Beef Stew

I am currently sitting in Carmen's small, checkered kitchen with the tulips I bought her blooming in front of me. There is beef stew simmering on the stove and I have the hiccups. That is the second time today.

Egil and I went to the British Museum today. No one could ever see everything in that museum unless they put aside a full week. Maybe even more. There are rooms upon rooms filled with incredible artifacts. An entire wing was packed full of ancient Egyptian tombs, sculptures, and artwork. The shocking thing to me about the entire museum was how many pieces of art and sculpture weren't sealed behind a 2 inch thick piece of glass! Tourists were constantly walking casually up to an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and leaning their filthy elbows against it in order to snap a photo. I wanted to say something so badly but figured it wouldn't really be worth my energy.

All of the tourists aside, the museum was stunning. If my feet hadn't started to kill me half way through the day I am sure we would still be there now. Being in a place that size and having thousands of ancient pieces of treasure around me made me feel so small. It is still mind blowing to me how talented the human race is. I wonder why we cannot still use our minds to make gorgeous pieces of history instead of simply building sky-rises and hummers.

I have deducted from being in London for a little over a week that cities make me nervous. Having so much stimulation around me at one time is not something I enjoy. Not being able to walk five steps without having someone bump into me is frustrating. The past two nights I almost drift off to sleep and then the electronic scream of a siren pulls me back into consciousness. All I can think about is drifting asleep in silence with only the soft sound of crickets around me.

Carmen, Egil, and I watched NCIS tonight. She is in love with this older man who acts in the show. Egil and I have been getting such a kick out of it! He is such a serious character. Carmen lays on the other side of the couch and makes very interesting noises whenever he pops up on the screen.

I am not sure what our plans our for tomorrow. The bed we are currently sleeping on feels like a piece of plywood. Also, Egil stole all of the covers last night so whenever I turned over I saw him curled up in tons of blankets. I shivered next to him instead of waking him up. To put a cherry on top of the cake, he woke up this morning to use the bathroom and got tangled in the sheet. As he tripped, he fell forward and punched me in the boob. He was half asleep so he mumbled an apology and continued his trek to the toilet. I fell back asleep and we laughed about it later when we both woke up.

I want to get out of London as soon as possible. We are ready to go!

Will write tomorrow!

Couch Surfing!

I have so much to say and no time at all.

 We are currently staying with a beautiful friend of ours. Her name is Carmen and she is one of the most lovely, kind, gorgeous, and generous people I have ever met. She has the most beautiful Spanish accent. Her and I are about to watch a film while Egil draws.

 Ahhhh.

I will write tomorrow!

May I just say that I am thankful for all that has been presented to me. Truly.

xoxo!

The First Real Blog Post from LONDON

So much has been going on that I have not been able to write a proper blog since we arrived! 

 The plane flight was pretty bad. I have learned that flying at night is not my thing. Every single time the turbulance hit I was jostled awake from a strange sleep with a horrible crick in my neck. Egil was stuck between me and a very quiet, kind, gentle asian man who slept the whole way. How he did that is beyond me. Also, there was a woman who sat directly across the isle from us who had either taken some intense sleeping pills or hadn’t slept in days because she fell asleep before we even took off. At one point I woke up from my sort-of slumber to look over and see her facing me with her mouth wide open. It looked like something out of horror film. Her mouth was easily a three car garage. Hey, at least she got some sleep right?

The B&B we were staying at was pretty awful. Anna, the woman who owns the B&B, is terrifying. She has to be one of the most unfriendly people in the entire world. Her face is pale and her wrinkles are like small craters. Cover-up is caked onto her drooping face and is paired with sticky, thick mascara. She constantly plays with her gray, dry, brittle air as she talks way too loudly. The only things she loves are tennis, her elite all white club, and money. Whenever I talked to her all I could watch was her gobbler. It moved and swayed with the wind. 

When we first arrived there, we decided to get a pizza for dinner. We talked down to the nearest and cheapest pizza place, which was full of Italians. I could barely understand what the waitress said and some of them didn’t even speak English as far as I could tell. 

There was a tiny boy, he must have been four or five, who was riding his scooter into the counter next to us as we waited for our meal. I was so exhausted and upset about leaving my family that I wished he would just disappear. He was adorable, though. Annoying but adorable.

The pizza did not take more than five or ten minutes to prepare. We both got salads go go with it because, after eating airplane food, we probably needed the greens. Not having read her ‘rules’ before going out, Egil and I both figured we could bring it back and eat it in her kitchen. Little did we know, however, that was not the case at all. 

As we lumbered into her kitchen, with food in hand, we asked her if we could eat in the kitchen. She looked a bit shocked and then became extremely stern and told us that it was “her kitchen, you know?” and that we’d have to find another place to eat. I was so exhausted that I did not want to deal with trying to argue our way into eating at the table.  I simply told her that we would go eat outside. Although she asked us if we were sure, her questions were not sincere. I also asked her if we could borrow two forks in order to eat our salad and she completely ignored me. So we turned around and walked back outside into the cold.

We walked along her road, heading south towards and cross-street. When we reached that, we took a right. There, in front of us, was our new eating place: a small curb. Egil squatted down beside me and we opened the pizza. It was still warm, which was very nice. The salads were plain and only had oil for dressing. I poured it onto my salad, not really caring how it effected the flavor. In my eyes, I simply wanted to get the nutrition out of the lettuce, cucumber, tomato, and other various veggies. So there we sat, our first official meal in London. On a curb in the dark at the end of a street. Eating salad with our fingers. Egil did try to fashion a fork or spoon of some sort from the cardboard from the pizza box but it didn’t work. 

The bathtub was the worst. Simply because we, as grown adults, cannot bathe in something like that. There is no standing shower head so taking a shower means squatting in an awkward position until I have sufficiently soaked my hair with the shower head, (which is just a fancy hose with a shower head on the end of it) quickly scrubbing my hair as well as possible for the situation, rinsing it while trying not to get her carpet wet (I do not understand why one puts carpet in a bathroom without something protecting the water from the floor), and almost shaking to death as I step out of the tub. There is no heat or outlets in the bathroom so it is like stepping into an icebox. Egil and I kept talking about how all we wanted was a normal shower, where we could wash our armpits and stand up like a normal human beings instead of crouching like animals. We cannot help but laugh now.

We are staying a Best Western now. Actually, it is quite nice. We have a shower and the window in our room is something I have never seen before. I also have internet for the first time since we arrived! Who knew something so simple could be so amazing? I have a new appreciation for the internet.

When we left, we thought we could rent something in London for short term. Now that we are here, we have realized that London is so incredibly expensive. In order to find something nice, we would have to spend quite a bit of money. Due to the fact we are foreign, every letting agency we went to wanted the rent up front plus a deposit, among other things. That is now out of the picture.

Due to all of the change, we are now going to stay with a woman we met through a good friend of my mothers. If that makes sense. Her name is Carmen and she has the most vibrant blue eyes and blond locks. She is half swiss and half spanish. She stands at around six foot and speaks with the most gorgeous accent. It is mostly spanish but every once and awhile you can here the british influence. Carmen has lived in London on and off for the past twenty years. She has traveled all over the world and we have the most tantilizing conversations. Her personality is a bit eccentric and it makes for a memorable time. 

We will be staying in her flat, which is four stories up in a building that was built in 1886. The wall paper in the building is bright yellow and there is no lift so we hike up a winding staircase. Her living room is so gorgeous. That is where we will be sleeping on a lovely, comfortable couch bed. It is decorated with eastern european art that she has collected over the years. Three huge bay windows sit in the front of the room and are accentuated by bright orange drapes.

 We cannot wait to sleep in a place that feels more like home. Also, it will be so nice to cook! Her kitchen is mostly all red and has a fifties checkered floor. Not being able to eat real food has taken a toll on our bodies. I have already told Egil that I am going to do a cleanse right when we move in.

As of right now, we can stay there for three weeks or so. During that time, we need to decide whether we are going to stay in London or possibly travel somewhere else. Spain has come up in the conversation. I have cried about half of the time we have been here because things have been so much more difficult that we expected. We aren’t giving up though! Not going to lie, sometimes I wanted to.

Egil is currently whining and trying to get me to move from the bed. He is blaming me for losing my phone and dropping my phone even though he did both things. I didn’t do while laughing. He just called me sasquatch. Now we are crying with laughter. Things are good and I will write more soon! Hope all is good on the home front. xoxox

So....tired...

Within the last few days we have landed in London, traveled across the whole city in one day, walked at least 30+ miles, stayed with a INSANE woman at a b&b, realized that South London isn't that great, cried, found a flat, turned that flat down, found another flat, had jet-lag, not had internet, not had a shower, and it hasn't stopped yet. Will write more later!

P.S. I am SO EXHAUSTED.

Miss you all in California but we are loving it over here! Talk about an adventure!

Almost Time

As I sit here at the airport, with my trusty boyfriend by my side, I find myself having a hard time processing all of the emotions that are inside of me. Leaving my family is definitely the hardest thing that I have to deal with. It physically hurts when I think about not being able to see them every day. Never-mind not being able to wake up in my cozy, fluffy, messy bed. Or not being able to move the broken toilet cover every time I have to go to the bathroom. Or the annoying leaky bath-tub that has never allowed me to take a bath in peace. I think I will also miss work. The stability of knowing that it will be there the next day. Mostly, however, I will miss my family. My incredible mother, my annoying and fantastic sister, and all of the pets that live in my house. My friends, too. I will think of them often and I look so forward to wrapping my arms around them when I see them in September.

On the other hand, I am so excited that I cannot even put it into words. I don't even have a clear perception of how incredible this trip is going to be. Not to mention I have my best friend/boyfriend with me. Right now I am feeling a lot of fear, especially because I do not like to fly. When I push out the noise of my adrenal glands, however, I feel a sense of calm. I know, in my soul, that this is the right thing to do. I know that everything is going to be fine. I am going to meet so many unique people, see so many places, and do so many things. How many people can say that at 20 they traveled to London, France, Greece, and Spain? This is something that I am going to discuss for the rest of my life. As one of the best times of my life. It's simply leaving the stability of the known that makes me nervous. Everyone I talk to says that's normal. I just wonder when that will pass so I can simply just feel the excitement.

I cannot get my mother and sister off of my mind. I am so incredibly thankful to have such a supportive family. Seeing them leave today was so difficult. My mother is my rock and I have always known that she is there for me no matter what. Through thick and thin. Now I must accept that she is still there, just not in person.

My sister is just as incredible. She doesn't even have the perception of what a unique and strong human being she is. I already miss her more than I can say. I know that this will make our relationship stronger.

My flight leaves so soon. In an hour I will be saying good-bye to California and saying HELLO to London! I still cannot wrap my head around it. It will feel like a dream until a few days after we have landed. It's time though. It is time for me to spread my wings, as cheesy as that may sound. I have all of the support and love that I will ever need to succeed in life. Now I just have to make the jump in order to fully understand the potential my life holds for me.

Talk to you all from the U.K. tomorrow!

Also, for all of you who are wondering, I have not even stepped on the plane yet and my behind is already KILLING ME. For anyone who says that ANY seats in airports are comfortable, it is a huge lie. Next time I am bringing a pillow.

I am beginning to freak out a bit...
That's normal
...right?

It's Getting Close

I cannot believe how close this trip is. It is finally truly tangible. The feelings I have bubbling up inside of me cannot be described (in a good way). Soon I will have so much to write about and so much to say. Not that I don't already talk enough already.

I am going to miss Healdsburg. It is such a gorgeous place. Yet, I feel as though it does not have much to offer me anymore. It feels strange not going into work. I no longer am an employee of Shelton's Market. As much as there are moments where I feel out of place without work, I realize that it is definitely time.