A Little Tease…

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”

–Oscar Wilde

It’s Alive!…

Howdy folks…

I’m not quite dead, as they say—hurling my guts up in a Gatwick airport security line may have been rockstar, but it didn’t kill me! No, as soon as I’m done with this move (apartment upgrade), a plethora of posts and pix will appear, as if by magic, on this very site.

Stay tuned!

It’s Here

Well, today’s the day! At 2pm, hopefully, I’ll be on a plane out of Jacksonville, bound for New York’s JFK. In a way, I feel pulled in two directions at once—stoked as hell to be going to Europe, but dreading the three-hour drive to Jacksonville, and the grueling airplane fun after that. But fuck it! I’ve been wanting for weeks and weeks now to just throw a backpack on my shoulder, jump on a plane, and go wander around the Continent in a way I just haven’t had a chance to do yet. And here it is!

I’ve got my diary, my music, my passport, and my comfy new jacket (for the still-cool temps over there). I’m ready. Let’s go see what we see.

Countdown: Tomorrow

So here it is, the last day before my trip, and all I can think about is how glad I am that midterms are over. When I was in art school, we’d have a midterm critique, and that was harder—getting the projects all ready, and then sitting there while they’re verbally dissected right in front of your eyes. But essay exams aren’t exactly a piece of cake, though fortunately I find the subjects interesting. In Modern Britain 1870-Present, we’ve just got done with the Great War; in Victorian British Literature, we’ve just finished studying the Aesthetic movement and the Decadents.

So I find it rather cool to be going over to Europe right now. I plan on hunting out Oscar Wilde’s grave in Cimitiere Pere Lachaise in Paris, giving it a big ol’ lipstick kiss. Also, I’d like to revisit the Musee d’Orsay, sit in the Art Nouveau rooms for a little while and try to imagine what life was like in the 1880′s and 1890′s. To me, that’s one of the most interesting times and places ever, and one of the ones I’d most like to go back to if I had the chance.

In London, I plan on finally seeing the Imperial War Museum. I didn’t have the heart to go last time, being so sick and tired; but so much of what we’ve studied in the Modern Britain class would be on display there. It’s good to see exhibits of something you’ve studied in class, especially something as huge, complicated, and foreign as WWI. It drives the point home in a way that reading about it just can’t. Someday I’d like to go see a few of the battlefields. Maybe I could talk my father into enduring the 11 hours on a plane, and we’ll go see Normandy and Flanders. For now, I think one museum will be enough. It’s a heavy thing to consider.

But hopefully I’ll also have fun. I’d like to see a theater production, but I don’t know which one yet. Depends on what I can afford tickets for! Probably go out dancing in London, too—I never did get over missing John Digweed by one night last spring. Oh well!

Anyways, off to finish one more paper…

Countdown: Packing

I had a dream last weekend that I had two hours left before I had to be at the airport, and I hadn’t even made a packing list yet, let alone gathered my crap. You know how, in dreams like that, the more you rush to cram things in your bags, the more the stuff multiplies, as time runs out? I woke up exasperated and amused. For me, dumb anxiety dreams appear to be as much a part of preparing for travel as watering the plants and locking the doors. I’m getting used to it.

Actually packing helped too. I had a big list for just ten days, but most things are pretty small, as you can see. I still had to work at getting them all into the High Sierra backpack I bought for this trip. But I am the Queen of Cram, and I prevailed.

This will be my third trip abroad, but only the first in which I am not bringing a suitcase (or two).  On my first trip, with my mother, we both brought suitcases. It was a month-long trip, and my suitcase was sturdy and not too heavy, with strong wheels…but we ended up moving around a lot, and it became a pain. On my second trip, I planned on living in the same town for eight months, and brought two suitcases. Meh. I actually moved five times, to three countries, and having that much stuff became an enormous pain in the ass. I used almost everything I brought; but dragging it around, on planes and trains, was such a nightmare that I vowed never to go overseas again with anything more than a backpack. If I couldn’t fit it on my back, I’d buy it there.

Since money will be tight this trip, I hope I don’t have to buy much. I’m mainly there to wander around, and see a bunch of things that I didn’t have the chance (or the energy) to see the last time. Just being there is all I want right now!

Countdown: Travel Journal

I’ve kept a diary since I was ten years old, but I’m sad to say I’ve never been much of a travel journal person. I had a notebook on my first trip to Europe, the month with my mom; but having company prevented me from writing in it as much as I wish I had. Mostly I just noted what we did that day, where we ate and slept, and shared my thoughts directly with my mother. I’m glad I have that notebook, with its stains, lists and sketches; but I wish I’d recorded more of my first trip out of the country.

During my year abroad, I didn’t keep a specific travel journal. Most of what I had to say went right into my diary, or into emails, or this blog. I was more or less stationary, living overseas, so it worked to have different outlets for different facets of the trip. But I know this time I’ll be on the run, and traveling light. So it makes sense to have one place to put all my thoughts, feelings, and impressions.

I bought this travel journal, pictured, from Chronicle Books’ website in ’04, before a trip overseas that didn’t end up happening. I love it. It has all different kinds of paper, many with photographic images from the author’s trips around the world. I don’t know why I hadn’t done anything with it before. I guess I was just waiting for the right trip. This is it.

I’ve made a vow to write in it every day, even just notes or scratchings or incoherence. Sometimes the stupidest rambling or complaining, as you sip your expensive java in a foreign cafe and pretend to be intellectual, ends up being the most hilarious thing to reread at home. The things that piss you off the worst while overseas are the funniest stories, later on. I’m going to record them, in all their bitchy glory, right in between the swooning Paris ecstasy and the glowing praise of St. Peter’s dome. Ups and downs. Maybe I’ll share a few pages on here when I get back.

The Countdown Begins…Again

Hmm. How many times have I done this? My third trip to Europe, and it doesn’t get any easier to believe I’m going.

In May 2003, during the rushed preparations for the first trip, there was almost no time to realize what was happening–what was about to happen. We had four weeks to prepare for a four-week trip, including acquiring the passports and figuring out where we wanted to go, in all of France and England. I don’t even think I believed I was in Paris until I saw the statue in Place de la Nation, and the dark rooftops of the 12th arrondissement shimmering in the summer rain. But then it hit home, believe me.

I did a little better in 2005, flying over to study abroad. At dawn, the jet flew over the very tip of Cornwall; I had failed to sleep, but the rosy sky reflecting down on the dark water, and twinkling cliffsides, filled me with almost unbearable anticipation. I knew just enough of Europe to know what I was getting into, but not enough yet to have any nervousness at all. And I would be spending a year there.

And now? Now, I’ve lived in Europe long enough to have had some bad experiences as well as many great ones. I know what it’s like to be sick there, to be broke there, to be lonely there. I’ve met some right bastards there, too. But you know what? I’m still going. It’s just like life—you see it, you like it, you push into it. Sooner or later, after a lot of fun, you get a beatdown or two. Do you quit? Do you pull back, find a comfort zone, stay there warily for the rest of your time? You could. But that’s not my choice.

I don’t know how this trip will go. Will it be spectacular—what I’ve always wanted, what I’ve been trying all these years to experience? Will it be another disaster—rain, unfriendliness, disappointment, sickness? Of course I can’t predict, I can only hope, and prepare myself to steer through any shit as cleanly, and with as positive an attitude, as I can. Whether it sucks or rewards me is plainly up to the gods of travel. Only one choice is firmly in my hands: fill it as full of meaning as possible, and squeeze out of it every drop of juice and life that I can…or be afraid, and hold back, and scratch things off of lists, and render it meaningless.

You know, just like life.