Who: Me
What: One-way plane ticket
Where: Frankfurt, Germany (birthplace of Goethe)
When: September 18, 2013 until I tire
Why: “One never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.” – Goethe
The Rhine. Photo courtesy of About
J
In less than a week, I’ll be soaring over the Atlantic Ocean, nudged into a cramped airplane seat in Coach (while Craig will be stretching his legs in roomy Business Class – more on that another time). Flying into the UK on a bank holiday weekend was a bad idea (read: stupidly expensive) but foresight was never my strong suit.
Where we’ll be staying:
1. Airbnb apartment by Regent’s Park
The living room (looking into the kitchen). Photo courtesy of Airbnb
2. Crowne Plaza Docklands
Photo courtesy of Crowne Plaza
3. Town Hall Hotel & Apartments in Bethnal Green
Photo courtesy of Tablet Hotels
Three very different accommodations for three very different purposes. We’ll be moving from the quirky Marylebone apartment of a local (the guy collects clocks – he has 48 in the living room alone) to a large, corporate 4-star chain hotel by the convention center to an Edwardian-art deco boutique hotel in the ultra-hip East End.
While I was doing my search for budget-friendly hotel options in London (it’s impossible to say that aloud with a straight face), I cursorily came across Town Hall Hotel. Although it looked like a beautiful boutique hotel and I was interested in the concept of the place – the local town hall in Bethnal Green was converted to a hotel in 2010 – I wanted to stay away from places that offered suites and whole apartments because the accompanying amenities are often reflected in the cost.
But while I was reading Nick Cave: Sinner Saint: The True Confessions, Thirty Years of Essential Interviews, there were some photos interspersed with the latter interviews that had captions reading: Bethnal Green Town Hall, and my interest spiked like Rohypnol in a vodka cranberry. After a bit more research, I learned some cool facts about the place, particularly about the use of the Bethnal Hall meeting/conference rooms as filming locations.
Mayor’s Room
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ music video for “Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow”
Photo courtesy of The Central Box
Atonement
Photo courtesy of Joanna Bush
Photo courtesy of Lahloo Tea
It’s now mostly used for conference meetings and wedding receptions.
Photo courtesy of Town Hall Hotel
Photo courtesy of Wedding Spot UK
Councillor’s Room/Secretary’s Room/Deputy’s Room?
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Photo courtesy of IMFDB
Photo courtesy of British Film Locations
Not entirely sure which room this is. I’ll have to do a bit of exploring during my stay.
Then there’s the miscellaneous touches that gives the otherwise conventional old public building-turned-new private business its charm. There’s the Lover’s Lane, which is a wood-panelled corridor between two of the meeting rooms (?) that features Debbie Larson’s woodwork depicting diminutive cheeky scenes of romance.
Photo courtesy of Town Hall Hotel
There’s the Town Hall Tea Lady, which is a room service feature where someone by the name of Mable or Fitzgerald will bring a trolley round to your room during happy hour and concoct a bespoke martini for you on the spot.
And of course, there’s the beautifully preserved building proper, where rich wood, green and white marble, and brushed brass flourish like a certain Baz Luhrman film out now that is totally bastardizing that book we all read in high school about the Jazz Age.
Lobby. Photo courtesy of Town Hall Hotel
Council Chambers. Photo courtesy of Chic Traveler
Fireplace in a suite. Photo courtesy of Docslate
Pool. Photo courtesy of Luxuo
Bar. Photo courtesy of Kiwi Collection
J
Never enough love.
J
I have a few posts from California to get through and I have a lot of stuff for London to plan so what I’m currently doing – researching my post-UK trip – is preventing me from completing either of those efforts. But, the mind wanders and the Google searches follow suit.
The road trip will be a short prelude to the grand opera that I am currently composing. The goal is to fly into Munich and then head down to Florence or Rome. If this all goes to plan, I’ll be celebrating my 26th birthday somewhere in the Swiss Alps, overlooking gorgeous green valleys and majestic frosted mountains, all the whilst wondering why I didn’t do any of it sooner.
These are the images that have been occupying my mind of late:
Bavaria
Photo courtesy of Bavaria Tourism
The hamlet town of Nesselwang. Photo courtesy of Feriendorf Reichenbach
Neuschwanstein Castle. Photo courtesy of Famous Wonders
And of course…
The Autobahn. Photo courtesy of Niklas Bayrle
Liechtenstein
Photo courtesy of Terre, Vent, Feu, et Eau
Switzerland
The Selvig Valley in Davos. Photo courtesy of Graubuenden Tourism
Winding Alpine roads. Photo courtesy of The Guardian
Italy
The Stelvio Pass. Photo courtesy of Auto Injected
Lombardy. Photo courtesy of Made in Italy
The coastal village town of Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre. Photo courtesy of Sunsurfer
The rolling hills of Tuscany. Photo courtesy of Josh Trefethen
Really, guys. I’m not even here anymore. Southern Ontario might as well be a dank, dark cave.
J
1 year ago today, I was crossing the French-UK border at the Eurostar customs in Gare du Nord, embarking on an intrepid new life in a (relatively) foreign country. The life didn’t last very long and the thrill dissipated just as quickly but I’m still proud of the risks I took and the accomplishments I made. I also consider myself lucky that I got to experience those tumultuous times with somebody I loved. There’s nothing like getting food poisoning and alternating shifts in the bathroom with your significant other in a dirty flat in South London.
Hanging out on the windowsill of our flat on our last night in London
When I came back just a little less than 3 months later, I got caught up in the judicious void of housewifery and domicility (and I wasn’t very good at either). It was never a conscious thing. I was excited to have a place of our own; I was looking forward to being conventional with Craig since up until then, our relationship had consisted of 2.5 years of dating long distance followed by 4 months of cohabitation with my crazy mother, and then the atypical disruption of picking up everything and moving to the UK (and living with 4 other people). Craig was my first boyfriend and when we started dating I guess I had fashioned this unconscious ideal of what a good girlfriend was supposed to be. Over the years, as is wont to happen with elusive ideals – whether intentional or not – I failed to live up to them. And I realized that I’d inadvertently abandoned all the things I once loved to be a person whom I thought could be worthy of someone else’s love.
I felt like I’d strapped myself into a straight jacket, chained myself to a chair, and just watched my life unfold before me like the world’s dullest Housewives spin-off as I remained immobile and inert to the life around me. If you look at my old posts, even the ones dating to late last year, you will be reading the stories of a completely different person, of someone who was so falsely entranced with what she thought she wanted rather than someone who – and pardon the Stones cliche – already had what she needed.
Some wise words from Brody Dalle of The Distillers:
It hit me. I got everything I need.
I got freedom and my youth.
Respite in Prague, 2010
And that’s really all a 25-year-old needs, isn’t it? Youth and freedom. My parents would argue that one always needs money (regardless of age) and although I find myself agreeing with them to a certain extent, I believe that most people who have money know nothing of youth and freedom whereas one can be young, free, and have no money but still feel like the richest person in the world.
Shortly before our California sojourn, all the things that plague those with even the heartiest of spirits and the sturdiest of fortitude – doubt, loneliness, happiness, responsibility, power, love – didn’t seem to matter anymore. Even though our road trip in California consisted of really short legs and way too much Dr. Pepper to warrant a real spiritual excursion, there was something about the cool desert air coupled with the blistering SoCal sun while moving at 75m/hr in a vehicle that wasn’t mine that just continued to further erode all the worries I’d cultivated over the last 8 months. It’s not as if those anxieties have vanished; it’s more that for the time being, they have puttered off with the truancy of an adolescent boy or a sand dune in the wind.
After a while, they all return.
I don’t believe in permanent bliss. I barely even believe in a soft notion of temporary happiness. I think happiness is just a period of time when you can’t remember being sad. But I spent the first half of my twenties bewitched by the most sterile of human preoccupations: vanity, weddings (but rarely marriage), money, and at one point, even children, and now I want to make up for it. (Fortunately those other vainglorious milestones of ones twenties – promiscuity, substance abuse, and the over-placement of importance on tenuous friendships – I already experienced to the fullest when I was in my teenage years). I just want to do things for myself while I’m still young and free.
Which brings me to my next adventure.
The Stelvio Pass in northern Italy. Photo courtesy of Moss Motoring
A real road-trip in Europe. Just me, a map, and the open road. I’m still at the nascent stages of planning so I don’t know when I’ll leave or for how long I’ll be there. All I know is I want to go.
J
Since my first post about California featured my infamous surly melancholy and a bunch of heavily-filtered, meticulously picked photographs of Arcadian landscapes and bitchin’ things that were meant to evoke: “Look how amazing my life is! Be envious of me!” feelings in my readers, I thought I’d do something different for Part 2.
There were two requirements for the following photos:
1. They couldn’t be posed
2. I had to be having a modicum of fun in them
You will learn something about me and that is that I have an incredibly impressive double chin when photographed. I have this second chin in reality as well but it tends to hide in the shadows whereas in photos, it becomes this magnified monster, constantly trying to eat my actual chin as soon as the lens are aimed at it. If you look at a lot of the pictures of just my giant head, you’d think I weighed at least 250 pounds.
You will definitely not envy the double chin.
Part 1: Coachella
Mmm…fish tacos.
Check out that chin! Also, in both of these photos, there’s no music playing. I’m just dancing to the sounds in my head.
Craig got to lug around the “messenger satchel” while I carried the water.
$5 shaved ice.
Part 2: Joshua Tree and San Diego
No clue what I’m doing here.
I know what I’m doing here. My crotch was itchy so I scratched myself.
The chin is out in full force while I sit in the W lobby and use their wifi. Also, I have horrible posture.
Being lazy at the San Diego zoo.
Part 3: LA
Napping.
Watching news at the local 24 hour laundromat (seriously, who needs to do their laundry at 4 in the morning?)
Getting the most out of our $9 parking at La Brea Tar Pits because we didn’t want to pay the $15/head to go into the museum, and thereby getting our parking validated
My failed attempt at a cartwheel
Drinking my 48th Dr. Pepper Big Gulp of the trip at the Griffith Observatory. Double chin is still going strong.
Doing a jig on the sun.
Pulling up my pants on the path off Mulholland Dr.
Playing with sand in Santa Monica. (This was the only time I touched it during the entire trip).
Why am I posting semi-ugly, embarrassing photos of myself up on the internet, you ask?
I don’t know. Part of me believes that if I can publicize bad photos of myself then I will eventually be comfortable with letting people read my fiction (it hasn’t worked so far). Also, I feel like a hipster douchebag for getting Instagram and I hate that I keep (and use) Instagram despite how much I abhor the solipsist culture of the ‘selfie’ and the ‘through a glass, darkly’ implications of our menial photographic exploits.
But then again, I’m fully aware that everything I’ve just posted is a negative image of the affected, selective, I-got-swag model. I’m still posting pictures of…myself…on vacation. It’s the visual equivalent of the humble brag.
Oh, this double chin? Yeah, it keeps my face warm on those cold summer nights in SoCal.
J
It’s strange being home, but then again, home has always been the most foreign place to me.
This is the first trip I’ve ever taken where I’ve had absolutely no desire to leave. On all previous jaunts, there has always been a part of me that’s been weary and wistful for the place I called “home.” It’s usually spurned by tired feet, frustration with local customs, and the depletion of money. But this time, I was tempted to forget about my return flight and just stay in California and start a new life.
At the moment I feel pretty hollow. Craig described it as a feeling that’s similar to loneliness and that’s definitely an apt description. I think of the French word “bouleverser:” to overwhelm, to devastate, to move deeply, to turn upside down. I definitely feel all of those things being back. I feel like the reflection of a person in the mirror rather than the person looking at her own reflection.
I guess I’ll be wearing my grumpy old man hat for awhile, although I’m going on another trip to London, England in less than 4 weeks so that should temper the bad mood a bit. I’m not going to do a play-by-play because that would be boring and California isn’t some exotic locale that nobody’s ever seen before but I do have some posts lined up on a few things of note.
Here are my highlights of California via Instagram:
1. Desert
View of Arizona from the plane
2. Renting a Camaro
After 4 days in the desert, it got a little dirty.
3. Listening to Queens of the Stone Age while driving through the desert in the Camaro
4. Coachella and camping in Indio
5. Seeing Grinderman and Nick Cave live
Best acts of Coachella.
6. The San Bernardino mountains
7. Wind turbine farms at Palm Springs
8. Joshua Tree
9. Driving through Joshua Tree while listening to Kyuss
10. Coachella Valley and the gorgeous mountains
11. Joshua Tree Country Kitchen
Where Josh Homme and Anthony Bourdain ate in No Reservations.
12. R&R with Nick Cave
Showering and sleeping in a king bed in the W after 4 nights of camping in the desert felt really good. Reading a book of interviews with Nick Cave felt even better.
13. Animals at the San Diego Zoo
14. LA
View of downtown from Mulholland Dr.
View of north LA and Hollywood from Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Park.
View of San Gabriel Mountains (I think?) from Griffith Observatory.
15. Driving through LA
I love everything about LA freeways: the traffic, the windiness, the views, the speeding, the narrow lanes, the hills, the plethora of muscle cars, everything! I also love Big Gulps.
And horchatas.
16. Fish tacos
I made a pledge to eat fish tacos for every meal during my trip. Although I didn’t entirely succeed, I had at LEAST one fish taco per day.
17. The Venice canals
18. The Pacific Coast
I brought two bikinis and didn’t use either of them. I’m also not a huge fan of the beach but I love the influence of the ocean.
19. Impulse tattoo
I spontaneously decided to get knuckle tattoos at a parlour in Venice Beach as a souvenir.
View of California (?) from the plane.
Clearly my favourite moments involve driving a car, being in the desert, or doing both at the same time. My other highlight was going to Skid Row and donating all my camping gear to a woman’s shelter. It was an act that lasted all of one minute but shit, that area is depressing. Especially since earlier that day we’d been cruising down Melrose Blvd and through the Hollywood Hills. I think myself fairly conservative when it comes to my opinions on the welfare state and social assistance but the fact that such a large homeless population and such rampant levels of poverty exist and, more disturbingly, thrive in a place like LA is really disheartening. While driving down San Pedro, I got the feeling that these people weren’t just forgotten but they were being actively neglected; their situations only perpetuated by the bureaucratic marginalization and denial of basic human rights for whatever reason the government conveniently deems sufficient.
But what do I know? I was just on holiday.
J
