wrapping up
On December 13th I watched the sun rise from a bench at the train station in Belgium.
The Return
The train was delayed and I missed my ride back to London. Wasted hours at the station in Brussels only to have too little time to wrap things up at home... which included dragging my laptop & backpack all over Chelsea, because I was determined not to leave without seeing Twain's English residence... something that had been on my agenda since the start.
My friends Alessandra and Gryphon held onto my stuff for me, but three months of life didn't fit into three plane-ready bags. With their help I had to drag it all down to a Pack n Mail and ship the overflow. The shippers made me fill out multiple forms, and even enter everything I'd written down into the computers for them. The tube had another delay on the way, and my flight was missed.
It made little difference; they routed me through New York instead of Boston. The price of coming into the states is that they don't let you stay in the airport even if you have a connecting flight. They force you to collect your checked baggage and eject you back to the entrance so that you have the joy of re-experiencing security. They didn't even give me a ticket for my connecting flight, so I was forced to spend the night in the entrance. Ticket lines don't open until 3am, and by my clock that was 8. An eight hour flight followed by a night sitting on my luggage in the ticket area makes a strong argument against travel. Anyone would think this was the airport's real intent. It nearly strips the traveler's soul right out of you.
Last Thoughts
I'm one of those people who travels around searching for that sense of "home" even while enjoying the journey. Whenever I first embark toward a place that seems a strong candidate, I wonder if I'll find it when I get there. I didn't find it in San Francisco. Is that because it was the wrong place, or because I didn't have the time or opportunities to get to know it? It's still a very personal place to me, but with significant downfalls. Traffic. Overcrowding. Crime. Disease. An inevitable major earthquake. But then there's perfect climate, free healthcare, culture, and some of the only good/oldish architecture on the West Coast.
I wondered about it as I headed to London, and had to suppress a welling sense of disappointment upon getting there. It wasn't love at first sight. The area I first laid eyes on was dingy and industrial, and my flat, though in a nicer area, was near a major thoroughfare. Without a car or familiarity with the area, I felt trapped and irritable.
But that changed. I think it changed after Scotland. It changed when I learned the ropes and realized my mobility. Not only my mobility, but where it could take me. Where, and how easily.
London isn't perfect. Like California, it's overcrowded, expensive, and the traffic is inescapable in most districts. University there isn't free anymore, everyone and their mother smokes, and winter days are an hour shorter than they are in California. Shorter still in Scotland. ...No place is perfect.
But in the final tally, London has more to offer. I miss the pubs. I miss the theater. I miss Camden. I miss the safety I felt walking around in the big city at all hours. I miss the option of taking the tube, even with its downfalls. I miss the free paper, even if it had more to say about Tiger Woods than the president of the EU. I miss the politics, and the feeling that I didn't need to pay into a protection racket to spare myself going bankrupt in the event of accident or illness.
But most of all I miss the ability to travel all over the UK and Europe. About twenty pounds would get you a relaxed train ride to just about anywhere on the continent, with room to stretch out, electric outlets to every seat, and wireless internet. And for around fifty to a hundred pounds you could travel by air or rail to a myriad of ancient countries, all culturally unique and utterly steeped in myth and history.
Here in the states is the real trap. You can travel the Americas, but the rest of the world is so far out of reach. And twice as far in California; the west of the west.
The Return
The train was delayed and I missed my ride back to London. Wasted hours at the station in Brussels only to have too little time to wrap things up at home... which included dragging my laptop & backpack all over Chelsea, because I was determined not to leave without seeing Twain's English residence... something that had been on my agenda since the start.
My friends Alessandra and Gryphon held onto my stuff for me, but three months of life didn't fit into three plane-ready bags. With their help I had to drag it all down to a Pack n Mail and ship the overflow. The shippers made me fill out multiple forms, and even enter everything I'd written down into the computers for them. The tube had another delay on the way, and my flight was missed.
It made little difference; they routed me through New York instead of Boston. The price of coming into the states is that they don't let you stay in the airport even if you have a connecting flight. They force you to collect your checked baggage and eject you back to the entrance so that you have the joy of re-experiencing security. They didn't even give me a ticket for my connecting flight, so I was forced to spend the night in the entrance. Ticket lines don't open until 3am, and by my clock that was 8. An eight hour flight followed by a night sitting on my luggage in the ticket area makes a strong argument against travel. Anyone would think this was the airport's real intent. It nearly strips the traveler's soul right out of you.
Last Thoughts
I'm one of those people who travels around searching for that sense of "home" even while enjoying the journey. Whenever I first embark toward a place that seems a strong candidate, I wonder if I'll find it when I get there. I didn't find it in San Francisco. Is that because it was the wrong place, or because I didn't have the time or opportunities to get to know it? It's still a very personal place to me, but with significant downfalls. Traffic. Overcrowding. Crime. Disease. An inevitable major earthquake. But then there's perfect climate, free healthcare, culture, and some of the only good/oldish architecture on the West Coast.
I wondered about it as I headed to London, and had to suppress a welling sense of disappointment upon getting there. It wasn't love at first sight. The area I first laid eyes on was dingy and industrial, and my flat, though in a nicer area, was near a major thoroughfare. Without a car or familiarity with the area, I felt trapped and irritable.
But that changed. I think it changed after Scotland. It changed when I learned the ropes and realized my mobility. Not only my mobility, but where it could take me. Where, and how easily.
London isn't perfect. Like California, it's overcrowded, expensive, and the traffic is inescapable in most districts. University there isn't free anymore, everyone and their mother smokes, and winter days are an hour shorter than they are in California. Shorter still in Scotland. ...No place is perfect.
But in the final tally, London has more to offer. I miss the pubs. I miss the theater. I miss Camden. I miss the safety I felt walking around in the big city at all hours. I miss the option of taking the tube, even with its downfalls. I miss the free paper, even if it had more to say about Tiger Woods than the president of the EU. I miss the politics, and the feeling that I didn't need to pay into a protection racket to spare myself going bankrupt in the event of accident or illness.
But most of all I miss the ability to travel all over the UK and Europe. About twenty pounds would get you a relaxed train ride to just about anywhere on the continent, with room to stretch out, electric outlets to every seat, and wireless internet. And for around fifty to a hundred pounds you could travel by air or rail to a myriad of ancient countries, all culturally unique and utterly steeped in myth and history.
Here in the states is the real trap. You can travel the Americas, but the rest of the world is so far out of reach. And twice as far in California; the west of the west.