London to San Francisco: HOME
December 6, 2005
I am home! Bliss: being with my babies and my sweet, sweet John; fast Internet on my own laptop; a good cup of tea sipped in my big warm bed piled with pillows while listening to Bob Dylan; watching Luna the black cat pounce on imaginary mice from the old chair in the back yard. Traveling is a lonely enterprise sometimes. The one thing I missed most was the warmth of another body against mine. Not just hugs and handshakes, but embraces that hold love in them. One day, when I scooped up a tiny farm kitten a feeling of absolute longing for a human touch gripped my heart. It helps explain why I have so many photos of an otherwise unremarkable kitten. To paraphrase one song (a favorite pasttime of mine): I missed my darlings while I was out finding myself.
My feet are a total wreck and I have barely slept in two days. But it feels so good to land and put down my pack. I left Brussels a little reluctantly yesterday morning. The last night there Marie-Rose, Angela and Rene took me to a cozy little place in the student quarter, Le Campus. It hit me suddently as we were sitting there chatting how much I would miss them and miss being in Europe. Life really is more civilized there. Hard to describe right now though.
I met up with Nishan in London in the afternoon. She has a rented flat in East London. The first time for me out that far from the center of the city. We had a good lunch, some beer and then hit the town - Covent Garden - at night. How fancy to go out with friends from SF in London. We drank a bit too much wine and unfortunately I got started late on the tube, which closes down around midnight. To top it off I forgot to get off at the stop to connect to the train out to Nishan's place - she got off to go meet up with her Kosovar cutie but I forgot I was supposed to change trains there. I couldn't get a train back to the right station either because they had stopped running. So I got the last (pfew!) bus going in that direction.
At 1 am I found myself driving through London on a red double-decker bus that dropped me about 8 blocks from my destination. Pretty much everything outside of the center of the city shuts down around 11 pm so it was a bit eery.
Then, as I rounded the street to the flat, there was a pack of FOXES prowling the street.
That is about the last thing I expected to see on a London street. We just have racoons around here. They were scary too because, I figured, if one attacked me it would be a really bad situation. I stomped thinking that would scare them off a bit. Instead they growled at me then started barking. Bad move. So I moved to the other side of the street and walked fast.
What more can I say? I am dirty, tired and happy to be back despite the mountain of mail waiting to be sorted. Berkeley is always a letdown upon arrival, though. What a putrid little town. I could not be happier to have made the trip, though I am scared to look at my bank balance. I stopped keeping track exactly because in Serbia and Hungary the withdrawls were for thousands of whichever currency. $1 = 210 Forint, for example. I got so sick of paying hundreds of Forint for things like a cup of coffee or tens of thousands for the flat. But it was worth every penny whatever the case.
Now I am headed for a shower to wash off the accumulated grime. I think my big sweater will have to be burned. In fact, I threw away the big woolen scarf in London. I no longer needed it there and it was really getting a little funky. I can still smell the odour left from the fire we had out at Samir's father's house in Visegrad. I wonder if the walnut he let me plant there will ever grow.
I am home! Bliss: being with my babies and my sweet, sweet John; fast Internet on my own laptop; a good cup of tea sipped in my big warm bed piled with pillows while listening to Bob Dylan; watching Luna the black cat pounce on imaginary mice from the old chair in the back yard. Traveling is a lonely enterprise sometimes. The one thing I missed most was the warmth of another body against mine. Not just hugs and handshakes, but embraces that hold love in them. One day, when I scooped up a tiny farm kitten a feeling of absolute longing for a human touch gripped my heart. It helps explain why I have so many photos of an otherwise unremarkable kitten. To paraphrase one song (a favorite pasttime of mine): I missed my darlings while I was out finding myself.
My feet are a total wreck and I have barely slept in two days. But it feels so good to land and put down my pack. I left Brussels a little reluctantly yesterday morning. The last night there Marie-Rose, Angela and Rene took me to a cozy little place in the student quarter, Le Campus. It hit me suddently as we were sitting there chatting how much I would miss them and miss being in Europe. Life really is more civilized there. Hard to describe right now though.
I met up with Nishan in London in the afternoon. She has a rented flat in East London. The first time for me out that far from the center of the city. We had a good lunch, some beer and then hit the town - Covent Garden - at night. How fancy to go out with friends from SF in London. We drank a bit too much wine and unfortunately I got started late on the tube, which closes down around midnight. To top it off I forgot to get off at the stop to connect to the train out to Nishan's place - she got off to go meet up with her Kosovar cutie but I forgot I was supposed to change trains there. I couldn't get a train back to the right station either because they had stopped running. So I got the last (pfew!) bus going in that direction.
At 1 am I found myself driving through London on a red double-decker bus that dropped me about 8 blocks from my destination. Pretty much everything outside of the center of the city shuts down around 11 pm so it was a bit eery.
Then, as I rounded the street to the flat, there was a pack of FOXES prowling the street.
That is about the last thing I expected to see on a London street. We just have racoons around here. They were scary too because, I figured, if one attacked me it would be a really bad situation. I stomped thinking that would scare them off a bit. Instead they growled at me then started barking. Bad move. So I moved to the other side of the street and walked fast.
What more can I say? I am dirty, tired and happy to be back despite the mountain of mail waiting to be sorted. Berkeley is always a letdown upon arrival, though. What a putrid little town. I could not be happier to have made the trip, though I am scared to look at my bank balance. I stopped keeping track exactly because in Serbia and Hungary the withdrawls were for thousands of whichever currency. $1 = 210 Forint, for example. I got so sick of paying hundreds of Forint for things like a cup of coffee or tens of thousands for the flat. But it was worth every penny whatever the case.
Now I am headed for a shower to wash off the accumulated grime. I think my big sweater will have to be burned. In fact, I threw away the big woolen scarf in London. I no longer needed it there and it was really getting a little funky. I can still smell the odour left from the fire we had out at Samir's father's house in Visegrad. I wonder if the walnut he let me plant there will ever grow.
posted by A.W. Woodall at 3:29 PM
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