We Moved!

But most of you probably know that already. I mean, it happened like two weeks ago.

If I were good at blogging, I would have written an awesome update back when we actually moved. It would have included diagrams (they are necessary, I assure you) and pictures, and maybe even a couple videos, taken over the course of the day, documenting the entire process. I had big plans for this move, and most of those plans involved painstakingly documenting the day so that we could remember this momentus day in our lives for forever!

Some of these things happened. Pictures were taken…by other people, on their phones, at my request. I did take one video on my flip! When I upload it, you will get to see it in all of it’s glory. Boy is it glorious.

I think I know why I wasn’t able to do the things I originally intended to do, and this turned out to be one of the big lessons this whole experience taught me: Do not get completely wasted at your going away party the night before you move. You will have a terrible hangover the following day, and you have a lot of shit to accomplish! You will complain and whine the whole damn day! It’s a good thing I have such awesome hindsight and can synthesize my life experiences into helpful advice for the future. What would I do without myself?

So, the move. The day itself went relatively smoothly, even considering my and Eric’s uhhh conditions. With the help of Alison, Justis, and Joe (THANK YOU GUYS!), the 15 foot moving truck from Budget was packed and ready to go by about 3:00. We were on the road by 4:00, Eric in the truck and myself in my car, and arrived at my aunt’s house in Wiscasset ME by about 11:30. We went immediately to sleep, and planned to unpack everything in the morning.

Which we did, in about 2 hours! With the truck empty and everything inside the house, we took a moment to relax before Eric went to get the truck ready to go so we could return it to the Budget place in Brunswick. As I sat down to breath for a couple minutes, I literally and in all seriousness thought to myself “Wow, we’re all done. That went of pretty much without a hitch!” Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to walk outside and see.

Okay, that was a little dramatic, but still: Eric was in the truck, which was backed halfway down the driveway and currently stuck in a snow drift. Some context for you: on the island where we are living, all of the roads and driveways are buried beneath probably four inches of packed snow. This truck is a rear wheel drive. There is nothing in the rear of the truck anymore. As we watched the wheels spin, stuck on absolutely nothing, Eric and I were, understandably, suicidal.

After about an hour of FLOORING the gas and making no progress, I ran next door to get some help, which came in the form of a large bag of salt. Eric and I were beside ourselves, literally pulling our hair out trying to thing of how to get the truck to the top of the driveway (which is relatively spacious and flat) so we could turn it around and get it out of our lives. We salted the absolute shit out of the rear wheels, and finally, FINALLY it crawled to the top of the driveway. We were saved!

After jumping around, elated by our success, we discussed the complicated process of turning the truck around. We mapped it out, carefully planning to maneuver around the garage and the trees. One lengthy discussion later, Eric got back in the truck and readied himself for the task at hand. The truck inched forward unimpeded, as planned, until….

The wheels started spinning again.

On flat ground.

The truck was not moving. At all. ON FLAT GROUND.

FFFFFUFUUUUUUUUUUU*&@^#*&@%#@%#^@%#&*@#&#^

This is the most intense rage guy I could find, and he doesn’t even come close to illustrating how we felt at that moment. I nearly ripped my own face off, and died, and then threw up.

Our confidence shattered, we took this time to remove ourselves from the situation and go get something to eat. Discuss our options. Get our ulcers looked at. After discussing a litany of options, (including re packing the truck. I…I can’t even….) it all boiled down to one: We had to get that fucking truck out, and if we couldn’t we would push it over the hill and into the ocean. And then go to Canada. I resolved to completely repave the driveway with salt, sand, kitty litter, actual pavement, my own blood, ANYTHING to get the truck out.

We dumped two entire bags of salt on the driveway. We prayed to Thor himself. We prepared to kiss our asses goodbye.

But the truck moved. Slowly, painfully, and with absolutely zero confidence that the truck would continue to move, we turned the truck around. We nearly got it wedged hopelessly between the garage and a tree, but that was avoided. FINALLY the truck was facing the right way. Holding back tears and possibly vomit, we jumped in our vehicles and returned the truck to Budget in Brunswick.

We would go on to spend the next two days driving home in a blizzard, going 10 miles per hour throughout the entire state of Massachusetts, destroying my windshield wipers on the ice we were being pelted with in Connecticut. It was all very dramatic and trying. It was the most stressful two days of our lives.

But getting that truck to turn around was without question the hardest thing I have ever, and possibly WILL ever have to do.

Exhaustion.

We did it! Oh and, FUCK YOU, TRUCK.

Back in the USA

Truth be told, people, I’ve been back for about a month now. Could you feel me near you? That’s totally cool if you could, but I have a confession to make: I’ve been ignoring you. The pressure of retelling the past six months of my life in a hilarious, irreverent fashion has been weighing heavily on my mind, and I ask you what better way is there to deal with pressure than to ignore it completely? Don’t even get me started on the EuRail trip. I am a fan of the nutshell template for storytelling, yet all of the stories waiting to be told couldn’t possibly fit in ten nutshells! Ten!!

So here is what is going to happen. Since I sense both you and I share a certain lack of attention span, I shall do most of my reminiscing in the form of “flashback” posts. This way, I will be able to continue (edit: start) writing about whatever topics tickle my fancy from day to day while interjecting, every so often, a scene from my trip and/or Scotland experience. Such scenes will be described, such scenes! My fingers ache to engage the ebony keys of my BlackBook and deliver stories of debauchery, adventure, and girlhood follies. That’s right. Follies. All sorts of ‘em. So prepare yourselves, fair readers! I’ll do my best to make your work days fly as they have never flown before.

Life Update: Live!

Hello readers. Sorry for the long hiatus, but I was seriously busy doing some actual human interation-ing (I have pictures to prove it). Most of you probably thought I had lapsed into a blog coma, a dearth of updates which typically follows a week or two of regular posting. Not this time, suckers! Something you may not know: over the hiatus I turned 23, and 23 year olds don’t let their blogs fall by the wayside. They care for them like the delicate digital entities they are. Like a Tomagochi! And my blog is not going to suffocate in a room full of its own poop piles.

I won’t bore you with a long list of the things that 23 year olds do do, but I will say that it’s been a pretty good year of life so far. The past two weeks were spent playing hostess to a visiting troupe of wayward Americans and, on a totally unrelated note, avoiding my roommates. Everyone came to see me and Glasgow, but somehow we ended up spending most of our time in Edinburgh. It’s a long story and a post unto itself, so I’ll save it for another day. We all were able to experience the very best of Scotland, including Loch Ness (I bought a musical change purse in Nessie’s image), the Highlands, Glen Coe, museums, gardens, castles, countless pubs, restaurants, and pints at every free interval. And haggis! Which really isn’t the big deal that everyone makes it out to be; if you didn’t already know it was made of leftover sheep parts stuffed into its stomach, you wouldn’t find it so vile. We regrettably missed out on Scottish delicacy the fried Mars bar, but at 3000 calories (no lie) I think I’ll come to terms with this lost opportunity sooner rather than later.

With everyone gone and 6 weeks left until my flight back to the states, I’ve decided to fill my final days with some serious trip planning. I bought a Eurail global pass good for 15 continuous days, so in the beginning of June I will be traversing the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, and Portugal. In that order. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and I sense I will be taking advantage of more overnight trains than hostels. If you don’t hear from me during that time, you can safely assume I am either in transit or the lost and found section of a train station somewhere between Amsterdam and Lisbon. They have those for people, right?

No, no, I’ll be totally fine guys. It’s not like I have a history of travel catastrophes or anything.

Side Note: St. Vincent is pretty. And has a pretty voice.

How To Be American: Lesson 2

Americans wish they were Canadian, and if they don’t, they ought to.

This is a somewhat unexpected (on my part) but widely held belief among citizens of the UK, or at least the ones who are curious enough to ask where my accent is from. The following is a true-to-life transcript of a conversation I had with a Scot a couple of weeks ago.

Scotsman: “Where are you from? Canada?”
Self: “Oh, no! New Jersey. America.”
Scotsman: “Oh. That’s a shame”

Huh? It’s considered a shame to be from America?! A spanking new concept this is not, and any American traveling overseas should be prepared to either defend our way of life (and sacrifice any foreign friends you plan on making) or go along with the endless jibs at our past presidents, foreign policy, accents, food choices, pop culture, literature, literacy, obesity, humor, music, and on and on and on (internal mental retaliation optional). But when did it become so awesome to be from Canada?
Later on that night, I found myself in the awkward position of trying to simultaneously explain to someone else and figure out myself why the Canadian reputation is so superior to America’s. As I was thinking aloud trying to work out where this logic came from, I realized that I couldn’t come up with one outstandingly different thing about Canada, nor could I easily define a general American sentiment towards Canada*.
The truth is, I wasn’t raised with a really strong belief system about Canada. Feelings toward Canada were always optional in our house; if we wanted to make fun of Canada we could, but if we didn’t it wasn’t a big deal. I can count the things I know about Canada** on one hand (maple syrup, hockey, “ey?!”, a basterdized version of French, free health care…the buck stops here), and these things don’t leave me with any sort of lasting impression. So how best to defend America against an opponent I barely understand or even really care about? It was with this thought that I realized just what Canada really meant to me.
I think that deep down, I (and by association, all Americans) see Canada as a less cool version of us. They’re like our little brother who we talk smack about with all of our bros, but who then turns out to be more popular and more successful than us and probably slept with more than one of our girlfriends, but we still hold onto the fact that we were on the varsity basketball team when he was only on JV and challenge him to a drunken arm-wrestling match every Thanksgiving, and lose. Pshh. Little bros.
In the end, my research led me to the discovery that the essence of Canada’s overseas popularity can be boiled down to one thing and one thing only: its lack of being America. The one thing that Canada has that America doesn’t and can never have is that Canada can possess American attributes (cultural diversity, most accents, most foods, etc.) without actually being America. In summary, America is America, while Canada is America, but without the stigma of being “America”. So, the only thing you have to do to be popular abroad is to be not from America! And maximum popularity is what it’s all about.
* Excluding the obvious general American sentiment automatically applied to every and all countries bar our own, “Ye shall perish”.
** Knowledge based solely on representations of Canada in American films, television, and radio.

How To Be American

Things learned in Scotland about Americans, analyzed.

Volume 1: Americans Can’t do Sarcasm.

People in the UK say this because they are sooooo good at sarcasm themselves. I mentioned to a couple friends that this stereotype is surprised me the first time I heard it because I am one of the most sarcastic people I know, which was met with dubious eyes, which were deflected with an angry folding of arms. Can they really not sense my playful disdain at their occasional stupidity? Am I being too subtle? Here is where I stopped myself and chuckled. I may be subtle about many things, but exploiting other people’s mistakes is not one of them.
So what could it be then? Is it because technically we just met and they are mistaking my sarcasm for actual bitchyness (two things which in reality are interchangeable because in the end they both are designed to make you feel better about yourself)? Is my kung-foo different from their kung-foo? I realized that we are dealing with an obvious case of what happens when two different cultures combine.
The new rule should follow thusly: if it is true that most Americans can’t do sarcasm, then it must also be true that people in the UK can’t properly detect it when it’s not disguised in the accent of their own kind. Maybe this is why Americans have a bad reputation overseas; we’re just as wonderfully sarcastic as the next gal, we just don’t sound polite/bashful/playful while doing so.
I say all of this because sarcasm, as a defense mechanism and as a form of humor, is near and dear to this heart of mine. It made me the person I am today, helping me through the hard times, awkward situations. It taught me the subtle art of diverting negative attention away from myself and onto another. Sure, it may be the lowest form of humor. Sure it is used with the sole intent making your victim feel bad about themselves while you reap the social benefits. But for some of us it’s all we have. Don’t take that away from us, just because you’re so cool. Isn’t sarcasm just dry wit’s cousin, anyway?

zoo.

What an adventurous day yesterday! I decided that my first real stop in Edinburgh should be the zoo, so I walked the 2.5 miles there yesterday (mistake? maybe) and spent the entire day. It was chilly, but sunny outside, so perfect zoo weather! I liked imagining that all of the animals had Scottish accents to match my fellow zoo-goers’. My favorite thing at the moment is listening to Scottish children talk, because they already have such thick accents.
After the zoo, I walked across the street to buy a phone: I now feel complete again. So, call me baby.
Aaannd then I took the bus back to the hostel, took a quick nap, went across the street to eat dinner (a delicious and tremendously large burger), met up with my Norwegian friends and proceeded to do a mini pub crawl. We started at the Elephant House, which is the coffee shop where J.K. Rowling did most of her planning for the Harry Potter series. Afterward we went to a couple more places, drank some beers, and ended up getting home at around 3:30. I am le exhausted, but I think I will go do some exploring in town…mostly in search of coffee and/or food.

alive.

Just a quick update for anyone who is interested: I am in Scotland! Specifically, Edinburgh, and even more specifically, the bottom bunk in my hostel. Using the free internet.
Christmas day was wonderful and all too short. Even as I was unwrapping presents like neck pillows, money clips, and luggage locks, I didn’t quite believe that I was actually leaving. Actually, it wasn’t until we reached my gate at Newark airport that it dawned on me: I was leaving the country by myself for six months. What the hell??!
The flight was actually lovely. Despite being seated in the exact middle of the plane (the middle seat of three rows of seats) I was relatively comfortable and entertained, not only with the in flight entertainment (which was bangin’), but with the seemingly endless amount of food that was served to me!! We were served pretzels, beverages (twice), HOT dinner (I chose turkey, which came with stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, a drink, a candy bar, AND dessert…AND coffee), and then a continental breakfast in the wee hours of the morning. I kept busy by watching Hellboy 2 and then Wall-E, and before I knew it we were landing in London, me without having slept a wink. It was about 6:30 London time when we landed, so it was 1:30 in NJ. I had to scramble to catch my connecting flight to Edinburgh, which involved going through security again, at a terminal which for some reason was in the basement of Heathrow airport…anyway I did catch it, and in 55 minutes I was in Edinburgh, baby! They also served us breakfast on this flight, which contained up to 4 different types of meat. Yum!
I retrieved my luggage with relative ease, caught a bus to the city, and here I am! Well, I’ve been here since yesterday, but most of yesterday was spent asleep. And actually, oddly, none of last night was spent asleep since not only am I sharing a room with 11 other people, but a few drunk Scots came barging into our room at random intervals throughout the night. I feel totally safe! No, seriously, it’s not so bad.
Anyway, pictures to follow. I am off to the zoo, people!!