just as this very thing was about to occur I looked up as tried to focus my eyes on something other than the ground.  There was a friendly looking group of men walking towards me on the side walk.

Because I was watching them and not my friend, who was walking in front of me, I didn't see her make a sudden about-face.  In the process of hitting the breaks, I brushed the group of guys who were now passing on my left.  I looked into my friends face to see why she had stopped. We were running late, which didn't do anything for my already frayed nerves.  She looked like she was doing an impersonation of an anime character who'd just seen her crush enter the room.  She clenched her teeth and breathed "Turn around"

I turned around.

And there he was. The Orlando Bloom.

I could have touched him.  He looked like he had just stepped off the set of one of the 'Pirates' films with his perfect amount of facial hair and bewildered look.  Gosh, I loved him.  And was about to say so when my friend, whose brain was still performing basic functions yanked me back into reality.  We were going to miss the train if we didn't haul 'A' to the tube stop.  I started walking again, this time with a dumb smile on my face and not a care in the world.

I was cured!  And Orlando Bloom was my prescription.  The paralyzing fear of navigating the unknown was no longer griping me.  As Bilbo Baggins once said "I'm quite ready for another adventure."  I was Bilbo Baggins, ready to step off into the Grey Havens, or at least something as equally uncharted.

I like to think that the Heavens smiled on me that day.  And if I ever happen to literally almost run into Orlando Bloom again I would thank him for helping a very scared little girl have the nerve to take the biggest leap of her life.