Day 1
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Pros of the international flight: Jordan Peele movies; free wine; they accidentally put me in economy plus and get the window seat despite the $200 upcharge; a cloudless Dublin; free blankets; a poet watching the same Jordan Peele movies next to me with Chinese subtitles.
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Cons of the international flight: jet lag.
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I make it to Kings Cross without using my phone once. Stop at the British library. The library is enormous, and holds OG Shakespeare folios, DaVinci diagrams, Rachmaninoff sheet music, and copies of Dr. Faustus. I purchase Mrs. Dalloway at an ancient bookstore from an ancient merchant.
Every white person in London has one of 3 facial structures. Toilets are button-flush. Gas prices are equivalent to $7 a gallon. Pubs don't have hosts or servers: you walk in, claim a table, and order at the bar. There is no bar seating. Trash everywhere. The hostel is next to a construction zone. I fall asleep to the quaint sound of a demolition hammer. I am, as they say in British, narky.
Day 2
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My hostel bunkmate's alarms go off at 5:00 and I jog around the block. Trash bags are piled outside flats with wild abandon. Birds chirp beneath carefully trimmed shrubs. Couples smoke cigarettes outside Costas and Cafe Neros. I grab breakfast and run into the bunkmate, Kim, who is from South Korea. I invite myself into her travel plans. She's headed for the British Museum!
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The British Museum is on strike.
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We visit the Thames & Queen's Boardwalk next to the London Eye, where a man throws Dorito crumbs to the pigeons. Stop for lunch at a fancy Italian restaurant called De Mario. Kim is a plant science major who doesn't have a favorite plant. She is sweet, and we have nothing in common.
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At the Natural History Museum, we tour the rocks and minerals section, which features massive quartz points and fragments of asteroids. Giant whales, stained glass windows, bathrooms, earthquake simulators, giraffe taxidermies, children screeching "Mummy!"
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Later, I go to the Sky Garden alone. It's a total tourist trap ala Empire State Building. Purchase authentic fish & chips. Drink a whole bottle of wine reading McCann's "TransAtlantic" and cry, due to the tragic literary deaths, but also the wine.
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Day 3
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Starts with shitty Hozier covers and a phenomenal breakfast at Half Cup. I despise the concept of English Breakfast. I Will Not Pay for an English Breakfast.
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I don't tell Kim I'm leaving. I am the toxic one in this relationship. Dear Kim, sorry you've become victim to my spontaneous urge to disappear.
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High-speed train from King's Cross to Cambridge station. Cambridge is a mix between the whitest parts of Lawrence and the richest suburbs of Chicago. I lowkey love it. I stroll 2 miles with my 30 lb bag to the AirBnB, feeling very much the main character of a PCT thru-hiker documentary.
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The AirBnB is a modern private studio where I watch Sherlock reruns and binge eat British candy for the rest of the day. Mars Bars, Cadsbury mini rolls, Victoria chocolate shortbreads. I throw up. This blog can't all be happy quirky adventures. I realize every story I write is about the liminal space between wanting and abhorring loneliness, which could make for a compelling grad school SOP.
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Day 4
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The gentleman's club is on Jesus Lane, lol.
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It's a walking day. I get my bleached hair toned at a salon. I no longer look like a golden retriever. Discover Gail's Bakery, where I have the best croissant and flat white. A series of restaurants with lip-lined waitresses.
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Anna says she knows my secret: Flo Rida and I have never been witnessed in the same place at the same time. I was born in Key West. I like music. I am Flo.
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I'm writing this on a napkin. New Harry Potter just dropped!
Day 5
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I steal a fork from the godforsaken AirBnB and head for a different AirBnB featuring terrestrial life. I eat chicken tikka masala and stroll by the River Cam where university rowers glide smoothly across the water. We don't talk about rowing. (I was a D1 rower for a month until I hurt my leg.)
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Ella is a German gardener with frantic, grandmotherly energy. Her AirBnB is equipped with a generous spread of coffee, tea, biscuits, and floral teacups. I like her very much. I book train tickets and museum visits, and leave for dumpling dinner.
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At the pub I meet Bruno the ferocious and frankly horrible chihuahua, and strike up a conversation with Mike, a 60yo chemistry professor. He buys me a drink, details his year living in Milwaukee with his ex-girlfriend, and says my tattoos are "very sexy, if you don't mind," which is my cue to leave. This is the second Mike to take "I'm gay" as a challenge. This will not be the last.
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Day 6
I have a new friend named Rapunzel. Kidding! Her name is Julia, but her hair. She is from Poland and did a foreign exchange in Indiana, so she is familiar with the joys of the Midwest. Road trips. Tall corn.
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We dine at Regal, an old movie theater turned Wetherspoon chain restaurant, and she tells me about her studies in graduate psychology. She has in-person lectures 2 weeks per semester, and spends those weeks in the youth hostel. Cambridge is so expensive that students from London and surrounding villages book out hostels 4 days/week for the entire semester. It's less expensive to pay hostel fees and commute home than to pay rent. What a lovely world we live in.
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My bunkmate has a minion stuffed animal. I try Revel chocolates. They remind me of the Tex-Mex flavored jelly beans my hospital coworker brought to prank Shawn. (Shawn was the diabetic Virgo who ate a bag of Sour Patch Kids daily.) Margarita flavor, churro flavor, guacamole, ground beef. Revels are worse.
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I sent this Snapchat image to Joel. Hi Joel.
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