On the Wednesday that we left, I was one huge flutter of insanity, having gotten up that morning at around 4:30 to work on my Place in the Universe (environmentalist literature) final project (a half-semester class)--due, for me, that day, as I wouldn't be present the next day during class. I had lived off of Easy Mac, a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs, and I don't even know what-all else, but I had not gone to psych meth/stat, though I had gone to Spanish, which was rather pleasant. I had gone to lunch, too, but had spent it munching with one hand and scribbling journal entries with the other. Packing occurred in the last half-hour before I left--I knew full well I was going to forget something, but had not the time to figure out what. My room was in a state, to be sure, and Tim came in to find me at the eye of the hurricane. He helped patiently, reminding me to unplug things and giving hugs.
We had two goodbyes, one before I went to drive my luggage down to the parking lot (not because I had a lot; I'd packed very lightly, but the distance from the house to physical plant's parking lot is ridiculous even without a checked bag and a carryon), one after I brought my car back to the house (to walk back down to said parking lot without any encumbrances). Tim had a class to get to the second time, and I know he ended up late, but he didn't seem to care much, and I wasn't about to protest.
There were nine of us: Lily, my cousin; Lily-for-Real (hereinafter referred to as Lily K.), an English-and-education major and friend; Anna, a crazy, hyper-happy English major in our year; Sara, mentioned in my "cast of characters" column on the side of this blog; Juliane, a quiet freshman who would stick a lot with Sara and sometimes me; Tori, a gregarious freshman friend of Juliane's who grew up in the same city as Lily K.; Lauren, a well-traveled freshman, kind of cosmopolitan; Katie, a junior who'd come to London with McDonough the year before and was smart-alecky enough to fit in well with us; and me. And then, of course, McDonough, but he was meeting us at the airport.
Anna was supposed to drive one of the vans, and a guy from the University the other, but as it happened, we all fit into the University van, being driven by a man whose name I immediately, of course, forgot, but he was from England and wished he could go with us.
"Everyone got their passports?" asked Anna in her cheeriest responsible-RA voice. "Yes," we said, and most of us pulled them out to prove it. The van pulled out--it was about 3:45 pm, and we were off.
The ride was one long string of chatter and people eating snacks (I should have thought about the lack of garbage can before devouring my apple, but I was hungry...). The following major points were established: that Tori, despite growing up in Philadelphia, cannot find her way around (which baffled street-smart Lily K. completely); and that, despite what Anna always believed, puncturing your eardrum will not cause your head to explode.
We arrived at the airport, greeted my parents (who had come to see Lily and me off), and were confronted with the biggest problem our trip would face: Tori hadn't done the passport check for Anna...and had left her passport back at school. Try though she did, her roommate couldn't find her until it was too late to bring it up for the flight (we had extra time, but not that much), and Tori was put in an interesting situation: waiting an extra day for her flight to London, going solo.
So while McDonough was helping Tori with hotel stuff for the night and doing--which he'd forbidden from the start--paperwork, the rest of us (minus my parents) hung round in the terminal, generally having fun, trying to buy food (corn muffin!), and talking about things like piercings (insert here the inside joke about the high-fives for being able or unable to see our bellybuttons).
A few of us also used cell phones. Quote from Lily K. (out of context, of course): "Dad, I want you to call the bank and be like, 'Hey, bank!'..."
We were hungry by the time we flew to Detroit; we were hungrier still having landed. Lily K. and I sat with everyone's luggage who went to Chili's; in the meantime, we talked to McDonough, saw his pictures of his son (who is already acquiring his rogue look, but is nevertheless adorable), and discussed Jewish school and APO (the first Lily K.'s topic, the second mine). When the others came back, Lily K. and I tried to cross the seemingly-endless concourse to get food. We had something like forty minutes until boarding; this should have been simple. But no sooner had we gotten 2/3 of the long way there than the PA system announced our flight's boarding--some fifteen minutes early. Lily K. and I dashed all the way back and boarded the plane...which made us sit there until the normal takeoff time, and didn't serve dinner until 11 pm (we'd been in the air for like an hour).
We ate very hungrily--five of us were vegetarian, so there was a lot of pasta being consumed; I had the chicken dish, which came with a lot of stuff (mashed potatoes, cheese and crackers, this weird cake-thing, a salad), and came to the conclusion that the overall quality of each item was within one standard deviation of a TV dinner, assuming this is mathematically possible.
I started Don Quixote, a copy I'd bought at a book sale that was so old the pages broke into flakes over the course of the trip (it was only fifty cents, so hey, but I didn't expect that...), and sometime after midnight, decided to try to sleep.
Thus ended the first day of our trip.
-Laurel
10.26.2004
10.19.2004
::waving enthusiastically::
Hello to all from London, 3:26 pm local time (10:36 Eastern Daylight). I love this place. Today was our free day, so Sara, Juliane, and I got to split off and do some stuff we wanted to do. We saw Platform 9 3/4, sort of. It's not the real one, most likely because they don't want a bunch of people going onto the actual one and crashing into the wall. They marked one off at about 8 3/4 and stuck up half a luggage dolly so it looks like you're going into the wall. We took pictures, silly tourists that we are.
Also saw 221B Baker Street and the adjoining Sherlock Holmes Museum. I'm questioning whether it was worth £6 (that's some $10 to $12 American), but since the national museums here are all free, I should really shut up about admission prices; it's not everyone that gets to see the Rosetta Stone for free, as I did several days ago.
The plays here have been good, but not great; this is not the fault of London per se, but of what we've been seeing. Cheap theatre is not the same as excellent theatre.
I have so much to tell when I get back and hardly know where to start; I'm thinking that I'll post a series here going day by day. I'm trying to write things down, but it's hard, we're just so on the go all the time.
As spectacular as this is, I would like to come home. Tomorrow I spend all day doing that.
More within the next few, I hope.
-Laurel
Also saw 221B Baker Street and the adjoining Sherlock Holmes Museum. I'm questioning whether it was worth £6 (that's some $10 to $12 American), but since the national museums here are all free, I should really shut up about admission prices; it's not everyone that gets to see the Rosetta Stone for free, as I did several days ago.
The plays here have been good, but not great; this is not the fault of London per se, but of what we've been seeing. Cheap theatre is not the same as excellent theatre.
I have so much to tell when I get back and hardly know where to start; I'm thinking that I'll post a series here going day by day. I'm trying to write things down, but it's hard, we're just so on the go all the time.
As spectacular as this is, I would like to come home. Tomorrow I spend all day doing that.
More within the next few, I hope.
-Laurel
10.11.2004
"Ma navu, insert-other-Hebrew-words-here, shalom..."
Yeah, Tom sending me 152 songs' worth of folkdancing music was definitely a bad idea. ::giggles:: 'Cause it's like, here you are trying to concentrate on something, and all you can think of is "Ersko Kolo" and the part that goes eeeeeeee-you!
Also a bad idea: reading Tim a story from Icebound Summer (Sally Carrighar), this really cool book I'm absorbed in (the project on it for Lit is due in two days), about arctic wildlife. ...As a general note to all female readers: Don't ever read your boyfriend funny habits of arctic terns, because he will get ideas and try to present to you a Ritz cracker as though it were a large and particularly tasty fish. And in answer to Albert's question, no, he did not attempt to chew it for me, ew. :-P
I really should've guessed that I was asking for it on that one. ::giggles::
So since Tim was cool and came to general non-denom church service with me last week (the part most trying to him was not the unrecognizability to him of the music, but rather the dozens of renditions of, oh, so *you're* Tom's twin!, since Tom frequents chapel and Tim hadn't come before), I went with him this morning to Saint Jude's for the whole Catholic-mass thing, and rather enjoyed it on the whole. A change, I know, from "Genuflect" (archived entry from February of this year), but I'm more used to it by now, though Mike would lead us to one of the pews in the very front, facing another front pew across the room, so that I totally couldn't hide my blatant Protestant ignorance. ::giggles:: No, it's all right, I got on pretty well 'cause it's so traditional and Bible-based. Still not my denomination of choice, but all the stuff in the missal, at least, was pretty universally-Christian material, no problem there. ...And, hey, I have no problem with sneakers on altar boys. ::giggles again::
Anyway, I really ought to go to bed, since as yet there is no such thing as Weekday Morning Time. I consider that one of Dave Barry's finest ideas: at seven o'clock in the morning, all clocks go into "a space-launch-style 'hold'", and everyone gets two hours to do with what they will, and no one's allowed to, say, assign more homework to be done with the extra time.
I could get a Weekday Morning Time if I skipped psych tomorrow, but considering how I think I fared on Friday's test, perhaps I ought to start paying more attention in lecture anyway. :-[
More before London, I hope.
-Laurel
Also a bad idea: reading Tim a story from Icebound Summer (Sally Carrighar), this really cool book I'm absorbed in (the project on it for Lit is due in two days), about arctic wildlife. ...As a general note to all female readers: Don't ever read your boyfriend funny habits of arctic terns, because he will get ideas and try to present to you a Ritz cracker as though it were a large and particularly tasty fish. And in answer to Albert's question, no, he did not attempt to chew it for me, ew. :-P
I really should've guessed that I was asking for it on that one. ::giggles::
So since Tim was cool and came to general non-denom church service with me last week (the part most trying to him was not the unrecognizability to him of the music, but rather the dozens of renditions of, oh, so *you're* Tom's twin!, since Tom frequents chapel and Tim hadn't come before), I went with him this morning to Saint Jude's for the whole Catholic-mass thing, and rather enjoyed it on the whole. A change, I know, from "Genuflect" (archived entry from February of this year), but I'm more used to it by now, though Mike would lead us to one of the pews in the very front, facing another front pew across the room, so that I totally couldn't hide my blatant Protestant ignorance. ::giggles:: No, it's all right, I got on pretty well 'cause it's so traditional and Bible-based. Still not my denomination of choice, but all the stuff in the missal, at least, was pretty universally-Christian material, no problem there. ...And, hey, I have no problem with sneakers on altar boys. ::giggles again::
Anyway, I really ought to go to bed, since as yet there is no such thing as Weekday Morning Time. I consider that one of Dave Barry's finest ideas: at seven o'clock in the morning, all clocks go into "a space-launch-style 'hold'", and everyone gets two hours to do with what they will, and no one's allowed to, say, assign more homework to be done with the extra time.
I could get a Weekday Morning Time if I skipped psych tomorrow, but considering how I think I fared on Friday's test, perhaps I ought to start paying more attention in lecture anyway. :-[
More before London, I hope.
-Laurel
10.03.2004
Oh, what new madness is this?
Have a sore throat tonight; looked above my tonsils in the mirror and found a white spot, just like last time right before I got so sick. In a low-grade panic, trying to kill what germs I could, hoping against hope on that one (since the last was a virus anyway), looked for my Scope. Couldn't find it (I may not have brought it, come to think of it).
Actually got desparate enough that I dipped a Q-Tip in vanilla extract (ha, that I have!) and applied it to The Spot. ( Warning: Slightly gross narrative ahead. Quid Pro Quo assumes no responsibility for any disgust accrued by reading further.) As it turns out, vanilla extract has double the alcohol percentage in my mint Scope, so I'm thinking it's not such a surprise that said white spot actually came off onto my cotton swab. This was a little icky. ...So I checked the place again fifteen minutes later. Red mark where the spot was, looking like a small groove, like the skin is even slightly broken. This is what makes me think it was not just food.
...And then I found another white spot, farther in where I wasn't looking. I cannot remove it with a regular, unsaturated Q-Tip, and I am so not gonna put any more vanilla anywhere.
Thi-i-is is not good.
Related icky reading on people who get drunk on mouthwash: http://www.anchoragepress.com/archives/document3fe2.html.
On another note, 'Nanda and Daf (and Jeff) did come today, and we did play DDR, and we did watch DangerMouse, and Tim did feel glad to know two people I've gone on so about, and it was brilliant. Hurrah.
-Laurel
Actually got desparate enough that I dipped a Q-Tip in vanilla extract (ha, that I have!) and applied it to The Spot. ( Warning: Slightly gross narrative ahead. Quid Pro Quo assumes no responsibility for any disgust accrued by reading further.) As it turns out, vanilla extract has double the alcohol percentage in my mint Scope, so I'm thinking it's not such a surprise that said white spot actually came off onto my cotton swab. This was a little icky. ...So I checked the place again fifteen minutes later. Red mark where the spot was, looking like a small groove, like the skin is even slightly broken. This is what makes me think it was not just food.
...And then I found another white spot, farther in where I wasn't looking. I cannot remove it with a regular, unsaturated Q-Tip, and I am so not gonna put any more vanilla anywhere.
Thi-i-is is not good.
Related icky reading on people who get drunk on mouthwash: http://www.anchoragepress.com/archives/document3fe2.html.
On another note, 'Nanda and Daf (and Jeff) did come today, and we did play DDR, and we did watch DangerMouse, and Tim did feel glad to know two people I've gone on so about, and it was brilliant. Hurrah.
-Laurel
10.01.2004
::with U2's "Vertigo" lodged firmly into my brain, thanks to 'Nanda and iTunes::
So apparently I am thoroughly unable to eat just one cherry-flavored Airhead in a sitting (this phenomenon has been observed quite a few times, including right now). Lucky that they're only ten cents each at the local dollar store.
Which kicks financial butt, I have discovered: the ones at home can be a bit of a rip, but this one actually sells Colgate toothpaste for a dollar, large bottles of shampoo for $1.50 (well, the Suave kind, anyway), and pretty much all major brands of deodorant for $1.50 as well. A little better even than Wal-Mart, if I'm not mistaken, and a much shorter drive.
I am in no way, however, affiliated with Dollar General. ::giggles::
Anydangway, here it is October, which sounds late until I realize that I've been at school for about five weeks, and then I'm like, wow, only that long? Yes, time does funny things in college. How come it never slows down first thing in the morning, or late at night?
In other news, 'Nanda and Daf are visiting tomorrow from Fredonia, which makes me super-happy, even though they're not even staying the night. We shall watch DangerMouse cartoons (remember them, from the 80s? Yes, you do, you just don't remember that you remember), have a DDR party with my school friends, and be merry. And Tom, as an RA, shall count as negative people if we get more for DDR than I expect. Thus spake...Zarathustra. I don't know.
This means I have about twelve hours to clean my room, which should be, ehm, entertaining. Must get on that. Will do it now. Or something.
Oh, wait a sec, though, I didn't mention Quiz Bowl last weekend. In two works: it rocked. In an additional sentence: Out of sixteen teams, we took fourth place. ...And we learned that Of Mice and Men does not equal City Slickers, and we're going to put the formula for tungsten on our t-shirts. But I leave those jokes to those who truly wish to know.
Cheerio!
-Laurel
Which kicks financial butt, I have discovered: the ones at home can be a bit of a rip, but this one actually sells Colgate toothpaste for a dollar, large bottles of shampoo for $1.50 (well, the Suave kind, anyway), and pretty much all major brands of deodorant for $1.50 as well. A little better even than Wal-Mart, if I'm not mistaken, and a much shorter drive.
I am in no way, however, affiliated with Dollar General. ::giggles::
Anydangway, here it is October, which sounds late until I realize that I've been at school for about five weeks, and then I'm like, wow, only that long? Yes, time does funny things in college. How come it never slows down first thing in the morning, or late at night?
In other news, 'Nanda and Daf are visiting tomorrow from Fredonia, which makes me super-happy, even though they're not even staying the night. We shall watch DangerMouse cartoons (remember them, from the 80s? Yes, you do, you just don't remember that you remember), have a DDR party with my school friends, and be merry. And Tom, as an RA, shall count as negative people if we get more for DDR than I expect. Thus spake...Zarathustra. I don't know.
This means I have about twelve hours to clean my room, which should be, ehm, entertaining. Must get on that. Will do it now. Or something.
Oh, wait a sec, though, I didn't mention Quiz Bowl last weekend. In two works: it rocked. In an additional sentence: Out of sixteen teams, we took fourth place. ...And we learned that Of Mice and Men does not equal City Slickers, and we're going to put the formula for tungsten on our t-shirts. But I leave those jokes to those who truly wish to know.
Cheerio!
-Laurel