You Called?

    I just returned from the Yosemite national park where I had no internet, no cell phone service, no texting capability, nor any other way of keeping in touch with the outside world for an entire week. I was completely isolated, without even so much as a news feed to keep me updated and I loved it! Yeah, this guy who goes on Facebook too much and writes a blog loves to get away from it all. I honestly get pretty tired pretty quickly of the constant stream of (let’s be frank) trivial information that gets funneled into my phone and computer. I truly relish the chance to just shut all of that stuff out and relax by hiking up and down mountains while breathing copious amounts of smoke. Oh, the smoke, right. If you haven’t heard, there’s a massive conflagration in Yosemite that’s been raging for over a week now. My mother and I were staying with six family friends (two adults and four kids roughly my age) who had finished a backpacking trip around the park the day before we arrived. Listening to their adventure that led them through the picturesque area, over waterfalls, and up to a mountain peak called “Half-Dome,” I was depressingly envious. The only part that didn’t sound so fun was how the fire started in the middle of their trip, blinding and stifling them while forcing them to reroute because of closed paths. Luckily, while the forest fire is enormous, the park is larger by far, leaving plenty of places for us to explore.
    When I arrived, I was as relieved to see the lack of signal on my phone as a sunburn victim might be to see the red on their skin finally vanish. I turned the blasted thing off with a sigh, glad to be rid of the itch of constant communication for a week. We rented a house close to the park. Large, spacious, and fairly well equipped, it was a pleasant place for our stay, excepting the magenta carpet, fake Tiffany furniture, and the disturbing ceramic dolls that dotted the house. I mean, really, who in their right mind thinks that it’s a good idea to have something with ridiculously wide eyes and pink, frilly outfits staring at them all of the time? Seriously, those dolls are creepy! Other than that, there was a pool (a.k.a. “snooker”) table, a place for food and booze, and plenty of beds and showers, so what more could we need?
    After a rocky start (I fell and injured myself before even starting to hike. Pathetic!), we started on a four mile trail, we kids playing word association games and singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the top of our lungs. We were consistently ahead of our *ahem* “elders” due to their worn out limbs and a few of us were disappointed by the resulting brevity of our trails, but moving quickly worked out for us either way. Our parents probably would have flipped out at us if we had said that we were going to the edge of a cliff to look over the two-thousand foot drop. As it was, we crept to the precipice, got a good look, took a few pictures, and then got chewed out for our recklessness when they arrived and saw us posing mere feet from a very long fall. Totally worth it. Besides, one of my resolutions for the trip was to work on conquering my fear of heights. Aside from a bit of tingling in my feet, I think I handled the situation rather well! Either that or my brain was just so overloaded with sheer terror that it forgot to make me freeze up.
    Perhaps that just fried my brain for the whole trip because the next day began with me hiking alongside Maggie and Alex while heading down four miles of switchbacks (with occasionally treacherous footing) overlooking the valley and lots of sharp rocks.

The only comments we made regarding that were to marvel at the smoke-obscured view and joke about falling while theorizing where you could survive if you fell. It was generally agreed that landing in the shrubs was preferable to bouncing off the cliff into a ravine. Even the rattlesnake that we almost stepped on didn’t seem to phase me. Okay, that’s exaggerating. While hiking I happened to hear some dirt shifting on the slope beside us and assumed it was a chipmunk or another lizard. Maggie suddenly started saying “keep walking keep walking keep walking” like a squirrel on caffeine while picking up the pace. Alex and I quickly followed and then turned to see a rattlesnake covered in dark green and sandy-brown scales sliding up the slope next to where we had been walking. “Whoa!” Alex said, stepping a little closer.
    “I totally missed that somehow…” I stepped closer too, but made sure that we stayed a good five feet back. Either it didn’t notice us (unlikely) or it just didn’t care that we were there (probably knowing that it could kill us) and went on its way.
    “It’s so pretty,” Maggie whispered, calmer now that we knew it wasn’t going to attack us. I’m of two minds whether I was glad that my mother wasn’t there or not. On one hand, she would have screamed her head off at seeing the critter, probably alarming it and maybe turning it hostile, while sprinting down the mountain. Then again, if that happened, she would have forgotten about the pain in her joints.
    Once the novelty wore off, Maggie and I chatted about our adventures in Europe and how my writing compared to her drawing and painting and Alex and I talked about what he might want to study in university after this year until we met up with the others a few hours later. Once reunited, we travelled to a place called “Mirror Lake” which turned out to be more of a “Sandy Ditch” after the three year long drought. It was worth the effort, though, as I found a deer that, like the rattlesnake, was unperturbed by our presence and allowed me to get within ten feet of it while it munched on grass and lay down for a nap. I couldn’t help but think how cuddly it looked and how much it reminded me of my dog Thurber. Then again, even though this one lacked horns, I figured that trying to hug the deer would have been a bad idea.

    Once again home and while waiting for dinner, Lee, my mother, Alex and I became obsessed with a thousand-piece puzzle that someone had borrowed. It was called “Cats cats cats cats cats!,” so you can guess what it was supposed to look like, even if we never finished the blasted thing. Between pool games, I got suckered into watching Love Actually, which was surprisingly good despite my prediction that it would be a chick flick. It turned out to be an actual romantic comedy that entertained, even if it did teach a bunch of unrealistic expectations about love.
    During various hikes, except for when I climbed up to Bridal Veil Falls where no one else in our party really wanted (or dared?) to go, I spent most of my time with the kids, catching up after not seeing them for almost two years. Mostly, Alex and I went on about school still, Maggie and I continued talking about Europe and careers, while Mary-Katherine and I discussed Germany. Lee and I pondered the mysteries of women and he gave me his insights as a 25 year old while I told him a bit about a girl I’d met named Kellie. It was then that I felt a slight desire to hear from my friends and the world again. I quickly squashed that feeling, though, as another deer almost ran Alex over while crossing the path. “Alex,” Lee almost shouted. Stay still, there’s a deer right behind you!”
    “I know,” Alex said, looking somewhere between amazed and terrified.

    Well, what more is there to say? We climbed more rocks, enjoyed the view and the forests more, took dozens of pictures, and reveled in each other’s company. After getting Lee stuck under the sleeper sofa and gently crushing him while trying to fold Alex into the bed, we adolescents watched a dark, trippy child’s film called “The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars.” Weird beyond talking purple dinosaurs, this included stuff like manic depression, references to nuclear war and nazism, attempted suicide, and a veiled message to be generally subservient. I have to say that I was glad to have a few beers while watching that one. When it came time to part ways, leaving these people was… difficult. Those four kids are some of the nicest, funniest people that I know while their mother Miss Anne is one of the kindest. Knowing that I would not see them again for at least another year made the trip precious and the parting all the more grieving. However, the memories and the chance to escape the world were well worth the temporary pain, depression, and silence that followed. Leaving the park, it only took two minutes for the bombardment of missed calls, texts, and Facebook notifications to pour in, which I spent the next few hours addressing before getting stuck on a flight right next to a noisy engine and a pair of deafening two year-olds. Welcome back to the world Matt. Hope you enjoyed your trip.

   

Confusing an Englishman and Filling a Gap

    I have just one thing to say right off the bat: I am SO glad to be back now!
    After having to guide my taxi over the phone for almost an hour so that it could pick me up, getting stuck in London overnight when British Airways swapped my flight around while I was flying from Manchester, and losing my toothpaste to a security woman who didn’t seem to understand the concept of manners, getting back home seemed heavenly. Now, while moving from Middle-of-Nowhere Ellesmere back to East Jesus Marion doesn’t seem like that much of an improvement, other than coming back into my own culture. However, I have one indisputable advantage here: I have a car. Using the miraculous gift of driving, which the English don’t seem to understand as they careen down dirt roads while scattering startled sheep in their wake, I started making up for lost time once I returned from my brief New Student Orientation at UMass Amherst. I have not seen a single new film while I was in England, so the first thing I did when I went to catch up with some of my best mates back here was to go to the cinema. Normally I don’t binge on cinema trips, since they’re so expensive, but I’m like an addict finding a whole bag of cocaine in the form of movies. Besides, it’s a great excuse to meet with the guys. We all work summer jobs, so getting together can be a trial. We laugh and joke like nothing other than my accent has changed. I kept telling them that I don’t sound British and that you could ask any actual Brit if they heard me. Once the jokes are over though, we have to wait until the weekend or whenever Mike’s or Hunter’s weird schedules allow us to meet and Ryan is still at his school on a work study. Hunter at least can bring people to his summer camp as visitors and I helped him there for a day. When we sat down for lunch across from one of Hunter’s coworkers, we were still chatting. I looked at the guy across from us and he was giving me a strange look. Hunter then introduced him as Hugh, an actual English person. We kept talking, but he was still scrutinizing me. What’d I do? I wondered. Did I offend him somehow?
    “Where are you from?” he finally asked.
    “Um, here. I live in town,” I replied.
    “What?” He seemed perplexed and Hunter explained my last year attending an English boarding school. “Ah! Got it! I was just really confused because you have a British accent and some of the things you say sound upper class, but others sound lower class and you’ve got a bit of Scouse and Irish in there too.”
    I was baffled. Okay, maybe I do sound a bit like a limey. Not a bad thing. I explained how I had lived near Chester (low class, almost accent) for most of the year, but at a boarding college with lots of rich kids (upper class), and one of the guys I hung out with frequently was a self-professed Irish Liverpudlian (hence the Irish and Scouse). I must say that I was pretty pleased that I’d thrown him for a loop. For one I’m glad that some of the accent stuck, but, better yet, I proved Sam, one of my roommates, wrong when he said that I was a lost cause and wouldn’t learn the accent. Ha! So there Sam!
    Anyhow, my own job tends to be rather solitary and most of the time I’m left alone with my thoughts and my music as I pull weeds or excavate boulders the size of lower Manhattan. Normally I enjoy the solitude, the chance to think, or the opportunity to forget about thinking and absorb myself in landscaping. However, I’ve been sick as a dog since I got back from England and it got worse just before going back to work! I’ve been swaddled in sweatshirts, blankets, and covered in a eighty-pound lap dog on the couch ever since. That means no making money for university and occupying each day with work, no riding my bike to the beach, and, worst of all, no going to Ken-Po at night! The one thing that I need to go back to as soon as possible to relieve my stress and to prepare for the second degree black belt test in October is barred from me because of some stupid virus! It seems that Murphy’s law, that what can go wrong will go wrong, applies on a small scale too. The lack of company didn’t help either. I began to miss Ellesmere again and, like last summer, Tabor too.
    The one benefit to everyone being trapped together in the same school all of the time is that friends get to see each other often and goof off together. I couldn’t care less about Ellesmere itself. As a matter of fact I’ve pretty well determined that I didn’t like the school itself or how it was run, but the community of students plus some teachers was great. It makes me wonder what I missed not boarding at Tabor. I longed to be able to just walk down the hall and have a chat in someone’s room or steal a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Living like that for a year made coming back to my house in the woods seem rather lonely. Okay, so maybe coming home wasn’t so heavenly as I had first thought. Having everything around me like the schedule, the gadgets, and the rules be intuitive to me is great, but now that I am often without companions, it’s a bit dull. Now I often find myself thinking about my new student orientation last week. Aside from getting lucky with who I was rooming with that night, there were dozens of lectures to attend, plenty of random and fun things to do or see, and, better yet, I hit it off with a couple of great girls that I spent my time with whenever we could meet. The English accent seemed to be a big hit as I turned heads when I spoke and had to explain my gap year more times than I could count. I didn’t think that getting friendly with everyone would be quite so easy, but most of these people followed the New England social standard: They will not speak to you at first, but once you put in the effort and say “Hi,” they can be as friendly as anyone you’ve ever met. Flitting from one group to another and becoming a friendly acquaintance with bunches of people is my specialty, but fortune smiled on me when I found a couple of people that I chat with even since we went home for the summer. All it took was introducing myself to one of them and mentioning my interest in musical theatre for the other to appear.
    After leaving Tabor and Ellesmere, I had a gap in my life. After Tabor, I kept myself just as busy as before, I still went to Ken-Po whenever possible, and I still read too much, but I knew that I wouldn’t be seeing my mates each night or the next day. The same is happening now with my farewell to Ellesmere and I find myself again with the gap in my life. Looking at the orientation that has just passed though, I now know that I will soon have a life like that again, even more vibrant and fulfilling than before. As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that the laws of nature apply to the laws of the heart. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, whenever something goes missing from your life, something else will appear to fill the void. In my case, I just needed to go out and find it. Until school and new friends fill the breach, I will settle with the usual summer occupations and count the days until I move into university and feel my heart mend anew.

Time To Say Goodbye

I have had a surprising number of people ask why I stopped blogging in the last few months. To be honest, I got sick of this blog. After so many weeks of writing it, I realized just how episodic it was. I know that it entertained many of you still, but a few of the readers were getting tired of the journal style and I was getting mind-numbingly bored. I was just describing events without any real purpose. I had no themes or messages to convey most of the time. Now, after rereading my most popular posts, receiving dozens of requests (and demands) to restart, and a revelation over the benefits of social networking, I have decided to reboot this… thing. Then again, maybe I really wanted to restart this blog if anything for this entry as a final “goodbye” to all of my friends in Ellesmere.
    Last night Ellesmere College celebrated its Sixth Form Ball; a great event spanning almost seven hours of drinking, dining, dodgems (aka bumper cars), drinking, fireworks, drinking, reminiscing, drinking again, and crying at the end for many of us who were leaving for good and for some who didn’t want to see us go. I walked through the tent set up on the school terraces and stepped out onto the grass in the open sun, wishing that I’d worn my burgundy smoking jacket-esque blazer, and had one thought: “I am going to hate this.” All around me were people dressed in their best, bedecked with pressed suits or sensual dresses with sparkling jewelry. Many were holding glasses of champagne and people had coalesced into small, chatting groups. Scanning the crowd of parents and students, most of whom had known each other for years, I felt out of place. I always feel out of my depth at these sorts of gatherings. Even at my last school’s graduation, I found myself wandering between pockets of pupils. Now the same thing was happening at Ellesmere and there I was again uncomfortable even among people I knew. Trying to blend in, I grabbed some champagne, despite the flask of vodka in my pocket, and began weaving through these clusters like a lost fish in a coral reef. Even once I found the people that I hung out with normally, I wanted to socialize with others, as this would be my last chance to see anyone. At the same time, these were the friends that I was comfortable with, people with whom I had spent most of the year. I didn’t want to leave them in the lurch. Equally as tantalizing as deterring were the gorgeous girls scattered all about that I wanted to speak to while convincing myself that they would want nothing to do with me. The next hour flew by in a blur of short conversations with dozens of people and I repeatedly found myself telling others where their misplaced friends were. Well, I guess that the wandering did some good.
    The night was movie themed and each dining table was referred to via the name of a movie. Wouldn’t you know it, I ended up at the ‘80s “Batman” table. Yes, we sang the theme song plenty. I eventually stepped away for a moment and strayed into the school hall where lines of pictures on strings hung down from the ceiling. This was Memory Lane and each picture had at least one “Leaver” in it who would not return next year. This is where the emotions began to hit and when I noticed that someone had gone through my photos on Facebook. I never submitted that one of me and Tyler standing like gargoyles on those pedestals in the hallway! It occurred to me that I have more pictures of my friends at Ellesmere from this one year than I do of my friends over the course of four years at Tabor. I began to feel a little guilty as I’d started to forget some of the people and fun times at my old school, but had kept this blog as a sort of journal of this year and thus would not forget Ellesmere so quickly. After appreciating someone’s wonderful job of Facebook-stalking the students, I ran into one of the girls that I had earlier resolved to chat with. “Oh, hey. Happy birthday.” Exit stage left in a (fake) casual haste. I knew then that this was going to be a repeat of Tabor where I never could bring myself to open up to women. In that regard, all of my hopes for Ball came crashing down and all of my expectations were fulfilled. I guess I can’t be disappointed with that, right? Right?
    Screw it! I need to vent some frustration! I thought as I grabbed some friends and made a B-line for the dodgems at the bottom of the terraces. Thank God that the posh stuff was over with and I could finally cut loose! Three rides, much laughter, and several cases of whiplash later, I climbed out of the arena to find that someone had nabbed the ounce of beer that I had left beside the arena. Meh. I hadn’t payed for it anyhow. That had been my third drink, now several hours into the celebrations, and I still hadn’t touched the vodka. I must say that this is peculiar for me. Hell, I was still more or less sober! What did it matter though? I was thoroughly enjoying myself by that point. Plus, my (drunk) friend Ethan approached me right then and said that he wanted to “introduce me to the wonders of a Tia Maria” so I got another free drink anyhow, even if it did taste like whiskey and coffee (bleh). I shared it with Lucy, a Russian girl that I had met on Monday, while she, her boyfriend, and I watched the fireworks go off (yes, the school had fireworks for us and a flaming sign saying “Good Luck 2014”). Lucy then overheard a friend say that they would miss me next year.
    “Wait, what?” she said, astonished. “You’re not coming back next year? Why?” I explained. “No! You can’t leave! You’re too nice to leave! I don’t want you to go! We don’t want you to go!” I don’t know who “We” meant, even if her boyfriend was nodding, and I’m guessing that she’d had a fair amount to drink. Still, I was kind of shocked. My usual friends from the year below had been saying stuff along the same lines, but to hear it from a new friend, almost a stranger, and a cute girl no less was strange and… wonderful. Drunk or not, I didn’t realize that I had made such an impression on her. (I’m still impressed that her boyfriend was friendly with me at all after I had head-butted him that Tuesday in London. In my defense, we were in a crowd and he had started breathing down my neck and brushing his lips against my skin, so the moment that I knew it was a male, I flung my head back. I also realized right then that said student wasn’t in my field of vision and it was probably him behind me messing around. I pulled it soon enough to not give him a black eye.) The exchange cheered me up and, with my tendency to get hyper when I drink, I hit the dance floor. It didn’t matter that I was dancing with other guys for about ten minutes. It was still crazy and fun. Besides, these were drama guys that I’d goofed around with while working on “Romeo and Juliet.” How could we be embarrassed with each other? I eventually danced with a beautiful girl I didn’t know from another school and offered to buy her a drink, which she accepted (hopes went up) before I essentially became her chaperone to find the mutual friends that she had come with (hopes took a swan dive). Her drink and mine were the only ones I paid for that night, come to think of it, and I later found three quid on the dance floor, so that made up for half of the cost. Deciding that that girl was a lost cause, I jumped into the dodgems again, pseudo road-raged at my friends and new acquaintances, and then had a lightsaber duel with my mate James Cottam using some apps on our iPhones. I’m sorry to you more sensible people out there, but that needed to happen. It was then back to the dance floor where more of my female failures piled onto my fatigue and I became plain morose until I started being an idiot again with some other guys. Horrific dancing cures all emotional ailments!
    Then the music stopped. The DJ said that we were all to gather in the Big School assembly hall for “Something about Jerusalem.” I looked at my watch. It was half past one in the morning. Oh, I thought, a little numb. This is it then. We sing the anthem and we never see each other again. Shuffling down the hall, once again totally sober, I thought, This is it. We all say “goodbye” after this. Well, it’s only been a year, so I guess I won’t really be too moved. I ended up walking with another beautiful girl who I had promised to buy a drink earlier, but never had as she always held one in her hand. We chatted and joked and we went our separate ways: she into the audience of adults and lower sixth students and I onto the stage of upper sixth form leavers. Standing front and center with the usual suspects such as James Slater, Emily Palmer, and Emily Moore, I saw some of the others begin to tear up. Then I began to feel a tightness in my chest that I could not explain at first. We sang out the school’s anthem hymn with all our hearts. I’ve always liked “Jerusalem” ever since I first heard it my first week of school in chapel. It has a sadness and majesty to it that struck us whenever we sang it together and it was simple enough that all could join in. Last night, upon that stage as the last notes of the music faded away and balloons toppled into the crowd, I turned around and found most of the people behind me crying or hugging or laughing or everything at once. When I found myself forcing back tears from my eyes, I realized just how much I loved many of these students. I felt again just as I had when I had left Tabor, when I had to leave people I had known for four years. I felt the regrets of mistakes I’d made and opportunities I had missed pour out and worsen the turmoil already within me. Over it all I kept thinking how much I wanted to stay with these people.
    Saying last goodbyes to my friends, I heard how “You’ve only been here a year, but I feel like you really belong with us and you’re a really good friend.” I still could not believe that I was so near to tears after knowing everyone for only a year. Slater found me later, much more free with his emotions than me, and managed to say through the crying and embraces how much he’d miss me. He said how much he’d even miss my weird outbursts in history class with Wood, among other things! What really got me was when he said this: “You’re a really great guy! You’re one of the nicest, smartest people I know and you’re gonna go really far in life. Just remember to take care of yourself, no matter what anyone says. Just take care of yourself. You’ll go far. Just don’t be so weird about life.” I do not really know what he meant by the “weird about life” part. I should ask him as, to be frank, I could use as many tips as I can get. I’d like to believe that it wasn’t just the alcohol talking. Maybe I’m wrong, but I would like to believe it. Between my own choking, I told him that he’s one of the coolest guys that I know. While waiting for the cab, my friends Ethan and Michael from the year below waited with me. That might have been the hardest part of the night with so many other students passing by wanting to embrace me and say “goodbye” and Ethan and Michael asking again and again for me to stay.
    No matter where I go, I never seem to feel comfortable, like I don’t fit in, but last night made me feel at home. I have never felt so wanted. On the way back to Peter Nelhans’s house, I reflected upon the night and had a revelation. I have built bonds with my Ellesmere friends in one year as strong as those with my four-year Tabor friends because I opened myself up. Even if I did not tell more than one or two of you about the darker parts of me that even I cringe away from, and maybe it helped that I didn’t, I went out of my way trying to be a sociable, friendly guy. Just that changed so many things. You guys invited me to parties when that has never happened to me before. You invited me to stay at your homes which all but two of my Tabor friends have done. I know now that something so simple as bringing someone into your home cements friendship better than seeing that person in school every day can ever do. Funny, isn’t it, how I have to learn these things that most of you have known for years by instinct? I tried so hard this year to change from who I was. I worked every day to be friendly and open with people, to laugh and smile even when I didn’t want to, to leave the darker part of me behind, so that I could fit in. These past many weeks, though, I had thought that because I had failed to get a girlfriend that the effort was pointless, but now I realize that I had lost sight of what was even more important. I had made many real friends and I would not trade them for a single girl any day.
    This year has really been something spectacular, despite the pitfalls and letdowns, and the students are what made it so. You guys have made this one of the best years of my life so far. To those of you back in Massachusetts: I'm coming home.
Oh, and Annabelle? I’m counting on that random, potentially nonsense message that you promised would come somewhere down the line!
Slater, if you’re reading this, know that your charm and personality alone will probably take you very far yourself. Thanks, I expect you to come to the US some time in your third year of uni and crash with me like you said!
If I’m back in England soon, Cottam, we’ll head to the crown and I’ll try not to flip any women onto the ground this time!
I’ll miss you Declan and, as much as I hate to admit it, I’ll probably even miss you reminding me about Neji.
Ethan, I know that you wanted that vodka last night, but what I said was honest: Not giving you any more to drink was a gift to you.
Best of luck with the house plays, Michael. Chances are it will be a brilliant repeat of your “Romeo and Juliet” performance. Keep up the flamboyancy!
I owe you and your family quite a debt, Lucas Wiehofsky, after letting me stay with you and, worse, falling ill at the end. If you are ever in Massachusetts, look me up! My family and I would love to show you around, if not host you!
Pete: The same applies to you and your family. I hope that your ankle didn’t give you too much trouble at army camp.
I should really thank you, Emily Palmer, for taking an interest in my silly obsession with fantasy and world building. The encouragement helps. I know that you’ll take med school by storm!
Billy, hit me up whenever you’re back in state so that we can hang. Remember Grassroots next year!
I hope that the dancing lessons stick for you Angelika because, knowing me, I’ll forget them if I don’t find a new partner soon!

Okay, I’ve spent enough time writing little shout-outs! I might send some others messages as final good wishes later, but you’ve all had enough of this list I’m sure. Here's a song that I tend to think of at partings, for obvious reasons. Plus, the video's a good show. Best of luck to everyone!

"Time To Say Goodbye" - Dubai Fountains

Deja Vu

    Okay, I know that I haven’t posted in quite some time, but, in my defense, I was stuck in Spain for a week. While there are certainly worse places to be stuck, this was not a good one to be stuck in if you wanted to just lay back and write. I mean, why would I be in my hotel room writing about exotic places when I could be wandering the streets of Granada and making sure that no one tried to mug me while I was sightseeing? More on that later.

    When I returned from Germany at half-term (February 22nd), one of my day student roommates had said that I could spend the last weekend before school started with him and help his family move into their new house. I like those sort of deals, where I can stay with friends while making myself useful around the house. I always feel awkward if I’m just crashing with someone and not doing chores too. Well, my friend’s family missed out on some cheap labor because the person they were buying the house from delayed the deal for about a week. I only found out once I had returned to England, as Vodafone had been knocked out by a storm some two weeks past. That left them in a hotel and me scrambling for shelter, so where did I go? Chester. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I like the hostels there, one has a manager on occasion that makes sure to leave one bed open for stragglers like me, I could hit a club if I felt like it, and still meet up with a friend or two, right? Wrong.
    With the exception of the first night, every hostel, hotel, and inn was booked, save some places where you had to pay anything between seventy and one-hundred and twenty quid for one night. I spent the entirety of Sunday looking for somewhere within my budget to stay to no avail. Still sick from Germany, remembering my homeless night in Venice, and also recalling some of the more… colourful stories about Chester at night, I was not looking forward to this experience. Oh, and it looked like it was going to rain. Running options through my head, I decided that my best bet was probably to go to a club, check my bag and coat, dance and drink the night away until I got kicked out at 3 or 4am, and then persuade one of the local pubs to let me become a member and stay there until 6am when I could get a train to school. Well, this weekend just seemed determined to alter my plans.
    Another friend hit me up that day and asked if I could help him at work that night. Considering how he’d put me up for a week during our October half-term, I owed him. Instead of dancing the night away in a club, I worked in one. Of course he waited to tell me until we were standing outside that this club was known for its lowlifes and that the staff had broken up a fight the previous weekend after a man “glassed” his girlfriend. I spent about six hours picking up empty glasses and beer bottles, washing dishes, and realizing that my friend had exaggerated a bit. Yes, the customers tended to be older and scruffier than most party-going clubbers (I saw one lady who must have been over fifty just sitting back and watching everything while she drank and there were others like her), but there was no hint of violence. The only discontent in these people seemed to be regarding their own lives and that’s not surprising at all. Why else go to a club if not to cut loose and forget yourself for a time? I actually rather enjoyed the whole experience. As I was doing this mostly out of generosity (my friend promised me a few free drinks and a couple of bills from the register at the end of the night), I went ahead and danced a little as I wove through the crowd gathering their refuse. Just because I was working and sober didn’t mean that I couldn’t jump like an idiot waving an empty bottle over my head. The customers seemed to think it was great fun besides and I was still getting my job done. Hell, I was probably doing more than most of the paid employees! I enjoyed the work, it gave me something to do, and I tend to work hard, especially in an energetic atmosphere.  I received many compliments from guests and co-workers alike, kept the place tidy, and ended with one drink and a fiver. Wait, that doesn’t seem quite right… Ah, as I said, I owed the guy! To be honest, this was a lot more fun than that night in Venice, even disregarding the pocket change I gained by the end.
    The rest of the week was uneventful until the Oswestry Music Festival on Thursday. I had been preparing for this competition for months, with two categories that I was to contend with solos in. I knew the songs, I’d practiced them at every opportunity, and I had spent every day of that last week coughing up a lung. Yeah, my prospects weren’t looking good. My voice was nearly shot, even after two days of vocal rest, I wasn’t breathing well, and I was about as jittery as a cat surrounded by six year-old delinquents for all of my nerves. In short, I did my best, placing only eleventh out of thirteen in the first category after singing a George Frederic Handel song and fifth out of eight in the other after performing “Bring Him Home” from “Les Miserables.” To be honest, I was pretty stoked with my results, considering how briefly I’ve been taking lessons and considering the rather stiff competition. One boy in particular floored me with his rendition of “‘Till I Hear You Sing.” I melted into the church pew and stared without a thought for the world as the guy sang. He only got third place, beaten for one by a guy who sang a scratchy, loud, discordant version of “Heaven On Their Minds.” I guess there’s just no accounting for taste. On the way out, my choir directer said something that I didn’t catch.
    “Hm? Sorry, what did you say, sir?”
    “Did you hear that guy?” Mr. Coupe nodded toward an elderly fellow in a maroon jumper who had just passed.
    “What guy. Him?” I stepped outside and shut the heavy-timbered door behind us. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
    “That gentleman we passed as we were leaving was humming “Bring Him Home.” Out of all of the songs that he could have chosen, he was singing yours.”
    I shrugged as I mounted the steps down to the street. “It’s a catchy song. He probably knew it already.” I bowed my head as I entered the school bus to keep anyone from seeing the big grin plastered to my face.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

    Have you ever walked through a city filled with churches when all of the bells started ringing? They never chime in tandem plus the variations in tones and quality mixed with sound distortions over distance and from bouncing off of buildings creates a discordant, almost painful cacophony that vibrates through your poor ears and shivers in your body. I expected the same from Cologne. Yet something remarkable occurred. When each hour struck, bells started to ring all across the city and their sounds did not overlap. I would walk through one part of the city and hear only one set of bells tolling and fading as I moved away. Just when those bells faded into the distance, I would catch the tune of the next bells, their sounds almost touching across the air like God’s and Adam’s fingers in Michaelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel. I could distinguish between actual songs, picking out what sounded like Chopin and Vivaldi as I went my way. I don’t know how much the churches’ architects knew about acoustics, but it was impressive. Perhaps those ruling the city measured their volumes and limited them to produce this effect.
    The Dom’s bells were by far the loudest and dominated the neighborhood whenever they played, but the sounds were brief and bothered no one. Until the Spaniards and I tried to have lunch that is. After visiting the local chocolate museum, we stopped by a restaurant with a nice view of the church peeping over the buildings ringing the plaza we overlooked. Just as we ordered our food at three o’clock, the bells started to chime. And they did not stop. After ten minutes, it was still a pleasant sound. After twenty minutes, it was hypnotic. After forty minutes it was maddening. We imagined that the bells had broken somehow and that there was some poor priest trying to stop them by grabbing the pull-ropes and getting yanked into the air yelling “No! No! Help! Help!” Even through the jokes though, those maddening bells would not stop their tolling and speech was drowned and the world seemed filled with-
    The bells stopped. Conversation ceased. We looked at each other, sighed, grinned and started to cheer and laugh. Then the bells started to play again and we all groaned.
    One thing that I forgot to mention earlier was that this city (or maybe Germany in general) has a surplus of sex shops. There was a kinky clothing store down the street from my hotel, several related shops on Rudolfi Platz (aka Rudolf Plaza) including one aimed at homosexuals and another advertising Christmas *ahem* stuff in the middle of February. I must say that having a blur of hookah bars and sex toy shops as a city’s final “farewell” to you leaves one heck of an impression as the train you’re riding speeds away.
    I went on to spend a very relaxing five days with my friend Lucas Wiehofsky in his gorgeous, modernist house near Bad Oeynhausen. He showed me the town and took me to a monument to Kaiser Wilhelm that overlooked the sprawling Rhine-Westphalia territory. From that shrine, I gazed across vast, even lands divided by a broken range of hills, all shrouded in a thin mist that shone and seemed to tease the sun as the clouds dimmed its light. Pleasant, but I was still unimpressed. Of course, I didn’t have the heart to tell Lucas, as the view was spectacular and the trouble he went to to bring me was still well appreciated. However, as we moved on higher into the wooded hills, I felt some of my enthusiasm tickle inside of me. I left the path and started to hop over fallen branches and jump off of rocks and tree roots. Why? Because it was fun. I’ve had this thing since I was a kid where I pretend to be a mountain goat whenever I go hiking or backpacking, bouncing off of obstacles, traversing the landscape as if I had been born to do so. There, in the forest far from any city with the monument of the kaiser obscured by foliage, I began to feel excitement and happiness again. We soon left though and spent the next few days doing homework, watching the new batman movies plus some others, going to the theater, and acquainting me with German cuisine and fast food before I had to leave on Friday to catch a flight back to England. Before that though, I caught a royal whopper of a fever on Wednesday night.
    Yeah, I’d been feeling a little punk that day, but waking up at midnight sweating, realizing that you’d been muttering in your sleep, and suddenly convinced that there were men with knives waiting for you in the shadows and thinking that you could see them moving toward you was rather unexpected. In short, I was boring and spent most of Thursday in bed. Five weeks later I’m still trying to shake the cough it gave me. Still, I decided to try a few puffs of shisha before I left. It was fun blowing smoke, but I hated having anything other than air in my lungs and with the stuffed nose I couldn’t taste the flavored tobacco anyhow. While Lucas, his friend and I were down there chatting, I also happened to learn that in German “pugs” is slang for boobs and, yes, it can also refer to the type of dog. Just thought you’d wanna know.
    Before coming down with the plague and a case of the crazies, I had been determined to do something around the house to make it less like I was imposing on this family. I had helped with the dishes and whatnot, but I never got to cook my father’s lasagna for them as I’d planned. Hell bent on not being a burden on them any longer, I refused their offers for me to stay another night and caught a train to the airport back in Dusseldorf.
    As I left, I reflected upon what I had seen and done in this country. I had seen much, met many people, made new friends, and had a good laugh, yet I could not help feeling… unmoved. Seeing the churches, spitting into the Rhein river (I couldn’t piss in it in to properly honor General George Patton, but close enough) and wandering around a foreign city really gave me no great pleasure. For the entire trip, it felt like I was swimming. I felt like I was going through the motions just to stay afloat, maybe to maintain my image as a traveler or maybe to keep an old, dying dream alive. I could have made friends in any city, had a good time with them anywhere, and I would not have been so empty while I felt almost obligated to tour a place I’d never seen. Maybe now I understand why I had hesitated at German customs when the guard asked me what I was doing there. Maybe a part of me was callusing to the glories of the world or maybe awakening to how everything is so similar everywhere. Maybe in truly distant places things are quite different and perhaps that can inspire and awe me. Maybe a traditional Japanese festival or a Hindu mandir in the jungle would move me, but until I go there, I just don’t really want to deal with it all. I’m done with the expense. I’m done with the stress. I’m done with my heart being jaded in the sight of wonders. I think I’m done with travel.

... And I'm Back. Anyone Miss Me?

     Alright! I have finally finished reading my book! Now I am subject to another year of agony waiting for the next one. Oh, well, I'll content myself remembering how amazing "Words of Radiance" was and how emotional I felt while reading it as I return to the world of the living and the social.
     A note to travelers: If you have a good face, find a restaurant where a member of the opposite sex who is about your age will service *ahem* I mean serve you. I went to the student district for dinner the night after my arrival in Cologne and wandered into one place that sold a cheap calzone and was soon seated by a pretty girl and then served by another looker, both of whom were probably there on after-school jobs. Anyhow, despite my inability to speak German, they were keen to attend me and deliver an obscene number of complimentary bread rolls with my meal. The next night, hoping for a repeat, I came in and was served by an older woman. The service was blatantly normal and, more important, I only got half as many rolls. Now, maybe someone was dropping hints the night before or maybe I’m reading too much into it and the kitchen just happened to have a bunch of spare bread that night. I don’t know for sure, but, hey, what have you got to lose for trying? If it works out, you have pleasant company and everything works out better. If not, well, it’s a normal night.
    As I’ve traveled more and more I’ve noticed how, wherever you go, people are generally the same. Yes, the sense of humor and maybe the values change, but people still have the same basic traits. They laugh. They cry. They cheat. They steal. They love. Everything. I have discovered very little else about these different places. During festivals and other cultural events, yes the differences will be stark, but otherwise not so. I guess that the only real benefit to travel is for business, special markets, study, and bragging rights.
    I’m saying this because Cologne turned out to be a very normal city with people going about their daily lives (as they did in Rome and Venice and London and… well you get the point) without a care for the architectural and cultural wonders around them. Well, I wasn’t going to follow their example. Determined to enjoy the city’s exoticism, I set off to the Hiroshima Nagasaki park.

 I got there and, aside from enjoying the cherry-blossom (aka sakura) trees and imagining how fun it would be to go swimming in the reflection pool, I was not especially moved. Damn. Instead of enjoying the scenery as I wandered the park, I wondered if there had been a celebration recently, as I noticed dozens of beer caps, several fire cracker husks, and a used condom strewn over the hill here. Entertaining, disgusting, and yet disappointing. Well, let’s try whatever’s next.
    I walked through the shopping district and stopped by three very nice, grand churches and each one failed to move me. I ducked into a clothing store wanting to see if the styles actually looked anything like what they wear in New York as the sign outside advertised, only to discover that, despite the male mannequins in the window, they only sold girl’s clothing and, no, it looked nothing like the New York fashions. Only then did I realize just how bored I was. I had just seen a great church, but I really didn’t care. I had just walked unabashed and alone through a woman’s   clothing store and didn’t bat an eye. Maybe it was only my periodical depression hitting me again, but I remembered feeling the same way in Rome as I strolled about the ancient ruins. I might just be a homebody, I thought. I don’t want to be, but maybe I am.
    I soon came to the mother of all churches in Cologne: the Dom. It was impressive and beautiful, with it’s imposing scale, impossible to capture on my camera without having to cross to the other side of the street across the plaza, and the mesmerizing streaks of black on the stone that looked like burn marks crawling down the church’s spires.

However, I was still unmoved. I stepped inside and the awe-inspiring vaulted interior failed to strike any admiration in me other than for the difficulties involved in building the place. I just felt that it was too big. It was just too grand and imposing and dark for me to believe that anyone could properly feel a spiritual connection to a deity in there. It all just seemed rather impersonal.

    Disappointed and dejected, I returned to my hostel to discover that I had totally forgotten to fill out the FAFSA and CSS Profile (necessary forms for applying for university financial aid) and that the deadline was in three days. Whoops. Well, that meant an early start the next day. In the meantime, I had a date with the girl I’d met in Rome. To be brief, it was cuddly and cozy despite the rain until we met up much later to go for drinks with her Mexican friend and two Australian guys. By the end of the night she left with an Aussie and I left, again, disappointed and dejected. I had a feeling that this would be a recurring theme during the trip. So, drunk and fatigued, I returned to the hostel around two in the morning to find the lights out and everyone asleep, or so I thought. I had just taken my shirt off and hung it in my locker when the bathroom door behind me opened, illuminating me and revealing yet another attractive girl. A little stunned and not just a little muddled, I started stammering a quiet apology, saying that I would get out of the way while she just sort of stared. Then a couple of shadows to my right stirred and spoke out to me. The girl from the bathroom moved to them and sat on their bed and they invited me over, so I deposited myself on the floor. These three (two girls and a guys) were all from Spain and were quite keen to talk to an American (I’m beginning to wonder why, I mean, what makes us so different?) and I realized that I still wasn’t wearing a shirt. I hugged my legs and crossed my arms over my chest as if I were some shy, half-naked girl. At least I felt like one. The guy introduced himself as Gael, the girl from the bathroom was named Adela, and the other girl was Paula, all visiting from their university in Granada. They offered to take me out drinking with them the next night. “Sure!” I said. “I’d love to.” I could always use good company.
    The next day I settled myself into a nearby Starbucks, buying a mug of tea as an excuse to stay there (the hostel’s internet was pathetic), and started to work. I did the entire FAFSA and CSS forms in one go, doing my best to estimate our financial situation from what I knew and could gather from my parents across the pond. I did not leave my chair for six and a half hours. I didn’t really notice the time pass by, but I was stressed and even a little frightened, as this would have been my only chance at affording some of my universities. I could not believe that I had been so careless. Anyhow, after sitting for so long, skipping lunch, estimating the wazoo out of our funds, and being threatened with imprisonment and a hefty fine if any of the information was fraudulent, I was hungry, tired, and terrified of my unstable psychological state. I was only too eager to later go out for a few beers on the town with the Spaniards. We hopped from bar to bar, me mostly chatting with Adela who, wouldn’t you know it, was studying journalism and wrote a current events related blog. So we talked about music and writing as we walked through the shopping district, discovered that the pub-crawl that someone had suggested to them was rather pricy, and strolled with beers in hand (yes, it’s apparently legal in Germany to drink in public) back to the student district and its surplus of bars. Some time during our second stop, Paula started talking about a massage machine. Now, their English was passable, maybe even good, but I don’t think that she quite knew what she was saying when she called it an “orgasmatron.” Gael and I were almost on the floor laughing. From there we met with some of their other Spanish friends for cocktails (had my first mojito) and proceeded from there to yet another bar. Things were far more… interesting that night and I left satisfied and giddy.

Is This Going To Be A Recurring Thing?

    The week started out normally. I went through classes, chatted with friends, and then reenacted the Battle at Helms Deep with the guys in archery. Wait, no that’s not normal at all. Now that a bunch of new guys in my year have joined in, things have become more interesting. One of them, James, has this thing about getting everyone to loose their volley in tandem and I have to say that it’s pretty fun. We would take turns calling the commands “Ready, Draw, Fire,” and maybe put a little spin on it. James had us aim and draw and then kept saying “Steady, Steady” imitating Aragorn, while we were trembling with the bows tensed against our outstretched arms. Well, one of the year ten girls ended up being the old man in the movie, as she lost her grip and the arrow impaled the target while the rest of us watched, startled. When my turn came, I acted bored. I yawned. “Ready.” Deadpan voice. “Draw.” Full on war bellow. “FIRE!” Someone (I think James) yelped as the arrows flew to their marks. My voice was still ringing about the room when we lowered our bows. They asked me to call it again, so I called the commands in a high-pitched, Mickey Mouse-esque voice before my signature, battle-cry “FIRE!” command. We played around a bit with seeing who could fire arrows fastest, competing for the high score each round, and quoting everything we could from “The Lord of the Rings.” I feel somehow gratified, accomplished even, when I see a bunch of jocks and athletes being geeks, even if the credit should go to James.
    The next day I discovered that I wouldn’t be around to compete in the house singing competition. Yeah. The poor girl directing us was not happy about that considering how we needed a certain number of guys involved. Still, I think that they were better off without me as they ended up winning first place for the small group category.
    Soon after, a storm swept over England. I don’t know when the school’s roof was last inspected, but with the winds picking up to tropical-storm speeds, the roofing tiles turned into spinning projectile blades of stoney death. The school closed and locked all of the doors heading into the main building-flanked areas, such as the parking lot and the terraces (our lawn) for our safety. However, it backfired a little when I was running back from the gym with Clement and Emily on Wednesday. While I was in there failing to get big, the storm had reached a fever pitch outside. I think that it might have been raining, but when the three of us ducked outside to get back to our dorms, the wind was so harsh that I could not feel the raindrops over the needles of wind driving into me. I felt kind of bad for Emily. Clement and I were having trouble keeping our balance in that gale, but I could see this taller person teetering like a drunken sailor or maybe swaying like one of the tall pine trees from home that rock back and forth right before the tempest uproots them. We knew that the main door was locked as we passed the terraces, but thought that maybe one of the side doors would offer us shelter. When the first one failed us, Emily shouted “I’m going this way back to house!” preferring to run around the building.
    “Yeah!” we shouted back to her, pretending that this was some horrible natural disaster or maybe a battle zone as we assumed Schwarzenegger accents. “Get out of here! Get inside! Get to safety!” To be fair, I would not have braved that side of the building, as it faced the teeth of the storm. Instead, Clement and I battled our way to the next door, me acting as a human shield for him against the wind, our eyes scanning the sky for homicidal roofing slates. The door was locked. We looked at the next door. The sign said it was locked. We ran up slippery stairs to another door. Locked. Ran back down the slick steps. I nearly broke my neck coming down as the wind picked up even further. “We gotta get out of here!” Clement shouted. Realizing our lack of options, we turned to the path Emily had taken. I did not “brave” that path. I ran through it laughing and joking about the wind and saying how much fun it was until the rain found me, after which I ran head down and whooping. I handle fear either one of two ways: I either get furious and want to fight or I start laughing. We burst through a side entrance near the assembly hall and, as I was towing the door shut, Clement shouted “Holy shit it’s nasty out there!” Once we started walking, we realized that the assembly hall was full of kids practicing for the house singing competition and noticed them staring at us. Whoops. Walking back to our dorm, we skirted the parking lot. I happened to look just in time to notice a sleek black car right before a slate slammed point-first into its hood. Looking at the sizable dent left in that sheet of metal, I’m amazed in hind-sight that I stopped while I was outside to take a picture of another slate imbedded in the lawn. Yep. Blonde moment.
    Anyhow, the reason I wasn’t going to be around for house singing was because I was heading to Germany! I was excited at first and glad to be going on another adventure. Except that my excitement was kind of minimal. It was strange. I had only the smallest of thrills that faded by the time I got to the airport. When I got to German customs, the officer there asked me what I was there for and I hesitated, not knowing for sure. I finally said sightseeing after he prompted “pleasure?” What am I here for? I wondered. Why Germany and not, say, France? Just because a friend I’d made in Italy wanted me to visit?
    I received a varied and very strange welcome to Germany. First off, the people were helpful and friendly (unexpected due to the stereotypes that everyone has set for Germans), every car on the train looked like it could be first class, even though it was only a regional rail, and we passed a rather chubby girl very blatantly changing in front of her window as the train raced by. The train could have been just a little bit faster right then in my opinion. Anyhow, as we passed the landscape, I couldn’t help thinking that Germany just looked like a more heavily settled part of Massachusetts, the state I hail from. However, darkness soon settled and, aside from losing the landscape, I also seemed to lose most of the fluent English speakers. It was as if they had all gone to bed with the sun and I was left in the center of Cologne, like in Rome, running around at night trying to find my hostel. At least this time I knew that I had one booked, but a booking doesn’t matter if you can’t find the place itself before check-in! The website had accurate directions to the hostel from the other train station in the city, but not from the one I arrived at, so I got to experience another confusing, stressful night as I ran through the student district to the main street, down some sketchier streets, back to the main street, past a church, ended up in the student district again, and then FINALLY found the hostel, all due to directions given in broken English/my own lack of German.
    After checking into the hostel, it didn’t matter that I was standing in the lobby of a well lit, clean, respectable establishment among friendly people. My heart was still racing from the run, hands still twitching and eyes alert as if waiting for someone to attack me. It was past 11pm and I had not taken that long day very well. I wandered into the dining room, hoping to find some food, and was disappointed. Before turning to leave though, I heard a familiar song come over the radio. I turned and stared at the speakers as they played “Hey There Delilah” and I felt my body loosen and muscles ease. I detest this song. I have always found its vocals annoying, the lyrics unimaginative and shallow, and the music itself just shy of boring. Yet it was familiar. To me that night, as I felt the bag on my back dragging into my shoulders, the smell of the city still in my nose, and the fear of missing check-in still fresh in my mind, that song could not have sounded more beautiful and relaxing to me than Faure’s Requiem. It was like a piece of home; a memory of safety, security, and stability. So there I stood, listening until the last generic, beautiful chord faded out.
    I was just settled into my room when another guy walked in. I started chatting with him and he introduced himself as Constantine, a Romanian come to Cologne to study the violin in university. After complimenting his name (I mean, really, that’s just a cool name that reminds me of Roman emperors and ancient cities), I discovered that he had an audition the next day for an international academy. He asked about me, so I told him about planning to study film production and then he asked how one got noticed in that industry. I told him about internships, the power of a good school’s name, and how, more importantly, you often need good connections. He said it was much the same with music and we both lamented how unfair it was that incompetent, well-connected people tend to get better jobs than the learned, able workers. Ten minutes later, a girl walked in and, once she introduced herself as someone from Colorado (what are the chances?), said that she was doing film production and her mother’s friend was a television producer, so this girl already has an internship. Now she’s transferring to UCLA, but got rejected from USC. Why? Because her grades were insufficient for USC (a lower tier school), but her aunt was a significant alumni of UCLA. Constantine and I shared a look and gave morose laughs. Again, what are the chances?
    Aside from trying to cool my frustration, the room was boiling and I’m pretty sure that I was coming down with a bug, so I drank enough water to drown a baby seal (or maybe an otter) between tossing and turning in bed, dreaming of a just world where meritocracy and pixies ruled. Hey, I did say that it was a dream. Don’t blame me if it’s weird.