Untitled (oh artsy)

The healthcare is free and so are the museums. And being cheap in addition to being the well cultured, well mannered, educated, civilized, mannerly, polite, sophisticated, genteel and modest lady that I am, I've visited almost all of the galleries and museums that have been available to me. I still stand by what I said after my visit to the TATE Modern; just because I don't understand doesn't mean I don't appreciate. The English should be proud of the collection they have between all their museums, there are some very famous, very profound and extremely beautiful works, and it's free so hooligans like me can still appreciate them. Art for everyone. I have a limited number of pictures from my museum wanderings because photos are a no-no quite often, but I did see it all. I do have pictures from the museum that is just, generally, England. Because I'm traveling alone, I keep my own hours for the most part and so that leads to a lot of random wandering and inefficient waking, but I see the most amazing buildings, things that are old  and older and beautiful, beautiful in a way that new things don't know how to be. And it is so awesome, and it makes me feel small in a good way and even when it can't fill my lens it fills my eyes and I know that I will dream about these things for years to come because I saw them, with just me. But that's also something I think about a lot when I'm counting the Sunflowers, standing beneath a cathedral or looking up at a Titian or Monet; I think about how I'm the only one seeing it with me. I recommend traveling alone. But I also think it shouldn't be the only way you travel. Part of what makes what you see real and worth remembering is who you share it with. Your awe and wonder and gratitude will be reflected in the eyes of who ever you are with, especially if they love you. It's like I stand there, humbled by what I'm seeing and the fact that I have the opportunity to see it, and sometimes what I want to do most is just share that moment with someone. Sometimes it's like just seeing it isn't enough to do it justice, it needs to be shared.

Now that I've vomited my sensitive side out, I gotta tell you about the hilarious freedom I've discovered accompanies me as I travel alone. Now, I recognize that what I'm about to say could be interpreted as an onset of madness because I've been alone for too long...but lets just not go there homie. As validating as it is to share in wonder with someone, it also means you share in traveler reputation, needs, timing and preferences. It's taken me a few weeks of solo adventure to realize that I can walk around how ever I damn please and it won't make any difference. The epitome of that has been London, I'm somewhere new everyday, it's a huge city and the energy here kinda encourages me to let things get weird...long story short I'm moving around like DGAF bitches don't know me. Letting my freak flag fly because no one here knows my colors and there will always be people who are being more socially unacceptable than me. I'm strolling through national moments and galleries and winking at security guards and inserting myself into people's conversations about art and snobbery like I know something. I'm singing along to what's on my headphones in public and sometimes there's honestly nothing playing. I'm grooving on the train and reading over peoples shoulders. I'm the one who offers to take pictures for the couples of ambiguous Asian ethnicity and then conducts a full on photo shoot with them. I go into expensive stores and try things on and pretend like I'm somebody and then dip out to catch the cheapest bus. I'm ordering food in a variety of different accents and then just pretending I only speak Thai when people who actually speak the language I was faking ask me for directions or god knows what in our supposedly mutual native tongue. And admittedly, sometimes I do get too weird for myself and have to stop walking and crack up for a second and then pull it together to be normal for a minute. But it is really rewarding, knowing that you have nothing to lose. I'm never going to see these people again, and even if I do, it'll be in such different circumstances and I'll be such a normal and average person that they'll probably just say, "Wow! You look strikingly similar to an oddly deranged girl we once saw in London" and I'll just be like "Oh do I! How utterly hilarious, ha ha, oh ha, ha ha. Ha". I must see at least 300 different people a day, we're all strangers to each other, and that gives us all this amazing opportunity to be something extraordinary for the three to five seconds that is the entirety of our relationship with one another. I guess my hope is that at least one of those 300 will go home and someone in their life will ask how their day was and they'll say "Boring, normal, average...except for I saw this one girl, outside the office, she was walking by and singing 'Call Me Maybe' and she winked at me! So weird..."
I'm just a nerd trying to bring joy to London by weirding out the general public, one day and one shenanigan at a time. And I'd be lying if I told you I don't have a ton of fun doing it...LET'S GET WEIRD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a76yf3AXHCg

Howdy Golly Gee I'm annnn Amuurican

Observations, strictly observations and not criticisms, of the British people and their lifestyle.

-Lack of mixer taps in the average English loo. Also, the word loo. For my all Amuurican comrades who don't know what a mixer tap is, that's because you've always had them. The idea is that when you go to wash your hands, face, feet, knickers, retainer, ect, you have a cold tap and a hot tap and only one spigot. So you can masterfully adjust the knobs making your water as hot as Ryan Gosling, luke warm like day old milk, or cold like Chris Brown's heart. However, most loos on this island have a sink, and then a cold tap and hot tap, each with it's own spigot. So the water is either as scalding hot as the child of John Legend and Ryan Gosling would be, or as icy cold as Valentine's day for all but 16% of the population. And never the two shall meet. I don't like it.

-The British decided that paying a shit ton of money for hot air to blow through a cylinder filled with clothes was stupid. So they hang dry their laundry, outside in nice weather and inside in bad weather. And the tumble dryer stays off or doesn't exist. And it only takes two minutes longer, you save money on energy, you save the planet, you save your clothes from being cruelly and uselessly shrunk, and you feel like a good and quality person. It's great.

-Cake. Cake has been taken off the special occasions shelf and has been gloriously introduced into casual living. Having a bit of cake or cake after tea is just standard. Everywhere sells cake. And none of them have stupid cursive birthday messages on them. Because cake has graduated from just the holidays to beautiful, everyday consumption.

-Vegetables. None. Maybe it's just because I'm here and making observations in winter. But seriously. The food has been great and I'm really grateful to everyone that has been feeding me, but I think I go days without eating something green. That being said, I only miss it sometimes...

-Everyone here drinks tea and thinks about tea as much as I do. And they offer it to me often enough that I actually get it every time I want it. And drinking a cup roughly once every 20 minutes is the norm. I feel understood and accepted and caffeinated.

-Holidays. They take them, love them, and still get paid. And that's why the British work force is happier (I don't actually know if that's true but I'm taking a leap of faith here).

-Stay sexy, forget warmth. In every city I've been in, any time I'm out at night, sure as the selfies on instagram and the sass of Beyonce, there will be too many women trying to go out wearing lots of stuff on their faces and not nearly enough clothes. Gurl, you think your heels are bad now, just wait till you get frost bite. And if your lady parts freeze because your skirt forgot to cover them, it's really going to put a damper on your hook ups this evening. Tights? Not even tights? Ice titties are no joke. Cover up ladies, you can take it out when you get there, otherwise you're just going to arrive with blue lips, seven toes and nipping.

Trains

I look utterly ridiculous every time I move on to the next family, friend and/or portion of England that I'm visiting. And this is because I always have to be wearing my biggest coat and my snow boots, no matter what the temperature...wearing them is more viable than packing them. I'm also generally in a train station. So I'm taking the wrong set of stairs or spending too long looking at a map because I'm the bumbling American. On top of that, I've got all my stuff. Now, you'd think that by this point I would have figured out a productive and convenient way to carry everything. Not the case. I have my enormous backpack on my back, which weighs too much and prevents me from fitting through the ticket barriers, the train doors and into bathroom stalls. In addition to that I have my average sized backpack that is my carry on luggage of sorts; it has my laptop and camera and books and friendship bracelet string and photo album and chargers and umbrella and socks in it. And just to make life difficult for myself, I also carry my purse. That means I have to have the big one on back, the little on the front and the purse wherever I can manage. I often lose circulation in my right arm from the weight of the big bag on my back, which makes it impossible to carry the little bags in that hand. If I do the waist strap on my big bag, I then buckle in my train tickets which I keep in my coat pockets. So when I get to the barrier the people behind me have to wait as I unbuckle, pull out tickets, drop something, get stuck, rebuckle, and then unbuckle again because I forgot to put my tickets back in my pocket. And the weight of my backpack usually pulls down my pants so I'm generally losing my drawers through all of this as well. And God forbid I ever have to pee while all this going on. It occurred to me today that I could put my wallet and tickets in the front pocket of my little backpack, pack the purse in my big one, avoid wearing scarves on travel days, wear my hair up instead of caught in my backpack straps and actually go through the handicap tickets barriers. Let's see if I remember at the end of the week.

Just to get from Colne to London today, I had to take one train from Colne to Leeds, in which I floored the ticket collector when he tripped over my bag buckle. Then from Leeds I took another train to London Kings Cross, on which I sat with the most interesting collection of people (more on that later). And then finally I faked an thick foreign accent in order to ask if I was heading the right direction on the tube from Kings Cross to Baker street, because admitting I was confused as a completely literate and moderately educated English speaker was just too much for my dignity. And people are so much more willing to help the lost French/Dutch/German/Russian/Mexican/Thai/Hawaiian/Ambiguous ethnicity girl than they are willing to help a daft American. The fake accent thing and the doe eyes have worked wonders for me. Let's not say I'm a liar...just imaginative.

So, the train from Leeds to London. I had an assigned seat which was naturally in the car furthest from the main station, so I had to parade with all my luggage to very end of the train. I managed to get on, glance at the man sitting next to me and then PTFO-ed. I never sleep soundly on trains and woke up with my face smashed against the window. But I'm pretty sure at some point during my fitful slumber I was sleeping on the shoulder of the business man sitting next to me. Also, while I had been sleeping, a giant had taken the seat across the aisle. The tallest man I've ever seen. He couldn't fit his legs in the seat space so he had them draped across the aisle. He tried folding them up when people were getting off but the passengers kept slamming luggage into his knees. I suggested he move up a row to the table and seat place and he said he tried but someone was storing their luggage there. So then, being the nosy American that I am, I just straight up asked him how tall he was. 6'11. And then he stopped talking to me and proceeded to eat an entire tin of scones and drink a pint of milk. 

The row in front of me had been lively the whole journey. It was a set of four seats, the kind where two pairs face one another and there is a table in between. In the two directly in front of me sat identical twin girls, age 3, wearing completely matching outfits, including wellies and coats and hats. They talked the entire time, and their dad, with the patience of a saint answered the question "Dadda, are we going to London?" a million times. Each. When I asked them their names they gave me the other twins name and their dad had to tell me who was actually who...or at least who he thought was who. When the 6'11 dairy king came on board both twins crawled under the table to their dad's side and I overheard  "Dadda, don't be scared now, but sitting over there is a real giant. Like jack in the beanstalk proper!"

The man next to me, my involuntary pillow and travel partner was wearing what looked like a perfectly tailored designer suit. He also had on one of those crystal bling Rolex's and was answering calls on two different iPhones. I know I'm nosy as heck, but I swear this was a conversation he had: "You get that three million through and you get it now. I'll be at the hotel at 8 and I don't intend to be waiting for dinner when I do. Get it done". And I was like damn son, somebody is somebody important. And I probably drooled on his £3000 suit...
But he wasn't that offended because halfway through our journey he told me he liked my iPhone case. It's a TARDIS case. I asked him if he was a fan. He just nodded and crossed his legs. In between tailor made trousers and shoes that would likely pay for a year of college, was a bright pink and black checkered sock. Big shot was a Doctor Who fan, his socks said it all. Small world, big TARDIS I guess. 

Having *conquered* the trains, I'm now in London. Who knows what kind of shenanigans I'll get up to.

I am Harry Potter

I went walking in Colne, where I've been staying with my auntie Rachel, her son Oscar and her partner Paul and his two daughters, Jasmine and Maia. So I went walking, just out, across the fields, by myself. Colne is one of those places where Harry and Hermione and Ron might have set up camp when they were running across the English countryside looking for horacruxes/hiding from Voldy. Colne is where you can literally count sheep to get to sleep. Colne is where you would attend Bilbo Baggin's eleventy-first birthday party. Colne is where the rocks might talk and the water whisper. Colne makes you believe in friendly ghosts. Colne is where every other house you see is older than the United States of America. And walking out through the fields, hopping fences and zig-zagging with the stream, I felt like a little kid again. I just wandered, taking pictures as I went, getting muddy and checking under every bridge for trolls and fairies. And though I walked for over an hour and baa-ed right back at the sheep, I didn't see another human, not one. And I had one of those moments, where I prematurely and unnecessarily think about where I want to raise my kids. There is something to be said for the country. There is always something to be said for the country.

For my first birthday away from home, I thought it would just be a day that passed and I would be numerically older. But Rachel would have none of that! I woke up birthday morning like Harry Potter his first year at Hogwarts for Christmas, with presents! And this beautiful cake. Couldn't have asked for better. 

 Also, here's a picture of Rachel and the kids in onesies because it's just too darn tootin cute to leave out! 

 And lastly, Paul and Rachel are in a banging new band called Crash! I took some publicity photos and tried my hand at poster making. So here's a little sample of how I've been spending my time...

York

Diane Nelson, my host extraordinaire and new found friend in Leeds planned a day trip to York as a final adventure for her family to share with me before I left them for my relatives in Colne. York is old just like Leeds. And so I like it. Also, where there is religion, there is often money, power and injustice. And so the cathedral was created. York has one. It's big. And old. I like it. 

 This is Elif, the older of the two girls I was helping to look after in Leeds

 This is Cliffords Tower in York, and it was described to me thus: "So, way back in the day, they took a bunch of Jews up there and well, offed them"
"I can't go up there anymore, gives me the creeps"

 This is Sema, the younger of the two little girls 

 The Shambles, where you can reach across and shake hands with someone in the other building

 Bet ya didn't know that I'd gone into the over priced hang bag and jewelry industry did ya?

 The York Minister

 This wall runs around what used to be the boundaries of York, and it was used to keep out the riff raff and no good hooligans. According my resident guide, it's still legal to shoot a scotsman with a bow and arrow inside the wall. 

 When the Queen visits York, this is the only gate she's allowed to come through. And she still has to ask permission to enter 

It's like the Great Wall but less great