I am sitting in a mound of detritus, trying to decide how many t-shirts I am going to allow myself, hoping that I am going to be able to fit books somewhere into this sad picture of packing me into a suitcase. When did I acquire so much stuff? Why is it so hard for me to pack without getting super, super distracted?
I have a feeling I am going to be packing early tomorrow morning, hoping that the frenzy of having to be done will make some of these decisions easier. But I also have to get rid of a futon bed and a black side table, and get to Oakland with this monolith of a suitcase, so that would constitute incredibly poor planning.
Blah. I hate packing. I'm looking forward to being done, though, because it means that I will have simplified, and isn't that what Thoreau wanted?
The last time I traveled with this suitcase, it was through the London underground, and I had way more strapped to my back and another bag on top of the suitcase. This is going to be way easier. That's going to have to be my mantra.
I am jet-setting again soon. I am going to Provo, Utah, to work at killing unwanted weeds in the hot sun with Ender. We are also, presumably, going to write music and hang out.
So I think it might be time to resurrect this space.
I'll miss San Francisco, and I think I'll devote my next post to that.
I realized I promised many things in my last post, promises I will not be able to keep. My computer is packed away, the computer cords are packed away in another place, my computer charger is packed in still one other place. So... Pictures will have to appear when I return to the states. Many apologies, darlings.
The last couple days at UEA and MCC and Norwich were lovely. We reminisced, we partied. We danced, we cooked. We took pictures and went out to dinner and out to breakfast. We turned flat one into a dance floor, flat four into a mess hall. I had a final cocktail at the Birdcage, my favorite pub. Joseph and I had a filling meal together at the Bell Hotel. I had planned to see a movie at Cinema City, a wonderful movie theater, but it fell through. We shopped. We had hot chocolate. I watched folks ice skate. I turned in my final assignments.
One final night at the UEA club was spent watching the Vengaboys, bumping cars on the dodge 'ems, getting twisted on the Twister. I had a vodka red bull, which happened to be just as bad idea as I imagined. Almost everyone from MCC went together, and I saw people from my courses and my clubs and we danced, and we shook, and we stomped. We sang along and clapped.
I kind of felt like it was the end of days, like we were dancing and eating and looking and hugging and crying as though this was it, the world was ending, goodbye earth, goodbye moon, goodbye stars. Of course it's a much nicer reality than that - as I was packing things haphazardly into my suitcase, saying goodbye to people and feeling a tightness in my stomach and in my throat, people were coming in to say goodbye, to gasp at my barren walls, to take final pictures... but it never felt final. At first I imagined it was because I didn't want to leave, didn't want to deal with the reality that everything was ending... but to be truthful, it's because I know I will see these people again. Patrick is easy, he's in San Diego. Jack and Joe have a year abroad, both of them near northern California. Alice loves traveling, I'm sure we could backpack someplace together. Hannah promised she'll teach me how she dances. Joseph is a SoCal kid at heart, he just has to come and visit me to realize how much he needs the sand and sun to live. All these lovely folks are not relegated to this period in my life. I am a good letter writer, a good facebook messager, a good email-er.
I am going to keep in touch.
But now I'm in Brighton with Joseph, spending our time walking through the shops but not buying anything, drinking mulled wine, being cooked for by his parents who are incredibly nice to me. It's making me very homesick. I want my parents. I want my home. I want mulled wine in my city... although I think I will have to make it somehow.
Home soon, and I doubt I will post before then. But good news... I'm going to keep this blog.
This is my last full day at Mary Chapman Court, and, in the larger sense, Norwich. I'm packing and going to some of my favorite places in the town, buying chocolate, trying to enjoy it.
But I'm really sad. I just said goodbye to Abbey, and Kaitlyn. More goodbyes to come.
I'm going to do a much more fulfilling post tomorrow, complete with pictures of me in a Santa beard, and me with a moustache. Lots of strange facial hair to look forward to.
I have not actually packed anything yet. It's all in the planning stages.
There's a song... hold on, I'll post it at the end of this post. I don't know why I told you to hold on... I guess this is what they call "live blogging". The blogosphere is totally lame. Do you realize how many cute cat blogs there are out there? Have you any clue?
What was I talking about?
Oh right, Barcelona.
I think Barcelona, as a city, singlehandedly caused the unraveling of what I call reality. Ever since my trip to this warm Spanish city, I have had trouble connecting the already disparate events of my life. Now I'm on ice floes, jumping from island to island, curious about where I'm going, where I came from and if the ice will hold.
If I look angry in that picture in Barcelona, I wasn't. Not at all. In fact, even though I think the unsewing of the quilted patches of my life is a direct result of the eight hours I spent getting to the country, I found Barcelona to be a gorgeous, if confusing, city.
First of all, I don't speak Spanish, which everyone in Barcelona speaks. I also don't speak (much) French, which was the principal language that Ariane, Caroline and Fabien spoke. So the first night there, we drank these lovely drinks to get the whole situation a bit more lubricated: It is called a Guarapita (I believe) and it is made from freshly squeezed passionfruit, rum, vodka, and another type of Spanish rum that I never think I heard properly. We drank those and we went from mildly talking and eating snails and calamari and squid and mussels to this:
Ha! See the good times? It was just odd, because they all spoke in French. So a lot of the time I spent in my head, describing the techno music mixing with the old architecture, and the seemingly endless amount of lovely squares hidden in the side streets there. The strange and interesting cultural difference of Barcelona to London is that London insists on planting grass and lovely plants and putting statues in the center, and Barcelona is content to put large slabs of concrete and let people skateboard. Also, there were many dog drinking fountains.
Here is the other interesting thing about Barcelona: Gaudi. The further segmenting of my reality can be blamed totally on the architecture of this man. Randomly strewn throughout the city are his works, like buildings amongst other buildings and park benches with his style of mosaic and then this monstrosity: The Segrada Familia. Absolutely terrifying and amazing, and it was started in 1884. And it will be under construction forever, I think. It's just... never wanting to be finished. It's better that way, actually, if you ask me, because it's this strange and beautiful work and it stands as a testament to this man who was basically a little bit or a lot insane. That first picture, where I look perturbed (I'm not, by the way) I was in the park that he designed, and it's similarly deranged and beautiful. Let me see if I have a picture to illustrate that.
See that? Bizarre.
The other thing about Barcelona is they put all of their food in lots of butter, or chocolate. This is something I can get behind. Here are churros and chocolate, which was fantastic and went together quite well, if you ask me.
And then here is the best paella I think I will ever have. It's certainly the best paella I have ever had in my young life. There were crayfish, and mussels, and every bite of saffron rice had tiny shrimp. I had two helpings. This was gotten from the restaurant below Fabien's place, and we sat around the table talking (they talked a bit more than I did) and drank delicious red wine and I just wondered if suddenly, like a movie, I would understand french implicitly and then I could join in. I also wondered about other things, and I came to the conclusion that Barcelona is the way it is because it is basically a very international city, a concentration of lost souls, trying to party away their problems, eating collage foods in a city of mad construction projects and chasing pleasure and fruit.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just... strange. My last night and day there I spent by myself because Ariane and Caroline got a plane for the day before. I don't really know how that happened, but Fabien and I went out to a couple different bars drinking pretty bad beer that night, and we tried to communicate why we both felt a little bit at a loss for words. Have you ever tried to communicate a loss for words? It doesn't work.
And on that Monday, I just sort of wandered around with my clothes on my back and tried to figure out how to best amuse myself before I spent another day on planes, trains and automobiles. I ate fruit and drank a mango coconut smoothie in an incredible market where people shouted fast Spanish about their various fresh wares. And I went to that park where I took the lizard picture and I just felt completely lost in the world, too small and too insignificant and I tried to find people who were speaking English and failed, so I just sat and looked out at the whole city and wished for companionship. I felt oddly free and happy though, at the same time. So it was a happy loneliness, which is bittersweet. Popsicles were appropriate though, so I bought one of those and a cheese sandwich and eventually made my way home, via a taxi, a train, a subway, an airport van, a plane, another three connecting metros, and one final train. And my feet. You can't forget your feet.
Quite the winding path.
Barcelona is basically just a product of collages - putting things together and hoping it all works. That's why the band below works - they are 26 people and they are called I'm From Barcelona even though they are from Sweden. After a couple of those Guarapitas, me and Fabien sang this song as we walked the avenues and side streets.
I'm glad Ariane invited me. I hope I get to see her one more time before I head back to the states.
Yesterday I wrote a short story and debuted it to laughter at Workshop, my favorite pub in the world I think. Good thing: the laughter was intended.
Today, Alice and I are going to Cambridge, to see these people sing.
I hope they aren't actually that large, that would be terrifying.
And I'm taking Pierre. Y'all only comment on entries about Pierre, even when I address you specifically. Here he is turning a lion into a statue with his mind.
If it were up to me, this whole entry would be in exclamation marks. I am so darn excited to see the Pipettes. It's not up to me though, exclamation points are boring to read over and over.
A sob story: Once, the Pipettes were going to play a free show in San Francisco. I left three hours beforehand, thinking I would get there two hours early and get a spot up front, because I tend to idolize and idealize bands. The traffic had different plans though. I got there four hours after I left, right as riotBecki said, "Thank you!" and they disappeared.
So this is all a grand experiment. There are many working parts to it, but the main hypothesis is that I can cut out an existence for myself in a foreign country that is not only livable but possibly fantastic - in other words, that I and (by slippery slope logic) most of humanity, can live just about anywhere and be happy.
So far, the hypothesis is true. Let's work backwards.
Last night was the penultimate night of Fresher's week - fresher's week is (as one can probably infer) the week where there are many mixers and icebreakers designed at getting the student population to know each other better. The official drink at this sort of event is red bull and vodka, and the official music usually consists of the usual hip hop and r&b, but everyone dances and sings along to Mr. Brightside by the Killers, Banquet by Bloc Party and I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor by the Arctic Monkeys.
I don't know why everyone drinks red bull and voda. Mixing caffeine with alcohol is bad for your heart.
Last night they added to the mix of dancing plus alcohol a bizarre trio of beatboxers that could get the crowd dancing but didn't seem to care to keep them dancing for longer than 30 seconds. Also included were Fairground rides and a hypnotist that I didn't watch. Patrick and I went with my flatmate Grace and her boyfriend, and an OC obsessed girl who goes by the name created by her initials, Cem.
Patrick was my roommate while I roomed in London, by the way. He is hilariously awkward and is enjoying this experience in a similar fashion that I am - big wide eyes and excitement at even the smallest things: "Is that a british library? Let's become members!"
It was the last in a long series of going out and dancing with people I only mildly know, and it was excellent. I think what really strikes me at all of these things is how I end up tirelessly yelling a conversation with someone that I have just met midway between the dancefloor or bar. It proves to me perhaps what I already knew: I love talking, and the people make a place.
The day that preceded night was a birthday celebration seaside trip to Great Yarmouth for Jonny. Fifteen of us went down and had fish and chips at the seaside and wasted a pound or two at the two pence machines - awful gambling games that you literally feed money into in hopes that it will push more money out. I got a keychain. We ate ice cream and made a sandcastle version of our halls of residence.
The night before, the flat two floors above us made curry and invited anyone who answered their door to come up and talk with one another. Abbey, who lives up there, is a kindred spirit. She likes Pushing Daisies and even though she lives in England, seems significantly impressed and excited by everything she comes across. These are the type of people I really strive to keep around, in case my interest lags for some unknown reason.
Okay.
Now a word on classes.
I had my three classes - one of which is in the museum donated to our school by Sainsbury's, which is a chain of supermarkets. Both creative writing classes - drama and prose - are a step backward for me. They are more like the intro and intermediate versions, respectively, that I took back at UCSC... therefore, their use is going to be the same use as everything else occuring here: meet more people! Talk to them! I am expected to turn in at the end of the semester a 2500 word story and a 20 minute play. These are things I can do.
My playwriting class is loads more witty than the one back at UCSC though. Our first assignment is to write a 3 page scene from a reimagining of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. I hope we get to read them aloud... british accents saying the words I wrote is going to make me smile.
Onward:
Zane Lowe is a dj that is treated like a god, and I saw him and danced with strangers to him. I went to an ISS mixer where I met people from 22 different countries, but ended up talking to a girl upstairs from Brussels for most of the evening. She told me she felt she was betraying her country because she didn't like beer. Every other conversation was the standard five questions - what's your name, where are you from, where are you living now, what are you studying, and then one free for all, usually "what's that you're drinking?"
The days here are filled with all sorts of things - Joseph and I play music for one another and eat sausages and "brown sauce" that we bought at the Tesco's up the way. I talk to Hannah from canada who is in my creative writing class about the relationship of poetry and fiction and why when they are melded, like in Jonathan Safran Foer, it is quite stunning. I have purchased a bike for myself which I am scared to ride because of my unfamiliarity with roundabouts, but I am still alive. We eat bacon rolls and pasta, we read our required reading. I am still exploring Norwich and meeting people - the phone that I bought here is filling with numbers of people that I am texting randomly to meet for a shared candy bar or a walk around the lake.
Societies I joined: Smoothie society Cocktail society Creative Writing society Archery Society Rowing society Ballroom dancing society
I need to not put such a long time between blog posts - things are happening every day that I can't even begin to articulate. I feel very close to my flatmates. They are lovely, interesting people who seem to like me back. I love going out at night with all of these fresh and different people and talking to them about... well... anything. Universality. Obama. French pop music. Guy Ritchie films. Facial hair. Cough syrup.
The hypothesis, revised from above, is that I can live anywhere and be happy. Seems to be true. I am quite happy. I miss the U.S.A. and walks with Anthony and time with Erin and coffee with Audrey and bothering Max and sometimes I even miss selling shoes. But my goodness I love England.
Things I learned in Paris: -a city can be seductive -macarons are delicious -the french language is more complex than I could have imagined -I acclimate well
I am typing like an idiot. Why oh why did I get used to french keyboards?
Things I learned today: -travel light -seriously, seriously. travel light.
I just took my eighty pounds or so of luggage up roughly 4523 flights of stairs. I am on the topmost floor of a building with no elevator. I have not sweated that much since running the mile in eighth grade.
But, I did have a latte with a nice korean woman. And I read a Douglas Coupland book on the train while the woman next to me read seventy pages of her children's novel. Is it wrong to feel superior because of reading speed?
I am so comfortable in my own language, like sinking into an easy chair. I keep talking to people just to show myself I still can, without stumbling. But I keep apologizing in french.
So I have been hanging out with my parents. We ate excellent food (bacon wrapped filet mignon, freshly grilled chicken), saw the Batman movie, and bought things for my trip. We talked and joked and I played them Vampire Weekend and Herman Dune. I made a salad and tried to get them to go to California Pizza Kitchen. They bought me a backpacking backpack and a huge suitcase that can do a 360.
I love them. I'll miss them.
I also saw Devon. and Chelsea. Old friends who will never seem old. New experiences all the time. I'm going to miss everyone here.
And guess what? I'm going to miss the good ol' USA.
