home sweet home...
Despite the best efforts of the Heathrow Not Very Fucking Express, I'm back in the Shire.
I really like travelling by myself...not the going-to-new-places-and-meeting-new-people bit of travelling, for which I need friends, but the mundane, airport-check-in-changing-tube-stations bit. No idea why. It makes me feel all powerful and godlike with efficiency, except when I do something stupid like get lost. But hey. So that's what I've been doing today.
(Except I didn't get lost. I'm a big girl now.)
I was on the Underground to Hammersmith and a girl got on and sat next to me, and after a minute she tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out that we were wearing exactly the same coat. So we laughed and had a random chat about the weather (of course), the cost of renting in London and how it's depressing that no-one ever talks to each other on the tube, and parted merrily when she left a couple of stops before me. Which reaffirmed my faith in humanity a bit, until I noticed that everyone else in the carriage was eyeing me suspiciously from behind their newspapers and copies of the Da Vinci Code (WHY is there STILL at least one person reading that book on every train I ever get on?!). Clearly I was Marked with the stigma of Token Weirdo Who Talks. I could see them all looking at each other in a weary kind of 'Doesn't she KNOW?' -'No, she's not from around here, I couldn't help but hear her say something about Somerset while I was trying to sit in sullen silence' -'Aah, that would explain it'. -'She'd better not start on ME next...' way. Grrr. To quote (or possibly paraphrase) Bridget Jones: 'When I first came to live in London I used to smile at everyone until a man on the tube escalator masturbated into the back of my coat'.
Still, it's better than the suspicion-bordering-on-open-hostility that rhymeoverreason and I met with whenever we ventured out in Berlin. A mother and daughter were openly glaring at us on the U-Bahn and whispering fearsome-sounding German (admittedly, most of it) to each other at one point. It can't just be that we're English and vaguely scruffy. I won't go so far as to say that the Germans (well, Berliners; the people not the doughnuts) are generally brusque, rude and unhelpful, because I'm not a fan of stereotypes and we were only there for four days as tourists...BUT, it was my experience that whenever we met a Berliner who wasn't any of the above three, he or she rather stood out.
Nonetheless we had a brilliant time with andy_godfrey and Penny..our antics including all-you-can-eat sushi, a shisha bar, a salsa restaurant and dinner with Penny's lovely flatmates who valiantly tried to include me despite my woeful lack of German. Oh, and some, y'know, museums and and stuff. The East Side Gallery, which is the last remaining bit of the Wall, about a mile long and covered with all sorts of graffiti, was brilliant. The highlight for me is definitely clubbing on our last night...our guide book had informed us that a certain place was 'classy, retro and oh-so-Berlin' and promised decent music on a Sunday night, so off we trotted. When we arrived there and coughed up an entire euro each to get in, we discovered a smoky hole decorated like your nan's living room and playing shitty Spanish pop. However, by the time we'd downed a couple of drinks in despair, we were treated to some good music along the Beatles Stones Clash Smiths Ramones lines, and danced like idiots until five in the morning. My neck still hurts. Much fun was had by all, although Isabel and I discovered YET AGAIN that getting on a plane with a thumping hangover is not advisable.
So I returned home laden with goodwill and Belgian chocolate, and as usual I'm instantly deflated. Not that there's anything drastically wrong with my home or family, and not that I mind, for once, being in the middle of nowhere given that I really need a rest, but it's such a come-down after a few weeks of being myself and thinking hard about stuff and feeling mature and self-reliant to have my parents being randomly frosty with me and making me feel like a moody fourteen-year-old.
Hence the Current Mood: Depressed. But all will be well tomorrow, as I have lots of mundane yet cheering tasks like laundry and unpacking to do. And my parents will have to like me again when I give them presents.
I am also filled with totally unjustifiable optimism about next term. It will be summer and there will be no more prose comps and I'm (apparently) doing the interesting bits of Greek Core and all will be of joy. This is where I start making rash new-term promises to myself like 'I'll start going running in the Parks three mornings a week', 'I'll actually cook properly instead of buying food and letting it rot', 'I'll be sensible about money - i.e. admit that I don't have any - ','I'll make a real effort to spend time with all my college friends', 'I'll do all my essays a day in advance and read 200 lines of text every morning' as well as that perennial favourite 'I'll shift that extra stone and a half that's been plaguing me all my life'. One day, perhaps, I will do every, or any, one of these things. But probably not.
Lots to say but I'm sleepy now, and very excited about getting reacquainted with my bed. Angst may follow at a later date...
I really like travelling by myself...not the going-to-new-places-and-meeting-new-people bit of travelling, for which I need friends, but the mundane, airport-check-in-changing-tube-stations bit. No idea why. It makes me feel all powerful and godlike with efficiency, except when I do something stupid like get lost. But hey. So that's what I've been doing today.
(Except I didn't get lost. I'm a big girl now.)
I was on the Underground to Hammersmith and a girl got on and sat next to me, and after a minute she tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out that we were wearing exactly the same coat. So we laughed and had a random chat about the weather (of course), the cost of renting in London and how it's depressing that no-one ever talks to each other on the tube, and parted merrily when she left a couple of stops before me. Which reaffirmed my faith in humanity a bit, until I noticed that everyone else in the carriage was eyeing me suspiciously from behind their newspapers and copies of the Da Vinci Code (WHY is there STILL at least one person reading that book on every train I ever get on?!). Clearly I was Marked with the stigma of Token Weirdo Who Talks. I could see them all looking at each other in a weary kind of 'Doesn't she KNOW?' -'No, she's not from around here, I couldn't help but hear her say something about Somerset while I was trying to sit in sullen silence' -'Aah, that would explain it'. -'She'd better not start on ME next...' way. Grrr. To quote (or possibly paraphrase) Bridget Jones: 'When I first came to live in London I used to smile at everyone until a man on the tube escalator masturbated into the back of my coat'.
Still, it's better than the suspicion-bordering-on-open-hostility that rhymeoverreason and I met with whenever we ventured out in Berlin. A mother and daughter were openly glaring at us on the U-Bahn and whispering fearsome-sounding German (admittedly, most of it) to each other at one point. It can't just be that we're English and vaguely scruffy. I won't go so far as to say that the Germans (well, Berliners; the people not the doughnuts) are generally brusque, rude and unhelpful, because I'm not a fan of stereotypes and we were only there for four days as tourists...BUT, it was my experience that whenever we met a Berliner who wasn't any of the above three, he or she rather stood out.
Nonetheless we had a brilliant time with andy_godfrey and Penny..our antics including all-you-can-eat sushi, a shisha bar, a salsa restaurant and dinner with Penny's lovely flatmates who valiantly tried to include me despite my woeful lack of German. Oh, and some, y'know, museums and and stuff. The East Side Gallery, which is the last remaining bit of the Wall, about a mile long and covered with all sorts of graffiti, was brilliant. The highlight for me is definitely clubbing on our last night...our guide book had informed us that a certain place was 'classy, retro and oh-so-Berlin' and promised decent music on a Sunday night, so off we trotted. When we arrived there and coughed up an entire euro each to get in, we discovered a smoky hole decorated like your nan's living room and playing shitty Spanish pop. However, by the time we'd downed a couple of drinks in despair, we were treated to some good music along the Beatles Stones Clash Smiths Ramones lines, and danced like idiots until five in the morning. My neck still hurts. Much fun was had by all, although Isabel and I discovered YET AGAIN that getting on a plane with a thumping hangover is not advisable.
So I returned home laden with goodwill and Belgian chocolate, and as usual I'm instantly deflated. Not that there's anything drastically wrong with my home or family, and not that I mind, for once, being in the middle of nowhere given that I really need a rest, but it's such a come-down after a few weeks of being myself and thinking hard about stuff and feeling mature and self-reliant to have my parents being randomly frosty with me and making me feel like a moody fourteen-year-old.
Hence the Current Mood: Depressed. But all will be well tomorrow, as I have lots of mundane yet cheering tasks like laundry and unpacking to do. And my parents will have to like me again when I give them presents.
I am also filled with totally unjustifiable optimism about next term. It will be summer and there will be no more prose comps and I'm (apparently) doing the interesting bits of Greek Core and all will be of joy. This is where I start making rash new-term promises to myself like 'I'll start going running in the Parks three mornings a week', 'I'll actually cook properly instead of buying food and letting it rot', 'I'll be sensible about money - i.e. admit that I don't have any - ','I'll make a real effort to spend time with all my college friends', 'I'll do all my essays a day in advance and read 200 lines of text every morning' as well as that perennial favourite 'I'll shift that extra stone and a half that's been plaguing me all my life'. One day, perhaps, I will do every, or any, one of these things. But probably not.
Lots to say but I'm sleepy now, and very excited about getting reacquainted with my bed. Angst may follow at a later date...