This same Señora ranted to the class on several occasions about how--well--not classy it was to call a girl a “chick,” as chicks were baby hens and went “pío, pío, pío!” I spent time often around this sort of language and hadn’t taken too badly to it, but of course, much time has passed since then. All that to say--I’m not a bird, men of England!
This is related to what I’m writing about, because we went to see Chariots of Fire my second night in London and there is a musical number in which the boys are discussing their futures shortly after they’ve arrived at Cambridge; one of them professes to wish to spend his time “bird-watching.” In period British pieces, this isn’t an uncommon pun. And categorically--that is, as a pun--I do appreciate it.
* * *
On the tube, I had my things with me. This is a bright pink--hot pink, even--piece of luggage, my laptop, and a backpack full of the things I’d use during my stay in London. You know how I looked: as though I’d crawled out of the grave. I felt as though I floated. I swayed in my seat. I held the handle of this luggage with confidence, I nestled the backpack between my feet planted on the floor. The neon-yellow luggage tag on this backpack labeled me to those who would look as a member of the University of California, Irvine’s Campuswide Honors Program. This was the Piccadilly line headed into central London. The regular commuters have mastered the art of the glare, of the “surreptitious,” disapproving glance. I felt utterly defeated. Here I had been in the UK for a matter of minutes, for less than an hour, and I had already broken social norms. But what could I do? Here I was, a rooted young American taking up two seats on the tube. There was nothing. I sat and ignored them while also smiling apologetically.
At my station, I hauled my luggage past ten or twelve people, and a man stood to help me not run over people’s feet and legs. I thanked him and nearly died stepping off onto the platform. The tube lady will tell you--the lady whose voice is broadcast over the PA system--to “mind the gap,” but she says it so much that you forget to do it. The gap is wide. Seeing it, looking down, about to step into it, I heaved my luggage into safe middle-ground of the platform. I flew across the gap after it.
I remember the platform as vaguely shiny. The ground is pale and I flew over it, interested to get above ground. The panic of not knowing ever exactly what I was doing inflated me, and I’m sure I floated. (It never hurts at first; later, I would feel it, in my shoulders, the back of my knees, my neck. The cuts on my feet are still healing.)
I made my way into the English air. I walked down the wrong street. I figured this out and dragged my things and my body onto the right street. In the distance, through refracting sunlight, I spotted the brick edifice of the building I’d researched online. There was a brief burst of delight and then a resignation to walk the rest of the way--one step after another. Remember: I am too warm, the sun is out, I’ve spent fourteen hours now away from anyone I know. I am a person who lives inside of herself forced to inhabit externality. Perhaps it’s difficult to understand, if you travel, if taking real, tangible steps towards something so large and strange is not something completely new to you. I don’t know how to describe it other than as a sort of disengagement--I became entirely a part of London while distancing from the enormity of what I was doing. I retreated inside of myself. But I think something sensory about me was still alive and active. There is a small wonder I recollect, looking back now, that I do not recall feeling then.
The LSE High Holborn Residence requires a key fob to open the doors. Not knowing this, when I can’t get in, I nearly give way to tears: my arms are numb, and when I flex my fingers I can’t place them in space around me. Are they still attached to my hands? Do I have hands? Am I in England? Can I take it all back? Do I have hands?
And the door opens, a girl having let me in. I wonder vaguely if she’s one of the people in charge but quickly conclude that she’s just a helpful student. At this point I breathe deeply, unabashedly, I shake out my arms. They’re still asleep. My back aches intensely, but I don’t fully notice. Matt is already checking in. My plans to leave my things in the luggage room and venture out to find Poetry Cafe have already dissipated. I didn’t understand before coming here that jet lag doesn’t just mean you’re tired--it can also mean you’re simply unsuitable to be in public. Or not yet ready. But in my case, certainly the former over the latter.
Numb, I think. They handed me the sheet to fill in to sign in. American address, I don’t have a mobile phone yet; next destination? What does that mean? Oh, Norwich? Yes, I’m going there, too. Okay, that makes sense. How am I going to make myself like England enough to make missing home hurt less?
I heard Matt say: “ahh, elevators!” And the desk staff smiled; it’s a lift, here, but a tired American can’t be bothered. I felt my hands again. I had a body. Things would be okay.
I took the lift up to the seventh floor and took several minutes to open my door. The handle drooped with comic melancholy. The end of it had scourged a deep scrape into the metal of its plate and the surrounding wood. The door above the handle said “729.”
The room was small. The wall opposite me had a window, a nightstand, and the bed’s headboard edged against this and the left wall. To my immediate left there was a small washbasin. On my right, a desk, and above it, a bookshelf. I rolled my luggage into the corner and cast off my shoes. I leaned out of the window, I looked down into dumpsters, but looked up to see Big Ben, and other iconic silhouettes. I ran to the shower, which was a strange set up--a long shower, like a small room, with a door with hooks and a lock and a small rack at the front left corner. There were two bottles in it, one for shampoo and one for body-wash, both with french versions of recognizable labels.
And I put on clothes, I couldn’t figure out how to make my hair-dryer turn on, so I let my hair air-dry, and I took a half-hour nap.
When I woke up, I began writing the blog you’ve probably already read. I went down grudgingly, wanting more sleep, to the dining hall. I see Marina at a table with Matt and a girl I don’t know. I hope fervently, nearly praying, that there will be more of us. I sit down, I smile, I attempt to appear friendly, and slump over the table, attempting to stay awake.
“How jet lagged are you?”
“I’m asleep right now,” I say.
Another student joins us, while Marina tells us it’s “Nor-ich,” because the “w” is silent. I almost laugh--and then I realize this is six months or more that I’ve been pronouncing the name of the city I’ll live in incorrectly. I have been in this country for a matter of hours and I already have changed, have acquired knowledge impossible outside of this place. My back is hurting, now. The boy who’s joined us tells us he’s here because he didn’t know he had to come to EAP orientation and so he missed his. For a moment, I pity his human soul, and then I wonder how it is I even managed to find out what I did at all. I can’t remember.
Another boy joins us and sits on my right side; Julian; who complains about everything and has no filters. He’s entertaining enough regardless, the archetypal southern Californian “bro.” What a treat he’ll be to the locals, I think sardonically before I rest my chin in my purse on the table in front of me and listen to everyone talking. Marina introduces me to Brittany at some point. Brittany is automatically too cool for me. I try not to fall asleep.
And I don’t particularly like anybody at this table. I’m feeling homesick and wondering why I thought I could do this at all. All the glory of the moment is lost on me.
* * *
Monika picks us up from the hostel and we head back out into the city air. London is a downtrodden place, I think, my face angled to the gum-plastered ground. We are walking quickly through the city, and I am tired, and my chest is hurting inside. I want this, I want this, I want this.
Monika is small and blond, originally from Poland. She’s lived in England for seven years, in North London. She has a Master’s degree in international relations. She walked us to a street full of quite British office buildings with black or dark-green doors. The handles are round and in the middle, as some British doorhandles are. When we walked into the building, the carpets were middle-green, almost blue, sort of teal, and there are white walls. We walked up steep stairs, two floors. We entered a strangely-shaped room with high windows and victorian, thick, velvet damask-detail curtains; cream with dark teal. We sit in two rows: three girls in front, three boys in back.
We get up immediately at Monika’s request. She announces ice-breakers and I feel immediately nervous. I do not live outside of myself unless I am safe: am I safe here? Will I ever be? I try not to care. Monika makes us introduce ourselves and the way we dance. I feel like crying: I do not dance! Well, I do, but it’s hazardous for all parties involved! And, more importantly, I do not dance in front of strangers, not when people are so quick to make up their minds! And I realize I’ve made up my mind already: I try to push down on these boundaries, and obediently wiggle when it comes to my turn in line. I put my hands on my hips afterwards and feel like an idiot for it but do not move. There comes a point where you simply draw a line and do things. Perhaps it’s when you’re this tired. Perhaps it’s when you break a wall. Perhaps it’s both.
We survive the dance party. None of us particularly enjoy it. We return to our seats and my bones creak and settle into place. We listen to a safety lecture, we receive folders full of information, and “gift bags” with snacks and leaflets in them. We have a quiz: these are popular in England. We’re asked to translate the names of pictures of regular American items into British English. We’re asked to identify, by name, pictures of British things. I call the Yorkshire Pudding. I’ve done extensive research in traditional British food, but still somehow did not know, before leaving, how big a kipper was. At any rate, I know a Yorkshire Pudding when I see one. I know an eggplant is an aubergine here. I learn that arugula is called “rocket,” sometimes spelled “roquette.” I learn that zucchini is “courgette” and tank tops are vests. I know that umbrellas are sometimes “brollies,” rain boots are “wellies,” a girl’s wallet is a “purse.” I am reminded that the British drive on the left because armies used to march on the left to fight opposition with their right arms. The rest of Europe was conquered by a left-handed man--and so drive on the right. But Napoleon didn’t take Britain, so looking in every direction when I consider crossing the street is still a necessity here. And I still, sometimes, am taken by surprise by oncoming traffic.
The drivers in London are worse than New York--here there are Y-shaped intersections with no discernible logic governing who goes when. I think busses have the right of way, and bikers bike in the bus lanes. When I first got to London I couldn’t find the street signs--they are not near the traffic lights, but are plaques on the sides of buildings--and not every building; not even most buildings--so you really just need to know your way around or not mind getting lost. And have a magical ability to repel cars.
After our informational session, we say goodbye to the student who missed his own orientation. There are five of us now: three girls, two boys. We’re walking to dinner; on the way there, Matt mentions something to Marina about her being a vegetarian, and Brittany says she is, too: and I say with some relief, “me, too!” Later, when Brittany and I go on a tour of Norwich we sit with a girl from Maine and another from Minnesota; we tell them we’re vegetarians and, smiling, the girl from Minnesota, who’s doing her post-grad dissertation in Art History, shakes her head and says, “Californians.”
This is a relief: not that I adhere to Californian stereotype, but that the other two are vegetarians, too, and that we can help each other know where to eat. It had been a concern of mine that I wouldn’t make friends if I couldn’t eat anywhere others wanted to, but now I knew I wouldn’t be the only annoying one, and therefore, I was more acceptable by percentage rules. Percentage rules in the mind of someone who isn’t meant to calculate percentages, yeah, but, still, something was good about it.
* * *
Monika leads us down into a restaurant whose walls are made entirely of glass. Throughout the meal I stare out into the leaves of a tree, thick and green as a bush, waving violently in wind, and two people, unbothered, sitting on the brick planter beneath it.
It’s Jaime Oliver’s restaurant, called Union Jack’s. The menu, our gregarious waiter explains to us Americans, is based on the philosophy of an Italian bistro sourced only with typical British ingredients. There are pizzas and sandwiches and meat plates. There are a lot of interestingly-flavoured drinks. At first I ask for water, but after everyone goes around ordering theirs, the waiter returns to me and points out that the only one that hasn’t been ordered yet is apple-cinnamon and asks me if I’d like to try it. After a moment of being talked into it, I say yes. When the waiter brings our drinks, he hands me mine first and says, “you’re going to love it!”
“I’m sure I will,” I say.
The straws are made of pasteboard and are white with small red polkadots. My drink tastes like carbonated apple pie, but not so sweet. We are all, for the moment, happy. I am warming to this company. I have a flickering idea that I’ve misjudged Matt; I have a growing feeling I will not get along with two others in this group. After we get the waiter to explain the ingredients to us, Monika and I order a mushroom and herb pizza, Marina and Brittany order an italian-style cheese pizza, Julian and Matt order the waiter’s favorite chicken dish. We eat with hesitancy: something smells like eucalyptus on my plate, and I am very sure that the small narrow leaves I’m eating actually are eucalyptus under a different name. I never ask. I am not hungry because of jet lag but I try to eat as much as I can because I don’t know how a plate full of food looks to the British at the end of a meal. Monika tells us it’s not common to take boxes of food out of a restaurant with you. But we do, anyway.
We wait a long time for the dessert menu and take a long time to decide what we want. I debate between the earl grey & biscuit ice cream and the Marathon Bar ice cream and eventually decide on the latter. We all share dessert besides me: this is something I have never done, share plates, for fear of what other people carry. I try not to look wholly uninterested, but refuse all offers. I realize quickly this isn’t going to work for long, and savor my one, perhaps last, night of health.
After dinner and dessert we take our boxes. I’m feeling much better about my present company. I’m getting along okay with people. I’m trusting that we won’t get lost. I’m tired and they want to go to a pub. I tell them I’m too tired and I have to check in with my parents--I’ve tried to send them a text with wifi at the restaurant, but I don’t know if they’ve got it. I need to email them, or something, and I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to drink. I convince Marina of this and while we get back to the hostel and the rest of them plan to meet in a half-hour in the lobby to walk to the pub, I stay inside my room until long after I think they’ll have left before walking down to the lobby to try to access wifi to check in with home. It is a grating thing, being unable to contact home, feeling so completely separate. And completely at the mercy of a merciless city, bustling as vehemently at night as it is during the day. If I’ve done something wrong--if this is a dream or nightmare--I am helpless. I have nothing. The creeping, oily feeling of not knowing whether or not I’m doing something right or not washes over me again, and I have about ten minutes of wifi in the lobby to hold this at bay. I get in touch, I see pictures of home. I feel split in half: half saying you want this, this is good, this is what you’ve wanted, half wishing to go home, scared without definite reason. If you wanted this, why do you feel like crying? Why do you miss home? Why don’t you want to be here if you know you do, and you know it’s good? Why doesn’t it feel good, to be here?
The violence of my mood swings keeps me up late at night, flipping through pictures of the cat and family on my phone before I fall asleep. I set my alarm for early the next morning, half hoping to wake up at home. I remember vividly what the bend of the cat’s elbow feels like against my knee, the sogginess of his extra skin under his armpits, the ridged surface of his forehead under my palm.
* * *
Day two I wake up knowing I’ve had less sleep than I need but Big Ben is ringing in seven o’clock and there are sirens playing a comforting background track--even at home we have those--to that announcement. I feel, for a small moment, transcended from the ache of my body, and I feel that in this moment some magic occurs and I am happy.
We have a full itinerary on day two. At eight o’clock I board the lift and fill up the last square foot of space available down to the ground floor. We stop at floor four and somebody next to me says “it’s full,” threateningly, to whomever wants to board. We make it to the ground floor and spill out of the lift towards the smell of pastry and coffee. Marina had said they had good breakfast here, and that description wasn’t amiss. Breakfast is interesting in England; many people have beans and tomatoes and mushrooms with their eggs and sausages. Others have cold cuts on toast. I grab a chocolate croissant, watermelon, an apple, a boiled egg and a cup of black coffee. There is not an abundance of soy milk in the London I’ve encountered.
It’s busy this morning; I see room at two tables but choose the one with the Chinese international students rather than the lone British boy because there’s less chance that a group will feel the need to strike up a conversation. Especially as they’re not speaking English at the moment.
“Is it okay if I sit with you?” I ask. I am extremely conscious of my American accent. One of the boys at the table smiles and says “yes,” bowing towards the table. I bow my neck awkwardly in response, as I’m carrying my tray under one arm and my laptop and purse in the other hand. I try not to think while I eat. I have trouble peeling my egg and feel exceptionally daft; I catch myself smiling in self-deprecation at a graduate student across the room and abandon the task for the moment, testing the coffee. It’s too hot.
I see Brittany come in and call to her but my voice is not loud and I am not good at being heard over others; I slump in my seat as she finds another at a table far away. I’m nearly done with my meal and there’s no room at my table. I deem it a moot point to attract her attention. I see Matt and Marina walk in as I’m about to stand up and move into the lobby and when I’m leaving and throwing out my trash I see they’ve got a table over by the opposite wall.
I sit down on the floor in the lobby as the seats are taken and hear something tear. I still can’t, after three days, locate what ripped, but I’m sure it was in my trousers. I can’t get wifi for more than a few minutes in the lobby. There was a cap on the data I was allowed to download within a 24-hour period. I think to myself that I’ve probably used it up.
When I get up I think of all the surreptitious ways to check to see if I’ve got a hole in my jeans, but don’t come up with any that won’t look extremely awkward if someone happens to spot me. I pull my UCI pullover down to the middle of my thighs and hope it doesn’t ride up during the time it takes me to get to my room on the seventh floor. People have been staring at my pullover. I decide it’s too soon; I’m too sensitive, still, to how different it is to be the foreigner; and swap this sweatshirt out for a safer one in the room. I look out into central London from my window. I find out later, after I mention it casually, I’m the only one of the group who could see Big Ben from her room.
* * *
When Niki picks us up from the Lobby at 9.30 I immediately take a liking to her. She knows my last name as soon as I introduce myself and this instills in me a brief, bracing hope. I’m getting along with people this morning; I feel floating, and light, and excited. Jet lag doesn’t just make you tired.
Niki hands us oystercards, which are decorated in limited-edition London 2012 graphics. I feel for a crystalline moment how special everything is, and how precious. Three months seems suddenly one of the shortest periods a life could have within it. Will it be long enough? Is home really that far away? What’s a ten-hour plane ride but a memory?
We walk down to Holborn, through a maze of stairs and twists and turns and gates and escalators. We board the tube and I somehow end up standing but Matt offers me a half-seat on the wall by the door. I take it gratefully, mentioning that “my legs aren’t even that high” which probably kills the impression that I’m grateful at all, but I’m sitting there, which should be evidence enough--right? We’re meant to get off at Hyde Park and when we do, it’s up and down and around another twirling maze of stairs, escalators, gates. I manage to present my oystercard to the machines without looking so ostentatiously like a tourist.
--I’m stopping this writing here to say that I’ve listened to the entirety of my Mark Knopfler playlist over the amount of time I’ve been on the computer today, which is 6.6 hours. The rain in England is still daunting to a Californian person--
* * *
The Tower of London is our first stop, and it is incredibly beautiful. And old. And I feel the history brimming over. We go on a beefeater tour. At the moment, all I can say is that this place is beautiful and it’s a small city, it’s not just a tower, there are stones older here than what the mind can comprehend. We looked out over the Thames to Tower Bridge. And we stood looking up at the looming white walls of White Tower, built by William the Conqueror after he overtook the monarchy. We stood by the tower where they held Sir Thomas Moore prisoner for failing to acknowledge the King as the head of the British Church. It’s a beautiful day--sunny, with a nice breeze--and I feel like this is the place I’ve thought about for years, since high school, when this reality was still a timorous, gilded dream.
* * *
We board a bus--an old-fashioned double-decker. I’d mentioned to Brittany and Marina the day before I wanted to ride on the top deck of a bus and here we were! The porter came up with a ticket-check and we asked him to stop at our stop near Covent gardens, where we were meant to have lunch. When we were nearing St. Paul’s Cathedral, Niki moved out of her seat and motioned I move into it as it was closest. She then proceeded to take a picture of me and the others gazing out of the window. I found myself unabashedly interested, almost completely unaware of my body. I can’t believe, even still, that people live amongst this kind of history. Of course--in America, all the history lies under our concrete. But here it’s alive, the stone of pre-tenth century is up in the air of the twenty-first. My T.A. for English 100 last winter quarter, so overwhelmed and enthused by the subject matter at hand--Saussure’s “The Object of Study,” which argues, amongst other things, that the sound-image of a word, many of which together compose our thoughts, is completely unrelated to the meaning of the word itself and is related by an unmotivated, societal determination--told us, waving his hands around his head, “if it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal--if it’s not amazing--then you’re not completely understanding it.”
I’ve lived by that statement since, determined to at least understand when I’m not thoroughly engaged with something. Is it that the locals of London don’t understand what they live amongst each day? Or is it that they’re desensitized to it? Is there a difference? Are most of them actually quietly awed each time they consider their surroundings, think of all the people who’ve come before them, who will come after them, who have inhabited the same spaces? People walk fast in London--faster than my short legs approve of--and walk by these buildings that caused me to take pause.
On the bus, Niki asked us if we thought we could find our way back after lunch to the study centre, where we’d been yesterday with Monika, or if we wanted her to come and collect us. I told her quite honestly that if it were up to me to get us back we’d all be lost within moments; but Marina and Julian were convinced they could get us back. Niki showed them the map and gave them directions on how to get back; I didn’t pay attention, but I know this much. However, she didn’t tell us how to get to Covent Gardens itself, but dropped us off at a phone store instead.
We decided not to get phones right away because we were hungry for lunch. It took us a long time to find the market where the crepe place she’d mentioned would be. We tried going into a bakery to ask for directions, but that only got us “over that way.” When we’d gotten that far, we went into Pret and asked first a small Irish woman where Covent Gardens was and she didn’t know, so we tried another woman who knew and directed us clearly toward the Covent Garden Market. We found our way there, fretting the whole time, and walked into a very beautiful little mall. The crepe place was called “Le Creme de le Crepe” and we found it pretty easily after walking by a giant vat of Paella. I heard one girl say “that smells delicious!” while we were walking and wondered about genes, and how people inherit preferences that can differ so wildly.
I ordered a crepe stuffed with goat’s cheese, caramelized onion marmalade, roasted red peppers and “rocket.” Onion marmalade is very, very strong and has a quite specific taste. I think it’s probably pickled; I don’t really know how marmalade works, but it’s more than just onions that’ve been cooked down. I could only eat about half of mine because I hadn’t been hungry at the correct times because of the time difference, but after everyone had tried it, Julian finished it. I felt a small victory. I’d shared food with others without actually acquiring theirs, and for the moment, was safe.
We walked back towards the phone place--Julian had already got a SIM card and needed to find an O2, and while Marina, Brittany and I went into the Carphone Warehouse fist, we weren’t sure what our options were and then we wanted to try out Vodafone next door. We deliberated over “pay as you go” phones and all decided on the same one, but they only had one left in stock, so Marina decided to go back next door and I decided I’d take a Nokia instead, which left Brittany with the Samsung. I’m actually jealous of her now, because her phone uses T9 to text while mine does not and I haven’t read through the manual to figure out how to change it.
Our plans were a minimum 10 pound top-up, which got us 100 minutes and 300 incoming texts for 30 days. After 30 days, these minutes and texts are eaten up if you don’t use them or are propelled into cyberspace, and you have to top-up again. As a member of the digital age I felt quite confident that I could use up the texts and perhaps spend some time on some free support hotline if I needed to use up paid minutes at the end of the month’s period. The phone is what Americans, at least, refer to semi-affectionately as a “brick”--all it does is text and call, but it does have an FM radio, an alarm function, and a built-in flashlight. After we got our phones and Matt and Julian figured out their SIM cards--Matt had bought an international smartphone from Target before leaving home and I think Julian had unlocked his smartphone--we needed to start walking back to the study centre for the latter half of our informational orientation.
There are street maps all over London, though they’re a bit different to American ones. When you stand in front of one and look at it, what it shows you is actually what you’re looking at. For example, it will show you only what’s in front of you and on the sides that you can see while looking at the sign from that specific perspective. There are circled zones on these maps that tell you whether or not something in front of you or to one side is within a five-, ten-, or fifteen-minute walk. Niki had told us all that the study centre was about 15 minutes walking from Covent Gardens.
Here is where I will get slightly--er--well, accusing. Remember that I’ve written that I heard Niki instruct Marina and Julian on how to get back to where we needed to be? Well, the other three of us hadn’t listened and were counting on these two to tell us how. Julian seemed to know but somehow none of us were listening to him because Marina wasn’t and then I hear her say out of the blue that Niki just told them the “general direction” to walk towards and then say that Niki didn’t really tell them anything. For whatever reason, while I disagreed, this did not concern me at the time. We will find our way back, I thought, with a trust at odds with everything I’d experienced in the city so far.
* * *
“I think we’ve gone too far,” I said, when we were on the street the study centre’s on. And I pulled out my folder of orientation things and saw that the address was exactly one door behind us. I was pleased with my surprisingly spot-on radar.
I can’t think of anything particularly interesting to tell you about academic orientation besides: Here, there are no exams in autumn, so courses are either graded by projects, coursework, or exams in the Spring. Here, they grade on percentages--a 70% corresponds to an A in the states, and a 60% an A-. You pass if you make a 40%. We’re all taking 60 UEA units, which corresponds to 24 UC units. And here, prompt instructions are much less detailed, you’re expected to do more than the required reading, and attendance is required to seminars.
* * *
We went to dinner at Carluccio’s. I find that in England food is generally unsalted. I couldn’t finish my plate and so passed it around. Had a lemon tart for dessert. Caved and tried from the others’ plates.
* * *
The show Chariots of Fire is the same plot as the film, but Matt and I agreed afterwards that it’s much more disjointed and not as emotionally-impacting. We got some laughs out of it--some at the expense of women, some at the expense of Canadians, some at the expense of Americans--and it was a tourist thing to do, seeing a show in the West End. And of course Mr Bean has immortalized the theme song with his umbrella and tweeting at the synth in the opening ceremonies.
* * *
At the end of day two, I’m feeling much more hopeful. When I look through the pictures of home, I’m not as sad. I’m not sad at all. I feel empowered, I feel I can do this, be a human out of her shell.
* * *
and, now? It's 2.15 AM on Tuesday morning, I've been in Norwich for a few days, and I will have blogs up as soon as I can get them up to describe the time I've been here and the trip over. But I'll leave you with this small image of how I feel:
