Glasgow Mega Snake

When I told people in London that I was going to Glasgow for a few days for work, the response was pretty much unanimous: "GLASGOW?? Why do you have to go there? It's shit." It was also compared to Detroit fairly universally (even by Brits who I imagine have never been to Detroit; to be fair, neither have I) - industrial, dangerous, gritty, depressing. So I left for City Airport to catch my British Airways flight (which had some of the worst food I've had on a plane in awhile, though I suppose it's nicely retro that they still serve dinner at all) prepared for the absolute worse.

And to be fair, as my driver took my through Glasgow, it wasn't much to take in visually compared to London. A lot of decrepit residential areas sparsely separated by occasional factory smoke stacks. Fortunately, I'm staying at the Grosvener Hilton on Byres Road, the closest thing to a London High Street that I've seen here in Glasgow (a High Street in Britain = Main Street in the States). There are a lot of restaurants and bars here. So after quickly getting settled in my room, I went outside to explore a bit. There is a huge joint across the street from my hotel that used to be a church (!!!) and has been transformed into some sort of bar/club which I imagine I will have a peek into before leaving, though it reminded me of Excalibur in Chicago for its cheesy lighting, stone architecture, and comical size.

The first thing I noticed walking around was that, yes, this is an industrial town. Maybe it's because I'm near Glasgow University, but during the entire course of the night, the only person I saw wearing a sport coat, or really not wearing jeans, was me. In London, this is unthinkable - almost everyone on a week night is in a suit or similar clothing. It was kind of refreshing! After walking down Byers Road for a bit, I decided I was going to eat in one of two alleys off the road, right across the street from each other near the Tube stop: Ashton Lane and Ruthven Lane. I settled on a restaurant called Stravaigin, a restaurant that focuses on fusing South Asian and Southeast Asian flavors (surprise, surprise) with Scottish flavors. It said it was a Michelin recommended restaurant, which seemed like high enough praise for me. And sure enough, it was fantastic - probably one of the best restaurants I've been to here in the UK. I started off extremely Scottish - haggis (my first haggis, which if you don't think about what it's made from - sheep hearts, livers, and lungs - is pretty tasty. It's sort of like eating a hotdog in that way) and Bunnahabhain scotch. I then had a slightly Indian-tinted pork loin and finished with another Scottish dish, a dessert called Cranachan, which is raspberries soaked in whiskey (again, extremely Scottish) with cream and oatmeal and is served shortbread biscuits. That too was incredible. When I was paying my bill, I asked which pub in the area I should go to for a nightcap and he told me to head over to Ashton Lane and go to the Ubiquitous Chip. So I did, and it was great. The Ubiquitous Chip, as I would find, is bizarrely laid out. There is the "Wee Pub", another normal-sized pub, a dining room, and a dance hall on the first floor, two more dining rooms and a third pub on the second floor, and a rooftop lounge on the third floor, all of which is connected by unmarked doors and stairs, so it is a bit confusing, but interesting to explore.

In the dancehall, a band was playing Scottish folk music and about 20 people were dancing a folk dance, and a lot of the guys were in kilts. This seemed a bit strange since I can't imagine people here actually wear kilts regularly. I then went up to the second floor bar to have a half pint of Chip71, a strong ale they brew specifically for the pub, and a half pint of this german lager that is apparently unpasteurized. So I probably got salmonella poisoning. Oh well. While sitting at the bar, a young scottish guy, Michael, came up to talk to me. He was extremely nice and explained to me that the reason the dancing and music was going on was because the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, who is a Scottish national figure and a sort of "Scottish Shakespeare" who wrote extensive poetry and music of national pride, was just celebrated on Sunday. So the dancing was the dregs left off of those parties. We got on to talking about the music scene here in Glasgow, which was honestly the only thing I knew about it since bands like Mogwai (for whom this post is named), Franz Ferdinand, and Belle and Sebastian hail from here. It turns out that pretty much everyone in the music scene knows each other - he knows members of each of those bands or knows people who are flat mates, wives, or friends with them. And one of the three friends he was at the pub with, a lovely girl named Carey, is the keyboardist for Camera Obscura, another Glaswegian band that is pretty famous and has a sound somewhere between Belle and Sebastian and a 1960s folk pop band. This was pretty amazing - I had only been in Glasgow for four hours and had already met a member of a band I respect. In that respect, this city reminds me of what I imagine Montreal, Portland, and most appropriately Detroit must be like - vibrant music scenes with many players, some of whom are quite famous, and where everyone knows each other and runs into each other. What a strange day - I literally started off this morning reading a review of the new Franz Ferdinand album (which is being released today), forgetting they were Glaswegian, started listening to their music, remembered they were from Glasgow, and by the end of the day, I was having a pint of beer with some of their friends.

To be fair, Michael also compared Glasgow to Baltimore for how dangerous and unhealthy it is. There is a fair bit of violence and drug abuse here. In fact, in the East End (just like London, the East End is the uglier part of town), he said the life expectancy is actually lower than the Gaza Strip!! This is due to many, many drug-related deaths among young people, violence, and the fact that people who survive into their mid-to-late-20s just move away to escape it. And that going farther West of the West End (where I'm staying) is apparently scary as well.

So it isn't all indie rock, friendly faces, and haggis here. But still - in this small part of town that I have been in, the food has been good, the beer and scotch even better, and the people seemingly so much nicer and even-keeled than the people in London. And the music scene is incredible. I'm going to go back to London and telling everyone they can shove it - Edinburgh might be nice for an eye-popping weekend trip of history, but Glasgow is as real and interesting as anywhere, if you're willing to scratch just beneath the surface.

Good thing no one reads this.

I blinked and it's been three weeks since I last posted to this thing. After a fairly frustrating and uneventful first few days here, I've completely loved every day after that. Here is a recap of my life (much more for my own memory than for anyone's reading enjoyment):

Sunday, January 4: this was just after the last time I wrote in this blog. I was supposed to meet my friend for a 'welcome' lunch here in South Kensington, but instead, my jet-lag caused me to sleep through all alarms and finally woke up to my friend calling me to tell me I was 15 minutes late. We ate Carliuccio's (a restaurant around the corner from my building). Afterward went to Peter Jones on King's Road to buy some hangers and other crap for my flat. I then met up with Brian's little brother Tom to get American food and watch football. We went to this American-themed bar between our flats (even stranger - it was a Chicago-themed bar with dishes like "the sears tower" and "the chicago board of trade"!). We went looking for wings and football and got 0.75 out of 2. Which I suppose is a victory. The wings and burgers were pricey and terrible, the beer was good (which is, of course, a given here) and they were showing a regular season NHL GAME instead of the NFL playoffs. Clearly not American. And the meal came out to 50pounds. Six months ago, that would be $100; today, it is $75. In Chicago right now, that same meal would be like $22. It's expensive here.

Monday, January 5: Met my coworker at 6:45 AM at the South Kensington stop to head to the office. The commute is 30 minutes long and includes a convoluted walk through the strange streets and alleys of City of London, the old part of London that used to be walled. I become narcoleptic at 5 PM.

Tuesday January 6: Find my way to the office with the aid of a map my coworkers helped me with. Still narcoleptic. Receive an email from my friend-of-many-friends Della, who sets me up with parties to go to all weekend without actually being in London - she's in South Africa.

Wednesday January 7: Get a gym membership at Virgin Active gym, London's biggest gym chain. There are locations everywhere, which is nice. And I sprang for the more expensive option because, well, I could and because it gave me access to the four "classic" gyms in the city that are supposedly nicer and only premium members can enter. See - even when it comes to gyms Brits like their class system. Though in retrospect it only took a couple days to get the membership, at the time it felt like it took forever. The gyms here are fortunately not TERRIBLE. They are small and a lot of them are in the basements of buildings, but they aren't bad. But I got on an elliptical and was totally confused by the speeds and distances - all in kilometers. Uh oh. Still narcoleptic in the evening. For the second day in a row, I'm listening to a conference call in the evening and fall asleep.

Thursday January 8: After work, I go to get a drink with my friend Taimur who used to work at my firm and now works at Goldman. We go to a pub and, in what will become a theme, I have a horrible burger with a decent beer.

Friday January 9: I head to another Virgin Active to weight lift this time and am even more confused by the weight equipment, which is obviously all in kilograms. The math is obviously not difficult, but it's annoying to be ready to do a set and have to think "wait, what is 12 times 2.2. oh okay". Afterward, I meet up with Tommy to figure out our costumes for the "P" Party, a house party being thrown near my flat where everyone has to dress up in something that starts with the letter P. This is a follow-up to the same girl's "T" Party, which immeasurably more sense as the title for a party. Tom and I decide he's going as a Pinata (so we need tape, called cello-tape here, and crate paper) and i'm going as potpourri (so we need tape and flowers). We eat a quick meal at subway (i get my go-to sandwich, the sweet onion chicken teriyaki, but as expected it was not very good). By the time we finished eating, it was after 7:00PM, so we knew everything was going to be closed but large supermarkets and some convenience stores. Needless to say, we find everything we need except tape and crate paper. whoops. So neither of our costumes are going to work. We find Tom some wrapping paper, find me some newspapers, and some packing tape. First, we decide he's going to be a "Pharaoh" and begin wrapping him in toilet paper to mummify him. Because that would probably rip off of his body, I wraped him in wrapping paper to make him a "present". I put three copies of the financial times in a bag and dress like a street vendor from the 1920s (read, the way I usually dress) and we head out to buy booze, meet his friend Callum, and head over. On the way, we see two British guys get in a fight and one of them get royally destroyed. Brits are not afraid of just mauling people in fights. We get to the party, drink a lot and dance. My friend Makiko from Japan drops in for a bit before calling it an early night. At around 4:00AM, Tom and his friend Sutha decide either we're going eat some kababs or go to a club. They choose "club". After Tom and I fail to get into Soho Club, we head off on our own to The Egg in King's Cross. We are there, dancing to decent techno, for 45 minutes. We leave without having a single drink, go across the street to have a bacon and egg sandwich (I get in an argument with the iranian guy at the counter over whether or not I'm American. I'm sure he spit in my sandwich). We then negotiate a cab ride home.

Saturday, January 10: After going for a walk through Kensington Gardens and seeing gigantic protests about the Palestine/Israel conflict and some Americans actually playing American football in the park, I headed up to Nottinghill to do a little shopping. I then headed to the Soho/Mayfair area to do more wandering around town shopping. Eventually, I found the Japanese supermarket and bought a bunch of snack foods, 納豆, and 米. it was nice to finally have some familiar flavors around me to eat. I went home and got ready to cook up some rice and I plugged in my rice cooker with a power converter and there wasn't enough power for it to do a cooking cycle. So I plugged it in with just an outlet converter and my rice cooker exploded. Not kidding. It blew out all the fuses for my wall outlets and water heater, so though I had lights, I didn't have any appliances or hot water. And the batteries in my computer and blackberry immediately became premium commodities. I was worried there was no chance I was going to be able to get it fixed for a few days, but fter some frantic phone calls, I was able to arrange to have an electrician come the next morning (on a Sunday!) to come fix my power. Relieved, I ran off to meet up with a bunch of kids (mainly Harvard grads) at this club near Marble Arch called Carbon. It wasn't a bad night - they were actually spinning hip-hop, which is extremely rare to hear here. The negatives were - the people at that club (some really old people, some really young people, some annoying people) and the fact that it was so cold I was wearing my coat and scarf all night. Inside.

Sunday, January 11: At the suggestion of a co-worker, I got up early and hopped on a London open-top bus tour. It was FANTASTIC - I got to see pretty much every part of the city and realize just how close together everything is. I only got off the bus for Buckingham Palace, so I'll have to go back to places like the Tate Modern, Westminster Abby, and the Tower of London, but it was a great overview. Except for toward the end when it started getting frigid out and I thought I was going to die. Since the ride ended back in Trafalgar square (the site of a huge Israeli protest complete with singing!), I set off to the Japan Centre in Piccadilly Circus to get a new rice cooker that actually has a UK plug. And it was a success. Later that night I met up with my friend James and his girlfriend for some drinks at a pub near my flat called the Anglesea Arms (including eating pork scratching, an experience that can only be described as scarring), and then we had dinner at Papaya Tree, a thai restaurant on High Street Kensington that one of James's friends owns.

Monday, January 12: Work! Workout!

Tuesday, January 13: I rushed off after working out to meet with James and a few of his friends (one of whom was EXACTLY like another friend of James and I) to eat the first restaurant chain here that I have fallen in love with: Nando's. Nando's is a portuguese roasted chicken restaurant-by-way-of-South Africa (where it was started) and it is incredible. And actually flavorable. And a pretty good deal. Afterward, we headed to a pub in Victoria for a couple pints before calling it a night.

Wednesday, January 14: Dinner at Bumpkin with D. and some of her friends. Bumpkin is a fairly British restaurant - the food is actually decent, but it's extremely expensive for what you get and even though we had reservations, we had to wait near the bar sipping wine for over 45 minutes before they actually sat us. It was nice a nice time though.

Thursday, January 15: After work, there was an inter-Ivy work event at a pub called The Running Horse near Bond Street. I actually ran into a girl I knew at Penn and had recently seen at a friend's wedding. The event was otherwise way too crowded - there was like 200 people crammed in a tiny room. And it had been awhile that I had been in a room so unilaterally filled with ugly people. Afterward, Tom and I headed over to eat - surprise - Nando's yet again with James. The two of them have hung out many, many times since then and are basically destroying each other. That night, we went to get some more drinks elsewhere in Soho after Nando's. I made the critical decision to go home shortly after midnight. They made the insane decision to stay out til 4:00 AM.

Friday, January 16: I wanted to work out after work, but like most Fridays here, I had made plans for dinner and I didn't get out from work until later than I had expected. So I went home, changed, and hopped a cab to meet up with D. and some MORE of her friends. We had Indian food just north of Oxford Street. Then we headed to Jalouse, a club I was going to meet Tom and James at. And lo and behold, some people from work and college were even there. So there was a lot of ways to get up to no good. And no good was gotten up to. I stumbled home late.

Saturday, January 17: I woke up relatively early the next day and headed out to check out Savile Row. The guy working the desk at one of the few remaining all-bespoke houses on Savile Row, Norton & Sons, was kind enough to give me his thoughts on the other suit-makers on the street, the state of his industry, and a recommendation on where to get some brogues. Complete with a hand-drawn map! I then headed up to Oxford Circus to meet a friend-of-a-friend for lunch. We went to get American brunch at a place called "Breakfast Club". The breakfast was okay, but their smoothies were great. After doing a bit more shopping and wandering around and talking to my mom on the phone for about an hour, I found a store called Folk, whose clothes I've been a fan of for awhile. Folk is a local boutique here and apparently most of the clothing is designed and made on the premises. The guys working there were really nice and their stuff was extremely nice. They gave me a good deal too! After that, it was up to Shoreditch for dinner at Beach Blanket Babylon (yet another over-priced place with poor service, but the space was really nice), and then off to Saf to test out some of Joe's drinks. Joe then got off work, and I headed out with him and his coworkers to Hoxton Pony and then a party at the Russian Room, a completely dirty and ridiculous hipster party. There was a girl dressed like Little Miss Moffett. I crashed at Joe's flat and after talking until 6:30 AM catching up, I fell asleep on his couch.

Sunday, January 18: I had to get up early and head home from Shoreditch so I wouldn't be late for lunch with my friend AGAIN. We had dim sum up in Marylebone (pronounced "Marleybone") and it was actually phenomenally good. That night, I met up with Bill and some of his friends at Bok Bar, a pub also in Marylebone that shows American sports and serves Thai food. Rather than order thai food, we ordered Domino's Pizza into the pub! It was hilarious - and it was very American for a couple hours: eating pizza, drinking beers, watching the Eagles screw up in the playoffs. It was like college all over again. And there was this British guy named Barnaby there who is (1) a huge NFL fan, (2) an even bigger Brett Farve fan, and (3) totally crazy. It was pretty entertaining. Afterward, I met up with Michelle and Talisa, who are USC-MAC kids visiting from Chicago, to say hello on Oxford Street before heading back to their friend's flat for the night.

Monday, January 19: After working out, I grabbed dinner with a friend at a thai place called Thai Origins in near Nottinghill Gate (I eat a LOT of thai food here). This place was good - the food was decent, the prices were reasonable, and only the service was incredibly shitty. A victory in London.

Tuesday, January 20: Inauguration Day! I headed to the Inaugural Ball with James and his sister Olivia. Though James and Olivia are brits, they were actually born in the US so have US citizenships. Tickets to the ball were 100quid. They had a few speeches, some fairly moving video tributes to the new president, some mediocre food, lots of wine (though beyond the 3 bottles provided to your table, you had to buy everything after that!), and a band playing awful wedding music. Oh, what a night! I was seated next to a herd of immigration lawyers, who were kind enough, though one of them corrected my manners - he taught me how to place my knife and fork on my plate when done eating to indicate I'm finished. But you know what? Fuck manners. We headed out fairly early, dropped Olivia off at the tube stop, and went to this club two blocks from my apartment called Boujis with James's friend, this girl who is so connected she can get into any club in the city with her friends whenever she wants (that is a feat here - i've never seen a place where trying to go into an establishment to give them exorbitant amounts of your money is so difficult). I don't know why this is, but she is effective. Boujis apparently used to be one of Prince Harry's hangouts (along with Mahiki) so it has all sorts of hype, but it's just this cramped underground space. I headed home quickly after one drink to prevent me from falling asleep standing up.

Wednesday, January 21: Dinner with Talisa and Michelle at yet ANOTHER thai restaurant, this time in Soho. This place was also decent, but the service was actually very good! Impressive. Afterward it was home to watch the season premier of B-Star - and it was mind blowing.

Thursday, January 22: After a long inter-continental conference call, headed to Carliuccio's with a co-worker and then went back to his flat to see what he's getting for the money he's spending on his rent. I am slowly accepting that getting a place here will be ... well, it will require me to lower my standards. I worked out at 11:30 PM and didn't get to bed til 1:00 AM, which was ultimately a huge mistake.

Friday, January 23: Dinner and drinks at a birthday party for a girl I don't know with a bunch of Japanese kids I didn't know. But it was a lot of fun and I drank myself under the table (which was difficult, since the table was Japanese style and thus wasn't very high off the ground). I just drank waaay too much 焼酎. Everyone was really nice and fun, but unfortunately it didn't occur to me to ask anyone for their contact info so we could hang out again. Epic fail. I went home at around 1:30 AM due to complete exhaustion.

Saturday, January 24: I woke up early to go get my haircut at a Japanese salon here called Ash. My stylist, named Ringo, called me お酒臭い, which means I was reeeking of alcohol. Should have listerine'd before going! Whoops. Good haircut though. I've found my replacement for Sho very easily. Afterward, I hopped on the train back home, bought some apples and a gigantic sausage sandwich (for only 3pound50p!) at the farmer's market in my neighborhood, and got ready to meet up with Tom, Tom's friend Callum, and Callum's two friends (one guy from Yorkshire and one guy from Wales) to go to a rubgy match between the Harlequins and the Scarlets (a London team vs. a Welsh team). I gathered up a rather disheveled Tom, who had basically barely slept in the previous 48 hours due to non-stop partying, and headed out on a long train ride to Twickenham for the match. Now, usually on trains here there is a warning to "mind the gap" which seems silly because there is almost no space between the train and platform to speak of. The train I rode to Clapham Junction (the most trafficked station in London due to being the hub for people heading out to the West suburbs) had a space of about 2 feet between the train and the platform. It was actually scary. At the rugby match, we had awful field level seats in the goal area seats that made it extremely difficult to see the game and understand the rules to a sport I've never watched before. Instead, I just drank a lot of beers with the guys and ate fried chicken. I seriously would not stopping about fried chicken the entire game. So I quenched my hunger. Strangely, there were a bunch of American kids at this match because, as it turned out, some random study abroad program sent all their students to watch the match as a cultural experience. Great. After getting home, I headed off to Saf again in Shoreditch for dinner and drinks and then a party at Lounge Lovers, a club that is apparently a celebrity destination. I headed home pretty early having drank way too much in the previous 30 hours and - I was a bit of a mess.

Sunday January 25: Woke up early, went to Virgin Active to work out, and then headed BACK to Shoreditch (okay, at this point I should just really consider living in the East End given how much time I spend out there) to check out Brick Lane. I had some food from booth vendors at a street market called Sunday Up Market. Afterward, I took my first look at Spitalfields Market, which the city has built a huge, modern enclosure for that is extremely out of place in that neighborhood. I then went to the office to work on a Sunday for the first time for a few hours. After work, I tried to do my laundry for the first time, only to find my washing machine apparently doesn't work. Washing machines here are a big problem - most of them are combined washer/dryer units that don't wash or dry well and have tiny capacity. And I live on top of a laundromat that I've only seen open once. So I'm screwed - I'm almost out of underwear and socks. Should I just buy more?!! Rather than actually figure out what to do about my washing machine, I sat down to finally finish writing this entry. And I'm done. This is the first night I have been home in almost two weeks. It's nice to be able to relax.

This week: Scotland. More updates to come. I swear. It might take a few weeks though.

Post #2, Day #1

So, it's 4 AM which means my jetlag is vicious and also means earlier I chose to take a nap (for FOUR FUCKING HOURS) instead of going to buy toilet paper. It turned out fine though, for those concerned, because no toilet paper was necessary until much later after I had bought it!

After waking up to see that the sun was setting, I quickly ran outside to embark on a little journey around my neighborhood. I walked around the area near South Kensington station near me and then headed up the road to check out the shopping at Harrod's and Harvey Nichols department stores since the whole city is having its annual post-christmas sale period right now (while there I came to fully realize just how many south asians, middle easterners, and chinese people there are here in London - it almost makes it seem like there are no brits here!). After the fact, I just sort of wandered around aimlessly despite the fact I hadn't eaten in half a day and I was tired and it was freezing out and I was afraid of getting lost. The architecture here is stunning and every neighborhood has something fascinating to it - whether it be the tiny vintage car shop tucked away in an alley near my building or gorgeous and myriad parks and gardens that the confusingly curved roads suddenly open up on to. I also realized it's going to take a long time to get my bearings and sense of direction here - though I always feel I have a good sense of direction, the streets here turn me around incomparably fast.

Despite the aimless wandering, I did manage to get some things done. My coworker came out for a brief bit to show me around the neighborhood and point out good restaurants, where to get groceries and housewares, and what landmarks are important (he couldn't stay out because his wife was a tad under the weather). I then went to eat a hamburger at this joint near my place called "Gourmet Burger Kitchen" and it was really pretty good for what I was expecting. But also pricey! The burger was like 9 or 10 pounds or something crazy like that. I'm going to go broke living here.

I also managed to get my Oyster card so I can ride around on the Tube tomorrow and to buy some toilet paper, paper towels, and fruit and water to keep me from starving to death. I wanted to buy some crackers or cereal or something, but the crackers didn't look appealing and one of the cereals was called "Wheatibix" which is a horrific cereal name and just made me want to forget I was ever looking for cereal to begin with. (please be aware that I only wrote that sentence now so that I can have a laugh about it one year from now over a delicious bowl of Wheatibix).

Upon coming home, I continued to discover that television here is terrible at best. BBC2 (which is channel 2 mind you) has been showing the World Darts Championship ALL DAY. essentially around 13-14 hours of darts coverage straight, including repeatedly aired reruns. There is another show called Quiz Call that is just people calling in to guess at this question this unattractive-but-provocatively-dressed woman is wearing in order to win money. One sample question: "I'm thinking of movies starting with letter M. name some!" The quality of the show was cable-access-ish. Also, I have lame american channels like a british version of E! that shows heavily re-edited and re-narrated versions of american E! shows like Life In The Fab Lane (sad that I reduced to watching that today)... and then there was a channel that almost literally played episodes of Frasier non-stop today. For almost as long as the darts tournament. Why not Seinfeld or something funny or even sort of funny? Why Frasier? Because of Kelsey Grammar's strangely affected English?

Now I think I'll finally go to sleep. Tomorrow: more exploring, this time a little farther west and north, and then hopefully I can meet up with some people that I know for a meal and even find a pub that shows American sports so I can see the NFL playoff games, even if just for a little bit.

From the floor of my little tiny flat in South Kensington

This is my first message from the UK. What a strange day.

Packing to come out here took far, far longer than I thought it ever would. I was up all night folding clothes and repacking bags - and it all barely fit into five tightly packed suitcases. And the whole process took about 10 hours longer than I thought it would. The main thing I forgot was that arranging ALL of your belongings to take them overseas takes a bit more planning than packing one small bag to go on a business trip, which I have become quite good at. Now that I'm actually sitting in my corporate housing apartment here in London, I feel like I brought WAY too much stuff - not necessarily because I brought a lot of things I don't need, but mainly because there just isn't realistically enough room in the apartment for a lot of it. I'm starting to understand what my coworker meant when he said "you'll learn to get by on a lot less out here". I can already feel my brain regressing back to the lifestyle I lived when I was in Sendai - incredibly simple. Oh AND I'm apparently paying 30 pounds a month for an internet connection that is spotty at best. Jesus, this is annoying.

At least my flight here was nice. I was in "Upper Class" on Virgin Atlantic, the name of which I find just ridiculously British and pretentious, but it was pretty nice. Each passenger gets their own seat/bed and just a constant stream of food and drink. It was not as nice as first class on JAL, but it was enjoyable. I spent most of the flight either trying to sleep, eating British food, trying to read about London, or watching The Dark Knight or Wall-E. I brought both DVDs (Wall-E courtesy of Jen), but they were somehow also both in the queue of 12 movies the in-flight system had.

It's funny - when we were about to take off I was incredibly sad, and upon landing I was incredibly excited. But now I'm just sort of trying to adjust to the annoying inconvenience of this little apartment I'm in right now and how to make it all work. Maybe I'll just move to a new apartment next weekend - haha. I laugh, but I'm only half-joking. To be fair, this apartment isn't bad - it has separate rooms for the bed, the living area, the kitchen, and the bathroom, though the rooms are all fairly small. But I just wish the space the apartment had was used more efficiently and that there was more closet space - I'm going to be living amongst piles upon piles of clothes here.

And right now I'm trying to decide if I should take a nap (not good for my jetlag!) or go buy toilet paper. Can you believe this apartment is fully furnished and even has some food available in the kitchen, but there is no toilet paper?? Ridiculous.

Last night in Chicago

I meant to make this a much more substantial posting, and I will make a much more substantial posting once I make it to London, but right now I'm busy packing.

I just want to say that tonight is my last night in Chicago for awhile (and while I don't know if this is truly my last night here, the heavy probability is that it is) and though there were tremendous ups and downs in my time here, and though I have always had a love and hate for this city, and while 2008 in particular was incredibly difficult for me personally, I can honestly say my time here has been beautiful. The memories and personal growth and relationships that I have found here in the Midwest are more than I could have imagined when I moved here in June 2005 and are substantially greater than I ever give this city credit for.

I have a series of photos on my wall for every city I consider a home - Orange County, Tokyo, Philadelphia - and Chicago will be added to that line-up in my new "flat" in London. While I probably grew up more as a person in Philadelphia because I was there for college, I can say without exaggeration or embarrassment that when I moved to Chicago, I was a kid, and now that I'm leaving I'm much closer to being an actual adult. The majority of my 20s were carved out of the frozen winters and baked in the stifling summers of Lake Michigan and the greater Midwest. For that reason, Chicago will always be one of my homes.

Put your C's up in the air.

... and we're back.

and the reason has been made clear in the new subtitle of this blog.