I’m a terrible blogger, I know.
When I started this blog, I thought, “Oh, hey, I’ll update this every couple of days, maybe even every other day, and keep my writing skills sharp while updating whoever cares about my record of London.” The wishful “every other day” ended up being mostly maybe once a week, and now it’s been two weeks since I last updated. It’s been awhile.
I guess my only crime is that life has gotten in the way of writing time. I’m way behind on uploading facebook pictures as well, and we all know how rarely THAT happens. And if you don’t know, then, well, why are you reading this? You clearly have never met me before.
I secretly love it when my worlds collide. semi-subconsciously, I divide my life into neat little compartments- there are my grade school friends, all the way from St. Mary’s Elm Grove, my high school friends of Catholic Memorial, my college friends at Fordham Lincoln Center, and now my British friends, affectionately dubbed by me to anyone who’ll listen as simply “The Brits.” There are little variations and subgroups within these distinctions- First Stage friends, IB friends, college-friends-not-from-Fordham, and many more, but those are the major groups. Ever since I made that first major leap from grade school to high school, with a whole new cast of characters along the way, I’ve always loved it when people from one group met people from the other. It’s almost like a social experiment- I love these people from group X and I love these people from group Y, let’s stick them in a room together and see what happens.
Getting people from different arenas to meet is always super exciting. When high school-slash-IB-slash-Wisconsin friend Britni came to visit me in New York I was absolutely ecstatic. It ended up being super awesome, with me able to show someone from one sphere of my life around another sphere, jumbling my world a bit more along the way.
So when Kim and Mia, friends of mine from Fordham, visited a couple weeks ago, I was appropriately spazzing. It ended up being amazing. Facebook and the occasional skype chat are not enough to keep in touch adequately, and I was excited to hear a Fordhamite’s opinion on my current life. They motivated me to actually get off my butt and see London, too, forcing me to finally see Buckingham Palace, Abbey Road, and the slightly more lowbrow Platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame, well-known stops to any American. I didn’t even feel bad about being such a tourist- taking cheesy touristy photos alone is kind of depressing, but with other Americans, collectively geeking out? Completely normal.
It was great seeing Kim and Mia react to London for the first time- neither had been before. Starting from the second they stepped off the train from Paris at St. Pancras (changed to St. Pancreas, the patron saint of forgotten organs, for easier pronunciation purposes), I got to see a glimpse of what I was surely like when I landed in Heathrow. Except with one minor difference...
“‘Toilets!’ ‘Way out!’ Ooooh ‘Metropolitan line!’” Kim was basically ecstatic, reading out every sign we passed in the train station. I glanced at Mia, silently asking for an explanation for Kim’s seemingly abrupt-onset literate Tourrettes.
I got a sigh as an answer. “She’s been doing this the entire train ride. Excited to finally speak English.” After a few weeks in Paris, the language difference my friends faced had already started to get to them. I was lucky- I went to England, our language motherland. Kim and Mia had been in Paris, speaking French with people who could tell they were American in a single word’s accent and treat them with the deference they used whenever interacting with Americans on their home turf- complete and utter disdain. I could understand roughly 95% of what I my friends and professors said, and what I didn’t they were more than happy to help me understand (see: previous blog, difference between lorry and semi). French people, on the other hand, expected you to speak perfectly unaccented French at all times. Mia filled me in on all of this as we walked to ticket booth to buy Oyster cards, all to a soundtrack of Kim reading, “‘Circle line’ ‘Tube Map!’ Oh, hey, this is a good one- ‘Hammersmith and City!’”
I take for granted the similarities between England and the US, and how easy I’ve had it here to adjust to a new country. I mean, there’s occasional culture shock, don’t get me wrong. But mostly? It’s been pretty fricking easy.
Sometimes I get lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to my simple transition from New York to London. When we first arrived, my program went on and on about pick-pockets- “Watch your stuff at all times! Don’t carry valuables around with you! Pick-pocketing is worse here than in the US.” I only half listened. Sure, I thought, I know about crime. I go to school in New York City. And yeah, technically, when it comes to crime rates, NYC is on the same level as little Mormon Provo, Utah, but still. I’ve heard about people getting their stuff stolen in both NYC and Wisconsin. Mostly it was from mistakes- people leaving their laptops in the caf while they ran to grab something in the dorm, or not watching their purses in a crowded restaurant. I thought I was smarter than that. I never leave my purse unattended, and I always carry my Freddie bag, zipped all the way shut, tight under my arm. On their second night in London I dragged Kim and Mia to Fabric, one of the hottest clubs in the city, along with my English friend Chris. For awhile it seemed like we were having a good time, dancing, watching Kim get hit on by sketchy boys who told her they loved her but “only a little bit.” Then I noticed my purse was unzipped, and a quick check revealed one of my biggest nightmares had come true.
My camera was stolen.
I was devastated. I knew about the trouble I would eventually be in for being stupid enough to allow that to happen. I felt terrible for asking my friends to leave, though eternally grateful that they did, even though Chris was there to see a friend of his DJ and ended up missing it. I still appreciate my friends so much for staying with me that night, even when they really didn't have to.
There’s probably no possession I’m more associated with, besides possibly my kindle, than my camera. It’s practically attached to my hand. I love taking pictures. Not in some artsy way- though I did do photography for IB Art, but that was mostly a combination of not having any drawing skills whatsoever and being equally bad at chemistry that forced me into it.
Pictures capture a moment. Life is so fleeting, it’s worth having a way to document the really awesome times you get to spend with the people you love. My manic photography was born out of my inherent awkwardness at parties. Without it, I’d be the girl in the corner, fidgeting and biting my nails. With it, I’m still fidgeting and biting my nails, only now I actually have an excuse to talk to people. My camera’s an automatic conversation starter, enabling me to go up to anyone and ask for a snapshot of a moment of their lives. No one wants to hang out with the weird girl in the corner. But at the same time, no one questions the weird girl with the camera. I mean, sure, I get flack for it. People might say, “Why take so many pictures when we’ll remember what happened anyways?” But the thing is, we won’t. Memories fade and die. But pictures can live forever in the virtual world of facebook. Sometimes my picture-taking gets annoying, but mostly people are overwhelmingly glad that someone recognizes that some moments are important and worth documentation. An added bonus to my photography is that I’m actually in pictures- when other people have cameras, I tend to be the one left out of photos. But when it’s my camera, I can control when I’m in a photo and when I’m not. My picture library is vitally important to me, reminding me that I have friends and am loved, if only for the span of a shutter’s click.
My pictures organize my life as well. I can tell the difference between awesome times spent in Milwaukee and New York and London. They help me remember why I love it when that world collision happens in the first place.
Which is why, the next weekend, I totally had my camera with me at the Waterfront, King’s College’s bar, on Superbowl night. I still can’t quite wrap my head around my school having its own bar, just floors above where we take classes, and then profiting off sanctioned drunkenness. My dorm has one as well, but no one ever goes cause it’s lame. The lower drinking age has many perks, and hey, even helps the economy.
Let me get one thing straight: I hate sports. I don’t like playing them. I don’t like watching them. I hate how a lot of schools divert money from educational programs and the arts, things that actually stimulate your mind, in support of their students running around after a ball, hurting each other. But even I couldn’t miss English uni students watching the most probably the most American event of the year- the Super Bowl.
The massive screens strategically placed around the Waterfront were all tuned into the same channel, which featured English people narrating the game, their accents completely out of place amongst the American football game (which I’m just going to call football, since it’s easier than mentioning the American part all the time). Though it’s my home country, I couldn’t for the life of me name the teams playing- I just knew neither were the Green Bay Packers, my home team, or had Brett Favre, possibly the greatest traitor in sports history. We ordered a round and settled in. I turned to an English friend who’d been there, watching, the entire time. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Just a girlier version of rugby.” The English consensus is that Americans are weak wussies who would rather wear helmets and safety gear while beating the crap out of each other than die from a sports-related injury. Only a couple English people I know actually had ever seen a football game, since apparently a couple teams played an exhibition at Wembley Stadium not long ago. Other than that? The English were absolutely clueless.
I immediately tuned out the game and concentrated on hanging out with my friends, marveling at how obviously the Waterfront had tried to “Americanize” the event. Plastic menus boasted “Real American Superbowl Party Food,” of soggy hot dogs, chicken wings, and “french fries” used instead of the English “chips.” American flag streamers were strung across the entire bar, marking the most stars and stripes I’ve seen since the Fourth of July. The place was absolutely packed, though people filtered out as the night went on, as the game didn’t end in England until about 3 AM. Roughly half the crowd seemed to be American, and I found myself surprised at how much my accent was thrown around, after being so used to hearing English slang. The Brits tended to throw on any t-shirts they owned that were vaguely American themed, and I noticed sweatshirts emblazoned with Fort Myers, Seattle, Philadelphia, and even a random Vancouver, as if the wearer thought he was fine as long as he stayed at least on the same continent.
It was, in a word, surreal. We sang English drinking songs, including one about wanting to be a “London Ranger” and another that detailed the myriad double entendres you can buy at a Chicago department (which, having actually BEEN to multiple Chicago department stores, I can say are all unavailable) while watching the frickin Superbowl. Ironically the half-time show was The Who, likely the most English of all bands that still actually perform, even if that doesn’t necessarily mean they perform WELL.
So which team did we root for? I didn’t really care either way, and you can bet the English didn’t. The bar generally went up in cheers anytime anyone else randomly started cheering, so both teams were rooted for whenever they scored. Indianapolis’ main downfall, however, was their lack of a catchy tune. Someone finally realized that one of the teams was called the Saints and hailed from New Orleans. Every few seconds someone would start singing that fricking song, dancing on the tables, shouting loudly “Oh when the Saints! Go marching in!” with the same part on repeat. A couple Americans who were actually legit New Orleans fans egged on the English singers, clearly overjoyed at the prospect of international New Orleans fans. Sadly for those Americans, I can pretty much vouch that it wasn’t the team. It was all the song.
A few days later, I found myself geeking out over America again when we went to a T.G.I. Friday’s. I never considered Friday’s a distinctly American restaurant- granted, I tend not to think of it much anyways- but apparently here it basks in its allegiance to the USA. The entire restaurant was an homage to Americana, decorated with license plates from Nebraska, Florida, and California, plus signs for baseball’s World Series (featuring the Dodgers when they were from Brooklyn) and a picture of the Fonz, “Aaaayy”-ing out from a framed photo. Remarkably, there was only one major nod to American football, one team that got a shout-out above all the rest.
Oh yes. The Green Bay Packers.
It’s impossible to grow up in Wisconsin and not love the Packers. I mean, I guess it is, but you would never, ever ADMIT to it, you’d likely be mobbed. The Packers are so Wisconsin it must hurt. Everyone, including me, an avowed sports-hater, tries to make the pilgrimage to Lambeau, and the streets are empty when a game’s on. At my strict Catholic grade school, we got days off from wearing a uniform on Packers days as long as we wore something green or gold, their colors. I can practically hear that strong Wisconsin accent, talking about drinking a beer while grilling brats outside in negative-fahrenheit weather, extolling the virtues of Vince Lombardi, a coach who died decades ago. You can’t separate Wisconsin from the Packers, nor vice versa, and I can’t help but smile whenever I see those familiar colors on a jersey or t-shirt outside of the state, whether in New York or London. When flying out of O’Hare, I was even happy to see someone wearing a Packers sweatshirt as they boarded a flight to frickin Kuwait.
So yeah. I got a little excited. Just, don’t ask to see the picture. This was one time my camera failed me, and captured the wrong moment.
I hope my worlds continue to collide, with Wisconsin, New York, and London getting exceedingly enmeshed, jumbling to form the picture that is me. I’m the sum of my parts, which means I was made in Wisconsin, more fully formed in New York City, and starting to take a definite shape in London. I need all these spheres to be me.
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