The End. Or Is It?

This is to be my last Queen Mary post. I know, sad, isn't it? But I'm fully installed back in my home now, so the magical adventure is officially over.

I'm very glad I studied abroad, and would recommend it to anyone. Well, unless there was someone I really didn't like, then I wouldn't recommend it to them because I wouldn't want them to have a good time. Ya, I feel it's necessary to point that out.

I'm really going to miss my London friends though. Dave, you were as good a friend as I could have asked for, and I hope you come and visit sometime. Antoine, if your English is good enough to read this, you were a great friend too, and made me run farther than I ever want to again. Lewis, I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye, thanks for being my friend. Georgina, haha, I'm sorry I didn't come upstairs to say goodbye, I'm going to miss you. Anushka...I love you. Yo Charlotte, what's up. All of you guys, and any other good British friends that I may have forgotten, or any USC kids I met over in London, and any USC kids I met in LA, or anybody really, should come to Oregon to visit. I have a great place for you to stay, and I would love to see you again. These pictures should entice you to come have a stay.

I went on a hike yesterday in the burly mountain wilderness which surrounds my hometown. The trail I found was too snowy to follow all the way to the top, so I turned around about halfway and took some pictures. On the way down, I took advantage of my lonely location and started belting out "Something" from The Beatles. "Something in the way she moves, Attracts me like no other lover, Something in the way she moo-ooves me, Don't wanna leave her now, Don't wanna leave her now, do do do do do do" As soon as I got to the highest 'do' and my voice cracked, I saw a guy standing on the path about thirty yards ahead, just staring at me. I promptly turned off the vocal pipes and apologized for the singing. Needless to say, it was a little awkward.

And on that note, I may continue to keep a blog. I haven't decided yet. I surely won't update it as often as I did this one, because my life probably won't be as exciting. But I'm positive my life will continue to contain more of those awkward moments than I know what to do with, and I think, the gift I have for creating unique, uncomfortable social situations needs to be shared with the world. So I might keep a blog in the future, and I'll put a link up here if I start a new one.

And that's the end. THE END. Roll credits: Director: Kevin Maloney, Producer: Kevin Maloney, Main Actor: Kevin Maloney, Lighting: Kevin Maloney, Typing: Kevin Maloney, Jokes: Definitely Kevin Maloney

Flight Home

I should have posted this two days ago. It is an account of my journey home.

For the sake of symmetry, let’s get some statistics out of the way: 2311 miles from LA. 36000 feet. London local time: 4:51 pm. LA local time: 8:41 am. Ground speed 553 mph. Outside air temperature: -57 degrees Fahrenheit.

NOW. Down to business. This is to be the first unpublished blog for two reasons: first, I want to include my entire trip in the final post, and I would be unable to do that right now; second, I want to bask in the unchecked glow of the self-righteous irritability invariably inspired by long air travel. [As you can probably guess, I failed in my resolve to make this my first unpublished post.]

I’ve watched two movies so far. Frost/Nixon, which was good. It was interesting to see the inner workings of television and debate, and how mind games play a huge part in the proceedings. The historical aspect of it also interested me a lot; and disgusted me. Next, Seven Pounds, which was AWFUL. You know that part at the beginning of many movies where you don’t know what going on for about five minutes, and you gradually figure it out? Ya, that ‘confusing beginning part’ in Seven Pounds lasted about 90 minutes, or roughly 17 TIMES longer than most movies. All we find out is Will Smith is really sad and likes to hang out around hospitals. The moral implications of some of the interactions bothered me as well. At one point he called someone on the phone and badgered them, demanding they “tell me how it really makes you feel!” to which the man responded in the typical way, “Uh, what? You’re crazy, uh, wanna buy some meat?” (He was a meat salesman.) From this exchange, Will Smith deduced the man was a good person. What! It bothered me because in Fight Club, there are similar exchanges which result in the subject cracking and being shown the error of their pathetic, tepid life. But no, not in this movie. It seems Hollywood could at least do us the service of providing a united moral front. Later, Will meets a woman with an ill heart. She is quoted saying she doesn’t think she deserves another heart because she is unremarkable. Will Smith replies by saying he shares a similar degree of self-loathing, and because of this, they become friends. What the deuce?

The idea behind the movie was all right (Will Smith kills himself and gives his body parts away) but it was such a terrible movie! Another two viewings would be required to tie up all the loose ends, and I’m not about to do that because I have no desire to darken my considerably bright aura. Also, he completely blows off his brother and essentially ruins his career! And just runs off to kill himself! What a crappy movie! The whole reason he’s so sad is he killed his new wife by texting and driving at the same time. I think the real strength of this tale would be revealed in bar-story form, where it would be told as, “Dude, I knew this guy once who got in a car crash and his wife died, and then he just went crazy, started finding sick people and stuff, and he would just go up to people and do nice stuff for them for no reason, and then after like a month he just up and killed himself with a jellyfish and gave all his body parts away! No, ya, really! A jellyfish! No seriously, my brother was friends with his one of his brother’s roommates, and he said….” See how awesome that would be? But as a movie, it’s just banal, and stupid, and laughable, and dingy…It makes me feel like moaning in disappointment, which I will do now. Ehhhhh……

In other news, I’ve learned that six hours on a plane is my essential travel barrier between quiet tolerance and restless irritability. Loquacious irritability, maybe, as evidenced by the past movie rant. I hope the lady behind me can’t read what I’m writing. I was seated in economy in a middle row with five seats. Three are filled: the two on the end and mine, next to the left end. Leaves two seats; my companions and I can do some sweet stuff with two extra seats, right? Wrong. The lady who is sleeping on my shoulder right now chose to move to the seat next to her, then lean over the armrest into the other open seat. So, now I’m sitting in the middle of the middle seat, unable to lean against the armrest. The lady has like nine of those little blue pillows too. I’m going to draw a picture to accentuate my point and release my irrationally fierce anger.

There. That feels better. Actually, this is hours later. I had a nice conversation with the woman in that seat. She taught me how to make pad thai. She was pretty cool after all.

I watched Gran Torino. It is a good movie.

Now I’m in San Francisco for a couple hours before my flight to Klamath Falls departs. I talked to a guy who owned a company which insures banks on the flight from LA to SF. He was pretty friendly. Everybody always wants to tell me how cool they are though. It wasn’t until after the conversation that I realized he was a story-topper. He kept telling me about all these smart people he knew and slipping in the fact that he owns a business with one hundred employees. I guess it’s not necessarily bad attribute, I’m just not the type of person who tries to impress people I meet. He was just a tad rude, not answering my questions. He seemed honest though, which I respect. Haha, he was talking about how some engineers have no social skills and they’re really hard to talk to. He knew I was an engineer, but he didn’t know that I don’t have social skills. Hehe, sucker, I got him good. But he was all right, we talked about the difficulties of balancing a family with work. He said it was very difficult, and I fully believe him.

I had to bite the bullet in London and pay an excess baggage fee for the third of my three bags. It was 128 pounds, or roughly 200 dollars. Absurdly expensive. Working the most lucrative job I’ve ever had, it would still take me two full days to make that much money. For fifty pounds of luggage. Four dollars per pound (weight pound, not money pound). Or, twenty minutes of work per pound of luggage. That’s a nice way to think about it. I carried my luggage, one pound at a time, across the Pacific and back to Oregon over a two-day period. Sounds awesome.

I spent my first American dollars in four months on a sourdough bread bowl and a bottle of water in the SF airport about half hour ago. It felt good, and strangely enough, a quarter looks really foreign to me right now. But it feels good to have American money again. Any American thing I see now just makes me feel so good inside, haha. It’s just a giddy feeling to come back to someplace so familiar to me.

I fly over Eastern Oregon to reach Los Angeles before returning about seven hours later.

Free Phone

Today is my last full day in London. It’s hard to believe the time went so fast. I’ve been here for four and a half months, and it feels like I’ve spent hardly any time at all here. I’m sad to leave, but I’m very excited to get back home. I think I would like to live in London sometime in the future though. My appreciation for London grew, rather than shrank, as the semester went along. I will definitely return, and I hope that time comes sooner rather than later.

I had to run some errands today before leaving town, and Dave came with me. I love Dave. I love you, Dave. I’m going to miss you and your ways. We first went to the Beatles store and the Sherlock Holmes stores near Regent’s Park for some postcards and some gifts, and we walked around the park for awhile, looking at the flowers and the waterfowl. It wasn’t a very nice day, but that seems fitting. London should be in its most common state as I say goodbye to it.

After Regent’s Park, we got off the tube at Whitechapel. I wanted to sell my cell phone to someone in the market there. Little did I know, my cell phone is worthless. I asked five different guys and I was refused five times, all of them repressing a laugh when I asked them if they would buy it from me. The last man, when asked if he would accept it for free, just so I could be rid of it, refused, but helpfully pointed out a trashcan if I was desperate to leave it behind. Dave and I decided fashion was very expensive; which, in turn, is why my phone is worth nothing.

Next we went to Sainsbury’s so I could buy a supply of digestives to take with me to the United States. After much deliberation, I decided that nine packs, or roughly 180 cookies, would carry me pretty far. They cost three pounds, total. I’m going to miss digestives, but after today’s trip to the store, I won’t be missing them for at least another month.

I don’t have time to make this my last post, which should be appropriately gushy and meaningful, so I’ll save that for another time. And I’ll have to talk about my glorious return to the USA. Anyway, Dave and I are headed to the pub for our last meal. Goodbye for now.

People of Cadiz

Met some cool people tonight. I´ll elaborate later. Talia, Talia´s mom, Jocelyn, David, the two Italian guys, the two Finnish guys, Kieran the New Zealander, Scott, Rob the Canadian surfer....I think that´s all for now.

I guess I´ll elaborate now. I have three hours before my six AM train leaves for Jerez, from where I´ll board a bus to Jerez de la Frontera (an airport), and thus to London for one day of packing, then from London to Los Angeles, LA to San Francisco, and SF to Klamath Falls. Quite a stint of traveling I am about to embark on. Anyway, I thought it might be a little more worthwhile to stay up for a couple hours and head to the train station rather than fall asleep and rely on my feeble watch alarm to wake me up.

Cadiz has been really cool. Today I slept until around eleven. It was the complete opposite of my first night here. My room was empty, and the place quieted down at two in the morning. I got a great night of sleep. I asked some of the workers for some suggestions for activities today, and the owner of the hostel told me about a tower in the center of the old part of town which is worth a visit. I went. It has a veranda which offers a view of Cadiz in all directions, and it is beautiful. The main attraction was something called the Camara Obscura. Using a mirror and a slit in the roof, they created a projection of the view onto a curved viewing surface in a dark room just below the veranda. It was really cool. You could see people doing their laundry on rooftops, and the focus varied depending on slight adjustments of the viewing surface´s height. I also met a couple there from Oregon and talked to them for a while.

After the tower, I walked to the waterfront and strolled along the water on the outskirts of town. It was cloudy. I bought a pizza and enjoyed it in a small park near Ellie´s school. I wandered some more and eventually returned to the hostel to read a bit before Ellie came to pick me up to go hang out with her and her friends while they worked on a project. She was worried I was bored while she worked on her project, but it´s nice when traveling just to be with friends and relax, not necessarily running from landmark to landmark. So it was nice. Especially because Talia offered me some free food from her host mother, who doted on me like one of her own. I had some pasta-garbanzo bean-soup and some bread, and some amazing melon, and some crackers and cheese. It was awesome, even beyond the level of awesomeness which free food automatically receives.

Ellie´s friend Jocelyn offered to take me out tonight, so we met up and went to a couple different bars. I met David the surfer, who was a cool surfer from Cadiz and spoke just a little English. It was a good opportunity to practice my Spanish, which is still pretty abysmal. Jocelyn speaks fluent Spanish and French (and English), of which I am very jealous. A couple of Italian friends of hers came to meet her later that night also. It was an interesting encounter. One spoke Italian and Spanish, the other Italian and French, so Jocelyn could speak to one at a time, and then there was me, who has almost mastered English and still largely remains ignorant of the magnitude of my ignorance. It was fun though, if difficult.

Tonight (or this morning) at the hostel I met some cool people too. I talked to Kieren (pretty sure I butchered his name), a New Zealander hanging out in Cadiz for awhile, and Scott, an Australian street performer (marionette puppets) also hanging out. They both work at this hostel. I´m pretty jealous of these perpetual travelers. There were also a couple of Finnish people, who taught Scott how to say ´I am a dirty mermaid´ in Finnish. Wholesome world travel, no doubt.

And now I just said goodnight to Rob, the very cool night watchman of sorts around here. He gave me his beer to sip on as I wait the long two hours until my train leaves. I don´t know what to do. Youtube maybe. Ellie if you ever read this, I´m so glad you showed me around town and shared your cool friends with me. I had a great time in Cadiz.

Cadiz

Hello, my devotees. I am in southern Spain right now, visiting my friend Ellie for three days before heading back to the US. The day of travelling yesterday was pretty harrowing, but I am happy to be here and Ellie is an excellent tour guide, although she has a lot of schoolwork to do at the moment. I have a nice sunburn on my legs today because we spent three hours at the beach, so I have, yet again, learned my lesson about sunscreen.

I have been once more reunited with the crazy European keyboard, lacking easily accessible apostrophes and question marks. These symbols though, ñ¿, are around. I guess this keyboard specializes in Spanish, because those are the only weird ones I can find right now. And another thing! About Spanish. I thought I spoke Spanish! That was a very silly, irrational thought. Even so, I could have gotten by all right before I went to Italy. Today, while trying to converse with the native Spaniards, I realized I learned just enough Italian to ruin my peremptory Spanish. My instincts are stuck in ´va bene´ and ´grazie´ and ´dové il...´ It´s very frustrating.

The hostel I am staying in is in a great spot, in the center of town, but I do have some problems with it: the main problem being that the music didn´t stop playing until roughly 430 am last night, while I meekly tried to fall asleep at 130. Also, I have had the unique opportunity of discovering the intensely squeaky properties of the typical Spanish hostel bunk bed, properties especially aggravated under the certain stress of an alcoholically-impaired female boarding the top bunk at well nigh five in the morning. Needless to say, last night was a little rough. So now, I´m typing downstairs until this bleepity-bleep music stops playing. If only I weren´t eighty years old....

I figured out the eccentricities of this keyboard. If you hit the apostrophe key twice, like so, you get an apostrophe: ´. If you hit it once, followed by a key able to be apostrophicized, you get that letter, apostrophicized (and ya, that´s a word, and a cool one). See look! óṕáśẃéŕýúíóṕḱĺńḿćźçǵ. Cool, huh¿

That´s all for now.

Happy Birthday, Mom

My mom's birthday was yesterday. Last year, I got her a very thoughtful present, I thought. I got her a bunch of ridiculous fabric from the LA textiles district and brought it home after school was over for the summer with the idea that we could make a quilt together during the summer. She was less than thrilled. It turns out a quilt is a little more work than I had anticipated. I haven't had any recent updates on quilt status, but last I heard it was yet to be finished. I finished about half of it before I left for USC in the fall, and left my poor, overworked mother to finish the rest of it. Oh, and the quilt is for me. Haha. Great present, huh?

Anyway, she gave us a list this year. I wonder why! I bought her a much less-cumbersome present though, this year, with some help from my brothers, so I hope she likes it. She deserves much more than what I can afford to give her, but hopefully the sentimental gifts like our love, and the thought of a really nice gift, as opposed to an actual really nice gift, will suffice.

She also has it a little rough on presents because her birthday is always very close to Mother's Day, so of course she gets less than she would if these two days were spread out a little more. But gifts are a little silly once you get older; even for me, I have basically everything I really need. It's probably more important during this time just to show my mom that my brothers and I care about her and really appreciate her for everything she's done for us, like send us to college and raise us all that stuff. So, before the eyes of the world, thank you Mom. I love you. And I think Matthew and Jeff love you too. They haven't gone out of their way to tell me, but I think it's implied.

Studying Kinda

Another long day of studying. I took a break today, though, to go to the daily mass at Westminster Abbey. It is called Evensong. The first Evensong service I went to was at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and it was spectacular. Well, today I found out that Wednesday is the Westminster Abbey version of Saturday mass: no singing, just a quick half-hour service of standing and sitting and I was on my way. Even my plan of sticking around after the mass to get a free glimpse of the Abbey didn’t work very well. They had the service in a preliminary area which was blocked off from the rest of the Abbey. I tried to explore but was immediately confronted by a stern clergyman demanding six pounds. I’m not the caliber of man to carry that luxurious amount of cash around on my person, so I left ill-satisfied. I did, however, see where Charles Darwin is buried. It’s amazing how close the history is over here. I really wanted to see Charles Dickens gravesite, but I certainly didn’t want to see it bad enough to pay six pounds for the sight.

I had another food breakthrough today. I get the feeling that my brainpower is being misused during these days of studying. My notes sit spread all around my desk while I try to find excuses not to look at them. Excuses such as cooking, watching Scrubs, writing blogs, cooking, watching Avatar, stretching, trying to do upside-down pushups, watching The Big Bang Theory, taking a shower, organizing my room, talking to friends, downloading music from Disney’s Jungle Book and The Lion King….The list goes on and on, and those are just excuses I used today. Anyway, on to my food innovation.

I realized a while ago, on accident, that apples taste really good with tomato soup. (No, I didn't accidentally drop an apple in my soup.) Today I was making this culinary masterpiece, and I decided I also wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. But we don’t have a grill, and I didn’t want to put it into the oven because I’m afraid of the oven. (I’m just taking things one step at a time in the kitchen: this semester I conquered the stove; I'm satisfied with my progress.) So, I thought, the pot will be hot when my soup is done warming up. Why don’t I set my soup on top of my sandwich, and by the time I’m ready to take a bite of my sandwich, the cheese will be melted!

If only the world worked the way I want it to in my optimistic mind. The cheese was only melted a little bit. But I’m willing to try it again tomorrow, because, let’s face it, we all know I have nothing better to do.

I also saw a squirrel today, and I have provided evidence.

Cabin Fever

It’s one of those days again. One of those days where I have nothing better to talk about than what I ate. I’ve been studying (sort of) all day, and it has been a little bit drab. I went running though, this morning. It’s not a fun thing to do, but it keeps me from getting too restless the rest of the day.

Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this little invention before, but I created a new type of sandwich awhile ago, and I’d like to share it with you, in detail, right now. It involves peanut butter, jelly (not very exciting yet, is it? But wait for it…), Nutella and digestive cookies. Yep, I went there. And I have pictures to prove it. I guess I really don’t have to explain how the sandwich is made. I put the peanut butter and Nutella on the same piece of bread, and the jelly and the digestive cookies on the other side. It's pretty simple. And pretty delicious.

I studied for awhile today. It was not fun. I get stir-crazy. I just can’t sit still for long periods of time. I can’t watch movies, for the same reason. Unless they’re really good movies. Anyway, for the thermodynamics test coming up, I technically only need to score 40 of the 100 points to pass, so I’m not that worried. I am a little worried, because it will be a difficult test, but I’m pretty sure I won’t fail. My classes transfer to USC as pass-fail. I only need 70 points to get an A on the test, so we’ll see what happens. I still have two days to study though. I’m going to go crazy if I sit in here for another two days. I think I might go on an adventure tomorrow. I still haven’t really been to Hyde Park, or inside Westminster Abbey. I would like to do those two things before I return to the good old USA.

Dave is all done with his exams and papers and everything. He taunts me often.

Comedy Club

Matthew left yesterday morning after staying with me for a week. It was very nice to see him, and just the right amount of time to visit. We had fun and didn’t have enough time to get sick of each other and revert back to our natural relationship as fighting brothers. His plane flight left England at one, and arrived in Seattle at six. It must have been a loooong day.

I made some tea with the hot water I used to boil my pasta yesterday. It would have been good, I think, but I salted the water before putting it in the tea cup, so that wasn’t so nice.

I went to a comedy show last night with Dave and a couple of his friends. It was very good, we saw five or six comedians. The headliner for the night cancelled, and they were able to fill his spot with a pretty famous comedian. This guy eventually ended up putting the microphone into a glass of water and breaking some of the stage props. It was very funny, but I’m not sure how happy the comedy club people were about that. It was a very good night though, all the comedians were really funny.

Ice Bar Superman

Today was exciting. We began by revisiting the Beatles store, following my instructions all the way to the wrong tube stop before re-boarding and alighting at the correct stop. Matthew wanted to buy a money clip from the store, and we didn’t really have anything better to do today than go back there, having already seen everything in London. That’s right; everything.

Except for the Ice Bar of Haddon Street! But we did that after the Beatles store. I had heard rumor of a bar made completely of ice, and the rumors proved true. We showed up around two in the afternoon (we get started pretty early over here) and paid just over ten pounds for a drink and forty minutes inside a small bar completely made of ice, bedecked in special parka-capes made especially for the occasion. It was pretty cool; literally! Ha! That was Matthew’s joke. We took lots of pictures inside, and drank our drinks out of the sculpted ice glasses. The room is kept at a constant -5 degrees Celsius (around 25 degrees Fahrenheit), but with the parka things we were warm enough.

There must be something about Matthew which draws the attention of street performers looking for volunteers, because after leaving the Ice Bar, and walking past Big Ben, across Westminster Bridge, and continuing along the South Bank, both us were picked out of a crowd to volunteer in this man’s act. We and two other men sat on crates facing in different directions, and by laying back on each other’s laps, the crates were removed and we supported each other with just our legs from the knee down. Then, the performer pulled a lady out from where she lay underneath us and had us hold her up above us! Wow! And then she was removed. I think we were supposed to do a little bit more stuff, but one of the volunteers was an older guy, and I don’t know for sure, but I think he fell down when we were asked to raise one foot off the ground. We all tumbled down together at the end. It was fun, there were probably about one hundred and fifty or two hundred people watching. Matthew must look like he belongs in the circus or something, because he sure is popular with those street performers.

This evening we headed back to Brick Lane for one last curry dinner. We picked a place which didn’t quite measure up to the previous two we had visited, but the food was good.

Oxford

I know inquiring minds want to know what Matthew and I have been up to, so wait no longer, here’s the latest news.

Yesterday, we went to the Natural History Museum of South Kensington and walked around. We have differing architectural tastes. Matthew prefers the busy Romanesque architecture of the Natural History Museum, whereas I am much more inclined to appreciate modern architecture. And since, as they say, the bloggers write the history books, I get to plead my case. Modern architecture is more honest. The material defines the building style, whereas, in classical architecture, the style is replicated in whatever building material they choose. Classical architecture takes less critical thought. Furthermore, many of the old-looking buildings in London were actually built in the late 1800’s, so even though they have stone exteriors, they have iron or steel frames. Very dishonest. But I couldn’t convince Matthew that modern architecture was worthwhile, he had very strong convictions that classical architecture is just “cooler.”

Anyways, we saw some cool things at the museum. We walked through the mammals section, and through some reptiles, just browsing, and walked past a gigantic slice of a redwood tree all the way from California, and ended up in the rock and mineral gallery, where we saw some meteorites and a cursed gemstone. There are some amazing rocks! Some of them which form as perfect cubes, or bubble outward, or shoot upward like towers. They were amazing, and here are some pictures.

Afterward, we went to St. Paul’s for the Evensong mass, which happens every evening at five. It wasn’t as cool as the first time I went, because we didn’t get to go sit in the pews near the altar, and they only had half the choir there, but it was still nice to sit underneath the dome and look around the church during the mass.

We set off to find a pub one of Matthew’s friends had recommended after St. Paul’s, and eventually walked over halfway back to Mile End along the Thames looking for it. But we found it! It’s called the Prospect of Whitby, and we were able to get some quality pub food, Matthew’s alleged favorite cultural food group. It was founded a ridiculously long time ago, in 1520, under the reign of King George VIII. There is a picture of a sign in the pub which shows how long its been around. We walked the final two miles back to Mile End after leaving the pub, and bought tickets online to visit Oxford, which we did today.

Oxford is a small college town. It has an active, young atmosphere, and all the old buildings really struck Matthew’s fancy, as he described it. University of Oxford seemed to spread all over the town, and we accidentally avoided paying another four pound admission fee to explore part of it. We found another way in, and didn’t realize we were supposed to pay until we left. What can we say, I guess we just reaped the spoils of outsmarting the prestigious University of Oxford. There were some gorgeous gardens on the campus, which we walked through for awhile. We wandered the town for the rest of the day, stopping in a pub with a bunch of drunk Oxford rugby players at one point, and eating dinner at a pub named The Three Grapes. We boarded the train to come back to London at about seven thirty and got in an hour later. We walked up Brick Lane this evening and were accosted by no less than ten men trying to sell us curry as we walked along. The first man very emotionally pained that we weren’t going to eat in his restaurant. But we finally made it up and down the Lane, and walked back to Queen Mary.