Friday, November 27, 2009

LONG BLOG:This Blog is Your Blog, This Blog is my Blog. (Feminity and London) My friends here similar to the ones in Old Bridge?)

Part One:
Thanksgiving


OK. So I have successfully spent an entire week doing nothing in England. I stayed in and tried to cure my European cough, but it persistently continues to burn like fury from the vents of my chest. While I may not have actually done anything terrifically exciting this past week, I got really into updating my blog, which I think at this point in the trip might be most important. Everything I'm thinking and feeling right now is going to be way more valuable to me than getting another pasty or another round trip to London Bridge in a few years....especially when you feel like you've seen it all. I've allowed this blog to expand past the point of "today I saw a castle, it was blingin" and have opened up to the prospect of tearing myself apart on a website.

I've really taken to "blogging". I've always sort of blogged. I never kept a journal but my computer is filled with years worth of metaphorical rants left unpublished or unseen. I like "blogging" because A. It is wayyyy more organized...B. Somebody might read this, and C. It's making me feel level. I feel really leveled out lately, and calm, and normal. So yeah, what I'm saying is I'm opening a new blog once this one ends, and I think I'll just continue to do this until death do us part.

Cheers if you liked my list of things I'm thankful for. ONE LUV XOXOXOX.


Thanksgiving was actually really great. I found myself to be in the best mood I'd been in in weeks going into the night, while I waited for everybody. I blasted Trans-Siberian Orchestra and drank beers with my flat mate (and dare I say...friend?) Kyle, and I was wearing this very metrosexual sweater with slacks and I combed my hair and I laughed because two years ago I would have kicked my own ass for looking like this. What happened to the days of sporting a huge Busch Beer Gut with long,sweaty, floppy hair, and an untrimmed and uncared for red beard? Who knows. I guess I've changed huh?

Anyway I was in an exceptional mood and Chris and Kate...and myself, made my flat look great for Thanksgiving and the whole thing had a very humble little "yeah WE did this, we're grown ups", feel to it. We don't need our moms to have Thanksgiving anymore.
I can't cook anything but I made up for it but acting like I still have a lot of money and buying lots of wine.
Everything was fantastic. All the food. Even though I don't like Turkey, Chris prepared a good one but his apple pie was OFF THE HOOK.Like, seriously, where did I go wrong in my life that I never learned how to bake a pie like that? Awesome. Kate's sweet potato things might've won the award for "thing I liked/ate the most of", and her stuffing was top notch. Everything was great, I didn't miss anything about food from home. Oh and Joe's Tortilla con ketchup came out superb I was proud of him. All the food was great. I polished off everything Daria made a few hours later drunkenly at about 5:30 in the morning. Gam's mushrooms were delicious, even if they didn't make me really big and make me smash blocks with my head (i'm using alot of Mario references today...why?) Kelly got her pumpkin pie, I don't like pumpkin pie, but I'm glad she made it because she really wanted it. Well,I knew deep down I wasn't going to let her have Thanksgiving without it, if she didn't find it I had already found 3 websites I was ready to order it and have it delivered from....

I led us off in a toast, to which I said " To the fact that the most interesting part of studying in a foreign country was getting to know a few people from home".
Cheers.

I put a lot of thought into that toast, knowing in my heart that when someone said, "who will make a toast" they'd say "ANDAYY!" and I'd be the one making it,so I thought of it the night before when I stayed up all night and dwelled on my life. I like this Thanksgiving blog. It's like a behind the scenes guide to my mind.

Anyway, we all went around the table and gave a little speech. I'm with people who are very in touch with their feelings and it feels good.Later in this blog I'm going to draw connections to the people at home, and how this sort of thing follows me. People at home do this same thing, just differently.

Everyone has really nice things to say about each other. It's really beautiful I think, especially because I used to hate the world so much and be a cynic. Now I feel so positive, or ambitious at least. The days of being quiet are over. I've been expressing myself in abrupt and awkward moments of honesty all semester, and I don't really care, this is just the way it is and I think without this character trait it would have been more difficult for me to tell these people how much I needed them uniquely and individually during this Study Abroad. I hope they appreciate it on some level, I'm sure they do.

I know what it's like to spend days, weeks, months, alone. I don't ever want to experience that again. I know what it's like to wake up in the middle of a February night and wonder if I died. I know what happens to the human mind when the lights go out. You don't need someone to be happy, ever. But you need someone sometimes to help you understand you're unhappiness. .

As I went around the table and spoke I found myself uncharacteristically nervous. I was nervously fidgeting and unable to make eye contact with my peers as I filled them with word's I'd baked the night before. It's hard to tell someone how you really feel about them, there is nothing more frightening to do than tell someone out loud how important they are or what they have meant to you. But it's something we as humans should do sometimes, you know, let the others in our world know they exist to us. It's what creates a real human experience, rather than a frat party. I used to be awkward and unable to speak. I was insecure. I'm no longer insecure, hence, I no longer feel awkward. On the first day here I didn't speak during "would you rather"...

Ten weeks later I just told a room full of the same people that I love them.

The night got drunk and we had a whip cream fight and threw eggs against the wall. I haven't had so much fun while drinking since I've been in Old Bridge. We sang C,G, Am, F songs. I hope they know I can play other songs besides these easy songs ...heheh, I feel like a chump. Maybe they'll all come see Noistradamus some day.

Then everyone left and me Joe and Monica spend the night doing Post Colonial Theory on ourselves.

Part two. Femininity. A Biography.

I have just spent two weeks exclusively spending most of my time with five girls. I used to spend all of my time (post Franklin street) with NO girls. Just guys. All the time. I remember a few days before I left, I was drunkenly explaining life to Murphy on the jungle gym at the old park by my house, and I told him.

"Our lives in Old Bridge are homosocial. We only hang out with guys. We've created a dude-world, where we drink and cheer each other on for acting like maniacs and I think we all need some chicks around because we're getting fucked up".

I said to Gerry once

"Do you think it's unnatural that we don't really hang with chicks?". He said "yeah, I mean we're 21, shouldn't we be like dating people or something"

We just shrugged our shoulders and laughed over a cup of coffee.

When I came here to London, I didn't want the new people I met to get to know the "me" I had created at home. I defined "me" by the person I was at home. The person I was at home was the person I was while drinking with my friends. I didn't want them to know about any of that, any of those years, peeing on the floor, drinking competitions, getting thrown out of bars, breaking bottles against a wall, being punched in the face on my front lawn, sleeping outside, running from police etc. Although I did eventually start talking about those years a lot, at first I was hesitant because I know deep down that the person I am in all those memories necessarily like....me. I didn't want to be defined as they type of person who stands in a fire. I didn't want to be misunderstood for a maniac, because I'm not....but I did do those things didn't I? So who am I? What am I getting at?

A return to girls.

( by the way, look how much I've learned about myself, I'm kind of in disbelief as I'm typing)

I grew up excursively hanging out with girls. I had no guy friends really besides Tom Corbett until the fifth grade. My three main friends all through out my childhood were Kristen Giovinco, Brittany Giovinco, and Jackie (Apples) from across the street. While other male kids were playing sports, I was playing house. I was putting on shows for our parents. I was doing girly things. I played with lamb chop dolls. I learned sensitivity. I cried about stuff. I just hung out with girls.
It drove my dad nuts, I'm sure.
I was bad at sports, I was bad at male relationships. I couldn't watch wrestling at first or play with action figures. I spent every waking second of my childhood in my own imagination, and I liked playing with just girls because they were inventive also. I never, ever saw anything in throwing a ball against a piece of wood or into a hoop.
I spent my whole childhood in my head. I would literally go into the living room so I could "daydream". My dad would say "what are you doing in the living room for four hours" and I'd say "daydreaming". I absolutely remember this. It was an activity I created. I would just sit and think and imagine stuff. Imagine scientists mixing things in a lab or I'd make up a show in my head and play it out.
I wasn't nuts, I just spent all my time in my imagination.
I remember in fourth grade wondering what my teacher did in real life. I invented scenarios in my head where she got married and was really happy. I was always thinking of the weirdest stuff.
So I grew up with girls, because I had always seen them as more of the mind than of the body. Men can't think, they can throw balls, but for some reason I found I could think.
I remember in 5th grade developing my first feelings for Kristen. I remember this well. The first time I ever felt that feeling in your stomach I currently identify as "love" or a crush. I remember having this at the age of nine. I remember we were rolling around one day in front of my yard, two nine year olds, playing some imaginary game, like kids do, and I was overcome with the urge to kiss her.
So I did.
And we laughed but I was in love. My first childhood love. Whatever that means.
It was about that time that I wrote my first poem that I still have in my room to this day.

5th grade
If I tell you I love you
and you say no
Than I will have hot tears on my face
But if you say you love me too
we'll be married one day.

That was my poem in the 5th grade.
Turns out Dad, I wasn't gay, I was a 19th century romantic. Things haven't changed too much.

I asked Kristen out to the 5th grade dance that year and she said no and I was heartbroken. I went home and cried and her parents called my parents and it was a whole mess.
Stupid kids.
I did grow up though.
Our friendship dwindled and we grew up and went to middle school and I met males and started watching wrestling (I remember starcade 2000 being the most important thing int he world to me) and I finally played sports, I got decent at basketball and soccer and I didn't daydream anymore unless to write a story or get the best grades in English class or win spelling bees. I hung out and used words like "faggot" and "nigger" and "bitch" and "pussy" and I was one of the guys. Actually, I was one of the guys who started bitching around other guys. I was the one in control. Me and my friends in 8th grade vandalized houses with eggs and looked at playboys and did just about everything the way kids do it.

High school was high school, I wrote about it extensively in my Abbey Road blog. I discovered music, and no longer needed sports again because I was imagining again. My male relationships became based entirely on who I can jam or smoke pot with or do both. I discovered books. I discovered there was a real outlet for these thoughts in the adult world. I wrote lyrics, I wrote short stories. I wrote songs. I sang songs. I put all this crap in my head into action.

It worked.

The point of all this is that after thirteen years of hanging out with just "ma dudes", (I mean, besides my girlfriend...she fits into my life story somewhere right? Heh). I returned to hanging out with just women, here in London. ( I know Joe and Chris were there too, but when we all went back at night I primarily hung out with women) I was hanging out with all girls again. I even did girly things, like the grease video, and I left behind my life of drinking with the guys,calling people pussies who can't drink, and discovered that outside of my society, I was free to analyze myself again. What I have accomplished the most in London I feel, is that I have created a real person in myself. I have reflected and reflected. I have analyzed. I thought about my past. I have become, that part of me as a kid that wanted to imagine, and a working member of the male social world I can't wait to rembrace at home.

I finally leveled out. I finally found a balance. I AM the person who drank too much at parties and pukes in your bathroom or calls a Monmouth cop a bitch to his face. I didn't do these things because of society. I did it because I wanted to (and maybe because of society, and maybe because I was young and immature). I'm also the person who listens to you talk late at night, when the party is over and the beer has stopped. I'm also the person who can tell someone I need/want them, whether it be over a Thanksgiving table or caught somewhere in a doorway. I can be a bastard when I'm with my friends at home,I may say the wrong things, and do stupid stuff, but I'm still a romantic who will fall in love with a girl if she plays house with me long enough. Dualism. Balance.


. My friends, tough as they may be, have done the same thing I did here on Thanksgiving. I actually learned this from people at home. I realized that my masculine friends in Old Bridge actually have that feminine balance. We all need each other. We've sat around fires and told each other drunkenly (and maybe less eloquently) that we need each other. The bonds I have with the people from Old Bridge are unbreakable. We tell each other we miss each other all the time. I feel like anyone in Old Bridge would take a bullet for me, and I'd do the same. Everyone I've ever met, everyone I've ever shared the experience of telling them I was grateful to have them in life, whether it be in Old Bridge on the dirt road or around Becca's fire, or in London, it doesn't matter where you go or who you strike up friends with, at the end of the day, you will be missed when your somewhere else. I think that in our missing of each other, from all angles of perception, proves that we are capable of being human.
Everyone I've met in my life has contributed to this new found sense of balance...and I'm grateful to everyone that I have it.

I remember when Kristen moved my senior year of High School I told Melissa I was upset because I felt like my childhood was moving with her. Me being me, I wanted to meet up with Kristen (who I had barely spoken to since elementary school besides stupid jokes) and just go over our friendship from when we were children. Ask her if she remembered playing house or lambchop or me asking her to the dance. I remember I caught her coming out of her car and I said, "hey do you think we can go out for coffee before you move?". She said yeah, but than she just moved, and the conversation never happened. If that conversation had happened, I wonder how much more I'd have to analyze.




It took me two and a half hours to write this blog.

Cheers.
Andrew

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

What I'm Thankful For This Year

....real moments. I have had so many real moments this year. Moments where I Felt like I was truly standing with human beings. I've always just wanted to be around human beings.

I'm thankful for real moments. I'm thankful for every real moment in my life I feel I've had this year. Real moments. Real moments I think about still..
Real moments like...

I'm thankful I lived in Franklin Street with Justin Hunt.

I'm thankful I went to George's Birthday Party.

I'm thankful I spent my last days in Old Bridge on the dirt road with John Murphy. I'm thankful he is my friend and he listened as I talked that night on the jungle gym.

I'm thankful Lori wrote me that letter before I left,and I shuffled it in my fingers on the plane ride over.

I'm thankful I drank wine with Nick Caliendo and Becca Nevins in front of an old church in London, England.

I'm thankful I talked with Kristina in front of Dickson the weekend before I left.

As far as my new friends...

I'm thankful that Kelly took the time to listen to me talk about being homesick and missing my friends that late night in October, she made London feel more like home and may be the sweetest and most genuine person I have ever met. I'm thankful I met someone who truly deserves to be happy every single day, because she makes everyone else happy when she walks into a room.

I'm thankful I went to watch the sunrise over the Thames with Kate, a girl more beautiful and fascinating than the very sunrise I was racing to see, and I'll always be thankful she hung a drawing on my wall and gave me a fuzzy blanket. None of these things I felt like I deserved. I'm thankful she lost her keys.

I'm thankful Jo stayed up that night till 8:30am...at 8:30pm we were two guys hanging out and by 8:30am we were real friends. In getting to know him personally I got to know myself a lot better as well. I'm thankful we understand each other. I'm thankful he can sing tener.

I'm thankful Daria and I can't sleep, if we slept I don't think I'd have as a close a friend. I'm thankful we couldn't sleep in Paris when everyone else did and I'm thankful we still can't sleep now. I'm thankful she always made me feel good to be myself, even when I put myself down. I'm thankful she trusts me.

I'm thankful I had Chris there to share my appetite in everything good and tasty in this world, and deep down he is someone who will never judge you for who you actually are, and will always like you for who you really are and recognize it as well, . I don't mind being myself in front of him for that reason....even if it might irritate him sometimes ;).

I'm thankful I got to drink Guinness with Emily in Dublin, and meet someone who lives so far away from my home, but I felt like I'd known her my entire life. I'm thankful I met someone I missed before I even had the chance to meet them.

...and back at home
I'm thankful for all of my crew back in Old Bridge that called me, and facebooked me, and told me to come home, because they missed me. If only they knew how much I missed them too.

I'm thankful Meg has a screen name and IMs me late at night.

I'm thankful Kyle Millman quit his job.

I'm thankful Dan D and Gerry skyped me so much. I loved our skype sessions.

I'm thankful for Noistradamus still playing while I'm 5,000 miles away.

I'm Thankful for Nick's porch. All of it.

I'm thankful Bryan did this first.

I'm thankful Bryan asked me if I was Ok in August. I've been OK since that conversation.

I'm thankful Dan V. answers when I call him even if he's in class.

I'm thankful Gerry and Lori bought me my first beer on my real 21st birthday.

I'm thankful Gerry will drink coffee with me until I die.

After living in London, I thankful Dan D gets to study in Boston.

I'm thankful that Melissa is with Stan and is happy.

I'm thankful that in Amsterdam I thought about Ramy, not because of the weed, but because the constellations were clear that night.

I'm thankful Nine and Kerry know they're not birds.

I'm thankful people comment on these blogs....Lori, Meg, Dan, Tommy, it's amazing too have people so interested in what I have to say. Thanks for keeping me motivated to write this stuff down. Thanks for cheering me on.

I'm thankful for the basket of muffins I didn't eat that my family sent me. I'm more thankful for the card that was attached that simply said " Happy Thanksgiving Enjoy and Share with Your Friends".

I'm thankful that on December 12th I'll be coming home and driving my car knowing that, if I wanted to, I could get around on a train system on the other side of the world.

I'm thankful for every person who has been there for me during this weird, weird year.

Cheers.
Happy Thanksgiving
Andrew

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Being SICK

So I've been sick. No big deal really. I spent literally 48 hours, updating this blog, and sleeping. The other night I went to sleep literally thinking I was going to die in my sleep. I was coughing out of control, sweating, feverish, cold, hot, cold, hot, anxious. Terrible.

Woke up Monday and went to the Tate Britain because I had to for a class but I was so sick that I almost threw up on the floor of the Tate Britain, so I walked away and hacked my brains out in the gift shop for most of the tour.

I slept all day, woke up for an hour, slept all night.

Woke up today, I had a pretty productive day even though I didn't physically do much. I went to my British and American Musical theater class and daresay, I enjoyed myself? I liked talking about Billy Elliot, because it is SUCH a fascinating musical, like it is so good. I really loved it. Best musical I've ever seen.

After that we had Taco Tuesday and Chris outdid himself and made a really great rice. I think when I told him how much I liked it he assumed I was mocking him, but no really it was actually fabulous. It was blogworthy. I'm excited for his apple pie on Thanksgiving, Apple Pie being my favourite thing in the entire world, and I know he will do it right. It was a great Taco Tuesday, Gam's bean dip was also great, and I thought it was a night of real natural conversation. I enjoyed it.
I abstained from drinking, still feeling sick,and went back into my cave.

I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving although I wish I had more to offer. I can't cook really, I mean I helped cooked Thanksgiving in Franklin Street last year but that just consisted of me drinking and laughing at Justin, and cutting what he told me to cut.
Wow I can't believe it was a year ago today we had Thanksgiving, and I spent the night sleeping in Melissa's bathtub telling her I hated her and that she ruined Thanksgiving, all because she didn't like my pants...well, that's a story for a different day isn't it?

It's weird that I'll be spending Thanksgiving with my new friends this year instead of my cousins and family. They're going to be so bored at home without me. No but really. They are. It doesn't affect me much. Family is just who you're with and who you need.

Tonight I spent the whole night on the internet. I had a long aim chat with Meg, a long Skype with Gerry, and I'm feelin about ready to get back home and see these people in the real world so I don't just exist as welovethe60s/wedrinkthe40s. I also wrote a stupid poem as a joke about Thanksgiving, because I didn't want to write a paper and I have no life.

I really should start writing these papers.

I have drank 8 cartons of orange juice in the past two days.
I'm doing okay.

Next week I'm going to start planning out my packing. This includes donating lots of clothes. I have to figure out what needs to stay in London and what needs to come home.
I wish I was a female so I could make a scrapbook of this trip.

Again, I'm in a weird place in my life right now where I'm not feeling manic. I'm not having huge, sweeping episodes of unbridled happiness and equally huge backbreaking episodes of sadness. I don't long for anything and I'm not dwelling, I feel really just, like how I always imagined normal people feel as they go about their day. Excited when it stops raining because it's safe to go outside and sad about a newspaper headline. I feel like, normal,. Calm. I need something to shake things up again. Nobody ever did anything great if they weren't starving for something. Content leads to blogs like this, blogs about rice.

Am I bored?

"When you grow tired of London, you grow tired of life"

Fuck.

Cheers
Andrew

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Family and Other Serious Stuff to Consider

It's three a.m and I am ill. I have this European cough that is killing me. I didn't make it to the Church with my friends today, I simply stayed in and drank orange juice and rested and sipped on cough medicine. I'm going to take it easy I think from here on out, healthy dinners and drink water instead of beer.

I often find myself flipping through all the pictures I've been tagged in on Facebook late at night since I've been here, laughing to myself as I remember certain stuff and just coping with an overall feeling of, God I can't believe this is over. I still remember coming here on the plane thinking, "holy shit", the entire time.

I talked to my Mom today. I haven't mentioned my family at all in these blogs, which is lame considering I've been gone for ten weeks. I actually miss my rents. My mom and I get along in such a weird way.
We never got along in High School but now I feel like we get each other just fine, we live on like mutual respect for our overall non-understanding of each other as people. My parents didn't like me when I was a hippie pothead teenager but I think they've settled with my new persona of "troubled English major".

Over the summer we had big talks about how I need to move out once I graduate in May, figure something out, but today she told me that while I was away they re-did my room. They put a box spring and a frame under the mattress I bought and threw on the floor, they got me new carpets, they painted the walls, and put my posters back up. I was so flattered but I was like...why? Why waste the money?
She said something along the lines of, eh, we're trying to convince you to stay when you get back. I felt heart warmed.
But
Where am I going Ma? I'm an English major I'm going to be working at Krispy Pizza for the rest of my life don't sweat it, I don't need to be convinced.

She also said she sent me a care package which should arrive on Tuesday, with like pancake batter and stuff...and brownies for Thanksgiving. It made me feel good because I haven't talked to my family at all really since September. My parents were never the kind of parents who did stuff like that, the type who send care packages. My parents were always realists, they just taught me verbal moral ideologies and let me roam around the world freely without a curfew or explanation since 11 years old, and never said no growing up when I asked them for something that would benefit me. I.E, my guitars, and books, and all that. As a matter of fact my parents have never let me down...I mean, I wanted to go to England, and so I am in England.
I hope I can repay them someday, with that cottage on the beach I've been promising my mom since high school when I said "don't worry mom, I'm a genius, I'm gonna be fuckin rich one day", at the age of sixteen.
Heh. Weird stuff. I'm doing a lot of things my father had no interest in doing, but he's still supportive. My parent's have always supported all of my weird bullshit, and I never really thought about it.
Like for example, in my room I have boxes, and boxes, and boxes, literally overflowing with papers. Whats in these boxes? Nothing. Dittos,tests, every worksheet I ever got in High School, every paper or test I ever did in college. I jut have boxes of it that I refuse to throw out, and my dad was like "Don't worry, your boxes are still in the garage" on the phone today....why?
They never said anything when I wrote on the walls, or hung up irrelevant newspaper clippings all over my room, or put a bed on the floor, or when I knocked down my door to see if the wall would crack as an experiment..
I don't even know why I'm thinking about this stuff. My parents never said anything while I trashed their house.
I wonder what my Bro's up to. I don't know much about the kid. Maybe when I get back I'll re-invent my sense of family and get to know him better.
Weird, I've never actually thought about my parents as people before. Maybe even two real people that had to be in love, and decide to work jobs so they could conceive children who need to have elaborate trips to Europe to try and work out their young, life. It's weird to think about what they talked about when they were like...24.
I wonder if my dad thought about shit as much as I do when he was like 21? I wonder if he constantly agonized over decisions, and relationships, and all this. Probably not. In the male world I stand alone.

I didn't do anything to deserve the stuff I've been given in life. I try to reciprocate it by being thankful, really thankful, all the time. That isn't much, but maybe one day I'll have the money to monetarily give back to my parents and the world at large. Maybe. I'm going to need a really good idea though.
My whole life I've been waiting for a really good idea.

Got it! Just kidding.

So here I am. 3:30am from my London dorm, sick, but feeling, really relaxed, and calm, and I guess sober is a good word for it. I never really thought about my family before. I spend too much time thinking about the events of the past 11 months of my life. Christmas time will be extra good this year, and extra normal. I'm actually excited to hear my mom play the flute at midnight mass, instead of screaming "MOM FUCK THATS LOUD" on Tuesday nights while shes practicing.


I think this is who I am now, probably who I'll always be. I've been thinking a lot about these things lately, like who I actually am. I know who I'm not.

I'm not a beer driven college kid who is happy to chug a beer in your face. That part of me is dead/dying. Alcohol has really only been a destructive force in my young life, before I learned how to drink. I mean really learned how to drink like a normal person.
I'm not a singer/songwriter.
I'm not a musician...I do have a hobby I really love though.
I'm not capable/interested in "playing the scene". I'm either single (alone) and happy or discovering something new in someone. I'm only interested in human beings.
I'm not ever going to wear a tie.
I'm not sure what the future holds, but the past is so much fun to write/talk about.

All my stories aren't tall tales.

Cheers.
Andrew

Saturday, November 21, 2009

People as Places as People

I'm not going to formally write this blog. I think I'll write it as like a rant, so pardon the bad writing.

So Here I am, sitting in my room at 2:30am, wishing so bad I could sleep, but

A. I slept for 14 hours yesterday.
B. There is music bumping so loud from Jo's flat that I can actually sing along easily. But, I'm digging the playlist.
C. I have the world's worst cough. Seriously it won't go away and I hack myself awake every three seconds. It's this French cough...Le friends.


Anyway I have like just over two weeks left. I had a wake up call the other day.

I woke up and decided to go to Arsenal. Why Arsenal? I don't REALLY know, I've been pretending they are my favourite sports team the whole time I've been here for no reason (even though watching/supporting sports is the most pedestrian thing you can ever do, keep that BLEGH away from me), so I figured hey, might as well go all out and visit the town and stadium that they are from by myself in the middle of the day. So I did this.
The Stadium was cool, I walked around the gift shop and thought about things I should buy, but didn't thankfully buy anything to further support my fake love of Arsenal. The actual town of Arsenal is just like a boring rural place.
I did find a soccer (football) ball outside the stadium, which I carried around London with me all day and eventually brought home. I hope someone will play with me.
Wait, what am I talking about?
Anyway, oh yeah, the wake up call. So I'm heading out of Arsenal and I think to myself, "What a lovely day to go to Covent Garden and get a ginger bread latte from Starbucks and dick around and enjoy the beginnings of London Christmas. I'm not gay, but my love of gingerbread lattes during Christmas time is one of the gayest things about me.
I thought that, this being my first Christmas since 14 without hand-holding, gift buying, midnight mass, and family-dinner- party-stupid- girlfriend- bullshit... I would be depressed, but quite contrary. I feel very liberated. I love Christmas now. Let me sing in the stupid choir, I'm leading it, Merry Fucking Christmas, I love the cheer, the lights, even the stupid music. I don't know why single people get depressed in holiday time...everyone is happy and sort of nice to you and you save like 300 dollars that you can put towards spending at the bar on Christmas Eve. Love it.
Anyway, the wake up call. So I'm like OK I'll go dick around Covent Garden.I realized when I got there that I had been getting around by not looking at any tube maps. I got to a street in London without looking at a map, I knew where the Starbucks was, and I knew where the market was. I just did all this because, my friends, I have become a citizen of London. I know London. I'm not a tourist anymore!
Time to go home.

So I got my latte and I walked to the market. I bought some strawberries from the fields of Kent for my flatmates because hey, I'm such a super guy, and I really marveled in the whole Christmas thing. I sat down on a stoop to finish my coffee and this bum starts talking to me. I spent 45 minutes talking to this bum. He was from Germany, but like, fucked over the European government or something and has been living unnoticed and non working in Britain for 8 years, and he like robs stores and stuff. I didn't completely understand what he was saying, he did say he has a HUGE drug problem, but I didn't judge. What would Jesus Do? It's fucking Christmas.
So I carried on and I passed by the British Portrait Gallery and I really had wanted to see the Beatles to Bowie Exhibit of the 1960s but no one wanted to go with me so I paid the 9 pounds and went. It was pretty disappointing, but I'm still glad I went.

Than I went home and cooked some Chicken with Curry sauce and pineapples. It was awesome. I ate it and raved about what a genius I am to myself.

That night I hopped a bus to Greenwich and sat in a pub. I watched this dude play an acoustic set and got drunk. The guy played every song I ever played at the Java Joint. I was laughing to myself because like, c'mon, so random. The bartender lady was flirting with me so much but she was like 45. Maybe it was just because I was a young kid drinking in a pub by myself.
"Hey lady, you into young guys with neurotic behavior that read Shakespeare for fun and have no foreseeable income?".
Pass.

So I took the bus home and drunk dialed some friends from the states.
Got in, hung out with Kyle, went to sleep.

That was Thursday.
Wednesday I saw a play called "The Line" that forced me to like it for some reason. It was good. I think I liked it.

Friday, uh, Friday I sat in my room all day and stared at the walls and listened to Men at Work.
We decided to go out at around 11pm that night, so at about 8:30 I began to pregame and I accidentally blacked out and threw up on my flatmates and had to be put to bed by 10:30. Don't remember anything. It all started because Zach said, "You won't finish that bottle".

Today I worked on controlling my hangover, but we did go to the London Jazz Festival in the afternoon and saw some really great music. I love Jazz, it's America's only original music, I was proud to see it played in London. That's my off sense of nationalism. There it comes out.

After that we strolled around this little German Christmas carnival and I ate a Bratwurst and bought some organic apple juice fresh squeezed by this bloke by the bridge. Love it. London does really big things on Christmas, they're all about it. New York you just have the tree, we have like little festivals everywhere.

We, I say we as If I belong here, I'll be back in two weeks. Maybe I'll spend Christmas Eve on Murphy's couch again drinking and watching Flight of the Conchords.

Tomorrow should be interesting. I'm waking up in 4 hours to drink. That's right. We're making a huge breakfast and drinking at 8am, than going to this bar called "The Church" that is only open on Sunday afternoon. It's going to be one of those days.

I booked a trip to Liverpool for next week, the final thing I've been wanting to do my entire life, and for my last weekend in Europe, I am going to Spain...Barcelona. No big deal.

I can't wait to get home though, when I have thoughts like, "I miss living with Justin in Franklin Street", you know I'm homesick.



Cheers-
Andrew



That was Thursday.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Winding Down

You find a wave and than you ride it until it crashes...not a wave, part of the ocean?

Saturday I went out for Becca's birthday. It was her 21st. I felt a little bad because if we were in Old Bridge she would have had the full "Old Bridge 21st" effect including me being myself and screaming at the top of my lungs,singing songs with Murphy and buying everyone drinks,Nick too drunk to form sentences with drool pouring out of his mouth, Greg sitting by an i-pod later that night when we leave the bar singing Straylight Run songs at the top of his lungs until 6am...and of course the few of us who will make it until 8am when the gin is gone, as we look at each other and go out for that last cigarette before the morning steals our night from under us.

She said she missed Old Bridge, I agreed with her. I think she had fun though. We went to a lot of crazy dance clubs in Shoreditch with her flatmates. The DJ was this wildly African looking girl who would just scream nonsense into the microphone and play crazy alien music. I took some shots and danced badly. Her friends are all really nice people, I was happy to hang with them. I'm going to have Becca meet my friends here soon, and show her how we do it in Deptford.

After her party we went back to her flat and talked about everything. Living here, being here, Europe, Old Bridge, I told her about my problems (problems in England?), I told her how she needs to embrace every single second she is here, because, our lives at home will definitely be there when we get back. No doubt about it.I try not to let a single second pass by here without reflecting on how different it was from the seconds at home.

I left with a lot to consider, it was pouring, I tried to be responsible and leave at 2am, but I didn't get back until 4:30am because of London's reliable night buses. I got to sleep at 5, and woke up at 7 to go to Windsor Castle. This is where the Queen usually lives.

Windsor Castle was actually a lot of fun. The Castle was enormous and so interesting to look at. It is a real legit Medieval castle. I mean really, this was a castle. I don't even know how to describe it. We toured the staterooms, lots of art and gold and furniture and history to look at. The usual grind. I loved it. We saw a bed Napoleon slept in while visiting and I wanted to jump in it.
These towns that surround these old castles and stuff are so beautiful, I would love to live in Oxford, or Bath, or Windsor. It's so nice there, so peaceful.

I tried to steal my audio guide but the alarm went off.

We went to a pub and for some reason I had Fish and Chips and a really terrible beer. Oh and I had a Steak and Ale Pasty for breakfast, but I've been trying to eat healthy this week.
Ha.Ha.

Kate, Daria, and I skipped the tour and we walked around Windsor, making jokes and having fun. I felt like myself. They went shopping and I leaned against a wall for an hour and a half and tried to think about nothing.

This week has been good. Monday we had Mexican Monday. Tuesday I saw "Billy Elliot" which I have to say was the best musical I have ever seen in my entire life. I am definitely going to see it on Broadway when I get back to the states. This kid was so talented I wanted to vomit. I liked it way more than La Cage Aux Faux, but that show was good too. I've seen so many shows.

I'm trying to read books again, I failed all semester to read. It's ok though, I have next semester to read.

I think we're booking a weekend trip to Spain. Hey, when in Europe. I need to still book Liverpool, go to platform 9 3/4 (they went without me so now I have to do a solo journey there), see a football game, go to Brighton, go to Stratford upon Avon, and go to Arsenal.

Other than that, I think I might be ready for New Jersey.

I Can't stop thinking about Noistradamus. Can't stop listening to my rough basement cut of "I'll be on the Opposite Side of this Soon",a title I came up with at six in the morning with Nick, staring drunk out into the Atlantic,scared for the next 3 months of my life.

It's useless to keep going over all the other stuff in my head, running on empty, clinging to scraps of October.

Ready to see my friends again. I'm ready to get in my car and drive to Nick's house, see everyone on the porch, comfortable and easy, what we're all searching for when we leave behind what we always needed. Comfortable and Easy. I miss everyone. Lori and Murphy called me while I was sleeping the other night and I was really upset when I woke up that I was too disoriented to properly talk to them. I wish I wasn't sleeping. Lori is the biggest fan of this universe I've created, it's nice to know people have faith in you.


I miss Dan Jeff and Nick. I listen to Noistradamus and think about how pathetic/lucky it is that a "musician" like me gets to play with geniuses like them. Minor Differences in Identical People. Can't wait to go live with them again.

I'm not a writer because I write blogs or stupid Facebook notes.

I got started on Season six of The Office finally, it's fantastic I sit in my room LOLing.

Sunday, me and my friends Zack and Kyle are waking up at 8am and drinking uncontrollably. Kegs and Eggs. Wish me luck.

Cheers-
They'll be more detailed blogs coming soon.
Andrew.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Fast Blog

I haven't finished my backpacking blog yet, I still didn't write about Paris. I really don't feel like it though I'm so lazy and I drink too much. Maybe I just won't finish it, and than when I read this 40 years from now I'll say, hey, I wonder what I did in Paris, and have to struggle to remember.

Traveling the world ruled but I'm excited to get home, I miss my crew.

Didn't do too much this week, I saw a show about transvestites that was actually really entertaining. Wednesday I saw a show called Warhorse which was about a kid who falls in love with a horse. The horse gets sold to the army, so the kid joins the army so he can find his horse. Oh, and the horse was a giant puppet. It was good though because we saw it on Veterans day/Armistance day so It was a reminder of how much war BLOWS. I stayed up and drank till six in the morning with Joe that night.
Next day I layed low, went to a pub down the block called Amersham Arms, they had Red Stripe on tap, so that was cool, haven't had that since my days in the states.

Friday I went to London Bridge and walked around the market and drank mulled wine alone. I bought a beer for 8 pounds called Rogue Shakespeare that I've been looking for my entire life.
I went to the Tate Modern, looked at some Picasso, and than I stared at the Thames for like an hour at my spot by St. Paul's. I thought about how I had did all that very easily, like its nothin, and If you read my earlier blogs getting by St. Pauls was a huge deal for me.

Friday night I got black out drunk, danced, walked around New Cross muttering to myself.

Tonight I'm going out for Becca's birthday with her friends in Shordage. Remember Becca's birthday party last year, when every single person in the house threw up on her carpet?

I know this blog wasn't to detailed, I'm just tried, I may re-do it. I needed a blueprint.

Cheers-
Gins

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

"You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know"

-Oscar Wilde.

Intro:
Where do I really begin?

Staring at my Oscar Wilde mug with that quote strewn across the sides, thinking about how I put my lips on his grave for good luck in an enormous, immaculate cemetery/celebration of death in France called "Paire LaChaise", I guess that quote actually holds some bearing in my life now. Yesterday I kissed his grave and saw his chiseled, rock, testicle remakes, the day before that I had visited Jim Morrison's grave in the same cemetery...still looking fresh and cool as if drunken rock had just died and been buried a few minutes earlier.
That night I sat alone under the Eiffel Tower directly in the center and watched the lights change from the cold, wet, grass, as lovers and thieves walked by, both offering me the same feeling of paralysis regardless of their intention.

Before that night I had climbed the Eiffel Tower, and lit a candle in Notre Dame.
The night before that I looked at the constellations while strung out on hash and time from a hostel in Holland, Amsterdam , identifying the star patterns and planets Ramy taught me to identify when looking up at the skies. Thought about Ramy saying "You can see the outline of the milky way tonight, just under the moon". I repeated that to new people. I repeated that to new people.

I spent an hour in Anne Frank's house and breathed when I walked outside.

I rode a bicycle all over Amsterdam. I saw a pretty girl selling herself in a window.

I saw an old man sing a song late at night by himself at a Celtic Bar in Dublin, I was by myself too. I sang along.

I don't know how I'm going to "write down" these past two weeks for myself, or for anyone reading this blog. I lived it, I spent a lot of time in my head, company with my thoughts, clever comparisons and witty words won't help you understand what it feels like to inhale life the way I have the past two weeks, not without coughing or choking at the end anyway. But I wrote some stuff down by hand as I traveled. This blog will be a mixture of that, my current input and reflection, and hopefully, not a well written or accurate portrayal of events, but, at least an honest one. Re-reading the blog I wrote last week on Dublin, it is a totally different tone and style than I think I would write this now.

My Trip Backpacking Across Europe. "A long blog"
Notes from Dublin. Day 1.


Sad, Beautiful, Lovesick, Dublin.

So I have reached the apotheosis of my life. Backpacking through Europe, living in a hostel, showering with grown men, sharing a room with twenty people that has white bunks,and still,feeling sort of alive.

Note: No one reminded me to bring flip flops. If you plan to shower in a hostel, you need flip flops.
Gross.

We excitedly took the train out of New Cross Gate to Gatwick on Saturday. I think we were all really excited to be leaving London for a little bit, you know, onto something new. I've been waiting a long time for this, to completely leave behind everything I've ever know about living. (note I really didn't know what I was getting into, in reflection).
Once at Gatwick airport, walking quickly, I had all of my clothes and a few things to stay clean, and this notebook, in a bookbag. All I would need for basic survival. Before boarding the plane, I found a place that sold milkshakes. I than took a shot of baileys and a shot of whiskey from the free trial stands...guess I was a bit nervous, I do hate flying you know.

OK, so we leave Gatwick airport and get on the poor Ryan Air Plane, that had no assigned seats and only cost us 5 pounds to fly to Dublin from London. I figured if there was anytime to die, t was now. I felt better.
The plane ride to Ireland was quicker than it would take me to drive to my apartment on Franklin Street from Old Bridge. I felt like it was over in three seconds, and as we descended over Ireland, we saw green fireworks in the sky signifying that we were definitely there.

We took a cab over to our hostel, which was called Brown's Hostel on Gardner Street in Dublin. It was cool to ride in a car again, I sat in the front seat and tried to picture what it would be like to accelerate on a gas pedal again. The driver was so Irish I could barely understand what he was saying but we said "cool, thanks" in a friendly way in response. Finally we arrived at our Hostel, paid him the Euros (which felt foreign in our pound-spoiled fingers), and walked in. As soon as we were inside I saw a shirtless dude walking around. The Irish kid behind the counter checked us in while he was singing along to some Irish band on the radio.

A hostel is a weird place. There is a common room with a kitchen and a fridge, and than there was like a pool table, sofas, a TV, and a complimentary guitar and some other shit to keep you entertained. It's not nice though, don't be confused. It is one step above living in a homeless shelter. It is a petri dish, a bacteria trap, a cage for sick travelers and people who have abandoned the idea of home.
It was cool to see the people of all these different nationalities sitting around and chatting.
Our room is smelly. 20 Bed backpacker haven. It looks like the room of an orphanage in a movie. got a top bunk, put my book bag on it and sat and contemplated. It was time to go out and celebrate Halloween in Dublin.

This was Dublin. Guinness signs and old style pubs. Murphy would be in Heaven. After getting a little lost, we found this giant pole that you can see from all over Dublin, so i twas cool that I actually used to find my way back later that night.

We went to a pub crawl, which we means we start at one pub and go around to a bunch of different ones after an hour of drinking. Everything was all decked out for Halloween. At the first pub, there was an Irish Band playing and I ordered a "Slaughterhouse Red", which tasted like Guinness. One thing about Dublin, it is twice as expensive as England, and England is twice as expensive as America.
I got drunk quick. At our second pub I had my first Guinness in Ireland, which was good, but honestly, not better than any other Guinness I've ever had on tap at a pub (sorry, bar) at home. Kate rejected her Guinness and poured hers into mine whilst I wasn't looking, I continued to get drunker.
By the time we got to the third place, I was bombed. The Irish go hard on Halloween. To be honest, I don't even remember the third pub. I just knew I was running out of money.

By the time we got to the fourth place, I was shouting "I'm in Dublin, I'm in Dublin!" and I was legit wasted. This place was some freaky dance club so I decided to do my signature move, and go get lost in the streets of Dublin alone.

The streets were nuts. Crazy Irish people drinking and going ballistic in the road. It was the kind of thing I would have been ENTHRALLED by when I was 18, but now it was just amusing. I found an awesome street band and drunkenly watched and shouted for a bt, than I walked around Dublin.
Oh yeah, I stopped at a pizza place and ordered a slice, and I was SHOCKED to find that the pizza was actually fucking excellent, like, it tasted like Old Bridge Pizza at home (not Krispy heheh) and it was GLORY to eat it.
After that I followed the big pole back toward Gardner St, and I found a real Irish pub called, "The Celt". I went in there and it was perfect.
Old wooden walls, stools, and tables like the "Irish pubs' in the states try to imitate. It was the real thing. Old man bartenders, drunken, sad, swaying Irishmen, and a weird feeling of being all together even though I was sitting alone.
I ordered a Guinness(this one was perfect).
This Irish people dimmed down the lights, got out a microphone, and started singing old, beautiful, sad, Irish folk songs a Capella.

They all took turns over and over again, singing the saddest love songs I've ever heard. Pure beauty in Europe.

When I got back to my hostel, I was sitting in the common room playing guitar and a kid from Brighton came up to me and asked me to play him a tune. I strummed a couple chords and than I wound up going outside with him to order a pizza. Outside we met an older man, probably in his fifties, and me, a kid from Brighton, and an older man talked about ex wives and girlfriends on a stoop in Ireland. The man told me that he had three wives but he only loved his first. He asked if I understood what it's like to see a beautiful girl, and I told him it takes awhile, beauty is something you see after you've settled your stomach.
The guy made me feel sad.
Sad, beautiful, lovesick, Dublin.
I went back inside and met a kid from Brazil. It was funny because I was communicating with him in basic high school Spanish, but we actually had a small conversation equivalent to the ones I practised at Brookdale. We shook hands and I called it a night.
The next day I woke up in my bed, realising I was in a room with twenty other people, feeling a little strange.
We got dressed and decided to walk around Dublin. Dublin looks different in the day. It was raining and freezing cold, and I forgot to pack a proper jacket.
Feeling dirty and hungover, we got breakfast at an Irish Cafe. I ordered cabbage, pork, and potatoes for breakfast, not the best idea considering my bodystyle, but I had to.
After breakfast we walked the streets of Dublin and I saw an awesome Irish street band called MUTEFISH. I bought their CD for 10 Euro. They were seriously great.
We stopped at Trinity College and walked around the greens for a bit. It's amazing how I've become accustomed to beautiful architecture. We went back to the hostel to get ready for the night.
Showering in this hostel is quite possibly the worst thing in the world. Picture, sweaty, dirty showers, with lots of naked dudes and no where to put your clothes except the disgusting floor while you try and wash. I had a reality check in the shower, like, holy shit, I'm in a hostel in Dublin. Hostels are a place of no privacy. You shower with people, you eat, sleep, and live in a big dirty house and everyone speaks a different language.
After my shower we headed out to the pub, I had Kerry Beef and Potatoes.
We pregamed at the hostel. It was cool because the Brazilian kid I had met the night before was there and we had a a few more conversations.
I had a bit of a jam with these dudes I met from Italy, they banged on pots and pans and a cheese grater while I played an amateur version of Best Feeling.
We essentially just went barhopping again that night, but one of the bar singers closed with No Woman No Cry. That song has been following me around my entire life.

The next morning I woke up feeling good. Today was the day we would take our pilgrimage to the Guinness factory. We grabbed a quick breakfast. I had toast with strawberry jam and espresso, which was one of the best espresso's I've ever had.

Ok. Guinness Factory.
When you are walking up to the Guinness Factory, which is 250 years old, the air of the surrounding neighborhood smells like beer....everywhere. People live in this area outside the factory, smelling beer everyday of their awesome lives. We walked up quickly and made our way inside. It's just a huge factory. Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease 250 years ago. I tasted barley, I saw how it's made, and I even learned how to pour the perfect Guinness.
Drinking Guinness in Dublin from the factory was bliss. First of all, it was literally the greatest beer I've ever had. It tasted like, pure heavenly, suddy, milky, bliss. I drank it with my friends and savored every sip. I thought about all the Guinness I had shared with Gerry and Doug back at home...I remembered Gerry saying "Now that's a Guinness" , a million times after we discovered that conversation over a Guinness was much better than coffee. I remembered all the times me Doug and Joey spent Saturdays at the Game Room drinking Guinness, eating Chinese food, and not doing our jobs.

That night we ate at a pub. I had traditional Irish stew, and a pint of Bulmer's Irish Cider.
Just as a sidenote, I don't know if people in the states realize that in Europe Cider is just as if not more popular than beer. You get it on tap. We drink cider just as regularly as beer, it's a huge part of European drinking culture and they have lots of different kinds. It also has more alcohol.

Dublin was an interesting city to say the least and a great place to drink.
Right now I'm on a Green Plane with shamrocks all over it heading towards Amsterdam. I'm writing these blogs on paper. Wild. I feel like shit from living the hostel but I can't wait to get to Amsterdam.
Time to smoke some Chronic.

Cheers.
Andrew

Amsterdam; This is the Place for Us. By: Andrew Ginsberg.
Blog 2.

This is where I stopped writing. I have nothing to copy onto this blog text box. I don't really know what I want to say about Amsterdam, about traveling through Europe. I feel like I learned something that I can't really talk about, or it would be wrong to talk about.

I'm losing my mind.

Lets see. We arrived in Amsterdam, another short plane ride. I felt like shit. Walking around I noticed that this was the most beautiful city I had ever seen. I loved it. I loved the condensed buildings and spaces, the canals, the style, the vibrations, the smell in the air. I love Amsterdam. We took the, uh, actually, I don't even know what it's called. We took this thing that like goes through the whole city, I guess it's a trolley/bus to our hostel. We got lost just a little bit, because Amsterdam is the most bugged out city in the world (nelson), but I mean I myself didn't get lost because I never volunteer to help with directions because I'm an incapable, passive, leech who just lets everyone else figure things out.
Anyway we got to our Hostel and it was great. Finally a nice hostel. Nice, clean, comfortable beds. Free internet. Friendly service. Room to ourselves. Ample-sized Bathroom. I was so happy with this room. I felt like I had a fever so I knew I wanted to get out into Amsterdam and make myself feel better.
I feel like through out this whole trip I kept getting lost in my head. I was thinking so much that it was like interfering with reality. We'd start walking places and I would be so lost in thought and we would arrive and I would realize I didn't talk or move my own legs or anything I just looked up and wound up places. I asked the desk clerk at the hotel for a nice place to smoke marijuana and eat fried food, and he directed us to some place that we didn't make it to.
The first cafe we went to was called " The Otherside". I ordered a coffee, a bag of white widow marijuana, two pre-rolled joints, and two bottles of apple juice. You see. This is what I don't know how to explain to you about Amsterdam. I don't know how to write this, like I'm laughing as I write this. Mom, Dad, if you have access to this blog, sorry, but uh, yeah.
So I mean this is literally Amsterdam. You just smoke pot legally in really nice coffee shops. You can see Weed Menus with all the lists of weed, hash, brownies, or mushrooms, and all the different highs they give you. The bags are huge, and they are cheap. The buds are green and perfect. It's a circus. Amsterdam just exists. It's beautiful man.
Everyone there is so friendly, they have no laws but low crime, everyone is happy.
Before that I forgot to mention we ate dinner at an Italian place and the guy who owned it was the friendliest man in the world. I ordered a Calzone and it was the size of my head and I ate the whole thing and it was fucking delicious.
Later that night we just went around to different coffee shops, uh, trying out different, uh, coffees.

We went to the Red Light District.
There are beautiful women in the windows that you can fuck for 50 Euro. These prostitutes aren't loose, old hags, a lot of them were absolutely gorgeous. Some of them were young girls that typical guys would try to get drunk at a party. No, I didn't pay to have sex with a prostitute in Holland, but I do think it's amazing that these women actually do this with their lives. They stand in a window like animals and try to convince strangers to have sex with them. While its unnatural, and disgusting to me, I couldn't help but be fascinated by the sheer fact that this sort of thing is real, real in the natural, spiritual world. Like, this is what they do. It's part of their culture, and as I try to lose my pre-conceived and brainwashed American notions about what is right and wrong in society, I guess I can see the beauty in it. These women are so beautiful that selfish Johns will PAY MONEY to FUCK them. That's pure dominance, and good for them. I just wonder when the last time they had sex was. I wonder if they're happy and if someone loves them at the end of a shift.

There is lots of sex in the district. You can watch sex shows, buy weird stuff to take home into your bed, and just any way you want to celebrate your body like some kind of modern day Etrucian fucklord... you can.

More coffee shops...more coffee.

The next morning I had a waffle dipped in candied sugar with ice cream all over it for breakfast. Like I said. Amsterdam, shouldn't be real. We rented bikes.
Renting bikes was the bests part about Amsterdam. Amsterdam has bike lanes that go through the entire city and it was beautiful to ride through feeling free,smelling weed and fries and just going around the city really fast on our Dutch bikes. I felt really close at this point to the people I was with, I was in love with this city, I really was.
We rode around all afternoon, goofing around, just having fun. I didn't feel like a guy who has to move out of his house this summer anymore, I felt like a guy who has everything going for him, young and ready to go. I felt great.

We went to Anne Frank's house. This was surreal. We spent an hour in there and we wanted to leave. Think about her, two years, eventually just to to die in a concentration camp. It was weird to see her posters on the wall, the lingering feeling of sadness was tangible to me, I feel these kind of things. I feel people's sadness.

Not gonna dwell on Anne Frank House.

I ate a giant hot dog with everything on it...it was great.
Than we went to Grasshopper Cafe to eat a brownie.

There are some things I honestly can't tell you about. Not because I'm embarrassed or anything, because I don't know what to say. I honestly, don't know what to tell you that would make you understand.
We ate the brownies at 4:20pm and by 9:30pm all of us were in the bed, lights off, sleeping. That's all you really need to know, but if you ever want a really good story, lets drink a couple beers one night and I'll tell you about what happened between 4:20pm and 9:30pm in Amsterdam.

The next morning we woke up and got a pancake breakfast. Like I said, fan tasty world. The Pancakes were enormous and covered with whatever the fuck you want. Ice cream, chocolate, brownies, bananas, ham, bacon, eggs, it DOESN'T matter. We walked by the donut shops after that and later that day we eventually ate fries with mayo all over them.

We went to the Amsterdam market, and bought some weird chocolates and such.

Later that day I went to the Heineken factory. It was sweet, I drank two Heineken's at the factory give me a break. They didn't taste anything like they do in the states.

That night me Chris and Emily ate at a traditional Dutch restaurant. The menu was completly in Dutch and I didn't know what I ordered but it was spicy, sweet, and absolutly delicious.
We spent the night in more coffee shops, trying more kinds of coffee.
We went to a bar called Gollum which is like a trillion yearss old and has these monk beers we were looking for. I met a guy from California who said he went to Amsterdam on vacation and never went back home.

Later that night, I sat on our porch by myself and looked at the stars. I was stoned but I remembered how much I looked at the stars with Ramy. Pretty much every night at home, to top off the night. Me and him are pros at identifying the planets and constellations and stuff. Long talks about aliens. I wish he could have been there with me. I really, really do. I remembered the night I left looking at the stars in the sandbox in Country Place park. I now saw them from a ledge in Holland. I wished Ramy could have been there.


That was Amsterdam.
We ditched our leftover weed in a garbage can before heading onto the Bus for Paris.


Blog 3:

Paris:

Seulement la chose belle comme Paris vous est
...really.


Coming Soon. Paris Blog not finished. Stayed Tuned Readers!!!!!!