You might be wondering why I haven't posted in a while. Well, aside from going to a birthday party on Friday night, I just discovered that the University of Southern California requires its scholarship applicants to apply by December 1st and have to write an additional essay while their film program also requires me to make a video for them. UCLA is much along the same lines, but due on Saturday, so I'm going to be rather occupied until that's all done. I'm starting to worry that I'll never get around to describing my time in Chester...
Anyhow, I'll try to burn through this maddening setback as quickly as I can while preserving my sanity. If you hear a gunshot, it's already too late.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
The Best of Times
Where was I? Oh, right! I should mention that after I had booked our hostel and whatnot that first night for the trip, my companion decided that she wanted to spend an extra day in Rome and thus spend only one day in Venice. In hindsight, I should not have assented, but I thought "Why not?" I checked the train times and discovered that the cheapest one from Rome to Venice at the end of that extra day would cost us each $42 and would deposit us near Venice (not even in Venice) at around 10:30pm. Aside from being more expensive than the other tickets we had planned to get, we also would have needed to forfeit about 40 euros for the night that we would have spent in Rome and it was impossible to book a hostel for that night in Venice, as they required that you check in by 11pm. In an alien city, there was no way we could have managed that. This meant that we would have to spend one night outdoors in Venice. I looked up from my computer and explained the situation to my companion. "Are you still sure you want to spend another day in Rome?""Yeah."
"You sure? We're going to have to sleep in shifts in Venice and it's going to be colder there. You okay with that?"
"Yeah, I'm fine with it." I shrugged and made all of the arrangements. To me, spending the whole night awake in Venice sounded like fun! I thought that we could stick to the main, well lit streets and tour the place in the dark to stay awake and warm while also killing time and perhaps experiencing the mystique that the city is famous for.
The extra day was a bit of a disappointment. We had wanted to get into St. Peter's Basilica, since we had spent all of the previous day in the Vatican and hadn't the time. When we arrived, however, we discovered a line of people that stretched from the basilica's entrance, wrapped all of the way around the square, and poked into the street while a new sign stated that the basilica would close at 1pm. Unless we had arrived at perhaps 7am, we would never have gotten through and thus decided to head straight to the Pantheon and other miscellaneous sights.
We boarded our train without difficulty and I volunteered to take the first shift staying awake while Eleanor (I'm sick of calling her "my traveling buddy") caught some Zs. I had intended to work on my application to Chapman University, but found my eyes drawn to the passing landscape time and again. I'll probably never get another chance to see this, I thought, so why waste the view when I can put this application off for another day? When Eleanor awoke at dusk, I curled up on the seats and let the train's sounds and rocking lull me to sleep. That is until another four people stepped into our compartment about ten minutes later. Fate had decided that I was not to sleep during this trip. I returned to editing until we departed at the Mestre station where I made a point of not showing anything valuable considering the plethora of *ahem* shabby people hanging around and sleeping on cardboard mats.
I was excited when we reached Venice, late as it was and tired as I felt. The city lay in a soft darkness, as streetlamps stretched out to brush the buildings with light and touch the water. We had hoped to sleep in the train station, but were kicked out around 1am when we discovered that the building closed down until 4am. Thus without a place to be, I encouraged a rather bushed Eleanor to wander as I had planned earlier. Grumbling, she agreed until we crossed the first bridge about one hundred meters from the station, at which point she refused to go further. "I want to stay in a public place where there are people and lights," she said looking at the bus station we had arrived at. Her logic was practical and I saw the sense in it, but I still wanted to go about the city. Still, she refused to budge from the wall where she had deposited herself, so I joined her. I tried to make conversation to no avail and my jokes and banter were met either with silence or bitter remarks. When I brought up the Donner Party and discovered that she didn't know of this incident, I couldn't help but chuckle. Everyone I know in the US has at least heard one joke about the Donner Party (a group of pioneers on the California Trail who became trapped in the mountains, due to snow, and resorted to cannibalism).
"You seriously don't know about the Donner Party?" I ask, still chuckling.
"No, and you're making me feel stupid and it's not cool."
Christ, I thought. Sorry I opened my mouth. Deciding that I should just leave Miss Not-Quite-Sleep-Deprived Grumpy Pants to herself, I pulled out my copy of All Quiet On The Western Front and started to read. After about a page, she decided to start talking. I joined in, but her end of the conversation soon dropped again and I resumed reading. Then she resumed talking. This cycle must have repeated itself four times with us checking our watches all the while to see when we could return to the station. Around 3:00, with Eleanor complaining that she couldn't sleep, was cold, and had nothing to do, I revisited the wandering option. This time, she agreed! She agreed to wander back over the bridge we had crossed earlier and to "wander back to the train station" where we were to sit for an hour before the doors opened. Well, we got there and 4:00 came and went, or so I thought. Eleanor was again sleeping, leaving me to stand watch, and it slowly dawned on me that, oh happy day!, we had gained another hour due to daylight savings time. Eleanor slept straight through it, but I felt every single minute press down on my shoulders as the boredom and fatigue set in. In short, the station reopened, it was still freezing inside, I slept, awoke shivering to discover that Eleanor had dozed off on her shift (nothing stolen), and then began to wander Venice around 6am.
I was elated to go out at first light, as the city was permeated with a dense fog that I wanted to delve through. We bought a map of the city for five euros and, trust me, it was the best investment we made on the entire trip. Aside from not being able to see a hundred feet ahead of me, Venice has no rhyme and little reason to the street layout. The names have been known to change over time (some of them are renamed almost yearly) and I don't think that Venice has even heard of "Urban Planning," nor has it decided whether or not it wants to be like a city or a mouse maze. I, however, love mazes and almost never turn down a challenge. I must say that I was glad for my years with the scouts, to be sure.
Wandering the streets and doing my best to ignore Eleanor's apathy, I forgot my fatigue as I raced down narrow alleyways. Blind corners divulged hidden wonders glimpsed between the buildings. I could be running through a trench of brickwork and glimpse down an alleyway to discover a church spire, standing alone and defying the clutter of buildings below. Some bridges that I crossed spanned massive canals in great arcs of architectural wonder, while others were barely a meter across and lent both a sense of relief from the crush of buildings and a sense of intimacy as I stood above the water with both shores just an arm's length away. Paths that I struggled to fit through would explode out into great plazas dominated by churches and monuments. Best of all, no matter where or when I wandered, be it with others or alone, I felt safe. I was always on guard, but the only time I felt the smallest prickle of apprehension was when three swindlers toting fake designer handbags walked toward me in a deserted alley and they hardly glanced at me.
What was even better was when Eleanor, exhausted, turned into our hostel around 4pm where we discovered that it cost another five euros each to get some sheets and blankets for the night. Deciding not to pay, we settled Eleanor, both griping about the lack of sheets, before I took off again. I left my bag behind and, unencumbered, felt revitalized! I was a free man! To top it all off, I managed to rendezvous with the German girl that I had met in Rome and we spent a couple of pleasant and fun hours together. In a city that complicated with only a map and a compass in hand, I was in my element and thus readily and shamelessly showed off. Night fell and, after a time, we parted ways at the Canale di San Marco.
Venice transforms at night. During the day it is either a mist-shrouded or sunlit mosaic of color and architecture. At night, I witnessed again the lamplight touched buildings and water. Now, however, the clamorous sightseers had turned to romantic couples while the swindlers all about cast spinning green and blue lights into the air in Saint Marc's plaza. The lights would drift down, twirling in the gentle breeze and shining amongst the few stars that pierced through the subtle ambient glow. I stayed there for I know not how long, watching the people come and go before turning to the side streets again, buying a bottle of wine, some cheese, and more grapes to bring back to the hostel.
On my way back, I got a message from Eleanor. "Hey Matt, can you come back as soon as you can? Some guys were in here earlier and took the couch. They gave me a bad vibe and I swear there is one of those hustling Indian guys." I told her to lock the door, but she couldn't because I had the keys (duh). "They're all outside my room talking now." I told her to move the bed in front of the closed doors and, since there was no lamp in the room or any convenient rocks, I told her to grab one of the stone and metal models of the Coliseum that I had picked up in Rome and keep it hidden as, just in case the guys did break in, the model would be a more effective weapon if they didn't know about it. Anyhow, frantic and in a part of the city that I had not yet visited, I made a series of short sprints, stopping after every other alley to navigate, and trying to keep the wine from tearing through the plastic bag in my hand. I happened to pass a few guys walking down the street carrying a red couch that looked suspiciously like the one from the hostel, but I saw no unconscious, chloroformed person on it and pressed forward to find a very anxious Eleanor safe and sound in the room. We locked the door and, at this point mostly to ease her nerves, drank the wine as we watched "Zoolander" on my computer and feasted on the groceries. The long day finally over and with about half of a bottle of wine in each of us, we were both ever so grateful for our sheet-less beds while we drifted to sleep in my favorite of the two cities.
"You sure? We're going to have to sleep in shifts in Venice and it's going to be colder there. You okay with that?"
"Yeah, I'm fine with it." I shrugged and made all of the arrangements. To me, spending the whole night awake in Venice sounded like fun! I thought that we could stick to the main, well lit streets and tour the place in the dark to stay awake and warm while also killing time and perhaps experiencing the mystique that the city is famous for.
The extra day was a bit of a disappointment. We had wanted to get into St. Peter's Basilica, since we had spent all of the previous day in the Vatican and hadn't the time. When we arrived, however, we discovered a line of people that stretched from the basilica's entrance, wrapped all of the way around the square, and poked into the street while a new sign stated that the basilica would close at 1pm. Unless we had arrived at perhaps 7am, we would never have gotten through and thus decided to head straight to the Pantheon and other miscellaneous sights.
We boarded our train without difficulty and I volunteered to take the first shift staying awake while Eleanor (I'm sick of calling her "my traveling buddy") caught some Zs. I had intended to work on my application to Chapman University, but found my eyes drawn to the passing landscape time and again. I'll probably never get another chance to see this, I thought, so why waste the view when I can put this application off for another day? When Eleanor awoke at dusk, I curled up on the seats and let the train's sounds and rocking lull me to sleep. That is until another four people stepped into our compartment about ten minutes later. Fate had decided that I was not to sleep during this trip. I returned to editing until we departed at the Mestre station where I made a point of not showing anything valuable considering the plethora of *ahem* shabby people hanging around and sleeping on cardboard mats.
I was excited when we reached Venice, late as it was and tired as I felt. The city lay in a soft darkness, as streetlamps stretched out to brush the buildings with light and touch the water. We had hoped to sleep in the train station, but were kicked out around 1am when we discovered that the building closed down until 4am. Thus without a place to be, I encouraged a rather bushed Eleanor to wander as I had planned earlier. Grumbling, she agreed until we crossed the first bridge about one hundred meters from the station, at which point she refused to go further. "I want to stay in a public place where there are people and lights," she said looking at the bus station we had arrived at. Her logic was practical and I saw the sense in it, but I still wanted to go about the city. Still, she refused to budge from the wall where she had deposited herself, so I joined her. I tried to make conversation to no avail and my jokes and banter were met either with silence or bitter remarks. When I brought up the Donner Party and discovered that she didn't know of this incident, I couldn't help but chuckle. Everyone I know in the US has at least heard one joke about the Donner Party (a group of pioneers on the California Trail who became trapped in the mountains, due to snow, and resorted to cannibalism).
"You seriously don't know about the Donner Party?" I ask, still chuckling.
"No, and you're making me feel stupid and it's not cool."
Christ, I thought. Sorry I opened my mouth. Deciding that I should just leave Miss Not-Quite-Sleep-Deprived Grumpy Pants to herself, I pulled out my copy of All Quiet On The Western Front and started to read. After about a page, she decided to start talking. I joined in, but her end of the conversation soon dropped again and I resumed reading. Then she resumed talking. This cycle must have repeated itself four times with us checking our watches all the while to see when we could return to the station. Around 3:00, with Eleanor complaining that she couldn't sleep, was cold, and had nothing to do, I revisited the wandering option. This time, she agreed! She agreed to wander back over the bridge we had crossed earlier and to "wander back to the train station" where we were to sit for an hour before the doors opened. Well, we got there and 4:00 came and went, or so I thought. Eleanor was again sleeping, leaving me to stand watch, and it slowly dawned on me that, oh happy day!, we had gained another hour due to daylight savings time. Eleanor slept straight through it, but I felt every single minute press down on my shoulders as the boredom and fatigue set in. In short, the station reopened, it was still freezing inside, I slept, awoke shivering to discover that Eleanor had dozed off on her shift (nothing stolen), and then began to wander Venice around 6am.
I was elated to go out at first light, as the city was permeated with a dense fog that I wanted to delve through. We bought a map of the city for five euros and, trust me, it was the best investment we made on the entire trip. Aside from not being able to see a hundred feet ahead of me, Venice has no rhyme and little reason to the street layout. The names have been known to change over time (some of them are renamed almost yearly) and I don't think that Venice has even heard of "Urban Planning," nor has it decided whether or not it wants to be like a city or a mouse maze. I, however, love mazes and almost never turn down a challenge. I must say that I was glad for my years with the scouts, to be sure.
Wandering the streets and doing my best to ignore Eleanor's apathy, I forgot my fatigue as I raced down narrow alleyways. Blind corners divulged hidden wonders glimpsed between the buildings. I could be running through a trench of brickwork and glimpse down an alleyway to discover a church spire, standing alone and defying the clutter of buildings below. Some bridges that I crossed spanned massive canals in great arcs of architectural wonder, while others were barely a meter across and lent both a sense of relief from the crush of buildings and a sense of intimacy as I stood above the water with both shores just an arm's length away. Paths that I struggled to fit through would explode out into great plazas dominated by churches and monuments. Best of all, no matter where or when I wandered, be it with others or alone, I felt safe. I was always on guard, but the only time I felt the smallest prickle of apprehension was when three swindlers toting fake designer handbags walked toward me in a deserted alley and they hardly glanced at me.
What was even better was when Eleanor, exhausted, turned into our hostel around 4pm where we discovered that it cost another five euros each to get some sheets and blankets for the night. Deciding not to pay, we settled Eleanor, both griping about the lack of sheets, before I took off again. I left my bag behind and, unencumbered, felt revitalized! I was a free man! To top it all off, I managed to rendezvous with the German girl that I had met in Rome and we spent a couple of pleasant and fun hours together. In a city that complicated with only a map and a compass in hand, I was in my element and thus readily and shamelessly showed off. Night fell and, after a time, we parted ways at the Canale di San Marco.
Venice transforms at night. During the day it is either a mist-shrouded or sunlit mosaic of color and architecture. At night, I witnessed again the lamplight touched buildings and water. Now, however, the clamorous sightseers had turned to romantic couples while the swindlers all about cast spinning green and blue lights into the air in Saint Marc's plaza. The lights would drift down, twirling in the gentle breeze and shining amongst the few stars that pierced through the subtle ambient glow. I stayed there for I know not how long, watching the people come and go before turning to the side streets again, buying a bottle of wine, some cheese, and more grapes to bring back to the hostel.
On my way back, I got a message from Eleanor. "Hey Matt, can you come back as soon as you can? Some guys were in here earlier and took the couch. They gave me a bad vibe and I swear there is one of those hustling Indian guys." I told her to lock the door, but she couldn't because I had the keys (duh). "They're all outside my room talking now." I told her to move the bed in front of the closed doors and, since there was no lamp in the room or any convenient rocks, I told her to grab one of the stone and metal models of the Coliseum that I had picked up in Rome and keep it hidden as, just in case the guys did break in, the model would be a more effective weapon if they didn't know about it. Anyhow, frantic and in a part of the city that I had not yet visited, I made a series of short sprints, stopping after every other alley to navigate, and trying to keep the wine from tearing through the plastic bag in my hand. I happened to pass a few guys walking down the street carrying a red couch that looked suspiciously like the one from the hostel, but I saw no unconscious, chloroformed person on it and pressed forward to find a very anxious Eleanor safe and sound in the room. We locked the door and, at this point mostly to ease her nerves, drank the wine as we watched "Zoolander" on my computer and feasted on the groceries. The long day finally over and with about half of a bottle of wine in each of us, we were both ever so grateful for our sheet-less beds while we drifted to sleep in my favorite of the two cities.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Don't Trust The Romans
Imagine waking up at 7am on a Tuesday, attending classes before catching a train at 10:30pm, going through airport security at 2am, and then boarding a flight to Rome at 7am on Wednesday. You have an hour's respite during the train ride and another two during the flight, so you feel decent by the time you arrive in Rome that morning and thus decide to wander around the coast while waiting to meet a stranger arriving on another flight ten hours later. That was my journey to Rome.
By 9pm, when I had met my travel companion (a rather quiet girl), I was physically tired and mentally exhausted, so is it entirely out of the ordinary that I didn't bat an eye when the taxi driver told us that it would cost 80 euros to get to our hotel? Of course it's out of the ordinary! It's absolutely ridiculous! I had just been thinking an hour before about how my plane ticket was 70 euros, so why didn't my brain, no matter how addled, pick up on this!? Furthermore, why didn't it clue in when the cab driver charged us 90 euros upon reaching our destination!? For that matter, why didn't my companion notice? At least she'd had enough sleep that day! Either way, we emptied our wallets for this skinner. Even if I had identified the scam, what does one do in that situation? Do you try to negotiate with an unreasonable man? Do you shout him down and denounce him in the street? Do you kick him in his manhood so that he doesn't spawn any more odious fleecers into the world? I don't know. All I know is that once the realization hit me thirty minutes later, I'd wished that I'd taken the third option. My temper flared even higher when we discovered that our travel agency had TARFU (military slang for "Totally And Royally Fucked Up") our hotel reservation. These guys had booked us for the wrong MONTH! I had booked us for October 23rd through the 26th and these guys stuck us in November. If you are traveling, I would not advise "Travel Republic." The clerk behind the desk said that they had one room open for 84 euros, but after the taxi driver, I was in no mood to spend that much again.
With that in mind, I booked an emergency reservation at a B & B a mile down the road and ran to ensure that we had a place to stay. I ran through Rome at 10pm in a button down shirt, dress pants, and nice shoes. I had to stop and ask for directions, but after dodging traffic, grinding my soles into the pavement, and apologizing to pedestrians, I reached the place. Breathless, I rang their doorbell.
Nothing.
I rang again.
Nothing.
I stood there for at least twenty minutes ringing their bell and shouting "Please open the door" in Italian. Their website said that they would accept check-ins until 10:30pm, so when 10:40 rolled around with no response, I turned and left. I tried one of the nearby youth hostels that I'd noticed online with the same result and, defeated, began to walk back to the hotel where I had left my companion. Then the anger crept back. I wanted to break something, or punch one of the sketchy guys walking toward me down the sidewalk. At that point of sleeplessness, I was demented enough that I might have done it. Then I saw another hotel sign. I sprinted across the street and asked if they had any openings. "One opening. 95 euros for the night." I thanked them and left. I tried another place. "Sí. 105 euros for the night." Another place "90 euros." Everywhere I went, the prices were extraordinary and most didn't even include breakfast. I ran around until about 11:45 at night, my frustration driving my legs forward and down, as if I were kicking the earth and pulverizing it for the misfortune that it had dealt us that night. In the end, viciousness spent and thus resigned, I returned to the first hotel and checked in. I spent another two hours booking a hostel for the next few nights and awoke fatigued and embittered.
That day, we walked around the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the other ruins in that area, both too drowsy to really appreciate it. I still enjoyed it, but, between you and me, trying to speak with my companion was often like talking to a brick. Aside from that wet blanket, I could not help but notice that Rome was stunning in the sunshine. I won't go into details about the location, as any of you could just look for photos online or, I don't know, read a Dan Brown book to gain some sense of the experience. I will mention, however, that the entire place was littered with people dressed in ridiculous outfits and passing themselves off as street performers whilst they milled around. One of the dozens of men dressed as roman soldiers there beckoned to us. "Do you two want a picture?" My friend and I looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded to him. He made a series of grim and some funny posses with us involved. All of the while, we were each keeping close track of his hands, making sure that they didn't wander toward our pockets. When it ended without a theft, I was in a rather good mood and thanked him. Just as we were turning to leave, though, he put his hand on my shoulder and held out his other palm, showing a twenty euro note. "Five euros per photo."
I gave him my best "You've got to be joking" look. "Uh, no." I said and tried to walk off. He tightened his grip on my shoulder and began to insist. I twisted away and said "Look, I don't even have five euros!" I pulled out my wallet and hid my cash behind a traveler's check, showing only about eighty cents. He pointed to the check and I said as loudly and slowly as possible "That's not money! It doesn't work until I sign it! You can't use it!" Just to shut him up, I gave him fifty cents before walking off. The day only really improved at lunch, where I had one of the best spaghetti carbonaras that I have ever eaten (chewy pasta is superior to what us non-Italians cook), yet the day was still dampened by our drained state and the fact that we were surrounded by con artists. In my opinion, it took until that night, when we arrived at the hostel, to find our first honest roman.
Our host was not the owner, but a manager and was quite hospitable, as was the rest of the motley staff (his pregnant English girlfriend, another Italian, and a Pakistani). That night, while my travel buddy was in the lobby/kitchen/sitting room and was I shaving down the hall, two girls burst in asking in accented English if there was anywhere that they could stay for the night. There was room for one of them, according to the manager, but the other was out of luck. Both seemed rather distressed and the older of the two kept asking for somewhere to use the internet so that they could find somewhere else for her friend. The manager directed her to a pay per minute place downstairs. I popped my shaving cream-covered face into the hall and said "You could just use my laptop." Both of the girls jumped at the sight and stammered a thank you. Wouldn't you know it though, my computer had locked, so I walked out into the hall and into the kitchen/sitting room place... thing to open it. "Excuse me, shaving cream-covered guy coming through. Watch your feet and hair." That got a few laughs and the girls began to relax a bit as I walked away and left them with my female companion. Once I'd cleaned myself up I returned to find all three chatting. It turns out that the two of them had only met the day before when they both arrived to stay with this couchsurfing host (couchsurfing is a travelers' networking site where you can ask to stay for free with a local host wherever you're traveling, so long as you're willing to spend time with them and maybe cook them a meal or something). These two soon discovered, however, that their host was a creep, as he made advances on the older one during the day and wanted to sleep in the same bed as the younger one at night. Thus the hasty evacuation and desperate need for a place to stay. The elder of the two (25 year old Lithuanian) turned out to be teaching primary school students near Liverpool while the younger (18 year old German) was doing something of a work-study in Italy and was en-route to Milan. We sorted the younger one out, chatted with the both of them for quite some time, and agreed to meet the younger in Venice three days hence. The next day, we went to the Vatican before meeting the elder again and wandered around Rome for some time, sealing the night by each buying a bottle of wine, some brie cheese, a banana, and some crackers. The uncorking was a battle for me (two of the corks had expanded below the bottles' necks, expanded, and jammed) while the others dished out the food. With a mighty heave, each cork came out followed by a thin, white fog of pressurized wine vapor. The crackers were a strange tomato infused creation while the red wine that I had bought for myself was clearly not what I remembered having back at home. To our unaccustomed palates, the stuff was vile. Rather than sip it, I just downed the stuff in shots and asked for sips of my friends' white wine once. I gave a small glass of my poison to another tenant who didn't even down what I gave him (so I did) and we all had a great time being tipsy before throwing out the empty bottles at the end and crashing. How my companion woke with a headache and I didn't remains a mystery to me.
Wow, that went on for longer than I had anticipated. I shall tell you tomorrow of my brief time in Venice, the night we spent homeless, and my reunion with the upset German girl. Until then, ciao!
By 9pm, when I had met my travel companion (a rather quiet girl), I was physically tired and mentally exhausted, so is it entirely out of the ordinary that I didn't bat an eye when the taxi driver told us that it would cost 80 euros to get to our hotel? Of course it's out of the ordinary! It's absolutely ridiculous! I had just been thinking an hour before about how my plane ticket was 70 euros, so why didn't my brain, no matter how addled, pick up on this!? Furthermore, why didn't it clue in when the cab driver charged us 90 euros upon reaching our destination!? For that matter, why didn't my companion notice? At least she'd had enough sleep that day! Either way, we emptied our wallets for this skinner. Even if I had identified the scam, what does one do in that situation? Do you try to negotiate with an unreasonable man? Do you shout him down and denounce him in the street? Do you kick him in his manhood so that he doesn't spawn any more odious fleecers into the world? I don't know. All I know is that once the realization hit me thirty minutes later, I'd wished that I'd taken the third option. My temper flared even higher when we discovered that our travel agency had TARFU (military slang for "Totally And Royally Fucked Up") our hotel reservation. These guys had booked us for the wrong MONTH! I had booked us for October 23rd through the 26th and these guys stuck us in November. If you are traveling, I would not advise "Travel Republic." The clerk behind the desk said that they had one room open for 84 euros, but after the taxi driver, I was in no mood to spend that much again.
With that in mind, I booked an emergency reservation at a B & B a mile down the road and ran to ensure that we had a place to stay. I ran through Rome at 10pm in a button down shirt, dress pants, and nice shoes. I had to stop and ask for directions, but after dodging traffic, grinding my soles into the pavement, and apologizing to pedestrians, I reached the place. Breathless, I rang their doorbell.
Nothing.
I rang again.
Nothing.
I stood there for at least twenty minutes ringing their bell and shouting "Please open the door" in Italian. Their website said that they would accept check-ins until 10:30pm, so when 10:40 rolled around with no response, I turned and left. I tried one of the nearby youth hostels that I'd noticed online with the same result and, defeated, began to walk back to the hotel where I had left my companion. Then the anger crept back. I wanted to break something, or punch one of the sketchy guys walking toward me down the sidewalk. At that point of sleeplessness, I was demented enough that I might have done it. Then I saw another hotel sign. I sprinted across the street and asked if they had any openings. "One opening. 95 euros for the night." I thanked them and left. I tried another place. "Sí. 105 euros for the night." Another place "90 euros." Everywhere I went, the prices were extraordinary and most didn't even include breakfast. I ran around until about 11:45 at night, my frustration driving my legs forward and down, as if I were kicking the earth and pulverizing it for the misfortune that it had dealt us that night. In the end, viciousness spent and thus resigned, I returned to the first hotel and checked in. I spent another two hours booking a hostel for the next few nights and awoke fatigued and embittered.
That day, we walked around the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the other ruins in that area, both too drowsy to really appreciate it. I still enjoyed it, but, between you and me, trying to speak with my companion was often like talking to a brick. Aside from that wet blanket, I could not help but notice that Rome was stunning in the sunshine. I won't go into details about the location, as any of you could just look for photos online or, I don't know, read a Dan Brown book to gain some sense of the experience. I will mention, however, that the entire place was littered with people dressed in ridiculous outfits and passing themselves off as street performers whilst they milled around. One of the dozens of men dressed as roman soldiers there beckoned to us. "Do you two want a picture?" My friend and I looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded to him. He made a series of grim and some funny posses with us involved. All of the while, we were each keeping close track of his hands, making sure that they didn't wander toward our pockets. When it ended without a theft, I was in a rather good mood and thanked him. Just as we were turning to leave, though, he put his hand on my shoulder and held out his other palm, showing a twenty euro note. "Five euros per photo."
I gave him my best "You've got to be joking" look. "Uh, no." I said and tried to walk off. He tightened his grip on my shoulder and began to insist. I twisted away and said "Look, I don't even have five euros!" I pulled out my wallet and hid my cash behind a traveler's check, showing only about eighty cents. He pointed to the check and I said as loudly and slowly as possible "That's not money! It doesn't work until I sign it! You can't use it!" Just to shut him up, I gave him fifty cents before walking off. The day only really improved at lunch, where I had one of the best spaghetti carbonaras that I have ever eaten (chewy pasta is superior to what us non-Italians cook), yet the day was still dampened by our drained state and the fact that we were surrounded by con artists. In my opinion, it took until that night, when we arrived at the hostel, to find our first honest roman.
Our host was not the owner, but a manager and was quite hospitable, as was the rest of the motley staff (his pregnant English girlfriend, another Italian, and a Pakistani). That night, while my travel buddy was in the lobby/kitchen/sitting room and was I shaving down the hall, two girls burst in asking in accented English if there was anywhere that they could stay for the night. There was room for one of them, according to the manager, but the other was out of luck. Both seemed rather distressed and the older of the two kept asking for somewhere to use the internet so that they could find somewhere else for her friend. The manager directed her to a pay per minute place downstairs. I popped my shaving cream-covered face into the hall and said "You could just use my laptop." Both of the girls jumped at the sight and stammered a thank you. Wouldn't you know it though, my computer had locked, so I walked out into the hall and into the kitchen/sitting room place... thing to open it. "Excuse me, shaving cream-covered guy coming through. Watch your feet and hair." That got a few laughs and the girls began to relax a bit as I walked away and left them with my female companion. Once I'd cleaned myself up I returned to find all three chatting. It turns out that the two of them had only met the day before when they both arrived to stay with this couchsurfing host (couchsurfing is a travelers' networking site where you can ask to stay for free with a local host wherever you're traveling, so long as you're willing to spend time with them and maybe cook them a meal or something). These two soon discovered, however, that their host was a creep, as he made advances on the older one during the day and wanted to sleep in the same bed as the younger one at night. Thus the hasty evacuation and desperate need for a place to stay. The elder of the two (25 year old Lithuanian) turned out to be teaching primary school students near Liverpool while the younger (18 year old German) was doing something of a work-study in Italy and was en-route to Milan. We sorted the younger one out, chatted with the both of them for quite some time, and agreed to meet the younger in Venice three days hence. The next day, we went to the Vatican before meeting the elder again and wandered around Rome for some time, sealing the night by each buying a bottle of wine, some brie cheese, a banana, and some crackers. The uncorking was a battle for me (two of the corks had expanded below the bottles' necks, expanded, and jammed) while the others dished out the food. With a mighty heave, each cork came out followed by a thin, white fog of pressurized wine vapor. The crackers were a strange tomato infused creation while the red wine that I had bought for myself was clearly not what I remembered having back at home. To our unaccustomed palates, the stuff was vile. Rather than sip it, I just downed the stuff in shots and asked for sips of my friends' white wine once. I gave a small glass of my poison to another tenant who didn't even down what I gave him (so I did) and we all had a great time being tipsy before throwing out the empty bottles at the end and crashing. How my companion woke with a headache and I didn't remains a mystery to me.
Wow, that went on for longer than I had anticipated. I shall tell you tomorrow of my brief time in Venice, the night we spent homeless, and my reunion with the upset German girl. Until then, ciao!
Sunday, November 10, 2013
You Miss Me?
I am a wooly-headed, gullible, sleep-addled imbecile with no situational awareness or any sort of common sense or rationality. Whew. I just wanted to get that off of my chest. You'll see my reasoning in just a minute.
I have just returned to school from half-term, during which I was in Italy and Chester. I had spotty internet at times, but I will admit that I probably could have posted had I not crawled into bed exhausted each night, often around 4 or 5am. I shall leave two posts for the time I missed in recompense so that I can give both parts of the trip justice and so that I don't bore you guys with a long ramble by giving you a break in the middle.
I have to say that Manchester airport is one of the best I have ever seen. It is clean, well lit and maintained, and has tons of places to shop that are reasonably priced while the ceiling tiles are weird semi-transparent grates shaded into patterns of leaves and vines that veil the wiring and pipes behind them. Forget all of that though, THEY HAVE AN ENORMOUS ALCOHOL SECTION!!! I have never seen so much alcohol in an entire airport before and this was all just within two-hundred square feet floorspace! Apparently, since the UK airports are duty-free zones, alcohol's a lot cheaper and is thus a big seller! I'm not even sure if you can buy a whole bottle of wine to bring onto the plane in America, but here I'd bet that you could buy a whole carton of whiskey without anyone batting an eye! Past that there were more stands and shelves selling a variety of products and I couldn't help but wonder if I'd been thrown back into a mall at home. To top it all off, as I was walking through, I noticed that all traffic had to follow a strip of beige tiles that wound back and forth through the whole thing, forcing everyone past all of the goods for a much longer time than necessary. That, to me, was the best part. Just looking at the setup, I had to give silent praise to whoever engineered this so that potential customers are exposed to the tempting, cheaper products for a long time (possibly while waiting in line to get through the area) and thus improving the airport's profits. Furthermore, I bet that the vendors closest to the tile strip have to pay at least double what the further removed merchants have to pay, as they are more conspicuous and thus more likely to profit. In any situation, the airport rakes in the dough. To me, that was kind of entertaining, or at least it was at 2am after two hours of sleep since 7:00 the previous morning. To make it even better, they didn't force us to take off our shoes or jewelry at security. I like England!
While there, I met an affable Romanian guy (25 years old?) from Mehadia (I think) named Dragosh, aka Dragos. Awesome name, right? It's like something straight out of the Song of Ice and Fire books (Game of Thrones to you TV goers)! Having nothing to do, we chatted and walked around together for the eight hours before our flights. He told me about his life and his troubles with work and trying to do weekend university courses. The worst part, listening to him, was that he had "no vocation." This prevented him from making any set plan that he could advance, other than to become the mayor of his town, which left him in a rut. While we talked for quite some time, I don't tend to trust anyone for weeks, no less someone I'd met in a train station four hours before. Thus, when he started relaxing in a massage chair, I wanted to test him a bit by pretending to fall asleep while lying on a bench to see if he would try to take anything. I remained vigilant, watching him through my eyelashes as he leaned back. I watched, carefully observing... and waiting... and the next thing I knew he was waking me up. Shit. Well so much for that. He didn't take anything, though, so it's all good and we continued to talk. He was just generally a really nice guy, from what I could tell, though when he asked to see my passport, I told him it was buried deep in my bag as I pretended to drowse. Forgive my paranoia! One last note on this guy, he also thinks that the Tea Partiers in the US are nut jobs! I'm sorry you crazy fools, but the world outside of the US (and most of the US) thinks that you're absolutely batty!
Before my flight to Italy, I had spent the entire week with, at most, five hours of sleep per night after which I had to stay awake for another thirty-six hours on the Tuesday I left school, as my train left at 10:30pm and my flight left the next day at 7am. I counted my nap on the train as a blessing and felt decent once I arrived in the Fiumicino airport. However, I needed to wait for another ten hours before my rendezvous's flight came in. I went through the fastest customs ever (the guy barely glanced at each passport before waving nearly one hundred people through in two minutes) and decided to wander the coastal town of Fiumicino. When getting onto the bus, the first thing I noticed was that the Italians drive on the correct side of the road, as in the RIGHT side. Get with the program England! The landscape and architecture that we passed reminded me a lot of southern California and New Mexico. Honestly, if you had dropped me there and not shown me a sign, I would have guessed that I was in LA. Much of the place was in disrepair (I was wondering if I'd stepped into a ghetto), but all I had to do was cross one street to find rotting, chipped walls giving way to picturesque stretches of cafés, restaurants, and shops on a plaza. Here I was introduced to the wonders of gelato, which is vastly superior to American ice cream in flavor, but lacks our variety, and Italian pizza which is no different to ours aside from a thinner crust and better ingredients. Just a margarita pizza with no seasonings in the sauce was equal to or better than whatever I'd get at home with a bunch of herbs in it, as the tomatoes are just more flavorful in Italy (which is backwards since they are a New World fruit). I tried stumbling through some of the Italian that Dragos had tried to teach me (he lived in Italy for nine years) to order another gelato elsewhere, but I guess that it was so obvious that I was an English speaker that the clerk started to stumble through English to help me. I'm not even sure what flavor I got then. What does "Nocciola" mean?
I meandered past the various shops and restaurants nearby, taking in the sights and having a laugh at the "Old Wild West Steakhouse" in the dead center of the street (it looked very little like what I'd find back in New Mexico). Soon, however, the rhythmic washing of waves reached my ears. Like a dog following the distant call of a bird, I was led to the coastline. I found a wide stone path that stretched over the shore and ended in a spacious circle that hovered over the water, supported by thick shafts of stone and hedged by carved railings on all sides. I did not enter the circle at first. I stood at its edge where the straight bricks began to curve and I hesitated. I felt... relieved to be there. Imagine a man returning home and reuniting with a friend, that he had not seen or thought of in years, to discover that he had felt solitary without this companion. That is much how I felt standing there. Something that felt like a long held breath escaped from me and I shuddered. I could not bring myself to cross into the circle and surround myself with the ocean, much as the returning man might fear to speak with his friend after so many years of negligent silence. A wave crashed over the rocks and I took a step through the intangible barrier. I took another and another and I was elated! I wanted to dance and run to the edge of the railing to look out over the sea and call for joy "I'm back!" However, my superego got the better of me and I contented myself with plastering an idiotic smile across my face. I am not a sailor, nor a marine biologist, nor do I even particularly like fish (save sushi), so I would never have imagined that seeing the ocean again after these months would have such a profound effect on me. Now, weeks later, I still think of the sea and wonder when I shall hear it again and smell the air. That's another thing; I have spent most of my life by the sea, so I grew up accustomed to the smell that everyone else found so novel. That day, in Fiumicino, I smelled the ocean for the first time in my memory. Of course everyone, myself included, noticed the odors of low tide and when the quahogers hauled in their catch nearby, but never before can I recall smelling the brine.
Naturally, I went to the shore after that, kissed the Mediterranean's water just to say that I'd done it, wished I'd brought a swimsuit, and stayed within sight of the ocean for the next five hours. When I went to eat, I made sure to find a place with a view of the sea just so that I could soak it all in (and the restaurant made a good half calzone, half pizza thing while they kept playing American hits from the '50s by Sam Cook and the rest, which I got a kick out of). I walked back to the stone pier to discover that I was about an hour shy of sunset, yet found myself staying there the entire time.
A man had set up a stool and was playing the guitar for all present as the sun began to sink. I looked out again, the soft music behind me, the warm wind before me, the murmuring of the ocean all around, and all of it painted in oranges, greens, and blues. This would be a wonderful place to bring a girl, I couldn't help but think. If I had one that is. I turned back around and saw a couple settle near my left while the pretty girl began to dance to the guitar. She's got the right idea at least. I considered joining her, but decided to just let her boyfriend enjoy the scene. She looked like she was having fun though...
Aside from that, the guitarist made me laugh by playing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "The Entertainer" in the middle of his more traditional tunes while I noticed another man who, I kid you not, was unable to turn left. I am not imaginative enough to make this stuff up. Soon I had to depart, and I passed a limber girl doing rather impressive tricks on roller-skates, several couples, and then myself had to hit the emergency stop on a bus and caused an old lady to fall over. Well, shit.
Have a good night one and all! I shall post again tomorrow night so that you can catch up on my exploits, homework be damned! Tune in tomorrow night to discover why I stated earlier that "I am a wooly-headed, gullible, sleep-addled imbecile with no situational awareness or any sort of common sense or rationality."
I have just returned to school from half-term, during which I was in Italy and Chester. I had spotty internet at times, but I will admit that I probably could have posted had I not crawled into bed exhausted each night, often around 4 or 5am. I shall leave two posts for the time I missed in recompense so that I can give both parts of the trip justice and so that I don't bore you guys with a long ramble by giving you a break in the middle.
I have to say that Manchester airport is one of the best I have ever seen. It is clean, well lit and maintained, and has tons of places to shop that are reasonably priced while the ceiling tiles are weird semi-transparent grates shaded into patterns of leaves and vines that veil the wiring and pipes behind them. Forget all of that though, THEY HAVE AN ENORMOUS ALCOHOL SECTION!!! I have never seen so much alcohol in an entire airport before and this was all just within two-hundred square feet floorspace! Apparently, since the UK airports are duty-free zones, alcohol's a lot cheaper and is thus a big seller! I'm not even sure if you can buy a whole bottle of wine to bring onto the plane in America, but here I'd bet that you could buy a whole carton of whiskey without anyone batting an eye! Past that there were more stands and shelves selling a variety of products and I couldn't help but wonder if I'd been thrown back into a mall at home. To top it all off, as I was walking through, I noticed that all traffic had to follow a strip of beige tiles that wound back and forth through the whole thing, forcing everyone past all of the goods for a much longer time than necessary. That, to me, was the best part. Just looking at the setup, I had to give silent praise to whoever engineered this so that potential customers are exposed to the tempting, cheaper products for a long time (possibly while waiting in line to get through the area) and thus improving the airport's profits. Furthermore, I bet that the vendors closest to the tile strip have to pay at least double what the further removed merchants have to pay, as they are more conspicuous and thus more likely to profit. In any situation, the airport rakes in the dough. To me, that was kind of entertaining, or at least it was at 2am after two hours of sleep since 7:00 the previous morning. To make it even better, they didn't force us to take off our shoes or jewelry at security. I like England!
While there, I met an affable Romanian guy (25 years old?) from Mehadia (I think) named Dragosh, aka Dragos. Awesome name, right? It's like something straight out of the Song of Ice and Fire books (Game of Thrones to you TV goers)! Having nothing to do, we chatted and walked around together for the eight hours before our flights. He told me about his life and his troubles with work and trying to do weekend university courses. The worst part, listening to him, was that he had "no vocation." This prevented him from making any set plan that he could advance, other than to become the mayor of his town, which left him in a rut. While we talked for quite some time, I don't tend to trust anyone for weeks, no less someone I'd met in a train station four hours before. Thus, when he started relaxing in a massage chair, I wanted to test him a bit by pretending to fall asleep while lying on a bench to see if he would try to take anything. I remained vigilant, watching him through my eyelashes as he leaned back. I watched, carefully observing... and waiting... and the next thing I knew he was waking me up. Shit. Well so much for that. He didn't take anything, though, so it's all good and we continued to talk. He was just generally a really nice guy, from what I could tell, though when he asked to see my passport, I told him it was buried deep in my bag as I pretended to drowse. Forgive my paranoia! One last note on this guy, he also thinks that the Tea Partiers in the US are nut jobs! I'm sorry you crazy fools, but the world outside of the US (and most of the US) thinks that you're absolutely batty!
Before my flight to Italy, I had spent the entire week with, at most, five hours of sleep per night after which I had to stay awake for another thirty-six hours on the Tuesday I left school, as my train left at 10:30pm and my flight left the next day at 7am. I counted my nap on the train as a blessing and felt decent once I arrived in the Fiumicino airport. However, I needed to wait for another ten hours before my rendezvous's flight came in. I went through the fastest customs ever (the guy barely glanced at each passport before waving nearly one hundred people through in two minutes) and decided to wander the coastal town of Fiumicino. When getting onto the bus, the first thing I noticed was that the Italians drive on the correct side of the road, as in the RIGHT side. Get with the program England! The landscape and architecture that we passed reminded me a lot of southern California and New Mexico. Honestly, if you had dropped me there and not shown me a sign, I would have guessed that I was in LA. Much of the place was in disrepair (I was wondering if I'd stepped into a ghetto), but all I had to do was cross one street to find rotting, chipped walls giving way to picturesque stretches of cafés, restaurants, and shops on a plaza. Here I was introduced to the wonders of gelato, which is vastly superior to American ice cream in flavor, but lacks our variety, and Italian pizza which is no different to ours aside from a thinner crust and better ingredients. Just a margarita pizza with no seasonings in the sauce was equal to or better than whatever I'd get at home with a bunch of herbs in it, as the tomatoes are just more flavorful in Italy (which is backwards since they are a New World fruit). I tried stumbling through some of the Italian that Dragos had tried to teach me (he lived in Italy for nine years) to order another gelato elsewhere, but I guess that it was so obvious that I was an English speaker that the clerk started to stumble through English to help me. I'm not even sure what flavor I got then. What does "Nocciola" mean?
I meandered past the various shops and restaurants nearby, taking in the sights and having a laugh at the "Old Wild West Steakhouse" in the dead center of the street (it looked very little like what I'd find back in New Mexico). Soon, however, the rhythmic washing of waves reached my ears. Like a dog following the distant call of a bird, I was led to the coastline. I found a wide stone path that stretched over the shore and ended in a spacious circle that hovered over the water, supported by thick shafts of stone and hedged by carved railings on all sides. I did not enter the circle at first. I stood at its edge where the straight bricks began to curve and I hesitated. I felt... relieved to be there. Imagine a man returning home and reuniting with a friend, that he had not seen or thought of in years, to discover that he had felt solitary without this companion. That is much how I felt standing there. Something that felt like a long held breath escaped from me and I shuddered. I could not bring myself to cross into the circle and surround myself with the ocean, much as the returning man might fear to speak with his friend after so many years of negligent silence. A wave crashed over the rocks and I took a step through the intangible barrier. I took another and another and I was elated! I wanted to dance and run to the edge of the railing to look out over the sea and call for joy "I'm back!" However, my superego got the better of me and I contented myself with plastering an idiotic smile across my face. I am not a sailor, nor a marine biologist, nor do I even particularly like fish (save sushi), so I would never have imagined that seeing the ocean again after these months would have such a profound effect on me. Now, weeks later, I still think of the sea and wonder when I shall hear it again and smell the air. That's another thing; I have spent most of my life by the sea, so I grew up accustomed to the smell that everyone else found so novel. That day, in Fiumicino, I smelled the ocean for the first time in my memory. Of course everyone, myself included, noticed the odors of low tide and when the quahogers hauled in their catch nearby, but never before can I recall smelling the brine.
Naturally, I went to the shore after that, kissed the Mediterranean's water just to say that I'd done it, wished I'd brought a swimsuit, and stayed within sight of the ocean for the next five hours. When I went to eat, I made sure to find a place with a view of the sea just so that I could soak it all in (and the restaurant made a good half calzone, half pizza thing while they kept playing American hits from the '50s by Sam Cook and the rest, which I got a kick out of). I walked back to the stone pier to discover that I was about an hour shy of sunset, yet found myself staying there the entire time.
A man had set up a stool and was playing the guitar for all present as the sun began to sink. I looked out again, the soft music behind me, the warm wind before me, the murmuring of the ocean all around, and all of it painted in oranges, greens, and blues. This would be a wonderful place to bring a girl, I couldn't help but think. If I had one that is. I turned back around and saw a couple settle near my left while the pretty girl began to dance to the guitar. She's got the right idea at least. I considered joining her, but decided to just let her boyfriend enjoy the scene. She looked like she was having fun though...
Aside from that, the guitarist made me laugh by playing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and "The Entertainer" in the middle of his more traditional tunes while I noticed another man who, I kid you not, was unable to turn left. I am not imaginative enough to make this stuff up. Soon I had to depart, and I passed a limber girl doing rather impressive tricks on roller-skates, several couples, and then myself had to hit the emergency stop on a bus and caused an old lady to fall over. Well, shit.
Have a good night one and all! I shall post again tomorrow night so that you can catch up on my exploits, homework be damned! Tune in tomorrow night to discover why I stated earlier that "I am a wooly-headed, gullible, sleep-addled imbecile with no situational awareness or any sort of common sense or rationality."
Friday, October 18, 2013
Now It Hits? Really?
Would you believe that, for a couple of days there, I was beginning to regret booking a trip to Italy for break? Would you believe that, after six weeks of not caring a lick about home, one package of spiders could imbed a thorn of longing in my heart? Well, guess what, it can. I opened a package from my aunt to find a Halloween greeting card with three comical paper spiders linked by a chain enclosed. If that wasn't bad (or great) enough, I got another package from my mother with a small assortment of Halloween themed treats such as ghost-shaped marshmallows and candy-corn. I hung the spiders from my window the moment everything was unwrapped and tore through the goodies like a withdrawing addict goes through cocaine.
I should tell you that, due to my whirlwind trip to Italy, I will be missing my favorite holiday of the year. Surmounting even Thanksgiving, with all of my aunt's exemplary cooking, Halloween stands as my all-time favorite holiday and the English don't celebrate it properly!!! These morons let the really little kids have all of the fun and refuse to dress up or to even put out decorations in many cases! No place here seems to celebrate that ghoulish, romantic night as we Americans do. I mean, how can you go a whole year without dressing up in some amazing costume and pretending to be someone or something else for a while? How deprived these students are, that they can't even put on a costume during the last school day before the big night! I suppose that I'm spoiled and have taken for granted all of my years of masquerading as anything from an elf to an executioner during this time, but this just feels all wrong! Alas, that this whole nation must be so damnably serious! Okay, they can be crazy too, but they are totally missing out! The only thing that's preserving my sanity is that I got to dress up as Gandalf for a play at school last winter. At least some of the guys in the dorm are getting into the spirit. Two of them bought a pumpkin each to carve a few days ago and I couldn't help commandeering one poor guy's gourd to satisfy my craving. I didn't have my customary set of tools, but we made do. Hopefully the housemaster will let us leave them on a windowsill. I had everyone save the seeds for me to cook and share later, as they are delicious when cooked in the oven with olive oil and salt, and put them in the fridge until I could get the supplies. Today, however, I discovered that some idiot threw them all out! I don't know who did it, but why would you waste good seeds!? Actually, why would you look in the fridge, see something that is not yours and that you can't eat yet, and then throw it out? To put it delicately, that did not make me very happy.
I was beginning to regret passing up Halloween, but honestly, how many chances will I have to go to Italy? Not many! I can still have Halloween next year and go all out to make up for this year's deficiency. I got over the homesickness thing in a matter of hours and then realized that it was actually much cheaper to take a week-long trip to Italy than it was to go home. I plan to visit Rome and Venice while I'm there. The person I'm traveling with wants to go to Florence, and I normally would too, but we would only have a day to look at it if we went, part of which would be spent on a train, while also cutting into our time in Venice. I've heard amazing things about Florence, but I want to see as much of each city as possible before leaving so that I don't have to backtrack if and when I return some day. I've heard repeatedly that you can see everything really great in Venice during two or three days, so I'm hoping that I can convince her to spend two days there instead of just one. Did I mention that I'll be traveling with just a girl and myself? No? Well, I haven't actually met her yet, so I couldn't tell you a thing about her. She's come over from America on the same scholarship that I have. I'll keep you posted on that little adventure. Oh, and I'm trying this networking system for travelers called "Couchsurfing" for the first time. It's a really cool way of getting to spend the nights for free somewhere while also getting to know your host and everything that they can tell you about themselves and the area. However, one of the people that we were scheduled to stay with had to cancel on us on Tuesday. I only discovered this after going to watch the competitive house plays until 9pm and thus had to send out a slew of new couch requests that night. I was up until about 3am typing them all out, as they needed to be personal and polite to catch the hosts' attentions and give them some idea of why they would enjoy my company. I forfeited any attempts at homework an hour after that and crawled into bed around four o'clock. The next day was much the same, except that I had to perform in one of those plays and then go to my room to make up for all of the work I'd fallen behind on, including university applications, and walk about like a zombie. I feel sorry for the guy who had to sleep in my room that night, as I was up until 3am typing again. To make matters worse for him, I started sleep talking. I forgot to tell you guys that I have a tendency to do that. I have been known to talk, walk, dress, sing, and even whistle in my sleep. Don't ask me why or how. I've been like that for my whole life. This night, however, I was vaguely aware of my mutterings as I started tossing and turning. I can't remember what or why, but something startled me. I sat bolt upright in bed and rammed my forehead into the bulletin board that hangs on the wall beside me! Even that didn't wake me up though! I touched my forehead, felt something sticky and warm, muttered "Is that blood?" and then fell back to sleep. Pain can't keep me down! However, I was walking around for a couple of days with this cut on my forehead that made me think of Indians every time I saw it.
Speaking of house plays, bravo to those involved. I saw some good stuff, some *ahem* not so good stuff, and almost everything was funny, be it for the wrong or right reasons. Also, props to those guys who had the bravery to cross-dress for their plays; you really milked the parts. One shemale in particular deserves recognition as one of the best drag queens I have ever seen. I'm not sure if this is a complement Peter, but you could have strutted your stuff at any gay pride rally. One thing I am sure of, though, is that I never want to meet this guy/girl/thing in a dark alley while he/she/it is wearing such a getup!
Performing is fun and all, even if you're not very good, but I think that I get the most enjoyment from the rehearsals and especially the mistakes. There was one night where we were going through tech and lighting cues and the lead girl had to recite a monologue. While she's doing her thing on stage, pouring her heart into her words, the stage goes black and a spotlight opposite of where she is standing appears. She dashes for it and starts saying her lines again, but before she can get three words out, the regular lights come on again, except for where she's standing! In the dress rehearsal, during a mad scramble to get offstage, particularly to get off of the sinfully comfy couch that was onstage, one of our guy's flip-flops broke and went flying through the air to land near the back of the stage, far behind him in full view of the phantom audience. Rather than risk the wrath of our director, he slunk away. As I watched the rehearsal, though, a movement caught my eye. I turned and saw a hand peeking out from underneath the rear curtain. It crept forward, inching toward the flip-flop as a tentative fox might when approaching food while people are watching. His hand felt around a bit, sliding about like a cat's paw does when it's searching for mice. The hand bumped the flip-flop and froze. Its fingers wrapped around the shoe, slowly withdrew, and disappeared again. I think that only a couple of the others saw this, but we that did all cracked up. I swear, half of the mistakes that occur in rehearsals could easily go into a sketch show!
Now the plays are over, the troupe has disbanded, our lives go on, and I've got a whole mess of work to do for university applications before I leave for Italy. I have no idea when I'll have internet access again, so I should get this all done ASAP. I hope that you enjoyed the entry and that you might send me some comments and, even better, criticisms. Have a good night y'all!
I should tell you that, due to my whirlwind trip to Italy, I will be missing my favorite holiday of the year. Surmounting even Thanksgiving, with all of my aunt's exemplary cooking, Halloween stands as my all-time favorite holiday and the English don't celebrate it properly!!! These morons let the really little kids have all of the fun and refuse to dress up or to even put out decorations in many cases! No place here seems to celebrate that ghoulish, romantic night as we Americans do. I mean, how can you go a whole year without dressing up in some amazing costume and pretending to be someone or something else for a while? How deprived these students are, that they can't even put on a costume during the last school day before the big night! I suppose that I'm spoiled and have taken for granted all of my years of masquerading as anything from an elf to an executioner during this time, but this just feels all wrong! Alas, that this whole nation must be so damnably serious! Okay, they can be crazy too, but they are totally missing out! The only thing that's preserving my sanity is that I got to dress up as Gandalf for a play at school last winter. At least some of the guys in the dorm are getting into the spirit. Two of them bought a pumpkin each to carve a few days ago and I couldn't help commandeering one poor guy's gourd to satisfy my craving. I didn't have my customary set of tools, but we made do. Hopefully the housemaster will let us leave them on a windowsill. I had everyone save the seeds for me to cook and share later, as they are delicious when cooked in the oven with olive oil and salt, and put them in the fridge until I could get the supplies. Today, however, I discovered that some idiot threw them all out! I don't know who did it, but why would you waste good seeds!? Actually, why would you look in the fridge, see something that is not yours and that you can't eat yet, and then throw it out? To put it delicately, that did not make me very happy.
I was beginning to regret passing up Halloween, but honestly, how many chances will I have to go to Italy? Not many! I can still have Halloween next year and go all out to make up for this year's deficiency. I got over the homesickness thing in a matter of hours and then realized that it was actually much cheaper to take a week-long trip to Italy than it was to go home. I plan to visit Rome and Venice while I'm there. The person I'm traveling with wants to go to Florence, and I normally would too, but we would only have a day to look at it if we went, part of which would be spent on a train, while also cutting into our time in Venice. I've heard amazing things about Florence, but I want to see as much of each city as possible before leaving so that I don't have to backtrack if and when I return some day. I've heard repeatedly that you can see everything really great in Venice during two or three days, so I'm hoping that I can convince her to spend two days there instead of just one. Did I mention that I'll be traveling with just a girl and myself? No? Well, I haven't actually met her yet, so I couldn't tell you a thing about her. She's come over from America on the same scholarship that I have. I'll keep you posted on that little adventure. Oh, and I'm trying this networking system for travelers called "Couchsurfing" for the first time. It's a really cool way of getting to spend the nights for free somewhere while also getting to know your host and everything that they can tell you about themselves and the area. However, one of the people that we were scheduled to stay with had to cancel on us on Tuesday. I only discovered this after going to watch the competitive house plays until 9pm and thus had to send out a slew of new couch requests that night. I was up until about 3am typing them all out, as they needed to be personal and polite to catch the hosts' attentions and give them some idea of why they would enjoy my company. I forfeited any attempts at homework an hour after that and crawled into bed around four o'clock. The next day was much the same, except that I had to perform in one of those plays and then go to my room to make up for all of the work I'd fallen behind on, including university applications, and walk about like a zombie. I feel sorry for the guy who had to sleep in my room that night, as I was up until 3am typing again. To make matters worse for him, I started sleep talking. I forgot to tell you guys that I have a tendency to do that. I have been known to talk, walk, dress, sing, and even whistle in my sleep. Don't ask me why or how. I've been like that for my whole life. This night, however, I was vaguely aware of my mutterings as I started tossing and turning. I can't remember what or why, but something startled me. I sat bolt upright in bed and rammed my forehead into the bulletin board that hangs on the wall beside me! Even that didn't wake me up though! I touched my forehead, felt something sticky and warm, muttered "Is that blood?" and then fell back to sleep. Pain can't keep me down! However, I was walking around for a couple of days with this cut on my forehead that made me think of Indians every time I saw it.
Speaking of house plays, bravo to those involved. I saw some good stuff, some *ahem* not so good stuff, and almost everything was funny, be it for the wrong or right reasons. Also, props to those guys who had the bravery to cross-dress for their plays; you really milked the parts. One shemale in particular deserves recognition as one of the best drag queens I have ever seen. I'm not sure if this is a complement Peter, but you could have strutted your stuff at any gay pride rally. One thing I am sure of, though, is that I never want to meet this guy/girl/thing in a dark alley while he/she/it is wearing such a getup!
Performing is fun and all, even if you're not very good, but I think that I get the most enjoyment from the rehearsals and especially the mistakes. There was one night where we were going through tech and lighting cues and the lead girl had to recite a monologue. While she's doing her thing on stage, pouring her heart into her words, the stage goes black and a spotlight opposite of where she is standing appears. She dashes for it and starts saying her lines again, but before she can get three words out, the regular lights come on again, except for where she's standing! In the dress rehearsal, during a mad scramble to get offstage, particularly to get off of the sinfully comfy couch that was onstage, one of our guy's flip-flops broke and went flying through the air to land near the back of the stage, far behind him in full view of the phantom audience. Rather than risk the wrath of our director, he slunk away. As I watched the rehearsal, though, a movement caught my eye. I turned and saw a hand peeking out from underneath the rear curtain. It crept forward, inching toward the flip-flop as a tentative fox might when approaching food while people are watching. His hand felt around a bit, sliding about like a cat's paw does when it's searching for mice. The hand bumped the flip-flop and froze. Its fingers wrapped around the shoe, slowly withdrew, and disappeared again. I think that only a couple of the others saw this, but we that did all cracked up. I swear, half of the mistakes that occur in rehearsals could easily go into a sketch show!
Now the plays are over, the troupe has disbanded, our lives go on, and I've got a whole mess of work to do for university applications before I leave for Italy. I have no idea when I'll have internet access again, so I should get this all done ASAP. I hope that you enjoyed the entry and that you might send me some comments and, even better, criticisms. Have a good night y'all!
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
I Am Terrible At This Weekly Posting Thing
You know how I said that I would post on every Friday around 9pm if I could? Well, as you can see, I have not kept to that very well, between play rehearsals, homework, and me being an absent-minded doofus. I'll try to reform, but no promises. Matt, if you're reading this, here you go! Sorry to keep you in such suspense.
Note: This is the third time that I've been sick since I got here. Aside from being in a new country with tons of new pathogens, I'm really gaining a firsthand perspective on the adage stating that guy's dormitories are just huge petri dishes. Some of these guys are just, well, guys. I really can't find a better way of describing it. So illness has been a real downer, plus the lack of sleep from trying to throw together a trip to Italy for half-term, leaving me drained of my usual exuberance.
Anyhow, as I mentioned last week, I tried my hand at archery, rifle shooting, and fencing. Archery I was fairly experienced at, consistently hitting within the red ring with the school's considerably lighter bows (28-pound draw as opposed to my 50), and thought myself well on my way to improvement. That was before the school's coach noticed me. Looking at my stance and posture, he found five mistakes right off the bat. He corrected them, explaining why each adjustment would make me a better archer and consistent with my shots. I soaked it all up like a sponge and followed his instructions with enthusiasm. I nocked an arrow, drew back with his lessons fresh in my mind, readied myself, loosed the shaft, and missed the target. I think that I must have left about a foot of air between the backboard and where my arrow flew. I gave the coach a look and he said "Okay, that was a bit far to the right, but the point is that you'll be consistent, so you can compensate and adjust your aim now." If by "compensate" he meant "struggle to regain the accuracy that I had had with my previous technique while failing to come near the bulls-eye," then he was dead on the mark. By the end of the night, not including my first two volleys which were uninhibited by technique, I only hit the center circle once and dotted the target with such random holes and marks that I could have sold it as a sculpture in tribute to Jackson Pollock. If it wasn't for the instructor's logical explanations and how each of them made perfect sense, I would have started ignoring him half-way through. However, as the man could explain each detail of the technique's rational to me, I will trust his judgement that I will improve much faster now, though the evidence informs against him.
Regarding shooting, there's really little to say. I hit the target and beat everyone in my group by a hair's breadth (133/150 points when rounded down), but then noticed how I was nowhere near as skilled as any person (or most of the kids) on the squads. Simple as that. Fencing, however, proved to be more intriguing than the other two, as I had never fought in such a way before. For one, I was told to stand on the heel of my front foot. This goes against everything I've ever learned from dance or Bridgewater, which stated that I must stay on the balls of my feet. I mean, for fencing it works, but for anything else, it would compromise my balance and send me sprawling if I happened to take a misstep or make any mistake. Then, after about five minutes of the instructor fixing my stance and a myriad of other things, I realized that there was a steady trickle of younger kids coming into the room. I finally asked the coach where the people my age were and he said "Oh, well the time tables got a bit shuffled, so the younger kids are taking lessons now. You're a beginner though, so this could be really good for you!" Thanks. You just put me on par with a bunch of prepubescent girls, half of which can't stop giggling long enough to get their gear on. Real self-esteem booster coach! The man was quite kind and a good teacher, but I wish that someone had told me beforehand so that I could have learned among my peers. It didn't help that the girl that had to spar with me (age twelve? thirteen?) seemed too afraid, or perhaps too guilty, to attack an older, newbie guy. The poor kid only stabbed at me four times, scored only once, and suffered a counter-attack that was sevenfold as vicious as hers (so probably about as aggressive and effective as a chihuahua with a Napoleon complex). As soundly as I "beat" her, I'm sure that the girl could have cleaned my clock with her sword any day of the week if she wasn't inhibited. Why else would she have all of her own equipment if she wasn't taking it seriously or had skill or at least experience? Younger though she was, her ability would probably have trumped my thirty minutes of holding an épée without her even breaking a sweat. Afterward, the coach found me and told me that, for someone who had never fenced before in his whole life, I was pretty good and would probably do well to join the older group. Yay! Now I can be totally humiliated and thrashed by people that I'll see during school! That wasn't supposed to be sarcastic, by the way. I'm a fan of the "sink or swim" learning method when it comes to sports.
Apparently here, nobody looks forward to the school's open houses (aka "Open Days"). I was a tour guide at my last school and enjoyed showing visitors around campus, chatting with them, and giving them some insider's info that some of the teachers probably wouldn't want me to say (such as "Our football team only started winning games these last two years after about two years of no victories" rather than "our football team is definitely improving"). A part of me was looking forward to open day. However, as I am new here, I was relegated to my dorm where I got to tour one family around for five minutes. Other than that, I sat around with a few other guys and the house mother for over four hours, chatting and sometimes trying to get some university application stuff done. During this time, someone started asking the foreign students about what language they dreamed. Most said that half of their dreams were in their native language and half in their other language(s). One of the Germans said that, when they dream in English, the dreams are more absurd and fantastic, while the ones in German are realistic. Everyone was rather perplexed as to why, but I have a theory. His unconscious mind probably has to work twice as hard to dream in a foreign language, especially one as hard as English, so perhaps his mind is so focused on making sensible speech that it lets the dream's continuity and realism lapse. Along the same lines, it could instead be that his analytical mind is so focused on coherent speech that his creative mind is less inhibited by rational, mundane thought processes and allowed to flourish. Opinions anyone? I'm curious to know if you guys have any thoughts on this. Aside from that conversation and making an obscene number of crepes that night with the guys in the dorm, Saturday was a bit of a bust.
I discovered that one of the universities that I'm applying to doesn't require anything from my current school, as I already graduated in the U.S.. I could include grades and recommendations from my current teachers if I wished, but it would only supplement my main application. If the other universities are of the same mind, I might just tell half of my homework to go jump off of a cliff! A lot of this stuff is really interesting and I've got teachers giving me additional work that piques my curiosity, but some of it I've already studied before and/or have no use for. Instead of taking my media industry homework seriously, I could spend more time working on my middle-ages independent study or on my fiction writing. That might irk the teachers, but I'd honestly get a lot more out of this year.
Speaking of extra work, I've been helping someone with their IB math homework these last two weeks and I found that (I can't believe I'm saying this) I miss calculus and trigonometry. They're like puzzles that work a different part of my mind. When I don't have to do it every night for homework, it's actually kind of a pleasant pastime. Never thought I'd actually enjoy math...
Which reminds me, I haven't been homesick once. I find this particularly odd as, last time when I was away from home, I was gone for two weeks and became pretty morose toward the end. It's been, what, five weeks now? Terrible as this sounds, the thing I miss most is my dog Thurber. Neither my parents, nor my friends, nor memories of my old school strike a sharp pang of longing in me, miss them though I do. Talking to one of the day students that shares my room, he said it was probably because I'm having a good time. That's probably true. Each time I got homesick, I spent days on end with minimal structure or work, as I was at summer camp or in rural Virginia, yet I was still having fun. However, there was little challenge to it. Complain as I might about homework, I actually do enjoy my studies. I'm like a boarder collie. I need work. I need occupation. Otherwise, I start gnawing on the furniture.
Okay. I know that this entry was a bit helter-skelter, but honestly, this week was unexciting with only these events punctuating the monotony. If Shakespeare is right and fate is like a wheel, where things get worse before they get better, then perhaps this week will be an improvement! Until then, if you have comments or criticisms that could make this blog better, then please contact me! I wish you a good week and hope to write you on Friday!
P.S. I just found out that the school blocks my blog between 11pm and 8pm, so late night entries like this (11:34pm) will have to be late if I can't quite make this window of opportunity. Either way, it should be my job to get this done.
Note: This is the third time that I've been sick since I got here. Aside from being in a new country with tons of new pathogens, I'm really gaining a firsthand perspective on the adage stating that guy's dormitories are just huge petri dishes. Some of these guys are just, well, guys. I really can't find a better way of describing it. So illness has been a real downer, plus the lack of sleep from trying to throw together a trip to Italy for half-term, leaving me drained of my usual exuberance.
Anyhow, as I mentioned last week, I tried my hand at archery, rifle shooting, and fencing. Archery I was fairly experienced at, consistently hitting within the red ring with the school's considerably lighter bows (28-pound draw as opposed to my 50), and thought myself well on my way to improvement. That was before the school's coach noticed me. Looking at my stance and posture, he found five mistakes right off the bat. He corrected them, explaining why each adjustment would make me a better archer and consistent with my shots. I soaked it all up like a sponge and followed his instructions with enthusiasm. I nocked an arrow, drew back with his lessons fresh in my mind, readied myself, loosed the shaft, and missed the target. I think that I must have left about a foot of air between the backboard and where my arrow flew. I gave the coach a look and he said "Okay, that was a bit far to the right, but the point is that you'll be consistent, so you can compensate and adjust your aim now." If by "compensate" he meant "struggle to regain the accuracy that I had had with my previous technique while failing to come near the bulls-eye," then he was dead on the mark. By the end of the night, not including my first two volleys which were uninhibited by technique, I only hit the center circle once and dotted the target with such random holes and marks that I could have sold it as a sculpture in tribute to Jackson Pollock. If it wasn't for the instructor's logical explanations and how each of them made perfect sense, I would have started ignoring him half-way through. However, as the man could explain each detail of the technique's rational to me, I will trust his judgement that I will improve much faster now, though the evidence informs against him.
Regarding shooting, there's really little to say. I hit the target and beat everyone in my group by a hair's breadth (133/150 points when rounded down), but then noticed how I was nowhere near as skilled as any person (or most of the kids) on the squads. Simple as that. Fencing, however, proved to be more intriguing than the other two, as I had never fought in such a way before. For one, I was told to stand on the heel of my front foot. This goes against everything I've ever learned from dance or Bridgewater, which stated that I must stay on the balls of my feet. I mean, for fencing it works, but for anything else, it would compromise my balance and send me sprawling if I happened to take a misstep or make any mistake. Then, after about five minutes of the instructor fixing my stance and a myriad of other things, I realized that there was a steady trickle of younger kids coming into the room. I finally asked the coach where the people my age were and he said "Oh, well the time tables got a bit shuffled, so the younger kids are taking lessons now. You're a beginner though, so this could be really good for you!" Thanks. You just put me on par with a bunch of prepubescent girls, half of which can't stop giggling long enough to get their gear on. Real self-esteem booster coach! The man was quite kind and a good teacher, but I wish that someone had told me beforehand so that I could have learned among my peers. It didn't help that the girl that had to spar with me (age twelve? thirteen?) seemed too afraid, or perhaps too guilty, to attack an older, newbie guy. The poor kid only stabbed at me four times, scored only once, and suffered a counter-attack that was sevenfold as vicious as hers (so probably about as aggressive and effective as a chihuahua with a Napoleon complex). As soundly as I "beat" her, I'm sure that the girl could have cleaned my clock with her sword any day of the week if she wasn't inhibited. Why else would she have all of her own equipment if she wasn't taking it seriously or had skill or at least experience? Younger though she was, her ability would probably have trumped my thirty minutes of holding an épée without her even breaking a sweat. Afterward, the coach found me and told me that, for someone who had never fenced before in his whole life, I was pretty good and would probably do well to join the older group. Yay! Now I can be totally humiliated and thrashed by people that I'll see during school! That wasn't supposed to be sarcastic, by the way. I'm a fan of the "sink or swim" learning method when it comes to sports.
Apparently here, nobody looks forward to the school's open houses (aka "Open Days"). I was a tour guide at my last school and enjoyed showing visitors around campus, chatting with them, and giving them some insider's info that some of the teachers probably wouldn't want me to say (such as "Our football team only started winning games these last two years after about two years of no victories" rather than "our football team is definitely improving"). A part of me was looking forward to open day. However, as I am new here, I was relegated to my dorm where I got to tour one family around for five minutes. Other than that, I sat around with a few other guys and the house mother for over four hours, chatting and sometimes trying to get some university application stuff done. During this time, someone started asking the foreign students about what language they dreamed. Most said that half of their dreams were in their native language and half in their other language(s). One of the Germans said that, when they dream in English, the dreams are more absurd and fantastic, while the ones in German are realistic. Everyone was rather perplexed as to why, but I have a theory. His unconscious mind probably has to work twice as hard to dream in a foreign language, especially one as hard as English, so perhaps his mind is so focused on making sensible speech that it lets the dream's continuity and realism lapse. Along the same lines, it could instead be that his analytical mind is so focused on coherent speech that his creative mind is less inhibited by rational, mundane thought processes and allowed to flourish. Opinions anyone? I'm curious to know if you guys have any thoughts on this. Aside from that conversation and making an obscene number of crepes that night with the guys in the dorm, Saturday was a bit of a bust.
I discovered that one of the universities that I'm applying to doesn't require anything from my current school, as I already graduated in the U.S.. I could include grades and recommendations from my current teachers if I wished, but it would only supplement my main application. If the other universities are of the same mind, I might just tell half of my homework to go jump off of a cliff! A lot of this stuff is really interesting and I've got teachers giving me additional work that piques my curiosity, but some of it I've already studied before and/or have no use for. Instead of taking my media industry homework seriously, I could spend more time working on my middle-ages independent study or on my fiction writing. That might irk the teachers, but I'd honestly get a lot more out of this year.
Speaking of extra work, I've been helping someone with their IB math homework these last two weeks and I found that (I can't believe I'm saying this) I miss calculus and trigonometry. They're like puzzles that work a different part of my mind. When I don't have to do it every night for homework, it's actually kind of a pleasant pastime. Never thought I'd actually enjoy math...
Which reminds me, I haven't been homesick once. I find this particularly odd as, last time when I was away from home, I was gone for two weeks and became pretty morose toward the end. It's been, what, five weeks now? Terrible as this sounds, the thing I miss most is my dog Thurber. Neither my parents, nor my friends, nor memories of my old school strike a sharp pang of longing in me, miss them though I do. Talking to one of the day students that shares my room, he said it was probably because I'm having a good time. That's probably true. Each time I got homesick, I spent days on end with minimal structure or work, as I was at summer camp or in rural Virginia, yet I was still having fun. However, there was little challenge to it. Complain as I might about homework, I actually do enjoy my studies. I'm like a boarder collie. I need work. I need occupation. Otherwise, I start gnawing on the furniture.
Okay. I know that this entry was a bit helter-skelter, but honestly, this week was unexciting with only these events punctuating the monotony. If Shakespeare is right and fate is like a wheel, where things get worse before they get better, then perhaps this week will be an improvement! Until then, if you have comments or criticisms that could make this blog better, then please contact me! I wish you a good week and hope to write you on Friday!
P.S. I just found out that the school blocks my blog between 11pm and 8pm, so late night entries like this (11:34pm) will have to be late if I can't quite make this window of opportunity. Either way, it should be my job to get this done.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
To Those Who Wait
First of all, I am terribly sorry for postponing this post twice to
those four or five people who actually read this thing. I think that I
should start treating this as an actual commitment with a specific time
that I need to write it in. Yeah. We'll say 7pm on a Friday is when I'll
write it.
Second: I was totally right to wait the extra couple of days before writing this entry because Gay Pride at Chester was nuts! I mean, really, who wants to hear about a week when the most significant thing I did was drop my Sociology course when I could be talking about cross-dressing nuns singing to a crowd of bible-thumpers across the street?
So, skipping the long stretch of bus rides and introducing a chubby little boy to the notion of cabrito tacos with green chili (good stuff), I arrived in Chester to meet with the friend from school who had invited me to Gay Pride in the first place. I waited, leaning against a shop's brick wall, scanning the crowd and taking in the sights when I noticed a guy and girl walking toward me. The guy was wearing a plastic, pink fireman's helmet, pink foam finger, and a white and purple rugby outfit. It was only when he was close enough for me to make out the gay pride flags drawn on his forehead, each cheek, and each arm, that I realized that this was my friend. A good start to the day? I wondered.
I want to establish something here before I continue: I am straight. I am about as straight as a steel construction beam. I've had enough ignorant imbeciles call me gay (also unfounded) in elementary and middle school that I don't need that sort of garbage rumor spreading in this school or anywhere else. That won't end well for anyone. I can promise you that.
The point is that where I'm from, it doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, bi, or of indeterminate gender, it's just plain fun to go to these sorts of rallies, support their rights to choice, and just watch all of the crazy stuff that goes on. There's a place called Provincetown at the very tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts where I believe the majority of the population is homosexual. If not, it is still one of the most popular vacation spots for homosexuals during the summer, which means that every Saturday night during the summer is just a huge party with street performers and God knows what else there. For us Cape Cod folk, it's a pretty normal, touristy thing to go and have fun at these. I only found out when I got back to campus that the same is not true of England. Well, I guess I'm a maverick. Deal with it.
I discovered that my friend is rather well known and fairly popular in Chester pretty quickly. Just walking the three blocks to the rally (which had apparently been going for over five hours by the time I arrived at 3pm), he must have stopped seven or eight times to chat with groups of people. One of these groups pointed out my first "Bible Basher" of the day, who stood above a sign, shouting abuses at almost everyone passing by. The guys in this group were saying how much fun they were having messing with the ignoramus and, as I passed the man, I noticed that they had managed to plant on his yellow-jacketed back two bright red "We're Here, We're Queer, Get Over It" stickers. I gave them a silent applause for that. I only wish that I could have found them later to ask what else they did to the guy, which was hopefully nothing drastic.
We arrived at the town hall to find the street impassible with the crush of at least two hundred people. All around were shops and stands selling themed goods. My friend took a look at me and said "You need some color" before he and his partner in crime dragged me to a stand and notified me that they would be spraying my hair red. To say that I resisted would be a blatant lie. I always wondered what it would be like to be a red-head, even if I did resemble a fire truck.
Regarding
the rally itself, I must say that the first bit of the performances
that I saw were pretty boring. The entire thing was like a small concert
set up in front of the town hall with people packed close to the stage
and picketing Protestants behind them (At least I'll assume they were
Protestant, considering that Brits say "Bible Basher" which, according
to Wikipedia, is typically a Protestant of some sect) and most everyone
cheering for one drag queen after another. The only consistently good
bits were when the hosts (hostesses? Don't know what a cross-dressing
guy would want to be called in this situation) came onto the stage and
had long strings of banter and occasionally insulting the crowd. Aside
from that, things only got interesting an hour later after a couple of people did a Michael Jackson choreography routine.
This was followed by a Lady Gaga impersonator (a guy?) lip-sync "singing" to "Poker Face," and an act I that didn't really watch (for noticeable reasons if you look below), which was interrupted by a Brittany Spears impersonator (definitely a guy) singing, you guessed it, "Hit Me Baby One More Time."
After
this appeared the cross-dressing nuns who sang pop versions of hymns
directly to the bigots in the back while doing, well, more unsavory
things with their fake (and thankfully hidden) breasts.
The crowning number, though, was a troupe of five absurdly dressed men dancing and strutting to "You Can't Stop The Beat."
Next
was a brush with fame from visiting celebrity Stacey Jackson
(apparently 2nd on some Canadian music list) who, while good, I was not
terribly impressed with, but to each their own, right? The best part, in
my opinion, came next when a P!nk imitator arrived on a three-wheeled
motorcycle flying the Gay Pride flag and then sang through most of
P!nk's hits. She actually had a far better tone quality than the
original and her style was far more musically interesting and versatile.
If only I could remember her name so that I could recommend her...
Her
performance was when the crowd's energy really cranked up. Already,
many people had been using the event as an excuse to be a little bit
crazy, and my friend and his buddies were keen to set the example, but
the P!nk tribute was an absolute blow-out release of excitement, noise,
and general fun for all present.
After
that some woman named Amelia Lily showed up (she apparently finished in
third place on "The X-Factor) and sang. That's all I'm going to say
about her (not that great).
Things wrapped up soon after that and I found myself getting my ID checked at the door of a gay bar/club called "The Old Queen's Head" about two hours later. This was where we saw the most extreme drag queen of them all (she/he must have been wearing five-inch platform heels) who was stunning (in every sense of the word, both good and bad) to behold.
This bar was also where I met the people who I would spend the rest of the night with. My friend introduced me to a group of another four of his mates there and we all hit it off. Some time after our meeting, I split from my friend and headed with three girls to a normal, perfectly straight club/bar known as "Off the Wall." On the way, though, I had the bizarre fortune to almost litterally run into another guy from my new school. I was walking backwards and chatting with the girls when I turned around and he and I locked eyes. Both of us stopped half-way through our steps and stared at each other for a good four seconds before it finally sank in and we both burst out laughing. Seriously, what are the chances of meeting in a city about thirty miles from the school? Shame I couldn't remember his name for the life of me.
Anyhow, we got to the bar where I met yet another great guy who was eager to introduce me to English drinking, as he himself was a bar tender. This guy and my other new friends introduced me to the joys of VK (which, I discovered about two minutes ago, is considered a "girl's" drink. I couldn't figure out why the bastard was snickering when I ordered a second), spiced rum and coke (not the narcotic), "Sex On The Beach" (Don't ask me, I'm not even sure what's in it, but it's good), and asking the bartender to mix together whatever they think might be good (tasted like a Shirley Temple with Jaeger), and renewed my disgust for tequila twice. Now, again to you sketchy boarder-line stalker university admissions people (who in theory wouldn't even find this and know it was me, right? Wrong.), that may sound like a lot for a newbie, but trust me, it was in moderation. I could still do tricks and sleight of hand with my ring by the end of the night, dodge and dance through a crowd, and carry everyone the drinks of everyone else at once. I only felt a little buzzed, inclined to dance all night, and once compelled to sing "I Don Quixote" in the street. The closest I came to any confrontation was when, as I was dancing with a couple of girls I'd never met, I felt a hand slide around the back of my neck.
I froze. The grip was loose, so I felt no immediate threat. Nevertheless, I turned very slowly to find myself face to face with a guy leaning over with a drink in his other hand and (I think) smiling. Whether that smile was friendly, mocking, or anything else, I couldn't tell. He said something about my dancing as I gingerly peeled his hand off. I gave him a thumbs up and a soft pat on the back and he seemed happy until, as I was leaving, he tried to return the thumbs-up with the wrong hand and spilled his drink all over himself. Poor chap. I think that he might have been just a little sloshed. I'm going to use that guy as my reference point. If I'm not stumbling, getting "friendly" and grabby with strangers, and/or spilling my drink, then it's a semi-stable night. Great evaluation point: Waking up without even a hint of a headache (which I did, to all of you really helpful, but somewhat frightening admissions sleuths).
The next morning, I wandered around the city with my original pal and properly soaked in the eclectic blend of buildings. All around us, there was this pastiche of architecture from Roman, to pre-gothic, to modern times, creating this strange effect of feeling out of the time-line. I felt as if I, in my t-shirt, jeans, and Toms, were an anachronism within such an antiquated city. I could talk for longer on that, but I'm going to call it a quits here.
The entry has been far too long as it is, but, as I said, there was a lot to talk about. This week, I have set myself up to try my hand at archery (fair past experience with minimal formal instruction), rifle shooting (held a rifle three times in my life), and fencing (never have even touched an epee or a foil, but I'll be glad to make a fool of myself for this one. I've wanted to try fencing since I was a little kid!) and just generally getting "trounced" by other, more experienced members of the school, so that ought to be fun! Good night!
Second: I was totally right to wait the extra couple of days before writing this entry because Gay Pride at Chester was nuts! I mean, really, who wants to hear about a week when the most significant thing I did was drop my Sociology course when I could be talking about cross-dressing nuns singing to a crowd of bible-thumpers across the street?
So, skipping the long stretch of bus rides and introducing a chubby little boy to the notion of cabrito tacos with green chili (good stuff), I arrived in Chester to meet with the friend from school who had invited me to Gay Pride in the first place. I waited, leaning against a shop's brick wall, scanning the crowd and taking in the sights when I noticed a guy and girl walking toward me. The guy was wearing a plastic, pink fireman's helmet, pink foam finger, and a white and purple rugby outfit. It was only when he was close enough for me to make out the gay pride flags drawn on his forehead, each cheek, and each arm, that I realized that this was my friend. A good start to the day? I wondered.
I want to establish something here before I continue: I am straight. I am about as straight as a steel construction beam. I've had enough ignorant imbeciles call me gay (also unfounded) in elementary and middle school that I don't need that sort of garbage rumor spreading in this school or anywhere else. That won't end well for anyone. I can promise you that.
The point is that where I'm from, it doesn't matter if you're gay, straight, bi, or of indeterminate gender, it's just plain fun to go to these sorts of rallies, support their rights to choice, and just watch all of the crazy stuff that goes on. There's a place called Provincetown at the very tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts where I believe the majority of the population is homosexual. If not, it is still one of the most popular vacation spots for homosexuals during the summer, which means that every Saturday night during the summer is just a huge party with street performers and God knows what else there. For us Cape Cod folk, it's a pretty normal, touristy thing to go and have fun at these. I only found out when I got back to campus that the same is not true of England. Well, I guess I'm a maverick. Deal with it.
I discovered that my friend is rather well known and fairly popular in Chester pretty quickly. Just walking the three blocks to the rally (which had apparently been going for over five hours by the time I arrived at 3pm), he must have stopped seven or eight times to chat with groups of people. One of these groups pointed out my first "Bible Basher" of the day, who stood above a sign, shouting abuses at almost everyone passing by. The guys in this group were saying how much fun they were having messing with the ignoramus and, as I passed the man, I noticed that they had managed to plant on his yellow-jacketed back two bright red "We're Here, We're Queer, Get Over It" stickers. I gave them a silent applause for that. I only wish that I could have found them later to ask what else they did to the guy, which was hopefully nothing drastic.
We arrived at the town hall to find the street impassible with the crush of at least two hundred people. All around were shops and stands selling themed goods. My friend took a look at me and said "You need some color" before he and his partner in crime dragged me to a stand and notified me that they would be spraying my hair red. To say that I resisted would be a blatant lie. I always wondered what it would be like to be a red-head, even if I did resemble a fire truck.
This was followed by a Lady Gaga impersonator (a guy?) lip-sync "singing" to "Poker Face," and an act I that didn't really watch (for noticeable reasons if you look below), which was interrupted by a Brittany Spears impersonator (definitely a guy) singing, you guessed it, "Hit Me Baby One More Time."
Things wrapped up soon after that and I found myself getting my ID checked at the door of a gay bar/club called "The Old Queen's Head" about two hours later. This was where we saw the most extreme drag queen of them all (she/he must have been wearing five-inch platform heels) who was stunning (in every sense of the word, both good and bad) to behold.
This bar was also where I met the people who I would spend the rest of the night with. My friend introduced me to a group of another four of his mates there and we all hit it off. Some time after our meeting, I split from my friend and headed with three girls to a normal, perfectly straight club/bar known as "Off the Wall." On the way, though, I had the bizarre fortune to almost litterally run into another guy from my new school. I was walking backwards and chatting with the girls when I turned around and he and I locked eyes. Both of us stopped half-way through our steps and stared at each other for a good four seconds before it finally sank in and we both burst out laughing. Seriously, what are the chances of meeting in a city about thirty miles from the school? Shame I couldn't remember his name for the life of me.
Anyhow, we got to the bar where I met yet another great guy who was eager to introduce me to English drinking, as he himself was a bar tender. This guy and my other new friends introduced me to the joys of VK (which, I discovered about two minutes ago, is considered a "girl's" drink. I couldn't figure out why the bastard was snickering when I ordered a second), spiced rum and coke (not the narcotic), "Sex On The Beach" (Don't ask me, I'm not even sure what's in it, but it's good), and asking the bartender to mix together whatever they think might be good (tasted like a Shirley Temple with Jaeger), and renewed my disgust for tequila twice. Now, again to you sketchy boarder-line stalker university admissions people (who in theory wouldn't even find this and know it was me, right? Wrong.), that may sound like a lot for a newbie, but trust me, it was in moderation. I could still do tricks and sleight of hand with my ring by the end of the night, dodge and dance through a crowd, and carry everyone the drinks of everyone else at once. I only felt a little buzzed, inclined to dance all night, and once compelled to sing "I Don Quixote" in the street. The closest I came to any confrontation was when, as I was dancing with a couple of girls I'd never met, I felt a hand slide around the back of my neck.
I froze. The grip was loose, so I felt no immediate threat. Nevertheless, I turned very slowly to find myself face to face with a guy leaning over with a drink in his other hand and (I think) smiling. Whether that smile was friendly, mocking, or anything else, I couldn't tell. He said something about my dancing as I gingerly peeled his hand off. I gave him a thumbs up and a soft pat on the back and he seemed happy until, as I was leaving, he tried to return the thumbs-up with the wrong hand and spilled his drink all over himself. Poor chap. I think that he might have been just a little sloshed. I'm going to use that guy as my reference point. If I'm not stumbling, getting "friendly" and grabby with strangers, and/or spilling my drink, then it's a semi-stable night. Great evaluation point: Waking up without even a hint of a headache (which I did, to all of you really helpful, but somewhat frightening admissions sleuths).
The next morning, I wandered around the city with my original pal and properly soaked in the eclectic blend of buildings. All around us, there was this pastiche of architecture from Roman, to pre-gothic, to modern times, creating this strange effect of feeling out of the time-line. I felt as if I, in my t-shirt, jeans, and Toms, were an anachronism within such an antiquated city. I could talk for longer on that, but I'm going to call it a quits here.
The entry has been far too long as it is, but, as I said, there was a lot to talk about. This week, I have set myself up to try my hand at archery (fair past experience with minimal formal instruction), rifle shooting (held a rifle three times in my life), and fencing (never have even touched an epee or a foil, but I'll be glad to make a fool of myself for this one. I've wanted to try fencing since I was a little kid!) and just generally getting "trounced" by other, more experienced members of the school, so that ought to be fun! Good night!
Friday, October 4, 2013
Give Me A Couple of Days
This week went by in a blur. In all honesty, I didn't even realize that it was Friday until about 1:30 and I question whether Wednesday even happened. The week was unremarkable, with the exception of going to see Wicked the musical Tuesday night. The show was fantastic and followed in the tradition of The Phantom of the Opera, as in it revolved around intricate, breathtaking sets, and elaborate, opulent costumes. Certainly worth seeing.
Now, while this past week was far from extraordinary, I am going to Chester tomorrow to see how these Brits show gay pride. Apparently there's some sort of rally or festival going on this weekend. I expect that it shall be much like what we would get in Provincetown in Massachusetts on a weekly basis in the summer or what you'd find in a Twilight movie. Anyhow, in lieu of either writing about an average week (boring for me) or about random philosophical musings (boring for you), I ask that you give me a couple of days to go experience something a little off-kilter. I shall relate my findings on Sunday night and give a full report! Besides, it's almost 1 am here and I'm not sure if I want to even try to crank out entertaining prose at this hour.
Anyhow, I'm sorry to extend your suspense, but bear with me and hope that I don't get hit on by any single gay guys. That would be rather awkward and undesirable to me, but then again, it could make for an amusing story.
Good night!
Now, while this past week was far from extraordinary, I am going to Chester tomorrow to see how these Brits show gay pride. Apparently there's some sort of rally or festival going on this weekend. I expect that it shall be much like what we would get in Provincetown in Massachusetts on a weekly basis in the summer or what you'd find in a Twilight movie. Anyhow, in lieu of either writing about an average week (boring for me) or about random philosophical musings (boring for you), I ask that you give me a couple of days to go experience something a little off-kilter. I shall relate my findings on Sunday night and give a full report! Besides, it's almost 1 am here and I'm not sure if I want to even try to crank out entertaining prose at this hour.
Anyhow, I'm sorry to extend your suspense, but bear with me and hope that I don't get hit on by any single gay guys. That would be rather awkward and undesirable to me, but then again, it could make for an amusing story.
Good night!
Friday, September 27, 2013
Toes, World Wars, And Other Random Things
It's been a long week with many late nights doing homework, rehearsals, projects, and all the while suffering from an addiction to the book The Wise Man's Fear. Now it's Friday night and I'm ready to relax, sleep, and just enjoy the weekend, yet I can't help remembering how I licked someone's toe earlier this week. Yeah. That wasn't exactly something that was on my bucket list.
While playing Truth or Dare at two in the morning, and me a little tipsy by then, I was commanded to lick some poor guy's toe. The funny thing is that I wasn't too reluctant to do this. That's not to say that I enjoy licking peoples' feet (leave that to the politicians and lobbyists), but I had a drink waiting for me and I thought "Ah, hell, why not? Alcohol's a sterilizer, right?" So out comes the tongue, followed by a quick dash to the sink to spit out... whatever was in my mouth, then a good booze mouth rinse. Disgusting as that was, I've got a sneaking suspicion that I would probably do it again if I were sober, so long as I had some alcohol on hand. You would need to pay me first though.
Aside from that little incident, this week is a blur in my memory. I did write down specific moments that I thought might be entertaining, and it is only by reading about them that I can actually remember the scenes clearly. That's always been a peculiar thing about me. I cannot seem to remember my own life quite as well as I remember what I read in a novel or see in a movie. I will forget a person's name five minutes after we're introduced and not memorize it for a month, yet I can read a book and give you a list of main characters, their personality types, professions, and probably a brief family tree five months later. I can remember scenes from The Giver, which I read back in the fifth grade, and describe them to you, yet I could not tell you what my own sixteenth birthday was like and there wasn't a drop of alcohol involved that day to boot. Maybe I'm just suited for story telling. Either that or I'm an oblivious nincompoop. That's a strong possibility also.
I'm always a little bothered by how much Americans puff themselves up about our involvement in the world wars. We tend to claim that we were the biggest force in the wars and that we were also responsible for the Allies' victory. The last part is, to some extent, true, as we provided just enough support to tip the tremulous balance and help determine the victors. However, that was only after each of the major countries, both ally and otherwise, had sacrificed millions of soldiers for their cause and won great victories and suffered horrendous defeats. All the while, before we sent troops, the U.S. was making a fortune in arms manufacturing which, one could theoretically argue, is what made us into a superpower in the first place (sorry to all of you uber-patriots out there). We had this discussion about U.S. involvement in the great wars during history class at the beginning of the week while we were studying the Cold War. I think that I might have surprised my classmates with my rather non-stereotypical perspective. In jest, and in vague reference to the Game of Thrones series, I even likened us to crows, as we fed off of the death, fear, and misery of millions, yet also helped to win the day. One of the other guys in class (we'll call him Bob, as that's the most common name that I know), perhaps in a vain attempt at humor, said "Yeah. Pretty much a bunch of large, ugly, feathery lumps of greed and scavenging."
I turned to him aghast and my face showing it in every way. "Bob!" I exclaimed. "You should not speak of your family in such a way!" That got a few laughs. While I had brought his comment upon myself, it was a tad bit irritating to hear such a blatantly (and I'm not sure jokingly) slanderous statement. Besides, my stomach had just erupted in hungry growls five minutes prior and I wanted everyone to chuckle at someone else for a while.
On the subject of school, while the U.S. school system is flawed and hurting in a rather bad way, I'm glad that I was educated in it. In the U.S., almost every school (if not every school) requires its students to take courses in every discipline until the year that they graduate and head to university. This gives us a lot of freedom to explore and feel our way through what we are good at, discover where our flaws lay, and experiment with what we might enjoy and most U.S. universities also require this sort of general education. While this turns pupils into well-rounded scholars, it also anticipates a very important matter: Almost nobody knows what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they're twenty, no less sixteen. While I now say that I want to be a novelist for the rest of my time, for all I know I could very well experience a strange hormonal and intellectual change during university and realize that particle physics is my true calling. I have had little experience with physics, but I have been versed in the scientific process through courses in biology and chemistry and anatomy and physiology and am familiar with everything up to rudimentary calculus, which would give me at least a small foundation to build upon while I learn introductory physics. England has no such flexibility. It seems that they begin a student's early academic career with general courses, observe where they excel, and then start to remove the other courses around year eleven, funneling the student into a certain career path that they are almost obligated to follow if they attend a European university. I understand the desire to crank out very specialized students who can excel in their field, as they have not "wasted" their time with unrelated courses, but the notion of funneling students into a certain career path from age twelve seems narrow minded to me. All around me I see students who are set on one track or another and yet haven't the faintest clue as to what they really want to do in life. What if a would-be medical student had been encouraged to take an unfamiliar class like music theory and discovered that they actually wanted to be a music teacher? The option just does not appear to exist unless they decide to work extra hard in the International Baccalaureate program which I feel might be suicide for some. I would not be surprised if a lot of people here go through university and their careers with no passion for anything, never discovering a true vocation. While that still happens in the U.S. frequently enough, the system at least cultivates an expanding, inquisitive, restless mind. As I implied, I might not be getting the full picture here, as I am a foreigner after all, so if I'm getting any of this wrong, please tell me and I'll amend this little rant.
Which reminds me that I downloaded Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs the other night. For those of you who don't know, the first Amnesia game was quite possibly the scariest thing that I have ever seen in my life, topping even high places and a certain test (those from Bridgewater will know what I mean). My neighbor and friend came in when I had finished the download and, without any prompting, we both started yelling. We yelled at the top of our lungs and I projected my voice as if I were on stage at the Houston Grand Opera. We gave each other high fives and reveled in how terrified we would soon become! Strange isn't it, how enthusiastic we can be to terrify ourselves? All other creatures would avoid fear like the plague, yet people flock to the latest horror flick like sheep. Is it that we have become so detached from our natural state of insecurity in the wild that we have come to crave fear because our brains are hardwired to be wary and afraid? Perhaps we crave fear almost as much as we desire symmetry and orderly habits. Almost everyone has a routine that they are irked to break.
Fun exercise: Go into a classroom early, where everyone has picked for themselves a usual spot, and then sit right in the middle, forcing the others to find different seats as they come. I'll bet you almost anything that at least one person will get up in arms about you screwing with the natural order of things. I know that my history teacher did when I moved just so and squirreled things. The other students took it in fair stride (props to them), but the good man himself looked like a deer in the headlights as he registered the change. Come to think of it, that might actually be a fun exercise for my sociology class... Heh heh. Evil thoughts.
By the way: My fellow dorm rats have taken to requesting that I rap for them in the common room at nights and, since I am a closet attention hog, I oblige them. Thus, if any videos of me appear on Facebook or YouTube, please keep in mind that what I'm rapping is (more often than not) meant to be satire, I am not a violent alcoholic womanizer (though the last part might be fun), and feel free to like the posts if they appear, which I hope that they don't.
I think that's enough yammering for one night. Tune in next week for another installment of "It Isn't Raining THAT Much," brought to you by yours truly! This production is due, in part, to your feedback! If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns that might improve the program, please leave a comment or call this toll free number (which doesn't actually exist). Okay, yeah, I think that I'm running this '70s TV broadcast joke into the dirt now, but you get the idea. Good night to all and to all a good night!
While playing Truth or Dare at two in the morning, and me a little tipsy by then, I was commanded to lick some poor guy's toe. The funny thing is that I wasn't too reluctant to do this. That's not to say that I enjoy licking peoples' feet (leave that to the politicians and lobbyists), but I had a drink waiting for me and I thought "Ah, hell, why not? Alcohol's a sterilizer, right?" So out comes the tongue, followed by a quick dash to the sink to spit out... whatever was in my mouth, then a good booze mouth rinse. Disgusting as that was, I've got a sneaking suspicion that I would probably do it again if I were sober, so long as I had some alcohol on hand. You would need to pay me first though.
Aside from that little incident, this week is a blur in my memory. I did write down specific moments that I thought might be entertaining, and it is only by reading about them that I can actually remember the scenes clearly. That's always been a peculiar thing about me. I cannot seem to remember my own life quite as well as I remember what I read in a novel or see in a movie. I will forget a person's name five minutes after we're introduced and not memorize it for a month, yet I can read a book and give you a list of main characters, their personality types, professions, and probably a brief family tree five months later. I can remember scenes from The Giver, which I read back in the fifth grade, and describe them to you, yet I could not tell you what my own sixteenth birthday was like and there wasn't a drop of alcohol involved that day to boot. Maybe I'm just suited for story telling. Either that or I'm an oblivious nincompoop. That's a strong possibility also.
I'm always a little bothered by how much Americans puff themselves up about our involvement in the world wars. We tend to claim that we were the biggest force in the wars and that we were also responsible for the Allies' victory. The last part is, to some extent, true, as we provided just enough support to tip the tremulous balance and help determine the victors. However, that was only after each of the major countries, both ally and otherwise, had sacrificed millions of soldiers for their cause and won great victories and suffered horrendous defeats. All the while, before we sent troops, the U.S. was making a fortune in arms manufacturing which, one could theoretically argue, is what made us into a superpower in the first place (sorry to all of you uber-patriots out there). We had this discussion about U.S. involvement in the great wars during history class at the beginning of the week while we were studying the Cold War. I think that I might have surprised my classmates with my rather non-stereotypical perspective. In jest, and in vague reference to the Game of Thrones series, I even likened us to crows, as we fed off of the death, fear, and misery of millions, yet also helped to win the day. One of the other guys in class (we'll call him Bob, as that's the most common name that I know), perhaps in a vain attempt at humor, said "Yeah. Pretty much a bunch of large, ugly, feathery lumps of greed and scavenging."
I turned to him aghast and my face showing it in every way. "Bob!" I exclaimed. "You should not speak of your family in such a way!" That got a few laughs. While I had brought his comment upon myself, it was a tad bit irritating to hear such a blatantly (and I'm not sure jokingly) slanderous statement. Besides, my stomach had just erupted in hungry growls five minutes prior and I wanted everyone to chuckle at someone else for a while.
On the subject of school, while the U.S. school system is flawed and hurting in a rather bad way, I'm glad that I was educated in it. In the U.S., almost every school (if not every school) requires its students to take courses in every discipline until the year that they graduate and head to university. This gives us a lot of freedom to explore and feel our way through what we are good at, discover where our flaws lay, and experiment with what we might enjoy and most U.S. universities also require this sort of general education. While this turns pupils into well-rounded scholars, it also anticipates a very important matter: Almost nobody knows what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they're twenty, no less sixteen. While I now say that I want to be a novelist for the rest of my time, for all I know I could very well experience a strange hormonal and intellectual change during university and realize that particle physics is my true calling. I have had little experience with physics, but I have been versed in the scientific process through courses in biology and chemistry and anatomy and physiology and am familiar with everything up to rudimentary calculus, which would give me at least a small foundation to build upon while I learn introductory physics. England has no such flexibility. It seems that they begin a student's early academic career with general courses, observe where they excel, and then start to remove the other courses around year eleven, funneling the student into a certain career path that they are almost obligated to follow if they attend a European university. I understand the desire to crank out very specialized students who can excel in their field, as they have not "wasted" their time with unrelated courses, but the notion of funneling students into a certain career path from age twelve seems narrow minded to me. All around me I see students who are set on one track or another and yet haven't the faintest clue as to what they really want to do in life. What if a would-be medical student had been encouraged to take an unfamiliar class like music theory and discovered that they actually wanted to be a music teacher? The option just does not appear to exist unless they decide to work extra hard in the International Baccalaureate program which I feel might be suicide for some. I would not be surprised if a lot of people here go through university and their careers with no passion for anything, never discovering a true vocation. While that still happens in the U.S. frequently enough, the system at least cultivates an expanding, inquisitive, restless mind. As I implied, I might not be getting the full picture here, as I am a foreigner after all, so if I'm getting any of this wrong, please tell me and I'll amend this little rant.
Which reminds me that I downloaded Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs the other night. For those of you who don't know, the first Amnesia game was quite possibly the scariest thing that I have ever seen in my life, topping even high places and a certain test (those from Bridgewater will know what I mean). My neighbor and friend came in when I had finished the download and, without any prompting, we both started yelling. We yelled at the top of our lungs and I projected my voice as if I were on stage at the Houston Grand Opera. We gave each other high fives and reveled in how terrified we would soon become! Strange isn't it, how enthusiastic we can be to terrify ourselves? All other creatures would avoid fear like the plague, yet people flock to the latest horror flick like sheep. Is it that we have become so detached from our natural state of insecurity in the wild that we have come to crave fear because our brains are hardwired to be wary and afraid? Perhaps we crave fear almost as much as we desire symmetry and orderly habits. Almost everyone has a routine that they are irked to break.
Fun exercise: Go into a classroom early, where everyone has picked for themselves a usual spot, and then sit right in the middle, forcing the others to find different seats as they come. I'll bet you almost anything that at least one person will get up in arms about you screwing with the natural order of things. I know that my history teacher did when I moved just so and squirreled things. The other students took it in fair stride (props to them), but the good man himself looked like a deer in the headlights as he registered the change. Come to think of it, that might actually be a fun exercise for my sociology class... Heh heh. Evil thoughts.
By the way: My fellow dorm rats have taken to requesting that I rap for them in the common room at nights and, since I am a closet attention hog, I oblige them. Thus, if any videos of me appear on Facebook or YouTube, please keep in mind that what I'm rapping is (more often than not) meant to be satire, I am not a violent alcoholic womanizer (though the last part might be fun), and feel free to like the posts if they appear, which I hope that they don't.
I think that's enough yammering for one night. Tune in next week for another installment of "It Isn't Raining THAT Much," brought to you by yours truly! This production is due, in part, to your feedback! If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns that might improve the program, please leave a comment or call this toll free number (which doesn't actually exist). Okay, yeah, I think that I'm running this '70s TV broadcast joke into the dirt now, but you get the idea. Good night to all and to all a good night!
Monday, September 23, 2013
Here We Go Again
My apologies for not posting on Friday as I had promised! I was staying at a youth hostel all weekend which had advertised internet access, but failed to mention that it came with a price and I am a complete miser with the exception of spending on my friends occasionally. Anyhow, on to the week!
I gave birth this week. Your first thought might be "Why on earth would you post something like that on the internet, especially since you're eighteen!?" and I would understand that. However, your second thought, or your first if you're quick, might be "Wait, you're a guy." I just wanted to catch your attention really. Anyhow, in sociology class on Monday, we were discussing all manner of achieving goals, from conforming (working hard) to innovating (crime and cheating) to rebelling (scorning a goal publicly and rejecting it). My teacher apparently wanted to epitomize this by having someone pretend to birth a baby. However, he did not tell anyone what his plan was when he asked for a good actor to volunteer. I wasn't even paying attention at the time when a girl volunteered me. Before I knew it, I was dragged into the hall and told to stuff a sweatshirt under my shirt and, before the whole class while still in my suit and tie, go into labor. In short, I disconnected my mind from my body, huffed and puffed, knocked over a few things, quoted a few lines from the movie "Juno" (I think you know which ones if you've seen it), screamed, yelled, and swore at the top of my lungs. I don't think that I have ever said "fuck" in front of a teacher before, no less fifteen times in five minutes. As if the class had not had enough profanity and wackiness from me, they asked me to rap the next day. That one I turned down, considering that the only rap that I really know is by the Hollywood Undead and I doubt that a poor British sociology teacher would get the rather *ahem* vivid satire. Needless to say, the birthing scene spread about the school like wildfire and I was hearing about it from guys across campus a mere hour later at lunch. It was actually kind of fun!
Oh yeah! I've also managed to get myself enmeshed in three plays here. Don't worry too much, as they are short, but it's a little confusing getting the scheduling straight along with everything else. However, the absolute absurdity of two of the plays makes up for it. For example, in the Arts Awards pantomime of Snow White et al, I have been cast as "The Dame" who is supposed to be even more comic relief on top of what we already have. I must, for one, find a guy in the audience to embarrass by calling him my one true love, bringing him onto the stage, and then singing for him. Now here's the problem: We haven't decided upon a song yet. So far, it's between Single Ladies (Beyonce), Drop It Like It's Hard, and Don't You Want Me Baby?. Yeah. This is gonna be interesting. Ah, hell! If I can give birth in sociology, then I can shake my booty on stage! I had to miss the meeting regarding my costume this week, but people keep on telling my that the dress is "interesting." As if saying "the dress you have to wear" isn't bad enough, they have to put that certain inflection into "interesting" to give me a brief chill. I'm going to have fun with this either way, but if they make me put on something too absurd, there's going to be blood.
I made a mistake in scheduling as well. I was invited to someone's eighteenth birthday party for the weekend, but didn't make the connection and signed up for a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon for a weekend immersed in Shakespeare and theater and very boring tours that I would have rather spent in a pub. If I hadn't already paid the money for the trip, I might have gone to the party, but I do enjoy history and sight-seeing and drama, so I went. Apparently the party was an absolutely amazing madhouse with no injuries by the end except for headaches and one guy's hand from punching a wall. Someone please remind me, if it ever comes between a school trip with some friends or a party with friends and lots of girls and drink, to choose the fucking party! On the bright side, I was introduced to Jager Bombs which are actually pretty delicious. Just to those colleges and universities that might be stalking me while I'm applying to school or for any wayward teacher, I will remind you that I am eighteen years old in England. This is all perfectly legal and no laws were broken, no one was hurt, and I woke without a headache or any problems except for a numb patch on my lip that still hasn't quite faded. Is that a coincidence? It feels like I've had a little Novocain injected into that one spot. Eh, I'll give it a couple more days.
I also experienced what amounted to a British four year-old's birthday party this weekend for another guys eighteenth birthday and was introduced to such mysteries as "Pass the Parcel." We were allowed a bit of drink by the teachers for the occasion. My inhibitions have fallen slightly, so it only took one hard cider to prompt me into dancing with a bunch of old people to old Rock 'n' Roll and waving to the people recording me. I think that I picked up the twist pretty quickly, but fun as it was, I was otherwise just flailing.
After that we wandered the town on, as I said, several dull tours, one of which was excruciatingly boring for most of us and pretty lifeless for me, watched the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet, which was one of the best productions of it I have seen, albeit not quite the best nor my favorite, and interviewed two people in the theater business, both of whom were old friends of our drama teacher. None of that was in chronological order, but you understand. In short, one interviewee was Pippa Nixon who played Ophelia that night, a very amiable and verbose woman (look up the word and you'll understand exactly what I mean), and Judy Methuen who was, in my opinion, far more interesting if anything by virtue of the conversation setting, rather than strict Q and A. Mrs. Methuen spent most of her life making props and sets for theater and some films and had some stories to tell and wisdom to impart, such as the paramount importance of being seen and visually recognized by important people to advance one's career, which I had already suspected was true. Oh, and we aptly embarrassed the birthday boy by coercing him into acting with some street performers and having the entire gathered audience sing a "Shakespearean Happy Birthday" song to him. I'm going to let you're imaginations toy with that one.
If I wasn't applying to university right now, again due to a technicality rather than lack of ability (God this is painful!), I would relate more... interesting stories from the weekend, but, considering the stories I have heard of the persistence and the invasive natures of universities, I shall refrain, even though I did not, strictly speaking, break any laws. However, once I have sent my applications and hear back from most of them in December, I might be a little more free with my speech.
Again, please send me ANY comments or criticisms via the blog or, if you actually know me, Facebook. They would really help to improve the blog and me as a writer. I'm going to start jotting down funny happenings throughout the week as I go now, so I might better entertain you. Until then, good night and adieu (or should I say "cheerio?")!
I gave birth this week. Your first thought might be "Why on earth would you post something like that on the internet, especially since you're eighteen!?" and I would understand that. However, your second thought, or your first if you're quick, might be "Wait, you're a guy." I just wanted to catch your attention really. Anyhow, in sociology class on Monday, we were discussing all manner of achieving goals, from conforming (working hard) to innovating (crime and cheating) to rebelling (scorning a goal publicly and rejecting it). My teacher apparently wanted to epitomize this by having someone pretend to birth a baby. However, he did not tell anyone what his plan was when he asked for a good actor to volunteer. I wasn't even paying attention at the time when a girl volunteered me. Before I knew it, I was dragged into the hall and told to stuff a sweatshirt under my shirt and, before the whole class while still in my suit and tie, go into labor. In short, I disconnected my mind from my body, huffed and puffed, knocked over a few things, quoted a few lines from the movie "Juno" (I think you know which ones if you've seen it), screamed, yelled, and swore at the top of my lungs. I don't think that I have ever said "fuck" in front of a teacher before, no less fifteen times in five minutes. As if the class had not had enough profanity and wackiness from me, they asked me to rap the next day. That one I turned down, considering that the only rap that I really know is by the Hollywood Undead and I doubt that a poor British sociology teacher would get the rather *ahem* vivid satire. Needless to say, the birthing scene spread about the school like wildfire and I was hearing about it from guys across campus a mere hour later at lunch. It was actually kind of fun!
Oh yeah! I've also managed to get myself enmeshed in three plays here. Don't worry too much, as they are short, but it's a little confusing getting the scheduling straight along with everything else. However, the absolute absurdity of two of the plays makes up for it. For example, in the Arts Awards pantomime of Snow White et al, I have been cast as "The Dame" who is supposed to be even more comic relief on top of what we already have. I must, for one, find a guy in the audience to embarrass by calling him my one true love, bringing him onto the stage, and then singing for him. Now here's the problem: We haven't decided upon a song yet. So far, it's between Single Ladies (Beyonce), Drop It Like It's Hard, and Don't You Want Me Baby?. Yeah. This is gonna be interesting. Ah, hell! If I can give birth in sociology, then I can shake my booty on stage! I had to miss the meeting regarding my costume this week, but people keep on telling my that the dress is "interesting." As if saying "the dress you have to wear" isn't bad enough, they have to put that certain inflection into "interesting" to give me a brief chill. I'm going to have fun with this either way, but if they make me put on something too absurd, there's going to be blood.
I made a mistake in scheduling as well. I was invited to someone's eighteenth birthday party for the weekend, but didn't make the connection and signed up for a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon for a weekend immersed in Shakespeare and theater and very boring tours that I would have rather spent in a pub. If I hadn't already paid the money for the trip, I might have gone to the party, but I do enjoy history and sight-seeing and drama, so I went. Apparently the party was an absolutely amazing madhouse with no injuries by the end except for headaches and one guy's hand from punching a wall. Someone please remind me, if it ever comes between a school trip with some friends or a party with friends and lots of girls and drink, to choose the fucking party! On the bright side, I was introduced to Jager Bombs which are actually pretty delicious. Just to those colleges and universities that might be stalking me while I'm applying to school or for any wayward teacher, I will remind you that I am eighteen years old in England. This is all perfectly legal and no laws were broken, no one was hurt, and I woke without a headache or any problems except for a numb patch on my lip that still hasn't quite faded. Is that a coincidence? It feels like I've had a little Novocain injected into that one spot. Eh, I'll give it a couple more days.
I also experienced what amounted to a British four year-old's birthday party this weekend for another guys eighteenth birthday and was introduced to such mysteries as "Pass the Parcel." We were allowed a bit of drink by the teachers for the occasion. My inhibitions have fallen slightly, so it only took one hard cider to prompt me into dancing with a bunch of old people to old Rock 'n' Roll and waving to the people recording me. I think that I picked up the twist pretty quickly, but fun as it was, I was otherwise just flailing.
After that we wandered the town on, as I said, several dull tours, one of which was excruciatingly boring for most of us and pretty lifeless for me, watched the Royal Shakespeare Company perform Hamlet, which was one of the best productions of it I have seen, albeit not quite the best nor my favorite, and interviewed two people in the theater business, both of whom were old friends of our drama teacher. None of that was in chronological order, but you understand. In short, one interviewee was Pippa Nixon who played Ophelia that night, a very amiable and verbose woman (look up the word and you'll understand exactly what I mean), and Judy Methuen who was, in my opinion, far more interesting if anything by virtue of the conversation setting, rather than strict Q and A. Mrs. Methuen spent most of her life making props and sets for theater and some films and had some stories to tell and wisdom to impart, such as the paramount importance of being seen and visually recognized by important people to advance one's career, which I had already suspected was true. Oh, and we aptly embarrassed the birthday boy by coercing him into acting with some street performers and having the entire gathered audience sing a "Shakespearean Happy Birthday" song to him. I'm going to let you're imaginations toy with that one.
If I wasn't applying to university right now, again due to a technicality rather than lack of ability (God this is painful!), I would relate more... interesting stories from the weekend, but, considering the stories I have heard of the persistence and the invasive natures of universities, I shall refrain, even though I did not, strictly speaking, break any laws. However, once I have sent my applications and hear back from most of them in December, I might be a little more free with my speech.
Again, please send me ANY comments or criticisms via the blog or, if you actually know me, Facebook. They would really help to improve the blog and me as a writer. I'm going to start jotting down funny happenings throughout the week as I go now, so I might better entertain you. Until then, good night and adieu (or should I say "cheerio?")!
Friday, September 13, 2013
Aha! Internet! The world is mine!
Alright! Hello to everyone out there who, at the moment that I am writing this, amounts to just me! It took about twelve hours of traveling, much napping in the car, and a couple of days to figure out this blasted WiFi system, but I now have internet capabilities! Ha ha!
Before I left Massachusetts earlier this week (oh, wow, that was still just this week?), a neighbor of mine met me and suggested that I start this blog. If anything it's a good bit of practice writing a journal and keeping track of events, but hopefully someone will get a little kick out of it!
Anyhow, my name is Matthew, a graduate of Tabor Academy, and I am currently taking a gap year at what amounts to an English high school known as Ellesmere College. So, in essence, I'm pumped to be here! I have had little experience in Europe and this scholarship that I got just seemed like the perfect opportunity to travel, meet new people, take a year to refine my writing, and sort out what I desire from my life. I am planning on heading to Chapman University for film direction and editing once this year ends, however I am also applying to new schools that I had not considered, such as NYU. While I may be on track to enter the film industry, my ultimate goal in life is to become a prolific and critically acclaimed writer. While those two things might sound mutually exclusive, I have hope that it is possible. Tolkien managed it, albeit not quite in his lifetime. Hopefully I'll be able to observe the results of my work before the end though.
Wow that got dreary. That's enough about my background if it's going to continue on so dismally. On to my shenanigans! So far, I have been in England for a week and a day, one of which was spent traveling, as I mentioned. During that time I have visited four pubs, become somewhat of a social hit at school, been invited to several parties, thrown myself into classes that are half-way through their subjects, and experienced a twenty-three year old teacher dressed as a pirate trying to pick me up at a bar before she discovered that I was eighteen. I kid you not. I don't think that I could make that last bit up even if I tried.
There are certain benefits to being "The American" in an English school. For one, I get to play the part of the bubbly, excitable, genial guy which I could not easily do in America (too many others doing the same) which in turn has already garnered for me several friendships and dozens of acquaintances. I have never been this popular in my whole life. I was mostly the quiet, reserved guy except for with my friends before this. Now I can understand why the popular guys in America were so willing to embarrass themselves in public. Aside from grabbing everyone's attention, it endeared them to others just because they lacked inhibition. They were, in short, fun! How I missed this before, I do not know.
Aside from mostly being taken the girls here are quite lovely! I feel like Tantilus, who could see the food and water all around him, but never slake his thirst or sate his appetite. I've made a point of talking to most of them, but, as ever, I have been too terrified to actually, heavens forfend, ask for a phone number. That much about me hasn't changed a bit. I'm still hopeless with women. I can chat them up fine, but actually asking them out is a real stretch. Give me a week and a couple of beers to change that!
One disadvantage to being "The American:" My phone does not quite work over here. It's fifty cents to send a text, five to receive one, and almost a dollar thirty per minute to talk on the phone! So even if I were to get a girl's number, I could not use it for fear of my bill. That's what Facebook is for, though, right?
There is actually one other American here who is, I think, two years my junior and far more reserved than I am making myself out to be. He's a great guy though and, strangely enough, he lives in Massachusetts too! Who would've thought?
There is one thing that I already love, and I mean absolutely adore, about the English school life. They do not have cliques. Yes, people tend to filter into groups of friends and talk to each other, but everyone talks to everyone else! People mingle and no one bats an eye about a Brit going to sit with a table of Lithuanians! This sort of social mobility has opened so many avenues to me! I have learned some small bits of Lithuanian, German, and Russian culture and, better still, befriended someone from just about every national group. It's gratifying to not worry about that social stigma of consorting with "other" people.
Speaking of Russians, one random thing: I've presented myself as a big drama fan and student thus, when several students could not attend a trip to the theater for a class this week, I was invited along. I was told that the title of the production was "Lenin" and I thought "This is great! I love history and I don't really know much about Vladamir Lenin as a person. How are these English people going to portray a communist anyhow? I hope they don't vilify him." It took until the next day, when the bus pulled up to the theater in Liverpool, and me seeing the playbill to finally register that the play was about John Lennon. Yeah. I gave myself a good face palming on the sidewalk right there. Now, I'm not much of a Beatles fan, but the play was rather well done in both production and acting while the energy of the performances rekindled my interest in their music. "I Am The Walrus" continues to be one of the trippyest songs I've ever heard though.
I just noticed that this is already over one-thousand words long, so I'll cut it short here. I will try to post every Friday if I can manage it and, if I become so inspired, I will add something during the week as well! I hope that you enjoy this blog and, more than anything else, if you have ANY constructive criticism or any suggestions, please leave a comment! Criticism and revision are what make a writer!
Before I left Massachusetts earlier this week (oh, wow, that was still just this week?), a neighbor of mine met me and suggested that I start this blog. If anything it's a good bit of practice writing a journal and keeping track of events, but hopefully someone will get a little kick out of it!
Anyhow, my name is Matthew, a graduate of Tabor Academy, and I am currently taking a gap year at what amounts to an English high school known as Ellesmere College. So, in essence, I'm pumped to be here! I have had little experience in Europe and this scholarship that I got just seemed like the perfect opportunity to travel, meet new people, take a year to refine my writing, and sort out what I desire from my life. I am planning on heading to Chapman University for film direction and editing once this year ends, however I am also applying to new schools that I had not considered, such as NYU. While I may be on track to enter the film industry, my ultimate goal in life is to become a prolific and critically acclaimed writer. While those two things might sound mutually exclusive, I have hope that it is possible. Tolkien managed it, albeit not quite in his lifetime. Hopefully I'll be able to observe the results of my work before the end though.
Wow that got dreary. That's enough about my background if it's going to continue on so dismally. On to my shenanigans! So far, I have been in England for a week and a day, one of which was spent traveling, as I mentioned. During that time I have visited four pubs, become somewhat of a social hit at school, been invited to several parties, thrown myself into classes that are half-way through their subjects, and experienced a twenty-three year old teacher dressed as a pirate trying to pick me up at a bar before she discovered that I was eighteen. I kid you not. I don't think that I could make that last bit up even if I tried.
There are certain benefits to being "The American" in an English school. For one, I get to play the part of the bubbly, excitable, genial guy which I could not easily do in America (too many others doing the same) which in turn has already garnered for me several friendships and dozens of acquaintances. I have never been this popular in my whole life. I was mostly the quiet, reserved guy except for with my friends before this. Now I can understand why the popular guys in America were so willing to embarrass themselves in public. Aside from grabbing everyone's attention, it endeared them to others just because they lacked inhibition. They were, in short, fun! How I missed this before, I do not know.
Aside from mostly being taken the girls here are quite lovely! I feel like Tantilus, who could see the food and water all around him, but never slake his thirst or sate his appetite. I've made a point of talking to most of them, but, as ever, I have been too terrified to actually, heavens forfend, ask for a phone number. That much about me hasn't changed a bit. I'm still hopeless with women. I can chat them up fine, but actually asking them out is a real stretch. Give me a week and a couple of beers to change that!
One disadvantage to being "The American:" My phone does not quite work over here. It's fifty cents to send a text, five to receive one, and almost a dollar thirty per minute to talk on the phone! So even if I were to get a girl's number, I could not use it for fear of my bill. That's what Facebook is for, though, right?
There is actually one other American here who is, I think, two years my junior and far more reserved than I am making myself out to be. He's a great guy though and, strangely enough, he lives in Massachusetts too! Who would've thought?
There is one thing that I already love, and I mean absolutely adore, about the English school life. They do not have cliques. Yes, people tend to filter into groups of friends and talk to each other, but everyone talks to everyone else! People mingle and no one bats an eye about a Brit going to sit with a table of Lithuanians! This sort of social mobility has opened so many avenues to me! I have learned some small bits of Lithuanian, German, and Russian culture and, better still, befriended someone from just about every national group. It's gratifying to not worry about that social stigma of consorting with "other" people.
Speaking of Russians, one random thing: I've presented myself as a big drama fan and student thus, when several students could not attend a trip to the theater for a class this week, I was invited along. I was told that the title of the production was "Lenin" and I thought "This is great! I love history and I don't really know much about Vladamir Lenin as a person. How are these English people going to portray a communist anyhow? I hope they don't vilify him." It took until the next day, when the bus pulled up to the theater in Liverpool, and me seeing the playbill to finally register that the play was about John Lennon. Yeah. I gave myself a good face palming on the sidewalk right there. Now, I'm not much of a Beatles fan, but the play was rather well done in both production and acting while the energy of the performances rekindled my interest in their music. "I Am The Walrus" continues to be one of the trippyest songs I've ever heard though.
I just noticed that this is already over one-thousand words long, so I'll cut it short here. I will try to post every Friday if I can manage it and, if I become so inspired, I will add something during the week as well! I hope that you enjoy this blog and, more than anything else, if you have ANY constructive criticism or any suggestions, please leave a comment! Criticism and revision are what make a writer!
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