ePhrog

One of the really interesting things about travel is how well it condenses your life down to what’s important to you. What clothes you find the most comfortable and durable, what shoes support your feet on the old cobblestones, smooth concrete, bumpy warning strips, slip the least on slick stone and keep your feet the driest when you decide that the puddle over there needs to be stomped in with both feet. What’s most important to you in the morning when you actually have a reason to get up. What things you actually want to see, and what things you’d rather not waste your time or money on. College kind of does the same thing for you. Limited funds and limited time means you value everything just a little bit more. The hours you spend talking with your friends over (several) cups of tea is what you’re going to remember. The sweet little cafe with the most amazing creme brulee you’ve ever had paired with Turkish coffee that was surely from the gods. Finding that cafe is the adventure, the food the reward to savor, the company….essential.

There’s a new trend out there called foodies. People who’s hobby is food. Every genuine foodie has one universal thing in common, the realize the importance of good food, and good people to feed the body and soul. They love feeding their people. With all the electronic complications this era offers us, with all the constant demands of daily life and body maintenance, with how distant we’re supposed to keep ourselves in public, I think the “foodie” movement is an inevitability. Whether we grew up with family dinners or not, we’re beginning to realize the nourishment that is getting together over homemade food with people important to us extends beyond satiation. There is a simplicity in food preparation, in mise en place, the sounds of a kitchen in preparation, the pure colors of fresh food, the amazing taste and near constant conversation (have to pause to stuff our faces) that gives us peace. Here is something we know, here is something we can control, here is where we can grow, and experiment while paying due respect from where we came from. Here is life, condensed.

Europe, to me, is a simpler place. It could be because my life is simpler when I’m there, or merely the fact that I take more time to just stop, and see what it is that’s really around me. Whether it’s the oldest cultivated garden in England or merely the way the light shines at a particular tube station, there is always something around you that demands your attention, your recognition of its simple beauty.

I think that all too often, we forget where we came from in this country. We have this tendency to doggedly move forward, always forward. To knock it down and build again, better this time, faster, cheaper, bigger, bolder, more. The engine of progress is quite something to behold to be certain, but where is our past? Where is our reverence? We are who we are because of where we came from. Sadly, where we come from in this society tends to be knocked down and bulldozed. We have kids looking for reason in their lives everywhere. It’s hardly unique to the States, but, when was the last time you went somewhere that had been standing for longer than all the relatives you can name lived? When was the last time you touched something that took generations to build?

Traveling isn’t about seeing places you haven’t seen before, it’s about understanding that you’re human. It’s about understanding what it means to be human. To dream, to put your soul into your work, to sit with the people you would move mountains for, cross oceans for, to eat food that is someone’s calling, rather than minimum wage job, to nourish yourself and those around you with sites, sounds and smells of centuries, of people, of life.

One of the most truly amazing things about traveling, is that there is no possible way you can avoid the fact that you are truly part of something so very much bigger than yourself. As a child London seemed otherworldly to me, ethereal. Reading about quid and rows in my childhood books made them all seem so very similar and so very different. Standing in the middle of Paddington, I can assure you, the Brits are very much like us, and so very unequivocally different. Commonality has nothing to do with language, however. Hell, I’m probably far more Belgian than I am British.

Humans are a beautiful and savage creature, capable of the most astounding things, and the most depraved acts. What makes them depraved is that we are all aware of how wrong they are, but some of us still do them anyways. What makes the others the most astounding is that we have no idea we’re even capable of them, but we do them anyways.

There is no possible way, that a Roman Empire stonemason in the 1st century had any idea that the wall he was creating with everyone else “drafted” to this project would stand 20 centuries later. I cannot even grasp that this wall was someone’s gigantic pain in the ass job over 2,000 years ago. Even when I rest my fingers upon it’s cold surface, I still cannot comprehend its solidity; its link to the past. A roman wall? From the Romans? The time of Caesar? Surely, that’s only in history books. Our time on this earth is so fleeting in comparison to what we could ostensibly leave behind. Hell, it’s fleeting in comparison to all of the real things we leave behind; our children, our grandchildren, our teachings. I think, traveling, and being constantly reminded of the fact that we all hail from some poor shlub who built this gigantic wall/cathedral/palace does a person a lot of good.

We’re all part of something so much larger than ourselves, and I believe it’s our duty to continue that movement forward. We can do that by remembering, by stopping and remembering what it is that we live for, our friends, our family, and the time we spend with them. That our humanity is what we live for.

===========================

My travels were great, I, of course, got sick, because I have the immune system equivalent of swiss cheese. Did all the obnoxiously touristy things in London: St. Paul’s, Tate Modern, Westminster, Covent Garden, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, heck, even saw a play (Dealer’s Choice). Found lovely hole in the wall places that I’ll drool over or that have ruined a particular dish for me (you try having any old creme brulee after this: it’s not going to happen). Belgium shall have to be returned to so that I can actually get my freaking beer (who closes monasteries until I leave the country - that was planned I’d wager!). Sven is just one of those good people and I feel honored to have actually met him and help eat all of his food and drink a good chunk of his beer. Everyone from Ars, you were fantastic and I’m so glad that none of you made a neutral situation horrible (you all made it great instead). Dutch is the most hilarious sounding language I have ever heard, simply because it sends my brain into a twitching fit (I swear that was just English…now it sounds like the Swedish chef…back to English). I believe my traveling addiction was fed…for about 6 months, then I’ll get the itch once again.

Oh, and don’t ever waste your freaking time or money and go to Tower Bridge.

Tower of London and St. Paul’s I cannot say enough awesome things about: great, fantastic, excellent tours, beautiful architecture, waste days there and you won’t live to regret it. Westminster see, just because you should, it’s astonishing in its own regard. Tate Modern…it’s an modern art museum, go because it’ll at the very least make you scratch your head at some people’s idea of “art”.

Base2Stay was an actually decent hotel. I have no ill words for them (I want a bigger bed, not by a window, but “eh”).

Brussels and Ghent are gorgeous cities that need more time exploring their nooks and crannies. Limonada in Ghent is a fantastic cocktail bar that I insist you find (yes, it’s down a dark alley, no you won’t die). I’ll do more appropriately touristy things on my return visit(s?). Oh, and curry ketchup is a thing of the gods. I’m going to a restaurant supply store to buy my own squeeze bottles to try and replicate this. I simply must have more of it (mmmmfrite).
Oh, and much love to Sven <3. I want to see pictures of the house when it’s finished!

I danced on Thomas Hardy and Dickens’ grave today. What have you been doing?

No real internet in the room (TV Internet is not Internet) so updates are going to be slower going.

Still recovering from that damn cold, but I’m functioning.

From Diego’s iPhone in Covent Garden.

what? It’s just one of the Picadilly line’s termini.

I know what you’re thinking, but it’s nothing compared to “Brown Willy.” Ya buncha pervs.

Tube Pictures!

One of my favorite stop, Notting Hill Gate, and 2 of the paintings at Gloucester Road when I was there.

ok, let’s see
we left off with…the failure to get to Ireland

Thursday
Ah yes, slept in, again. Headed over to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and were running all kinds of late, again. Man, what honest to god bums we were. We found this nifty little make your own sandwich shop for food and scarfed it down while walking to the Cathedral. I got stopped by some Italian tourists asking me if I knew where some place was. I apologized profusely, because I had no freaking clue. Mat had wandered off some place, so I couldn’t redirect to someone who actually lived on the same continent they were inquiring after.
We managed to get in after the guided tours, so we wandered around ourselves. The choir was in for most of our visit, which absolutely fit. St. Paul’s was simply fantastic. We climbed up to the whispering chamber, and mucked about up there for a bit and had to leave as they were closing down the upper chambers, so we headed down to the catacombs/cafe.

Finally had a cup of English Breakfast while in England, and dear god, I missed my tea. Also tried some crazy elderflower extract drink, not my thing, and CHEESECAKE, numnums.

Afterwards we headed out and wandered around a bit. No other tourist attractions were really open, so we did the wander down the street, this place looks interesting, pop in, leave thing. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so frugal, I’d have a lot of awesome smelling things.

We made our way over to Leicester Square, I once again was feeling ill, so we (Mat) tracked down some mint chocolate chip ice cream and we had “ribs” at Garfunkel’s. I say “ribs” because they were far from ribs, but still, obviously, meat. Afterwards we saw Cars in a gigantic sprawling theatre with no stadium seating, o_O. It was a cute movie :) Headed home, and I developed a lovely fever, and slept curled up in the comforter (it wasn’t cool that night).

Friday
Oh joy of joys, I contracted my Mysterious Throat Illness in which my tonsils/adenoids swell up so much I can’t swallow! I’m afraid of the prospect of actually taking the antibiotics I had the foresight to bring because what if I run out while I’m still here, and it isn’t gone? Friday was to be dinner with Mat’s parents and laundry. We got a slow start because I wasn’t moving all that fast, and didn’t get to their house until later.

I called my parents from Wimbledon tube station at about 13:30, 7:30, their time, and lamented to Mom. She told me, in her loving motherly way, that I sounded like shit and to take the meds. They’d last for 10 days, and by that time I’d be home. Dad confirmed her stance. Got to Mat’s parents’ house, had some fritata, took the antibiotics, apologized for feeling ill, sorted the laundry and proceeded up to Mat’s office to sleep for about 3 hours while he tried to fix his laptop’s optical drive. Great impression, ey? Hi, I’m your son’s girlfriend, let me do my laundry and sleep in your house.

Afterwards had dinner with them, and ate so freaking little because I couldn’t swallow. :( I felt so rude, the food was great, but the hell if I could swallow it. In any case, bummed around their house watching TV (British TV is…different, it’s extremely hard to explain how but it is. More…cheerful, it seems). We had to leave some of our clothes there as they weren’t dry yet and headed back to the hotel for the night.

Saturday!
omg, still sick. Throat is killing me, so I pop the Advil and antibiotic, take about an hour to manage a piece of freaking toast and a hard boiled egg from the hotel breakfast. Shower and head back to Mat’s parents’ place (that’s actually getting easier to type) to get our laundry. We’re running late because I got up, ate, showered and needed a freaking nap. Slept until 11 or so, and then headed over. We grabbed our laundry, Mat took care of some family stuffs, and we headed back out. (Do you have any concept of how much it sucks to walk 20 minutes with a week’s worth of laundry slung over your back when you’re sick? I’m pretty sure we only did this Friday, but let me clarify….it sucks, don’t do it, take a freaking cab or your doting boyfriend will be sick of becoming your pack mule.)

Now, there was an ars meet that we had set up, which we were now three hours late for, going on in the other freaking side of London. >_<. Meet thread here. We managed to meet Firesuite and TheAdmiral on our way to the place as they were leaving it to go see The Blue Man Group, fortunately, we managed to meet up with them again in Covent Garden. Kobin, PeterB, Hari, mat and I went to the wagamama’s there after we wander around looking for a bar. I was far from “bar” mood, I wanted a stinking nap and some food.

I’ll spare you details of PeterB, and other lewd things, but needless to say there was a half-naked street performer (pics in thread), and PeterB’s an interesting character.

Sunday
Leave for Paris, zomg. I’m still not feeling better, fever’s gone, but throat is still fantastically sore. Head to Waterloo for the Eurostar after having another slow start because it takes me hours to eat anything of any real substance. My bag got searched on the way in O_o. Eh, it was only one of our freaking 5, so that’s not that bad. I plopped myself down and waiting for boarding time, Mat wandered about getting me xboxstronglol pain meds because my throat was still miserable and a paper, because he’s male. We finally boarded and sat down in our loverly seats for the ride to Paris. I have to say, rail is the fucking way to travel, hands down. You get to get up and wander around, that alone pwns, but there’s no turbulence, nothing. We watched from the dining car until we head under the water. I sat to a rather nice French girl, thank goodness she spoke English :p. After a stop, the girl left, and mat got to sit next to me for the remainder of the trip.

We got to Gare Du Nord and realized that we only had a vague recollection of how to get to our hotel, and we were starving. There was no freaking wireless in the station and I wandered around the entire upper floor to find an ATM and there was one about 3 freaking feet from where we camped our bags. For the record! My hunch on how to get to place was accurate.

We flagged a taxi, pointed them to the hotel and “enjoyed” the ride. Seriously, driving in Paris is insane. That’s all I have to say about that experience. Got to the hotel, enjoyed the miscommunication with the cabbie (don’t try and have 2 people explaining something to you in your native tongue, a foreign tongue and not have the native speaker have only half a clue). I read the lovely little notice on the windows on the way over that any bag over 3 was a few euros more, and that’s what that was about, but damned if that didn’t take a lot to communicate.

Got to the hotel, were underwhelmed by the hotel. No wireless signal, nothing, and I swear, someone had been killed there. Rank of mildew, busted window sill, sink falling away from the wall, rust everywhere and the pervading smell of piss from the toilet. We were starving and tired and sick of the place already, so we headed across the street to grab McDonald’s (it really does taste the same) and hopefully find some freaking wireless so I could check my finances and we could find a new hotel (yes, it was that bad, pics coming shortly). Moderate success on the food/wireless front. It was rather obvious that we were not in a good part of the city, but, people were friendly with my horribly mangled French when I ordered.

Went back to the hotel, watched Futurama and slept.

Monday
Slept, bums! Utter bums! To be fair, I still wasn’t feeling great. Got sick of creepy french TV so we went out in search of wireless to find hotels/check finances. We were only successful in the last bit. Tried “ribs”…I’m not sure what we ate, but it sure as shit was not ribs. Had McDonald’s again! I believe this was the night we also got treated to a lovely, noisy, hump session by someone else in the hotel.

Tuesday
Explored our surroundings a bit more, headed back to Gare du Nord for food, found a hotel, booked said hotel, mooched wireless shamelessly from the McDonald’s by buying mat a milkshake ;) Headed back to the original hotel, packed up, left. The front desk dude was….creepy to say the least, and just kept telling us that he couldn’t refund my money. Whatever, for $372 I would pay to leave this place, which, I did. We headed over to our shiny new hotel (I don’t recommend Libertel Saint Martin, I do recommended Escapade Exelmans). We got there and were told there was no reservation in our name o_O! Fortunately, the only room they had open was the exact room we reserved, so ha!

Took pictures of our pretty pretty new place, with our shiny marble bathroom (why the heck were there no shower curtain/doors, washcloths and the toilet was always in a separate room?) and went to bed.

Wednesday
Notre Dame! I was super psyched. I was also super disappointed. Notre Dame was absolutely gorgeous, but it’s had its soul sucked out by all the irreverent tourists. Went through, left, went to a cafe across the street and had a disgustingly French lunch (cheese, wine, kir, and bread). I went back with the newly found change to get the sweet little informational packets they had, and on my way back to the cafe, discovered/re-remembered that there was the FREAKING PIETA there. So, we headed back, of course. Took some pics, and then headed off to the Eiffel tower.

Took a roundabout way to the Eiffel tower, walked most of the way, in fact, because hey, we could see it, and that was more reliable that the Metro was being. Most of the stops to get there were closed, which was annoying to say the least.
Got there, and it started to rain, glorious. The drizzle let up and we got to the first tier, took tons of pictures, acted like your consummate tourist and headed back down.

We got lost on our way back to the Metro, and ran into another English speaking couple, which was humorous because Mat approached them in French. “No, sorry, we don’t speak French.” It was hilarious, because it took us both a second to process that, “hey! That was English! I’m fluent in that!” I swear, they were American too. The navigated us back to the Metro, and we finally got back to our hotel before the trains stopped running.

Thursday
Instead of me feeling like utter crap, it was Mat’s turn to get fantastically ill for no discernible cause. We got most of the way to the Louvre, and decided it’d be best to head back. Bummed around the hotel for the remainder of the day.

Friday
Ars meet and the Louvre, AHOY! Got up early-ish, dashed off to the Louvre, and stopped at a charming little bistro on the way for breakfast. Finally got into the Louvre, after wandering around the courtyards for a bit. Saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus di Milo and a bunch of other random art stuffs. The Mona Lisa was every bit as underwhelming in person as it is in print. I’m sorry, I respect it for its groundbreaking respects in painting, but as an actual piece, there’s no emotional connection, it’s just some chick. The Louvre was also underwhelming, too many tourists, not enough courtesy :\. Stopped at the gift shop and then headed off to the ars meet.

The place where the ars meet was supposed to be was closed, once we finally found it. Got in contact with one of the guys that was supposed to meet us there, a native Parisian, who directed us to a place across the street. OMFG the best food since…I don’t know when. It was amazing. Sat, ate, talked, and drank. Wonderful.

Reboot, the guy we met, suggested other places we could go. He even offered to take us to one of them. I have to say thank you to this man again, he showed us the best parts of Paris on my visit; totally made the trip worthwhile. He took us to a famous cemetery, that I freaking loved, where people from Proust to Jim Morrison were buried. I have so many freaking pictures, it was awesome.

Afterwards, he directed us to a few other places we could try, so we headed to a park somewhat on the way to the Arc de Triomphe. We mucked about the park and headed out to find food. Had dinner in a nice little cafe of the beaten path…I ate like a freaking pig in Paris, I have to tell you. Profiteroles, creme brulee, creme de caramel, roast chicken, penne in saffron sauce, jesus the food was good. They also have a huge thing for french fries. I don’t get it. Also, if you ever have the occasion, go to this awesome cafe just outside of Gare du Nord, I believe it’s just called Cafe Gare du Nord, but the service, the food, the atmosphere…it rocks, I miss that place.

Eventually, we found our way to the Arc de Triomphe, took some lovely pictures, wondered at all the crazy bicyclists, bought some souvenirs for the awesome people at home, and headed back.

Saturday
Time to leave. Packed up, headed back to Gare du Nord for once last meal at the cafe (”Heading back home?” “Yeah, sad to say.” “Well, have a safe trip.” I told you these people rocked), and then off to the Eurostar. Took a nap sitting across from mat until a crazy, smelly (according to mat) British family boarded, and claimed their seats (and his) as their own.

Again, traveling by rail pwns. Slept/read/wrote all the way back. Got back to London and checked the status of my flight. What with the whole terrorist thing going on and all, it was still up in the air if I’d even be able to leave. I was told “probably” and to check again tomorrow. Yay.
I have to say, it was a relief to get back into London. The only time in my entire life I was ever homesick was in Paris. The language barrier really isolates you, even if you get nothing but the nicest people to interact with.

Headed back to the Troy Hotel (this hotel gets a solid “meh” from me), checked in, were bums again, and then headed back to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen so I could actually enjoy and remember it this time. Thank god I was finally healthy. Stopped at a Tesco’s on the way back and stocked up on last minute “I love London” food, proceeded to stuff our faces with bad-for-you-food and watch TV.

Sunday
Headed over to Mat’s parents’ place because they were also leaving from Heathrow that same day to go to Italy, so we got a ride. Rode to Heathrow, got mat past security sneakily >_> <_< “What’s your flight?” “Chicago.” “OK” and waited around for a bit until I had to go through security. It was thunder storming fantastically, and I got patted down twice, WOOHOO. Our flight crew was late, and security stunk, and oh, yeah, the freaking terminal leaked o_O. That gives you a boost of confidence.

Headed home, and note: I don’t fly well, apparently, on any trip over 4 hours in length.

Be grateful, I’ve spared you all the mushy details of Mat and I for the most part :p
Honestly, Paris was nice to visit, and I’d like to go back to see the catacombs, but….never could live there. It just didn’t ever click. London on the other hand…I miss. I freaking loved London. Simply awesome.

And I’m freaking starving and the Simpsons are on, so BAIS

ok, this is going to be a bit of a long post considering it’s been almost a week’s worth of travel and I haven’t said shit. I know I know, here’s a post now shut up.

Friday
oh god. Got up at 4.30 am Central. Got to the O’Hare airport, wrong terminal (haha Dad, I was actually right) made it to my 9:10 am flight by 9:05 am. It was, of course, delayed by about 30 minutes. It is important to note that I was battling a fantastic headcold at this point. Stuffed chock full of decogestants and cold medicines/remedies. Now, we took off and here’s an intersting thing of note: you know how your ears pop to change in pressure? Well, guess what, if you have sinus pressure there’s no way to make THOSE pop. So I got a fantastic fucking sinus headache, the worst ever, beyond description. Excrutiating comes to mind. That finally passed, and was replaced with fantastic nausea. mmm suffice it to say the rest of the 7.5 hour flight was spent either in the bathroom puking, trying not to puke, in excrutiating sinus pain or asleep. I do not recommend it.

We landed in Heathrow airport at about 11:00 pm local time. You have to fill out an arrival card giving your basic info and hand it into Customs. I put a post code down for my location while in London and the lady, obviously British, looks at me and asks, “What’s this?” My sick and altitude alded mind was intelligent enough to figure out that, hey, wouldn’t be wise to have a smartass remark and simply mumbled, “My address.” She demanded the house number and street name, which I supplied to the best of my knowledge (did I mention that I was a little out of it?) and she, after being told Foo Terrace demanded “Street or Road?” (It’s a fucking TERRACE you twat) “Road, I think.”. Odd.

Mat met me after baggage claim and promptly got us a bit lost (where’s the express again?). The freaking booking for my Heathrow express ticket couldn’t be found at all, so I got to purchase a ticket there. (Hooray, something I get to contest.) I wasn’t overly…alive at all. Poor Mat thought I hated him. Got a taxi to the hotel from Paddington, unpacked a little, called home and promptly crawled into bed to try to sleep like the dead.

Saturday
Wholly uneventful day, spent probably 90% of it in bed, resting, sleeping, trying not to feel like utter shit with varying success. We went to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen about 2 blocks away because it was the only thing that sounded slightly good and managed to actually keep everything down. There would be pics but my camera battery was dead…hooray. Gigantic burgers, that were fantastic. Perhaps I shall return this week.

Sunday
another lazy day. We went back to Paddington station and bought lots of fresh fruit, and other such lovely foodstuffs for the minifridge in the hotel. More lazing about, still not feeling up to par and all that. That evening was a broadcast of the Sigur Rós homecoming concert in Reyjavík at the National Film Theatre along with a few of their and their accompanists’ videos. It was at 8:30 p.m. and we got out at about 1:30. Given that the tube stops running at around 12:00 a.m. and we were on the south side of the river, and I, once again was miserable, we loafed about eating ice cream (one of the few things my tummy would agree with) until about 2:00 a.m. at which point we finally got a cab back to the hotel. Crashed again.

Monday
Bums again in the morning :D after we got up (finally) for the continental breakfast supplied by the hotel. Took a nice nap, then Soho and a confused waitress who had no clue what the hell I meant when I asked for “eggs over easy”. Afterwards, went to down to Surrey to meet Mat’s family/friends. Went to Wagamama’s (mmmMMM) and then back to the hotel afterwards. (bit of a trip out to there)

Tuesday
Tuesday was shopping in Convenant garden, string quartets, pie, ice cream and coffee followed by beer and cigars. Also, lots of getting lost looking for an “American candy” shop and an all day breakfast place; both were utterly futile and yielded no fruits despite our best efforts.

Wednesday
ooh, today was shitastic. We were supposed to go to Ireland, but managed to fuck up the arrival time there with the departure time here. So, we arrived at Stanstead airport after a rather interesting 25 minute cab ride and 50 minute “express” train ride 10 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave. Couldn’t board BUT we could switch flights to the later one for £40/person. Fuck it, said I, let’s go. Mistakes happen, but I’m not here often. Then, as we’re standing in line, I tease Mat, asking him if he remembered his passport, at which point I promptly realized I forgot mine. I actually removed it from the bag that I had because (can you tell I was a little out of it still?) “You shouldn’t walk around with your passport in your bag.”
Fuck, fuckity, fuck fuck fuck. After about 20 minutes scrambling for possible solutions (exorbant costs/time for about 6 hours in Ireland) I gave up, much to my lasting dismay (I really am pissed off) and the promise to myself that I would return, some day, and spend a few days there, give it the respect truly due, rather than a passing through. I’ve heard it’s beautiful, and I’d love to go there. One freaking day. I might not have a fancy home theatre, but I will go to Ireland.

We did check flights for tomorrow, equally absurd pricing. :(

We grabbed breakfast at the airport lounge proporting to be “authentic” Irish.

It’s impossible to actually get eggs over easy in this freaking country.

Went back to the hotel for a well deserved nap after getting up at 5:30 am for absolutely nothing at all and then went out to Portabello Road (yes, that Portabello Road, I’ve been singing it all day). I got us lost for once instead of Mat, BUT it is important to note that I DID find it, after much wandering and a Subway stop.

A few notes:
This is a quick post, banged out with little forethought or color. Nothing special here really. Also: no proof-reading, nor spellchecking. Kiss my butt, I’m on vacation
I have a fantastic faux British accent going, it’s a mix of WI and British and confuses the hell out of poor Mat.
I get funny looks when I give them my debit card, but sound like them.
There are a ton of people in this city and I never realized how used to wide open spaces and rarely seeing anyone I got living in Whitewater all this time. Even Milwaukee doesn’t compare to the sheer volume of people. I’ve had no real problem adapting to crowds/the tube/etc. In fact, Mat has even commented on the fact that I just tend to blend in here (:D). I hate tourists who fucking stand around staring in the MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMNED STREET.
I refuse to say cheers, but I’ve picked up the “yeah” and have even uttered “bloke”, “lift” and other such OMGBRITISH phrases without batting an eye.
I’ve also told Mat, “Fine, you can walk home” only to realize my car is NOT here.
I enjoy the noise of the city.
Everything is fantastically familiar and yet utterly foreign, from one second to the next.
I don’t think they bother with exchange rate, I think they just slap a £ instead of $ on and call it a day.
I really got accoustommed to farm fields and wide open places.

I am going to miss it here, just like I miss home. It’s been fantastic and at a later date I’m going to really have to flesh this out.

unsorted, untagged, un-anything pics can be found at
http://ephrog.com/media/images/trip

at the time I wrote this, they weren’t all up. It is important to note that I’m on a slow as shit internet service. Hopefully they’ll all be up by morning, my time.

In the mean time, it’s about 1:20 am my time, and I was up at 5:30 am with a 3 hour nap. ‘m tired and ‘m going to bed.

laters, <3