(no subject)
I went to go visit a friend of mine at her college, a college in the British sense of the word in that it is a subdivision of a university where they study the environment and sustainable development. They were having a celebration of their college, so the central campus was like a little fair ground with booths and a talent show. The friend I was visiting was quite busy so I chatted with her friends a lot, too. She was a part of the interviewing committee for her club that is dedicated to volunteer work. I also partook of a mystery fruits salad and tried to help her and her friends make these paper tulips but since my fingers aren’t used to such precision work I mostly did the stems. Afterwards they gave me a small bouquet of blue paper tulips that are now adding a little color to my apartment.
Now, it took me about ten or fifteen minutes to find the #2 bus to take me another half an hour to her school. This is important because when I got on the #2 to get back, it went off in some weird direction and kept on going so I found myself with no way of knowing went to get off. So I counted the same number of bus stops that it had taken me to get to her school and got off, hoping that the two routes had some vague parallel course.
I was very, very wrong. When I showed people the card with my hotel address, they would tell me to take a taxi because it was too far to walk, but I would pat my stomach and say I wanted to lose weight (I couldn’t afford taxis before my boss cut my hours) and they would nod and give me directions. One man actually drew me a map on a slip of paper; he is some sort of fix it man, working on an ancient sewing machine when I asked him for directions. His shop had all sorts of old odds and ends in it.
So it took me two and a half hours to get home, but along the way I saw a new children’s amusement park, a park around a lake that combined family night and date night with a temple on an island in the middle, a store that sells record players and records, lots of high end restaurants and stores and more foreigners than I’ve seen since I arrived, and another park where they had a bat mitten tournament.
Now, it took me about ten or fifteen minutes to find the #2 bus to take me another half an hour to her school. This is important because when I got on the #2 to get back, it went off in some weird direction and kept on going so I found myself with no way of knowing went to get off. So I counted the same number of bus stops that it had taken me to get to her school and got off, hoping that the two routes had some vague parallel course.
I was very, very wrong. When I showed people the card with my hotel address, they would tell me to take a taxi because it was too far to walk, but I would pat my stomach and say I wanted to lose weight (I couldn’t afford taxis before my boss cut my hours) and they would nod and give me directions. One man actually drew me a map on a slip of paper; he is some sort of fix it man, working on an ancient sewing machine when I asked him for directions. His shop had all sorts of old odds and ends in it.
So it took me two and a half hours to get home, but along the way I saw a new children’s amusement park, a park around a lake that combined family night and date night with a temple on an island in the middle, a store that sells record players and records, lots of high end restaurants and stores and more foreigners than I’ve seen since I arrived, and another park where they had a bat mitten tournament.