04/17/15
My Letter to Friends:
Hello from Wales!
Update from the Eurotrail:
(excuse my putting ‘euro’ in front of as many words as europossible):
To recap my trip so far 1: London, 2: Glasgow, Scotland, 3: Dublin, 4: Wales
This message hails from Cardiff, Wales.
I’m lucky to be hosted by my dear friend Alicia (we know each other from teaching days in Atlanta!).
After several attempts at this email, I’ve realized I just can’t paint the picture to completion.
I want you to be here to see it, taste it, (maybe not smell it, #eurobodyodor) and I just can’t recreate it.
And it’s not because it’s too glorious to convey- these are youth hostels and public transportation after all- rather it’s because the historian in me wants to detail all happenings in every shade of color and angle of detail possible.
To experience it is to be here- good bad smelly. SO I just have to give up the high resolution original for a shabby chic storytelling.
My number one goal is to be present.
I am working very hard to “experience first” before reaching for the camera, the journal, the computer. I can’t simultaneously record and absorb everything in motion. I am choosing to experience it, to embrace it. I want to accept that I can’t take it all with me, so I can at least have it all- moment by moment.
Having said that, I’m going to try to send highlights and fun tidbits:
It took until Dublin (my third stop) to find my “travel stride”(12 days into the trip).
It’s quite a leap from a half-jaded Atlanta commuter who shops at Trader Joe’s to a lost, disoriented solo pedestrian traveling Europe for the first time who just dropped on London with two shirts, two tubes of sunscreen, and piles of curiosity.
I have to triple check directions at crosswalks, which side of the escalator to stand on, what the temperature is in farenheit, how far away 7 kilos is, and what time I should get to the 19:30 show. It’s not second nature. Not to mention that the “first floor” is the “zero floor” here, Brits say “right” before every sentence and “piss off” to all manner of things. Elevators are “lifts”, bathrooms are “toilets”, Germans sound like they just swallowed a bubble when they speak English, and restaurant food can be “takeaway,” but not “takeout.”
And smoking hasn’t gone out of style. Cigarette smoke crowds the air like the sound of seagulls in Daytona.
The other day someone legitimately asked “you gotta light?” as I briskly sailed past on the other end of the sidewalk. Sorry my smart phone doesn’t have a flame app, and your question, like my hair, belongs in 1979.
Something else that stuck out at first arrival was- oh my gosh, there are so many children!
And then I realized it’s because everyone takes public transportation here. Families are out in public. It’s not that there are more children here- it’s that they are mostly not in mini-vans.
Londoners must get asked for directions 6 times a day.
I was getting asked for directions often myself and I thought… well these people are asking both a foreigner and a perpetually lost person, so… it’s to the left.
But then it hit me why they were asking! It’s because I’m alone!
They must see me walking alone and assume I’m en route to the grocery store for more peanut butter. And I am going to the grocery store for more peanut butter. But I don’t know how to get there..
So it’s to the left.
I got a beer with Rachel Harper, (a previously mentioned world-traveler and grad-student in London).
I ordered a stout beer and Rachel tasted it and I said “It’s like Guinness but better” and the bartender said “This shits on Guinness” and I thought.. “now.. what now?” But after asking him to repeat it twice, we realized he was saying “This is superior to Guinness.”
Julian, a Frenchman who was staying at my hostel, went to coffee with me and was telling me about when he lived in San Francisco, but now he’s working as a pastry chef in London and he doesn’t like the French people in London.
The two women next to us overheard it and said “you can’t say that out loud!”
And Julian explained “But I am Fhwench!”
And the ladies laughed, said “oh” and went on to tell us their stories.
The older lady (the mom) grew up in France but moved to England because her husband was British. She said she didn’t know any English at the time, but the best way to learn “is in bed.”
I thought- my English must be terrible.
I got a wheelie bag! (and the heavenly host erupts)
It is a real wanderlust-deflator to hear the sound of your wheelie suitcase against the brick and cobblestone streets. But my spine thanks me.
Overall, the hostel experience has been just. right.
95% of the people I meet are friendly, and 98% are cordial: (the rest are bus drivers, 1% are of which are tolerant, and the other 1% can’t be blamed)
I was nervous at first because shared dorm rooms are like a box of chocolate: they melt in the sun.
But so ideal for solo travel!
After making friends with two precious Barcelonian sisters, a Belgian music teacher, and a Hong-Kong Aussie (I could explain but I’ll let you imagine), and meeting others from Norway to Singapore, my Facebook friend list is getting pret-ty difficult to pronounce.
I feel so supes globes (super global in English).
I’m really glad to be here for the Spring.
The weather is shifty like Spring weather is.
I’d say a typical day is windy, brisk but with sunny bursts in the afternoon.
And every few days is either gloriously sunny or overcast and drippy.
But, let’s be honest, that description was for my dad.
And now..
The Eurowards
(Created by me, subjectively nominated and awarded by me
-Best public transit: London (HANDS DOWN) Between the buses, trains and tube stations, you’re gonna have several options for how to get there.
The tube lines have certain colors… and the colors of the handrails and bars in each line correspond with their color (red line= red bars). Pretty clever! Those Brits!
-Best accent and colloquialisms: Scotland
e.g. There’s a “wee” dog there, and “Folk” are at the neighbors’ and Highland Cow is pronounced “Heeland coo.” The name Craig is pronounced “krieg,” like a blitz. The Scottish yoga instructor said “heps” for “hips” and “sett bownes” for “sit bones” and I was charmed.
Best Party: Dublin. It’s like the French Quarter of Europe.
Best water pressure: Abigail’s Hostel, Dublin
Flattest pillow: Abigail’s Hostel, Dublin
Friendliest hostel staff: Astor Hyde Park, London
Coolest Area: Southwark along the River Thames, London
Most intriguing art: Rebecca Horn exhibit at the Tate Modern
Best Find: Blue and white consignment sweater in Camdentown for 4 pounds
Best Street Art: Shoreditch, London
Memorable Snapshots:
–Wicked in London (think of “Defying Gravity” with a hard “t”)
–Woman in Gold in Scotland (watching a movie about WWII art theft when you’re among Europeans, and near such art pieces, makes it most vivid)
–Hedda Gabler in Dublin at Abbey Theatre sitting next to two Norwegians who chatted about theatre/Ibsen with me
–Evensong Ceremony at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin in Gavin’s memory
Among several inner-musings, I’ll share this one:
Traveling alone is like watching a long movie by yourself.
Have you ever gone to a movie alone? You really should.
It’s liberating.
Your being is fully available to every impression, gesture, line, song, camera angle.. and you don’t react for anyone but yourself.
But the equally strong emotion (coupled with liberation) is indeed loneliness.
You can’t have it all- you can’t have companionship and total independence.
When I landed in Dublin, it was cold as I tracked down the proper bus, rode it 44 minutes into town, wheeled my bag through the bumpy streets of Temple Bar and carried my bag up four flights of steps because the first floor is actually the zero floor and the lift was broken. I was alone in my dorm, wondering who was staying in the other beds based on their things in the room, drowsy from the meds and feeling sort of lost, disoriented, and lonely after leaving Caroline in Glasgow.
I slowly unpacked my things. I switched out my currency from pounds to euros. I found my chapstick and hit the street.
I immediately fell in love with the neighborhood- Temple Bar. Like an Irish New Orleans, it is touristy but fun with Irish music, cute shops and bakeries and all manner of pedestrians milling about. I got some coffee, wrote two post-cards, and began to get oriented again.
I headed back to the hostel and it wasn’t before long that the door opened and I saw two new faces. I introduced myself and we got acquainted “Where are you from? How long have you been here? When are you leaving?” (the foundation of hostel small talk). Ulli and Lara are from Austria and go to school together. Before you know it, a third girl Fee appears who is from Germany.
Ulli and Lara are leaving the next day and I suggest we go out in honor of their last night.
We all agree and get ready.
Before you know it, we are sipping our beers, listening to live music among a cloud of Irish accents and they are practicing their English with me.
It was then I was sure, this trip shits on Guinness.
Love and Miss,
Natalie
Pics attached!