12tentative travel plans…
2011-2012:
⇝ Amman, Beirut, West Bank with Almas
⇝ Monteverde for Sunjana
⇝ London for Mahati
2013 (even MORE tentatively planned):
⇝ Australia, Japan, Korea
tea at Bea’s of Bloomsbury with Amy (Wilderite ‘09 visiting from her fellowship in Greece!)
for anyone who wants to do tea in London but doesn’t want to shell out too much poundage at some fancy pants department store or hotel - try Bea’s! it’s really close to Holborn station and a pot of tea with scones and clotted cream and jam = £6!
hmm…
I’ve been thinking: why does my travel blog have to end just because my European adventure has [for now]? I still visit places and try new things here, after all - a month ago, I visited Boston for the first time with our friend Lucy who was visiting us from England, and for fall break I went to Cape Cod with the girls, also for the first time. I’m going to try and document various adventures, even if they’re as local as here in the Valley.
in other news, I’ve really been missing London/being abroad. it’s kind of a dull ache because even though adjusting back to Smith life (and consequently, the social awkwardness and limitations of socializing that comes along with it) was a little difficult, I do love being back here and back into my usual routine and seeing friends who I haven’t hung out with in so long. still, the little things continue to make me wish I were abroad - my summer flatmates’ absurd wall exchanges and statuses, doing an ASOS shop, mentions of 2-for-1 drink specials and kebabs…
honestly, if I could get a year or two year contract working in London, I would take it in a heartbeat. and if I could feasibly live in Camden again… :)
can’t make up my mind [old, OLD saved draft from the summer!]
I have a pretty love/hate relationship with central London (by which I mean: Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, Oxford St., etc.). Who doesn’t love wandering Leicester Square/Piccadilly Circus at night (drunk or sober), shopping for hours on Oxford Street, or watching bizarre street performers at Covent Garden?
On the flipside, unfortunately, is the mass amount of TOURISTS and bland, dominating presence of mindless consumerism and overly crowded sidewalks even at 11am on a Thursday. trust me, I know I’m little more than a glorified tourist, but it’s still annoying as hell when a group of chattering Spanish visitors stand in front of the Regent Street south side exit stairs. (THERE IS A LARGE SPACE TO STAND IN AND DISCUSS YOUR PLANS - it’s called outside the damn station. Please utilize it. Please.) and I’m as capitalist as you can get without being completely soulless, but even I can’t stand three Angus Steakhouses and two gigantic Odeon Cinemas within half a block of each other. and the promoters, god - at night, they stop you for either discounted entries and deals into clubs (which, by the way, are all the same every time you go - overpriced drinks, awful music, and creepy older guys who think they have an in with absolutely trashed adolescent foreigners). but during the day, it was about media - today a guy stopped me and had an entire conversation with me about where I work, where I’m from, my future with public policy, and if I liked the show the West Wing before he start his spiel about how I should watch the The Thick Of It. and after I lied to his face about how I would, I walked past what sounded like hundreds of girls screaming at a pre-premiere party for the UK showing of Eclipse.
despite how irritating and inconvenient all of that was, it reminded me of why I both disliked London the first time I was here (because of central’s absolute lack of character at times) and why I love it now (because sometimes the bizarreness of running past what probably was Rob Pattinson being served several hundred very virgin sacrifices and not caring, like that kind of thing happens every day, is too much to ignore).
20 June 2010: NOSTALGIA BOMB
OUTTA NOWHERE
thought I was completely fine, and I mostly am, but lying in this empty, bare room with nothing but pushpins in the bulletin board, my duffel bag full of cooking supplies, and my pink jersey sheets, it’s really difficult not to reminisce about the day I first moved into Dinwiddy with my Arcadia crew and the £20 taxi we all split on the way over and orientation and freshers week and how decorating my room made it seem so much warmer even when the heating didn’t work. !!! I AM GOING INSANE HERE, check out is before 10am and it is 6am and I can’t sleep but my internet is slow as hell and won’t load my episode of Doctor Who, DAMMIT.
