Showing posts with label pants. Show all posts
Welcome, Internet, to the LAST BLOG POST EVER.
Not the last blog post I will ever make in my life. This is almost assuredly not the case. But the last post for this summer on this blog, since I am safely back in Massachusetts, the Motherland. I am able to scientifically determine this based on the number of people I saw today in Red Sox paraphernalia, and the fact that I ate peanut butter for breakfast.
MY DEAR FRIEND.
Because I know my millions of dedicated readers were wondering about my two week absence from the blogosphere, allow me to put all concerns to rest. After BADA ended, my father and I spent a week gallivanting around London. But our temporary quarters did not provide us with any sort of Internet access - not even dial-up - and it turns out that Internet access is sort of essential to, you know, blogging.
But my lack of Internet did lead to me checking my e-mail and Facebook in a bar with free wi-fi, which did, in fact, lead to a free drink.
ANYWAY.
In honor of all the unpacking I have to do, let's discuss the
25. Ticket stubs from Legally Blonde, Hamlet, The Sunshine Boys, The Tempest, The Woman in Black, Taming of the Shrew, Chariots of Fire, (a tragically cancelled performance of) Matilda: The Musical, and Richard III.
That's a lot of theatre, you guys.
Like, a LOT of theatre.
I'm gonna go ahead and say Taming was my favorite, but then again, I did sleep through The Tempest.
24. New perspective on vegetables and their usage in daily life. In the Magdalen dining hall, which is sadly somewhat bereft of vegetarian options, I constructed several excellent salad varieties. I also learned that it's possible - and customary - to get approximately 4 of your 5-a-day in a glass of Pimms!
23. The beastliest arm muscles of my life, thx Insanity.
Me (selfie)
22. The experience of playing Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, seeing as I am neither tall nor blonde.
21. A shirt with Jessie J on it, because she's up there with the fiercest of the fierce. Thank you, Primark, for this important addition to my wardrobe.
20. Comfort in knowing that even though my hand-eye coordination is miserable, I'm at least really good at Mick's One Frog game.
19. The ability to recite the monologue from Act III of Henry V on command!
Special thanks to Dakota Fanning.
18. A bruise that refuses to go away. From falling off a bar. While dancing. To a Jackson 5 song.
17. Scrapes on my knees from my starring turn as Demetrius's spaniel in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Unaware that there was a spaniel in that play? Well, there is. And the spaniel is very important.
16. A business card from a guy on the Tube who liked my shoes.
15. The experience of surviving the West End's famous production of The Woman In Black, proof that I CAN sit through ghost stories, provided I am surrounded by incredibly supportive boys.
14. Many excellent souvenirs for friends and family, including a COMMEMORATIVE BELL for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee! (I am probably the only person who has ever bought one, but whatever.)
13. A whole bunch of British pennies. But actually, what am I going to do with them? Blog readers? Would anyone like a penny?
12. Affirmation of something I already knew: that peanut butter and home-cooked pasta should never, ever be taken for granted.
11. A trashy YA dystopian novel from one of the world's greatest independent booksellers.
10. Friendship with the co-creator of Pokemon: The Mew-sical.
9. An article of clothing from Topshop.
They were on sale. I regret nothing.
8. A glass stone, the loss of my whiskeyginity, a pamphlet from a casino, and a very wrinkled bus map - spoils of war from my last night out in London.
7. Some illegal pictures from Westminster Abbey. Technically, there's no photography allowed, but I was having kind of a ~moment~ in the Poets' Corner and when I saw Auden, it just... happened:
Oops.
Also, who is Anne Brontë?
6. The memory of ninety-three acting students spontaneously singing a round of a song at the Farewell Banquet.
5. OLYMPIANS!
Okay, so I didn't manage to bring any actual Olympians home, but I did encounter them in London! My dad and I staked out prime real estate at the men's marathon - not only did we see the runners six times, but we also experienced several of the side effects of attending an Olympic event, which include the urge to drape oneself in a flag and a sudden rush of pride in every nation.
Most importantly, we saw Kenyans!
Kenyans who run as fast as Kenyans!!!
4. Pants. Lol.
3. An imperial fucktonne of pictures. My camera was the real star traveller of the last six weeks - it took over 400 photos in all places, weather conditions, you name it. I've posted some of them here; the rest are on Facebook, so check them out if we're Facebook friends and you're curious! (And if we're not Facebook friends, honestly, why are you reading this?)
2. Memories that will last a lifetime etc etc ad nauseum
And the number one thing I brought home from Britain:
1. Peace of mind knowing that I at least tried to board the Hogwarts Express.
Bringing home all of these things might have necessitated some last-minute repacking at the airport, but it's also helping with all the missing I'm doing. I miss living in a castle, I miss the friends I'll see again in Evanston and especially the friends I won't, I miss Cornmarket Street and its performers and crowds of people, I miss hearing British accents. Coming home has been, in a lot of ways, a jarring experience. Leaving the country always helps me to understand it better, and the differences between America and the UK were on full display in the line for customs:
Customs in Britain: jolly good please have your passport at the ready
Customs in the US: RESPONSIBILITY. INTEGRITY. VIGILANCE.
Customs in Britain: queue up here to cross the UK Border la la la
Customs in the US: OUR CUSTOMS OFFICIALS ARE THE MOST OFFICIAL OFFICIALS.
Customs in Britain: have you got any mates with you or are you travelling alone? Alone? Good. Off you get, then.
Customs in the US: CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!
But I guess you can't ever really appreciate a place until you've been away from it for a little while. All of the ordinary perks of being home are present - warm showers in a real bathroom, food, my real cell phone, my bed... but there are other things, too, like not constantly being aware of being an outsider, having people say "have a nice day" back, being surrounded, totally, by things I understand.
I loved the misunderstanding of being somewhere else, though. In the last six weeks I was often thrilled, occasionally terrified, and consistently confused, and I loved every second of it (except for maybe the ones when I was lost in the rain). So thank you, Britain, for one of the best summers of my life. For what it's worth, I'm keeping my pay-as-you-go dumbphone from that first day with the monsoon and the pants.
I'll be back soon.
1 comment
So I left America exactly a week ago today, and while I've been doing an okay job chronicling my adventures in the UK thus far, there are naturally some things I haven't had the chance to cover. So I present to you, dearreaderwizardpeople, the
10. Pants are dangerous.
Okay. So remember those pants I bought in a fit of desperation on my first day here? They were a pair of black skinny jeans from Primark, and they were very nice considering they cost only £9 (including sales tax - God Save the Queen!). I chose them because in my brief observation of real live British girls between the ages of 16-24, they seemed to fit the Oxford aesthetic. They were also really comfortable, and black matches everything. I like to think it was a pretty smart consumer decision, given that I know next to nothing about pants.
Anyway, somewhere around day 3 I began to pay attention to my nails. The accumulation of dirt under them, specifically. While my lifestyle involves running around doing a lot of random things, acquiring scrapes and bruises in mysterious ways, and occasionally literally getting my hands dirty, rarely do they look consistently unhygienic. That's when I noticed it wasn't just my nails - my hands were covered in dirt, too. And this had been happening for a couple of days.
"I think being here makes my hands dirty," was the theory I imparted to Anna.
"Really? My hands are fine," she said.
That night before bed, I peeled off my £9 black skinny jeans (one cannot simply take off skinny jeans. It's necessary to treat your legs like a banana if you want to remove them), and found that my legs were black. My pants may have protected me from the harsh British elements, but they also dyed my skin.
I hate pants.
And the Internet agrees with me.
That's all.
9. People are birds here.
I was walking past a bench of three my-age-ish guys a few days ago, and one of them went, "Hey!"
So I turned around, even though I figured he wasn't addressing me. But he looked right at me and chirped.
Like, full-on, honest-to-blog chirped. And raised his eyebrows. At me!
Was this the British version of whistling? I didn't know what to make of it, so I just went, "Good. Good," and went on my way.
I certainly didn't expect to experience that again, but when Josh and I arrived at Christ Church later that day, there was an entire crowd of people chirping! Loudly! Repeatedly! And that night we were walking through a crowded intersection, and it was like being in a bird house at, like, a really intense zoo.
Welcome to historic Oxford!
Chirpers everywhere. It seems to be more of a recreational activity than a form of communication, but I'm hardly an authority on the subject. Most mysteriously, on first glance it seems like the sound is coming directly from the chirpers' mouths, which caused my friends and I to spend a solid ninety seconds trying to figure out how to the hell to do it. Our efforts were unsuccessful.
I later heard a rumor that some clever entrepreneur invented a device that produces this noise. How anyone would market such a thing is baffling to me, but apparently it was effective.
8. Cultural discomfort
Saw the UK tour of Legally Blonde last night. "Gay or European" shifts a bit on the funny/uncomfortable scale when surrounded by actual Europeans.
But the UPS guy was incredible.
(This was not our UPS guy, by the way. Ours was much more attractive. His entrance stopped the show.)
7. "Ugh. Americans."
When most Americans catch a snippet of a British accent - or any foreign accent, really - they're generally excited. Here, I always see the little pause when I first speak to an Oxford native I don't know. The way words take just a half-second longer to come out of their mouths before they reply to me, the blink of surprise when I automatically say, "Have a good day," or whatever after buying something. It's not like they're unhappy about it, necessarily, but they're hardly thrilled.
So Anna, Josh, and I walked into a pub (spoiler alert: this is not the beginning of a joke), and I automatically began walking towards a table. Then Anna went, "Juli, you can't sit there. That's the dining section."
Behind me, I heard someone go, "Ugh. Americans."
Which is stupid because I am at least as much of a ditz at home as I am on foreign soil.
...But maybe that's the point.
6. Grass here is nice...
...because of all the rain. But if you want to walk on it, this happens.
5. THE 414 IS REAL
Once upon a time, Mikey and I went to Summerfest in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I find Wisconsin hilarious for a number of reasons, including but not limited to their Cheese Castle and insistence on mispronouncing basic English words. An actual Milwaukee native from NU informed me that locals have several nicknames for their great city (so Mikey and I could fit in at Summerfest):
+ The 414
+ Chillwaukee
+ Illwaukee
+ Skrillwaukee (I can only assume the dubstep scene is hopping)
+ Killwaukee (due to the high homicide rate)
And my personal favorite...
+ The Ill Mill
And I met a guy at BADA who was wearing a Wisconsin shirt...
Me: Where are you from in Wisconsin?
Guy: Milwaukee.
Me: Oh, the 414!
Guy: Whoa yeah, dude, the 414! Are you from there?
Me: No.
This might only be funny to Mikey and I, but I'm really happy it happened.
4. I'm becoming more flexible!
Oxford is full of intelligent people who seriously underestimated the hygienic needs of the future residents of their dorms. Exhibit A: every time I try to shave my legs in my tiny shower, I have to do this:
Except I don't look anywhere near that good.
3. Cloistercise
When Josh and I failed to located an affordable gym, we decided to embark on a video workout program called Insanity. If you are considering doing Insanity yourself, here's what I can tell you: you're gonna suffer, but you're gonna be happy about it. On the first day we tried it, three other kids joined us, and due to the aforementioned grass rules, the five of us worked out in a cloister.
So I guess I can cross that off my to-do list.
2. Fine dining
On Sunday night we had a Welcome Feast - a formal, multi-course meal in Magdalen's dining hall, which is also incredibly Harry Potter-esque. Before dinner there was - shockingly - a drinks reception on the lawn, and then a man in a waiter's uniform came out, rang a bell, and went, "Dinner is served."
You guys. I am not important enough to dine in this manner. But I attempted to dress like I am.
NU killing it as usual.
1. I am Aladdin
Unfortunately, eating in our picture-perfect dining hall is less exciting when we're not being served. I'm convinced now that the Great Hall at Hogwarts only operates effectively because of the house elves. Normal meals are self-serve, so all 100-odd BADA students and faculty have to make our way through a buffet line to get food. This is made far more challenging than it should be due to the tiny tiny kitchen area preceding the dining hall itself.
By far the most coveted items at every meal are the rolls, which are in a bin by the cutlery. Not only are they warm and consistently delicious, but they're also one of the few things I can eat as a vegetarian. But I'm never at meals early enough to get the rolls. It's become a law of my existence that the last roll will be taken at approximately the time I enter the dining hall. Luckily, I figured out that the roll bin is refilled throughout the dinner hour, and also that no one will yell at you if you're stealthy about re-entering the kitchen.
I should maybe be more concerned that Disney lyrics are suddenly so relevant to my life, but the rolls are delicious so I decided I don't care.
Why you should fly British Airways
1. The stewardesses are classy. They wear red pumps.
2. I'm pretty sure the plane that took me from Boston to Heathrow was double-decker.
2b. And even though you probably have to pay an astronomical sum to sit on the top deck, it's still effing cool that there's a top deck.
3. You can watch The Hunger Games on demand! (Along with How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, Love Actually, documentaries on the Olympics, and a million other things.)
4. The in-flight meal was actually not awful.
4b. The in-flight muffin was even better.
4c. The in-flight muffin was from a brand called "Me, Myself, & My Muffin," which is either charmingly British or just really really awesome or both.
5. The blanket they give you for overnight flights is soft, not itchy and gross like on American.
6. Everyone has a cool accent.
7. If you're not a broke college student, you can sit in the class above economy and get "club seating," which is basically your own little cubicle. And you get to face backwards if you pick the right seat.
In all seriousness, though, I've been on a lot of planes in my life, and this was one of my favorite flying experiences. I was sitting next to a fifteen year-old boy with fire engine hair who mostly mumbled in a British accent. I think he was probably a Weasley.
But the best part of the trip by far was that I serendipitously wound up with a window seat on an overnight flight where we were literally traveling through the night. When we took off I watched Massachusetts disappear, and soon my home state was replaced by endless ocean. It’s always cool for me to come back to New England and realize that the body of water I’m looking at is a real ocean, not just a massive lake pretending to be one (ily Lake Michigan, but you're a poser. A really, really beautiful poser). I blinked, and we were so high up that I couldn’t tell if the currents beneath us were the Atlantic or clouds being waves, and the next thing I knew we were flying over a sunset. The length of 21 Jump Street later and dawn was breaking in the distance, and the next thing I knew, we were over the British Isles and it was morning.
The Weasley gave me a weird look whenever I took a picture out the airplane window, but whatever.
Then I was at customs, falling asleep in line as the rest of London was waking up. Also, I'm pretty sure the guy who checked me in at the UK border thought I was, like, 14:
Me: Hi! Here's my passport.
Him: Where did you come from?
Me: Boston.
Him: You’re on your own?
Me: Yes.
Him: No family or friends with you?
Me: No. (Seeing he was perplexed.) I’m a student visitor – here, I have a letter –
Him: That’ll help. How old are you?
Me: 20.
It was obviously not the answer he was expecting. He actually read my whole BADA letter in detail, and then took a long time impressing his stamp into my passport. The entire thing felt very climactic.
Then, as he handed it back to me, he said, “So you’re studying drama?”
“Um, yeah.”
“So you’re going to be in films, then?”
“I mean, that’s the goal.”
He took a long look at my landing card, then my face. Finally, he smiled. “I’ll try to remember your name, then.”
And even though I found this hilarious, I went, "Thanks."
A couple of hours later and I finally reached Oxford. Tonight I'm staying with the daughter of a woman my dad works with - random, I know, but she's very nice and it's free - and I passed out for about five hours before I decided to go into the center of the city and buy a phone. Then I made a series of bad decisions.
Bad decisions, part 1 of 2
1. Not changing out of my skirt and sandals, even though I knew it was sixty degrees and drizzling.
2. Not eating anything before I left.
3. Not caffeinating before I left.
4. Not paying close attention to the location of the bus stop in relation to the house where I'm staying.
5. Getting off the bus early so I could walk all the way to the phone place and get what I thought would be the real Oxford experience.
6. Attempting to buy an actual phone for my UK phone (luckily, the phone guy heard my accent, looked at me, looked at my sandals, realized I was broke, and told me to buy the cheap one. Thank God).
7. Sitting on the ground in the mall, attempting to figure out how to work my UK phone (pro tip: mall cops here yell at you for this).
It was somewhere around the mall cop - constable? - yelling at me that I realized the rain outside had escalated into a full-on downpour. So I went to Primark, which is a sort of Forever 21-type place, and bought three pairs of tights and, grudgingly, a pair of jeans. Since I of course didn't pack any. I have no need for pants at home!
Then, even though it was pouring, I made yet more bad decisions:
Bad decisions, part 2 of 2
1. Not changing into my pants.
2. Deciding to take the scenic route back to the faraway bus stop YET AGAIN, despite the fact that it was FREEZING and RAINING.
FREEZING. RAINING.
I managed to get myself on the bus and back to the correct stop, and it was only after deboarding that I realized I had no idea how to get back to the house. The woman I'm staying with lives on this very tiny street off a fairly major road - the problem is, no one knows where the very tiny street is. I realized that after walking at least two miles in the wrong direction and asking several strangers for help. By this point, the paper bag holding my pants had completely disintegrated, so I was standing on a street corner in God-knows-where, Oxford, drenched, shaking, hopelessly lost, using a pair of pants as an umbrella.
But the adage that it's always darkest before dawn held true, because it was then that I made my first good decision of the day:
Good decisions, part 1 of 1
1. Walking back the other way.
So I dragged myself back two miles to the bus stop, saw a place called Nicholson Road, and thought I like Jack Nicholson, maybe the very tiny street is this way.
And it was.
And it was.
And now I'm wrapped in a blanket, drinking tea, enjoying the free wi-fi, and about to go the f#@% to sleep. See? It does get better.
BADA tomorrow and I can't wait!
