tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57005217355822055602024-03-14T03:43:05.130-07:00Andrew's "Gold Watch and Ten Furlongs " BlogAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-71992267700889743792009-12-11T07:12:00.000-08:002010-09-11T23:40:57.735-07:00Conclusion.First Point.<br /><br />I've divided this entry into a couple sections. The First, a couple really boring rants about culture and such that I felt necessary to include in this, and the last, my real bloggy feelings.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THANK YOU NOTICE</span><br /><br />A lot of you followed this blog besides my seven official "followers". Some of you commented directly on this site which I loved, I loved flipping down to see comments after I posted something new. Some of you wrote me e-mails explaining how you were moved about something I said or felt good about something...often times I was really unaware that these people were even reading it, and I was humbled and surprised. Some of you looked forward to my next post, some of you read the whole thing at once, all you know a lot about me now don't you? I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks to everyone that read this and made me feel good for writing it, or kept me motivated writing it.<br />Thank you for reading my stupid blog, many were just rants about drinking or pent up frustrations about idle life stuff without even really detailing much about England, but it gave me a way to cope with homesickness while I was away. For the first time I was connecting with home on such an intimate level both internally in my mind and externally on the pages of this blog that you would later read. So thank you, really, thanks for reading. You guys made me feel like I was onto something for the first time in my life, which is a feeling I can't thank you enough for. Something as small as a blog about my twelve weeks in London wound up being very very important to me, and all I want from life is to be onto small things that affect me largely. Thank you, really, I can't even tell you how much I appreciate your honesty, commentary, and maturity in reading things about me that I wouldn't have shared with anyone otherwise. I'm grateful for everything.<br /><br />I really enjoy "blogging". I used to think it was pretty stupid before I started doing this, but I really feel clear and reflective and good these days. It helps me work things out. Its self therapy for me, and I like people reading it because I get to know readers better. Its a way of sharing ideas. Although those ideas are solely mine, I don't write this stuff so people can tell me it's good or they like it, it's not an ego thing, I write it so people might see where I'm coming from and make an assessment in their own life about whether they agree or not, and then think about their own life juxtaposed to what I'm saying, and move forward or backwards. I want to help, both myself and anyone that can read this. We should always be thinking and moving forward. We should always be sharing ideas. That is the only way to be living. Sharing ideas. I read everyone's blog who has one. It's a conversation between two people that we never have to talk about.<br /><br />So, if you're reading this, I want to continue our relationship. Starting next week I'll be blogging at<br /> That will be my permanent blog. I don't know when I'm going to start updating it, but it's there. I moved to wordpress because everyone else's blog looks cooler than mine and there are more features (sorry blogspot).<br /><br />Thanks again.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">BORING RANT ABOUT LONDON</span><br /><br />Just some general notes-( the boring part)<br />Nobody I've met in America knows anything about English culture including my former self. Over lame jokes about tea and crumpets, brainwashed by bad education about the glory of our Revolutionary war we think of the English as some kind of loser country, filled with people who talk properly and fight each other at the pub. When I told people I was going to study in London they would literally say, "Why?". Why not Italy or France or Prague?<br /><br />After 1776, when the English gave up control of their colonies, huge things were still happening in England with regard to art, music, and politics. England changed and evolved also over time, they completely restructured their government, their transport, their suburbs. England is a community. London itself is a community of people <span style="font-weight: bold;">dedicated</span> to education and art.<br /><br />It's a community of learning and education that we should be FIGHTING for in America. We should WANT this.<br />London has subsidized theater. For the same price of going to see a crap movie, you can go see live performance. The government sponsors shows to be put on every night of the week at really interesting places just so people can enlighten themselves to art and culture they would have previously been unable to see. Places like the Barbican have International theater and music weekly, for cheap even sometimes free. It keeps art moving. It keeps your mind stimulated.<br />If you see somebody playing music in the underground station in London, they aren't bums, they have permits from the government and they are allowed that space to share their music and make money. This stuff is encouraged, not frowned upon.<br />Every mused in London is free, paid for by the government. I have seen Picasso works because I had nothing better to do on my way home from somewhere. I just stopped by museums and looked at things. I've been to the Tate Modern and the Tate Britain, The British Museum (where I saw the Rosetta stone for free) , National Portrait Gallery, and the Museum of London. For free.<br />It costs USA students 15,000 dollars to go to Goldsmiths University of London for one semester. It costs British students about 3,000 pounds a semester, and they have some of the best schools in the world. At home, if you go to a non state school you're looking at 35,000 dollars a year. In England, college totals about 6,000 pounds a year. Education is accessible, it's flexible. It's realistic.<br />English students graduate High School and take a year off to work and think about what they want to do. Freshers are usually 19. Think about that. Think about that mentality on education. It's not a rush, it's not a dash to the finish line, its a process of self improvement that should be going on every single day...so yeah I'll admit it the British kids are way more mature then people our age in the states, smarter I don't know, but more mature. They've been exposed to more culture, they're less ignorant.<br />And after they get all this education all day, they go to the pub and drink. Yeah that's true. Ut-Oh American government, drinking is a HUGE part of English culture. It's a place for people to meet each other and be happy. The Pub. Short for, Public House, meaning a house for everyone. I love drinking with British people. It's ALWAYS cheerful and ALWAYS happy and it doesn't have to be excessive. They drink, they drink all the time, but its good drinking. Its not self destructive, and it's fun...like really, just fun.<br /><br />OK enough of that.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> BORING RANT ABOUT CULTURE.</span><br /><br />I really learned about human beings in the world during my experience here. That is what I learned the most about...people. From small differences like my personal oath never to use the word "faggot" again, call something "gay", or say "nigga" in conversation ( we shouldn't use words that come with years and years of hate and baggage for fun, we've elevated ourselves to a more educated vernacular I would hope). To my ideas about how women are perceived and perceive themselves in America, how it differs from England, and even sadly what constitutes a good night out for me now. I don't need to be entertained all the time. I just need to feel that click in my brain. I am really truly interested in where people are from now. I want to talk to the Indian guy at 7/11 and see what he makes of America, ask if they are happy. The guy working behind the counter at the supermarket the other day asked me if I was American. After saying"yes" he told me how New York is the most fantastic place he's ever been too, everybody is so friendly, the service is amazing, its incredible to look at". I want to meet a French person in the States one day and say, "Paris is beautiful, the Seine is beautiful to look at and I love the way the city moves". I want to talk to people now, not avoid them. Nobody here has avoided me, every time I open my mouth people truly want to know my story.<br />Cultures are so interesting. The world is fascinating place.<br /><br />There is this universal thing that brings us all together. No, that thing is not the English language (that was my study abroad joke), it's a desire to want to know about each other. We asked our Italian waiter in Amsterdam how he wound up in Amsterdam, and the kid named Andrew from Philly who worked in the Heineken factory what his deal was. Whats your story? The world could be a lot better of a place if people try to share ideas and understand, rather than force ideas or judge ideas. Irish people in Dublin wanted to know all about America....people are interested. Have you ever asked the old Italian guy in the back of Old Bridge Pizza why he really moved here? I cooked eggs one night and I put turkey in them, and this British kid just stared at me and said "Is that what you do with eggs in America" completely fascinated. I said "yeah, everyone does this" even though I was lying... its just a weird thing I do.<br /><br /><br />There is no proper way to end this blog. There is no proper way to end my experience here. It has indeed left me standing here today twelve weeks later as a different human being and what I sought out to do here...worked. I have changed, and I will be bringing that change back to the United States with me. Coming here for twelve weeks was like boot camp for every idea I've ever had. It was an intense work out of my mind,a realization that the world exists (and is not scary), and an acceptance of the fact that I am a product of a mother culture and I expect things from everybody I meet. From now on I'm going to try and live without expectations, but rather wonder what people expect from me in terms of how they should be talked to or treated. Me and Chip used to make fun of the Mexicans at Krispy and ask them offensive questions like "Are you going to start an encomieda and take over the restaurant?" and I never considered that these people moved to America, from a totally foreign environment, and they are trying assimilate, that's all you can do when you assimilate into another culture. I am foreign here. Think about that. I think that is difficult for some people to grasp.<br /><br />Have you ever met a foreign kid in school and you just think he's the nicest and friendliest? That is what you have to do, you don't want to step on the toes of your host culture, but you want to put on a smile and try to understand, respect, and become apart of it before you judge or criticize it.Four times during my course in England I would mess up and get on the wrong train or bump into somebody and someone would call me a "fuckin yank" or something like that. I've never been noticed because of my nationality before. When you stand out, you feel exposed, so you have to dive in and that can be difficult.<br /><br />So I learned my culture. I really did. <span style="font-style: italic;">I say "cheers' when someone holds the door, sometimes my voice may inflect upwards, I have a really cool jacket, my shirts might seem funny, I only competitively chugged a beer twice since being in England, we say fags instead of cigarettes, we know how to shop at Sainsburys and we don't ask for pancake batter and we bring bookbags to put the groceries in, we call the bathroom the toilet, the elevator is the lift, garbage pales are rubbish bins, our friends are our mates, we say "yeah?" a lot after conversation, we say "Nice day today In't it?", we don't tip our bartenders but we buy them a drink and they drink with us, we pay for our food BEFORE we eat...separately, we ride the tube and we don't look at the map for too long, we move right on the elevator, we stand in a "que" instead of a line, we know that if you buy a hotdog you're going to get a brat, eggs are not refrigerated, cider is on tap and you must drink Strongbow, Carling is the Busch beer of England, Fuller's London Pride is my favourite, you sit at a table in a pub with other people, it doesn't have to just be you and your mates, British people love King's of Leon, teachers are tutors, mandatory is cumpulsory, aluminum is pronounced owloominyum,the pubs in central close at ten but are packed at five, everyone drinks after work everyday and they don't generally sit at the pub, they stand around and shout at each other like in a house party, everyone wears whatever they want and nobody judges them and you can feel comfortable being anybody here including yourself, The best seat on the double decker are the four seats in the front row on the second level, you "top up" your Oyster Card, 10p coins are useless, money is notes, you don't have to pay for the 453 towards Marlebone, Tesco is open 24 hours, ASDA is the wal-mart of England, gas stations are petrol stations and you pay by the litre (103.2), cigarettes have pictures of people dying on them, lamb and mint meat pies are the best, pasty's are always a good choice, Coke Cola is made with pure cane sugar and tastes better, you talk to strangers at a pub, you say Hi to them the next day on the street and stop and ask how they are instead of avoiding eye contact, everyone rides the tube, you eat breakfast with tomato and beans, scones are not triangular or hard, clotted cream is not the same as butter, Marmite is for losers, nobody drinks tea at 3 in the afternoon but tea is more popular than coffee, I don't even know what the fuck a crumpet is, King Henry the 8th was my favorite King because he was a badass and had cool portraits, if someone asks you if you are red or blue they don't mean north or south states, they're asking if you support Liverpool Football or Manchester United, sports are called SPORT, you can't wear a Manchester United hat around Arsenal, sandwiches are called baguettes, there are lots of sheep in the english countryside, ..</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">I could go on but I won't.</span><br /><br />The point I'm making is you have to dive in, I dove in. Everything is different here in such a similar way. Life moves differently here. London vibrates and hums, it breathes. People are interested in people here. Everyone I've met has sincerely been interested in my life, in my accent, my story. British people have a tremendous sense of humour, they love to "have a laugh", but they are intense when it's time to speak of real human things, and for that I am thankful I got to meet them. They are witty and clever and worth talking to.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">REAL TALK.</span><br /><br />Tonight I took the train to Southwark and walked to the Thames, right under the millennium bridge by the sign that says "I eat Rubbish" across from the Globe in front of St. Paul's Cathedral. How many times have I wrote that description? How many times have I went there and gazed into the Thames, surrounded by the world?<br />And I was tired.<br />I watched double decker busses go by but they were too far to hear their engines, so all you could hear was the hum of the river like an old movie where somebody has to play the piano along with the images.<br />I breathed.<br />The River was musical.<br />Quiet in London, tonight.<br />Big Ben is ticking five hours too fast. It's time to go home.<br />I looked up at St. Paul's Cathedral and thought about how I'd never gone inside, and that is OK. Sometimes things are so beautiful on the outside you can't really ever know what it's like inside...but its nice to have something we hope or come back to and find it's new, but it's not so sad leaving something up to the imagination...is it? Symbolism.<br />I sat on the bench that I sat on the first day I explored by myself and declared it "my bench" because I knew it and it is mine. I felt it in my hand and it felt like wet wood on a deck in New Jersey after the rain. I looked at the river and it looked good enough to build a city around. I felt life in that river, I felt like the rain that falls in it.<br />Couples making out all over the bridge. Makes me smile. People find each other some how in this weird, weird world.<br />I thought about standing in the middle of the bridge with all those perfectly dim lights, looking at tower bridge ,basking in the shadow of St. Paul's and just kissing somebody. I mean really kissing them, public display of affection in front of the whole city. I couldn't put a face to her, or an eye color or hair color or smile, maybe I never will, but I hope one day I'll find my own bridge to kiss her on, really kiss her, and that'll be a start.<br /><br />You can travel everywhere and shake hands with everybody in the world and still feel like you've never met anybody.<br /><br />I remembered things of course, I thought about my friends here in London, I thought about how lucky I am for them, to have them. I know they read this now so I'm not writing unaware like I used to, but if you're reading this Kelly, Jo, Daria, Kate, Emily, Chris...I love you and the greatest thing I did in England was get to know you all. I don't want to repeat Thanksgiving but I mean it. Things have changed so much since I first met you all. Kelly I'm glad we lived together, it made being in E1A seem less far away from home, Jo you make me feel good about myself and proud of myself because you feel good and proud about yourself, Daria the last thing I've ever felt for you was h8, Kate I'm glad you proved to be just as interesting as your facebook statuses foreshadowed when I read them in August, Emily your the only thing about London I'm truly losing and tomorrow my main sadness about saying goodbye is reserved for you, and Chris we may have gotten along like Felix Unger and Jack Klugman but we still stole the show.<br /><br />Love you guys. I could blog about it all day but I won't, you know how it is.<br /><br />I sat on that bench with Becca, I sat on the bench with Nick. I thought about how places are just places when you're alone.<br /><br />And look at my friends facebook statuses from home<br /><h3 class="GenericStory_Message" ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=754260386&ref=nf" class="GenericStory_Name" onclick="'ft(">John Edmund-George Murphy IV</a><span>GINSSSSSSSSSSBBBBBBBBBBBEEEEEEEEEERRRRRR</span></span> <wbr><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="word_break"></span>RRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGuhZvO1DKg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="'UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this),"><span>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGuhZvO1D</span><wbr><span class="word_break"></span>Kg</a></span><br /></h3><span style="font-size:100%;">Gerard Corless needs andrew ginsberg back in my life TO(morrow)NIGHT!!!!</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" ft="{"type":"msg"}" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span class="UIIntentionalStory_Names" ft="{"type":"name"}"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=28806197&ref=mf" onclick="'ft(">George Gillard</a> </span><span class="UIStory_Message">Andrew Ginsberg comes back to America</span></span></h3><div class="UIIntentionalStory_Header"><h3 class="UIIntentionalStory_Message" ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="UIIntentionalStory_Names" ft="{"type":"name"}"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/DavidjMatthews?ref=mf" onclick="'ft(">Bryan Nelson</a> </span><span class="UIStory_Message">Fucking Andrew Ginsberg is coming home bitches</span><br /></h3></div><span style="font-size:100%;">Lori Giordano</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span id="profile_status" style="font-family:times new roman;">ANDREWS COMING HOME ANDREWS COMING HOME ANDREWS COMING HOME! AMERICA>ENGLAND!<span id="status_time"></span></span></span><br /><br />I mean I feel so much love from the people at home. I feel so much closer to them now that I've been so far away. I really know what its like to miss people. I really missed them.<br /><br />I've written about all this before, I don't want to repeat myself. I am happy. I've changed.<br /><br />Tomorrow I get on a plane and leave a country I love for another country I love. I've lived in England for twelve weeks. I've traveled across Europe. I almost went to Spain. I will sleep in my full size bed with my parents in the room next door.<br /><br />My spot on the Thames will still be there waiting for me when life pushes me back to it.<br /><br /><br />You learn a big secret when you study abroad, you can't tell anyone what it is, and you think about it everyday.<br /><br />I hope you are a little closer to understanding that secret.<br /><br />Thanks for reading.<br /><br />Cheers<br />Anday.Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-16384377240745801812009-12-08T10:50:00.000-08:002009-12-08T18:28:44.499-08:00On Changing Your Life (My Penultimate Blog)By: Andrew GinsbergWarning! THIS BLOG IS SO LONG I'VE SEPARATED IT BY CHAPTERS!!! This is my SECOND to last.<br /><br />PREFACE:<br />I first started to write things down in this blog as a means of just documenting things I did in London....that way one day (as a cold and bitter old schoolteacher) I could remember the good times I had when I was 21 in England. I remember even giving this web address to a few people I would never want reading this stuff now.<br /><br />I never previous to this kept a journal ( I won't say diary), and I never meant for it to evolve as it did, or become so important to me both in my experience in London and as refuge for my unsettled mind in the middle of the night. As I skim through the pages of this, I noticed it really did evolve into a personal unraveling of my problems, a working out of things in my mind, and a way for me to form conclusions without interrupting my daily life. I did let it become personal, I did seek refuge in it... maybe every night, and to be honest, I'm quite happy about it. Every time I examine things on this public website my life feels a whole lot better, things feel a whole lot clearer. I have never been happier or more level headed than I am coming back from England right now, and while I know that will change (maybe even look forward to it) I'm glad it happened. I'm glad its documented. It feels good to feel good.<br /><br />The second to last thing I want to include in this blog is a recounting of some major events that I dealt with during the past year...in some detail. These are things I haven't even really spoke about, nonetheless biographically regurgitated. I want to do this now, months and months later, because A. It is important to my London blog, because of being in London I was able to examine and provide self therapy and heal these things that I did and experienced during August 2008 until about June 2009. B. I previously have not been able to examine it, it was still to foreign to me, but recently I have put it all into perspective in my head, and C. I will definitely want to remember these stories one day, because this past year entirely contributed to who I am now, more than any other year of my entire life. I am not embarrassed of these things I suppose or you reading it, because If you have been keeping up with this blog, then you know me pretty well now don't you? I might even be like a little character that you are following around, and you deserve to know a bit more about the blank space between my sophomore year of college and my senior year in London. It makes for a good memoir anyway.<br /><br />I feel happy now, I am happy now...<br /><br /><br />Chapter 1.<br />I Had a Girlfriend for almost six years.<br />From the age of 14 until 20, I had a girlfriend. It's funny how I can barely remember this now. I mean, this was a huge part of my life. Even last year at this time I had a girlfriend, the same girlfriend. I suppose the non remembering is psychological, it's my way of blocking it out, which is wrong. Why forget?<br /><br />I talked to her every night on the phone for that entire six years. I spent every Wednesday and Friday and Sunday with her for that entire six years. I went to Broadway plays, concerts, her dance events, she watched me learn how to play guitar, I taught her how to play guitar, she was there for every teenage fight with my parents, I picked her up when I got my license, I was at her sweet sixteen, every emotion that comes with getting older I shared with her, friends, drugs, alcohol,self doubt, every thing you experience individually growing up, I experienced WITH someone. She stayed in Old Bridge and went to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Brookdale</span> so we wouldn't separate because I was an idiot who blew off High School, I helped her do just about everything she ever struggled with for six years. I was unique in that sense. I missed out on having high school single life, which I guess I regret a little because it's fucked me up in the real adult single world, but it was unique, and as a teenager I thoroughly enjoyed it, because I was happy and comfortable while all my friends were sad and lonely and well, teenagers.<br /><br /><br />Love is not consistent. It's not <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">objectifiable</span>. It doesn't look the same for everyone. It is malleable, it changes, it shapes. It grows but it looks different. It might not even exist for you. Love could just be dedication to a promise, a fear of losing the past, a fear of the future, or an insecurity about being alone. Or just a promise to not give up on someone because you recognize that they are alive and not giving up on you. Once you recognize they are alive, everything changes. I can't safely tell you I ever "loved" my girlfriend. I don't even know what the word means.<br /><br />So when you think you found "love", what are you talking about? You're just objectifying a feeling that is subjective. In my opinion that feeling is the feeling of completeness, or fullness.We are typically really empty human beings. We are generally filled with so much shit...shit like religion, culture, society, drugs, alcohol, reading, television, music, whatever you fill that emptiness with, that's fine, but when you fill it with "love"...it feels different, it doesn't digest like food, it leaves you full for awhile. It stops your starving. So we say we're in love. We don't need the world anymore because we found a human being.<br />People that experience "love" find that they have an initial A. Outrageous feeling of elation; can't live without, this is the most amazing thing...etc, followed by B. A realization of both sides imperfections. C. A settling of differences. D. A remembering that without this we go back to being alone, so deal, if its alright. We go back to the shit.<br />That is love, or, a recognizing that a person exists. It's hard to go back to being alone, it's hard to deal with that when the lights go out at night.<br /><br />I never even really was alone, because I had Melissa (that was her name) since the time I became self aware. Since the time I stopped looking at myself as an orb of my parents, I was not alone, so I never really thought about things I think other teenagers think about, like what they even LOOK for in a girl, because I assumed, (at the age of a child) that I knew. I never explored or shaped an opinion of myself or of others really, everything I did was filtered through or juxtaposed to her. So the problem this posed over time was, one year went by. Now I'm 15 and still have a girlfriend. Then 2. Then 3. 16, 17, Then 4, 18. I was getting older, and it got to the point where we could NEVER break up because that seemed impossible. I couldn't imagine life without her, because we had become totally dependant on each other emotionally and totally dependent on the way we saw each other to find ourselves in society. I couldn't see her functioning in the world without me on speed dial. We became the hope for everyone. "Melissa and Andy will never break up". Shocked and astonished teachers watched as we grew older and then we would visit the high school, still together, shouting congratulations at us, warming their old hearts.<br /><br />But we had gotten OLDER, and we were NOT the same people we were in those photographs from her sweet sixteen. There is this crazy picture I have of me standing next to her in her beautiful dress, with the longest most obnoxious hair and beard you have ever seen in your life and she is all smiles and skinny looking and frail. She loved that version of me, and that was my girlfriend that I remember. I am not that person and never was, that was a punk kid trying to be John Lennon. That was a kid who listened to way too many Beatles records and tried to "rebel" against my own culture by adopting a culture that had already rebelled against another culture, I was completely unoriginal as a teen, I think all teens are. She was not that frail little pale white girl from the photo, she's athletic and strong and not all smiles, but we fell in love with two people imitating something because we were young. Because we were young. That initial "love" grew into need, for survival, but that initial love was just youthful, childish admiration.<br /><br /><br />I wasn't a hippie. I realized this when I got older and formed a being in myself and stopped pretending I was John Lennon. Actually, I was quite the opposite. So I gave up on peace and love and stuff I never really believed in, I was just like any other teenager who wanted to be in the Beatles. Everything changed for me when I started reading. I started reading books all the time, blowing through them, paying more attention to them then music. I started studying religions and having long conversations with friends and suddenly I wasn't the same. I was cynical. I lived for the night. I've documented this in my blog so I won't go into it, but I lived for the night I lived for the story and I lived for the idea of the absurd. This is essentially what bonded me and Justin together as Friends, we both have an undying love for the absurd. Throwing a vase against a wall in a crowded dinner party.<br /><br />I spent a lot of time in high school pretending I was some kind of revolutionary musician. By the time I was 19 I no longer was that person. I was an adult who went to college and read books and wrote all the time and talked out life with people and observed and could offer people advice and I had become myself (sort of) or the person I was struggling to become. I had original ideas and no longer relied on someone <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">else's</span> lyrics for a good quote. I got into so many abstract arts and philosophies, I would explore just about ANYTHING, and the things I talked about scared Melissa. Melissa got into exercising and health food. She got into stuff I deemed "totally fucking lame". I went to sleep at 5am after a night of debauchery and she went to sleep at 9pm after watching reality television and waiting for my phone call which would probably never come.<br /><br />The point I'm drawing from this was there was a clear divide between us from the time we turned 18 and became real people. Its not my fault or her fault, I don't mean to make myself seem like a nutcase, or her like a total fucking square, but I guess that's what it is.<br /><br />If we had met in adulthood we would have never even introduced ourselves to each other.That is the main point. We were literally living opposite lives, except for the fact that we would hang out sometimes. Our glory years as two teenagers dating were over. Neither of us as adults were the people we acted like as kids. I loved everything she hated and the same for her. She would never admit it, but she loathed everything about me. She just wanted me to "be normal", I just wanted her to not be "normal" at all. We failed to realize we were only together because we had grown to rely on each other. Actually, I think I even realized this, but she loved me so much I would never tell her that. I would never tell her that.<br />She really loved me so much.<br />But she didn't know what love was.<br />My dad would say stuff like "You two are going to get married" and I knew in my heart it wasn't true and I would think to myself there's no way I'm going to wind up with her forever. I would think about forever and get upset, I would think about a way in which this could end and I knew it was impossible. Every time I was with her my heart melted, she was so fucking innocent. I really believed that. She was so sheltered from the realities of "life is hard" that I could never break her heart. I only knew about these realities from the things I read. So it stomached any feelings I had of us being over and moved on with my life.<br /><br />They forgot to make me a stocking one Christmas so she got me a giant one with my name on it. She wrote me a note everyday for like three years.<br />I rode my bike to her house.<br />I wrote her poems.<br />I wrote her songs.<br />We watched bad movies and laughed.<br />She did my math homework.<br />She brought me soup and a big Hershey bar every time I was sick.<br />I wrote her English papers.<br />I took her out every Friday even though I had no money, I still found a way.<br />She'd put her hand on my chest when I smoked cigarettes at a party and say "don't smoke" and cry and I'd feel like the worst human being in existence.<br />I complained every second I went to Six Flags with her, but I still took her every chance I could.<br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Everytime</span> an ambulance drove by she'd say "I hope their OK".<br />I told her that no matter what I'd take care of her for ever when I told her I was moving in with Justin.<br />I justified her existence as being a light in my dark and weird life. I thought it was "fate" that we had to be together. I knew we weren't right for each other, but I wasn't going to be the one to say anything I guess, because I couldn't do it to her...<br /><br /><br />Chapter 2.<br />August 28<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">th</span>, 2008.<br />I move into 235 Franklin Street, Bloomfield NJ.<br /><br /><br />It was my first night in Franklin Street. I was excited to be leaving behind the life I'd made in Old Bridge. In Old Bridge I partied and I was diluted with friends and I lived a fantasy life and my mother cooked me dinner and I never understood one second of real life until I lived in Franklin Street. At home, Melissa and I did fine because we lived in Old Bridge and everything was fine.<br />I remember moving day. Justin and I slapped five all day, moving in furniture off the U-HAUL, setting up how the room would look. I couldn't wait for my parents to drive off and be on my own. I had big ideas with Justin. We were going to write songs, start a website, we had all this stuff we were going to do to change the world. I finally felt like an adult. It took us all day to move and by 5pm, the room was done. We were settled. My parents left, Justin's parents left, and then Justin turned to me and said "I'm taking off bro, I'll move in next week".<br /><br />He never really explained why he did this but I had no idea he was going to bail on me during the first night. So here I sat, everyone gone, 5pm, no television, Internet, friends, hell, classes hadn't even started yet, and I was alone in the apartment. This would be a re-occurring theme in this apartment. I was always alone in the apartment.<br /><br />So I sulked around and decorated and hung up some stuff that Justin would later call "tacky" and take down, and then I just sat there. To be honest with you, I didn't really want to sleep alone in this weird apartment in Bloomfield the first night. You know how houses creek and stuff, I didn't know what to expect. So I called Dan D and asked if he'd crash. Dan came over and we ate pizza and drank a few brews and I felt alright, he told me how awesome the place looked and I felt better about living there.<br />He left the next morning and I spent a few nights alone, and then Justin burst in one day.<br />I was sitting on the sofa. "Hey man" he said looking at me like a piece of furniture that didn't quite belong in the motif of the room. I was like "yo! dude! you're here, listen..." and he slammed the bedroom door in my face and locked it and that was it.<br />I had to get used to being alone when I previously never was. I had to get used to Justin acting like I didn't exist.<br />I just want to preface this that my relationship with Justin did eventually improve, we worked out everything and became closer than any two people could ever be, but he was dealing with a lot during the first few weeks and I was dealing with just being there.<br />So I was just alone in the apartment. I'd just wander around it doing nothing and then I'd wander around Bloomfield. I'd come home and talk to Justin a little but he always seemed mad at me and I'd watch him cook and try to cook the same stuff when he wasn't home or looking.<br />Eventually, everyone else came up. Melissa moved into the La Quinta Inn <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Montclair</span>, and Mike <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Lauany</span> came up and moved into the Village, class started.<br />I went to class all week and found I liked <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Montclair</span> for this reason, but when the weekends came, the parties were lame. I didn't like anyone I met at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Launay's</span> parties, everyone went home, I was just stuck in Bloomfield. I had no social life. I was still with Melissa at the time but she would go home every weekend, so I only saw her on random nights during this week, and I would use this time to complain about Justin and Franklin Street and how I thought I'd made a mistake moving in there.<br />"It's just not anything, all I have time to do here is think". I'd say to her. "I just sit there and think all day".<br />All that thinking would be the best thing that ever happened to me.<br />I was taken out of my society and forced to reflect on myself. Without Old Bridge and my friends, with college being a let down, without my girlfriend around I just thought about my myself. Justin and I started having long, introspective discussions during this time. We'd stay up all night (sometimes by candlelight) talking about life, religion, love, god, being, nothingness. I can't even tell you what this does to the human mind, being able to just analyze all the time. NO distractions.<br />We really got to know each other. Every night was a new discussion. We'd sit down when dinner and wine and work was done and Justin would say something like "So I was thinking about what it means to be a knight of infinite resignation" and the discussion would begin. Sometimes these talks would end with my rethinking everything I had ever thought, and I knew Justin felt the same way, although he'd NEVER admit it.<br />One day Justin approached me. He is still to this day, the most disconnected human I have ever met. He will always tell you how it is regardless of how it will affect you, and he is always right.<br />"You're unhappy" he said lamely.<br />"Yeah I admitted. "I mean, it just sucks here. I can't make any friends at school and we don't have any modern appliances and we just talk about this existential stuff all the time and I'm <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">buggin</span> man, I want to be in a dorm.".<br />"No, I mean you hate your life" he countered. "You hate your girlfriend, you're fat and that makes you unhappy but your fat because you don't care about how you look because you don't care about what Melissa thinks about you, you take joys in the life in Old Bridge because it helps you forget that you hate your girlfriend, you want to be in a party school because that environment perpetuates your idleness".<br />He continued.<br />"You hate your major. You don't want to be a teacher. You're just doing it because you think it's the right thing to do. You hate how your life is planned, how it's lost all spontaneity. You will just get married to Melissa, who you hate, and be a teacher, which you also hate, and die, and that makes you unhappy, and so you are unhappy, and you're unhappiness is bringing me down man honestly I can't even look at you.<br />This is literally what he said to me.<br />I wanted to stick a knife through his throat at the time, but everything he said was true. Every word.<br /><br />I decided I needed a break. I thought a lot about what Justin said, and he'd tell me. "Change your major man, live". "Why don't you try a break with Melissa?" "Live". "Fuck it, drop out of school". "Live".<br /><br />Here is something I've never told anyone about.<br />I decided to go visit my friend at the University of Maryland one weekend. I needed to get away from the alone time. This is the weekend that changed a lot of lives.<br /><br />While I was driving down to Maryland, Justin had asked Melissa out for coffee to tell her she was also, unhappy. He really believed that we weren't meant for each other. It would take a lot out of him to tell me about this,months and months later.<br /><br />While I was driving down to Maryland I was thinking about how me and Melissa clearly weren't right for each other. I knew Justin was right. It feels weird when someone tells you flat out what you're feeling inside. I thought about how we had both changed, I thought about how I never wanted to hang out with her, how I felt like I was "clocking in" sometimes when she came over like a job, how I ignored her phone calls. I thought about how we fought all the time and were both clinging on to scraps of when it was good. I thought about how I finally was seeing myself for the first time without other people around...and I saw that I was unhappy, and I saw that this was true. I didn't want to be a teacher, I didn't want to marry Melissa, I didn't want any of this, I wanted to be in a band or travel or some shit I didn't want any of these things.<br /><br />The university of Maryland was an enormous college. It was everything I had ever dreamed about. Huge campus, lots of smart looking kids shuffling around, and the parties and bars were AWESOME. I was so jealous of my friends life. Here he was at "college" and I was in Bloomfield waiting for the sun to go down totally alone.<br />That night we drank like I usually did. Shots, beers. It was time to go out.<br />I was with my friend Ryan and my friend Alex. We went to a crowded bar, I was drunk but not wasted. There was a girl there.<br />She came up to me and asked me my name, do you go here, the usual. She eventually asked what my major was. I said "English Education".<br />"Oh you want to teach?"<br />"Not really".<br />"Well what do you want to do?"<br />"Drive around California and hand out acid to people".<br />I don't know why I said this to her. This is usually the kind of response I give when somebody asks me wanted I want to do, because I don't want to tell them "live for spontaneous events".<br />"Oh, you're going to be a Merry Prankster?"<br />and she got my joke and she got my reference and she thought it was funny!. She was an English major. We talked about books. I would quote things in conversation just to see if she picked up on it. She got my quotes, She laughed at things I said, I laughed at things she said and really laughed, like I thought she was funny..and smart.<br />I was intrigued.<br />I spent the whole night talking to her about topics I never talked about with Melissa. I left my friends and disappeared in Maryland with this girl. We just walked around and I made jokes and told her about my stupid life at home and she was witty and so quick to respond with really intellectual stuff. She made living in Franklin Street seem cool, and it did seem cool, and rock n roll, and I got a feeling that I hadn't had since I was a 14...I think I'm digging this girl.<br /><br />I dropped her off at her dorm at 4am, and told her I have a girlfriend, before we could go inside.<br />Obviously I never talked to her again, but as a I drove back I started thinking about what I, as a 20 year old adult, look for in a girl. How great everything felt when it clicked. What it would be like to be with someone who doesn't think I'm nuts. To be with someone who doesn't find me impressive, but rather, thinks I'm a bumbling idiot. A challege. What if I was with someone I could have a real conversation with? I thought about What it could be like for Melissa if she was with someone who liked maybe even SOME of the things she did. If she was with someone who worked out with her and liked to watch hockey games, what if she was with a guy who loved all the sweet innocent things she did, and maybe even admired her? What if she was with a guy who wanted the 9-5, or to have a good job and a house. These things aren't bad they just weren't OUR dream, they were hers. Even if that guy would be a jock, he'd be her jock. And WE could be happy.<br /><br />Justin was right. Melissa thought so too. He told her "we'd just been together to long, we're just together out of habit"<br />And the next day she asked me for coffee and told me we needed a break.<br />I flipped out and told her I hated her and that was a terrible idea.<br /><br />I don't know why I had this reaction, but when it actually came to losing her I freaked. I wasn't prepared mentally yet. I tried to get her back every day. I wrote a big long note on face book on how we belonged together (yeah I deleted that now). We started dating again at the end of the month, by November we were back together, and I thought to myself, OK, this is good. This is normal. This is familiar.<br /><br />But I had already changed my major.<br /><br />Chapter 3:<br />Really Alone on Franklin Street<br /><br />There are other events that coincide with my break up, and if you know the circumstances surrounding this congrats, I consider you my friend. My break up was bound to happen. My time in Franklin Street had lead me into a new realm of self analysis, and although it was lonely I was glad it happened. I went home for Christmas break and Melissa and I grew close again. I started to change my mind, and feel really content with the way things were going.<br /><br />But Franklin Street had fucked me up, andI started exploring some repressed feelings here and there saba dah on that one.<br />Turned out to be nothing, but what I got out of it was the realization that as long as I thought I could be with someone else, I had no room to kid my girlfriend of six years...and it was over in my mind. We had grown apart from each other. I knew what I looked for in women, she in men, and we found neither of that in each other.<br /><br />Plus I finally kissed someone else, and I knew it was over. I would never cheat. It was over.<br /><br />But she "loved" me so much, and I "loved" her too, so this was hard. I mean it had been six years.<br />It shook me to my core, man, I'm telling you.<br /><br />So I guess this is where I snapped. This is my "blue period".<br /><br />We were sitting in my kitchen. Me in a chair with gum in my hair and her rubbing peanut butter through it trying to get it out. I was thinking about how hard this was going to be. She was making jokes. Fucking jokes. She was laughing. She was happy. It was January 6th.<br />I was thinking "If I do this, it's over...is this really what I want? What if I can't be happy, what if this what if that what if this what if that".<br />"What do you like the most about me?" I asked her.<br />She laughed, "Everything".<br />"No seriously, if you had to name one thing, what would it be"?<br />"I don't know she said, honestly everything".<br />Our entire six year relationship was relying on the answer to this question.<br />Everything wasn't enough.<br />"Ok...I'll do you" I said flatly. "If I had to pick one thing I like about you,I like how you say " I hope they're ok" everytime an ambulance drives by, because I know you really mean it."<br />"Aww" she said.<br />"Well I like EVERYTHING about you".<br />And I snapped. And this was it. I couldn't be with someone who liked "everything" about me.<br />"We're through" I said unsympathetically.<br />"What?" She laughed.<br />"We're through, I'm breaking up with you. No break, no time to think things over. I kissed another girl and I'm breaking up with you".<br /><br />What insued was panic. She told me she forgives me and she begged me to stop, I told her no. It wasn't about forgiveness it was about how I wouldn't have done this if we were right for each other. I should have listened when she tried to call it off initially. She cried. I did nothing. I just sat there.<br />I drove her home and she cried the whole time and I put up the radio and tried not to think.<br />Before she got out of my car, she looked at me with the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen on her, filled to the brim with tears and choked out "Why are you doing this?"<br />and I responded, "In my dreams when I think about the girl who I am going to be with for the rest of my life, I picture her as a painter. She paints beautiful pictures and we hang them up all over our house. You will never paint, you will never be my painter".<br />The painter was a metaphorical thing, yano.<br />"Well" she said. "I hope you realize that you are FUCKING INSANE and that you are breaking up with me for someone you MADE UP in your head, and I hope you DIE alone with nobody but the GIRL in your HEAD" and stormed out of the car.<br />It was the most philosophical thing she'd ever said to me, and I drove away feeling impressed with her.<br /><br />I flipped the car down her street and called Gerry. "Do you want to go to Florida?" I asked him. "When?". "Right now". "No." "OK LATER". I called Murphy. "Do you want to go to Florida?". "I have no money". "OK BYE". I drove down to route 9. I drove and got on I-95. I figured I would deal with all this from a beach in Florida. The hardest thing I'd ever had to do was do what I just did, I couldn't stop crying and I wanted to die, but I knew I HAD to be the one to do this in order for us both to be happy. I figured, I need a vacation.<br />But I had no money. I turned the car around and went home, sure enough there was her car in front of my house, she was standing on my driveway.<br /><br />"Where are you going?" she asked in a manic way. "Florida" I said and just walked inside and slammed the door. I walked up to my room and started shoving clothes in a bag. I walked downstairs and my parents said "where are you going?" and I said "Back to my apartment". They said "But you just got home...it's winter break", and I said "I broke up with Melissa" and closed the door and walked outside.<br />She just stood there and I said "I'm going to Florida Melissa".<br />"You've snapped" she retorted. "You've finally fucking lost it".<br />"True" I said, "But we're gonna be happy one day".<br />I sped up the parkway, back to Franklin Street, and of course there was Justin, alone with a Christmas tree.<br /><br />I told him about what happened.<br /><br />"If Melissa calls I'll tell her you're in Florida" he replied.<br />"Thanks"<br />And he bought me a case of beer and I turned off my phone and we were best friends.<br /><br />Over the course of the next few weeks I never slept. I never left my apartment. I missed Melissa so badly. I looked at pictures all the time. I regretted my decision everyday, from the second I woke up until I went to sleep, but I truly felt, like FELT, that this HAD to be done in order for us to be happy in our lives. I KNEW it was over. Being this cold, and leaving my phone off was something I NEVER wanted to do. I wasn't happy about any of this, on the contrary it was the most miserable I had ever been.<br />I finalized my plans for London, I wanted to get out of here, re-evaluate things. I didn't want to face another year alone on Franklin Street, I didn't want to go back to Old Bridge. I needed something else.<br />I was standing on my driveway. Justin and his girlfriend were inside cooking dinner and I went out for a breath of fresh air. Justin and I had become real close, and I had become really good friends with his girlfriend at this time. They knew what I was going through and they were cooking me dinner and I was really looking forward to it. It was snowing. Snow everywhere.<br />I looked into the street and saw Melissa walking up the driveway.<br />"Tell me you're fucking serious" she said<br />"I am".<br />"You've snapped. I'm worried about you. You've gone insane".<br />"I'm not insane I feel fine"<br />"No you're INSANE" and she screamed it and it echoed and my neighbors looked out the window.<br />She didn't look like herself. I couldn't place what was different and then I realized that she hated me. That's what made her look different.<br />"I'm sorry, but I'm making the right decision, one of us had to do it".<br />"You're insane, the painter comment, what the fuck was that?"<br />"It's the truth, you're not a painter".<br />"FUCK YOU, who are YOU to decide what kind of person I should be?"<br />"I'm not deciding that. I'm telling you what kind of person you're not".<br />"I hate you " she said. "And you will wake up one day and realize you are completley alone and nobody loves you, and I, I will be fine."<br />"Ok, Looking forward to it" I said and turned around and walked inside with tears in my eyes that I didn't want her to see.<br /><br />A few weeks later she started dating a new guy. He was the kind of guy I imagined she belonged with when I broke up with her. I saw pictures of them on the internet, together, saying "I love you" as facebook comments, and I was fucked up. She moved on from our 6 year fling in two weeks. I had not moved on at all. I was in the worst condition of my life.<br /><br />Chapter 4<br />February- May.<br />Really Alone.<br /><br />Time went by and I never left the apartment. I decided that "the apartment" had ruined my life. I spent hours, days, months alone. I lost weight everyday without trying. I never ate, I never slept. I wrote all the time. I read books. I went to class and then I went straight home. I never went back to Old Bridge. I told my friends not to bother coming by, because if they did I had to pretend I was happy. I only felt safe in my apartment. I even tried to go to a few parties and I had to leave, and drive back to Bloomfield, because I just wanted to be alone. My relationship with Justin became strained again because I was dissinterested in doing anything that made me myself. I'd just sit on the couch and type and grunt at him. He stopped coming around, he started spending weeks at a time at his girlfriend's dorm.<br />I'd just stay up all night thinking about how I was dead. listening to the sounds of my apartment. Feeling alone.<br />I'd see Melissa on campus and I'd say some crazy thing to her, make her think I was nuts. I let my hair grow out of control. I was just a sad guy. Everything made me sad.<br />But still, STILL, I KNEW deep down I made the right decision.<br />I didn't realize during this time that I was actually going through a depression. I just thought it was cold out and I wanted to be inside all the time. I didn't realize that when Gerry would show up every Saturday after a while with a six pack and some food to cook that he wasn't just doing it because we're best buds, he was doing it because he was worried about me. Gerry started driving up to Bloomfield twice a week from New Brunswick when he got out of class to hang out with me.<br />Even Justin would come home with little gifts, like a cigar or something and say really sentimental stuff unlike him like "Hey man, maybe this weekend we can go out for a beer?" and I'd think "whats wrong with Justin....is he sad?". I never thought for a second people were worried about me.<br />Everyone was worried about me. Justin told all my friends I was depressed. Melissa even called a few people and told them I wasn't OK. I didn't find out about alot of this until later, but I didn't realize what was going on at the time. It's nice to know that people cared. I didn't really deserve sympathy though, I did it to myself and needed to go through it. I'm glad I did.<br /><br />I was depressed because I made a decision, to be alone. It took a lot of introspection for me to understand my alone ness. This was a disposition I put myself in on purpose, to be happy, and now I was alone and sad like Melissa predicted. I had to figure out how to be a single person like everyone else for the first time in my life. It's not easy to do what I did, to look someone in the face and break their heart for a girl who doesn't exist or a feeling that we might not be right for each other after six years. Its the kind of thing that keeps you up at night.<br />I'm not going to lie, I went on like this for a while, but then my friends, like all things, it ended. The sun came out.<br /><br />Spring.<br />I started feeling better. I don't know how it happened. I just woke up one day and said "I'm back".<br />I vowed never to fall for a girl again until I was ready or felt that same gut feeling that made me break up with Melissa, and I didn't, I mean for like 8 months at least I barely even talked to girls, and even If I did fall for someone again eventually I did it with clear concious and a clear mind, just following that feeling. No more insecurity. No more unsureness. No more needing. I understand myself. No more hiding. I'm like Justin now sort of, I just say it like it is.<br />I was renewed.<br />I told Justin I needed to move out. The apartment served it's purpose but I belonged with the world, with the parties, with society. I had gone into the woods to discover myself and was ready to rejoin society, I understood things now. I was Thoreu. I was no longer depressed, I was happy. I used the time I spent inside to figure myself out, I was going to London to do the final work that had began in 2009, and I was happy. I never wanted to live in Franklin Street again.<br />I moved back home that summer as an adult, not the child who had left in August. I met up with Melissa once or twice and we had civil conversations, she told me how happy she was with her new boyfriend Stan. I was happy she was happy.<br />I spent that summer loving every second I was with my friends, I had a new found understanding of human beings and relationships. I had a great job. I became grateful for everything I had. It felt good to be with people. I felt positive.<br />Then I came to London and had this experience, and I've never been happier in my life. I mean, just re-read this blog. Its amazing to reflect on everything I've done and become. One year later so much has changed, it was the most interesting year of my life but so worth it. Everything was so worth it. All my relationships are where they should be, everything is fine.<br /><br />I owe Justin my life. I owe my friends everything. I am grateful that I have the people I met in London and my friends at home. I owe a big thanks to somebody<br /><br />Maybe God?<br /><br />Who knows.<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-55572942298262609382009-12-06T13:50:00.001-08:002009-12-06T15:30:25.697-08:00London: A Geographical Recap.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9paXx1HsuRl1_0Lt0w5MrkaomCdCJo1DjT7EshDll8WlBEJD6alb_B4xkho4RwMVAvlG7TIEVU8msi9oeQZAgge_yr151UHJW4qr2By5zgSxNsCN6AO6og0OpjR0w8rta49GFJ0LFJOI/s1600-h/giddfdf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9paXx1HsuRl1_0Lt0w5MrkaomCdCJo1DjT7EshDll8WlBEJD6alb_B4xkho4RwMVAvlG7TIEVU8msi9oeQZAgge_yr151UHJW4qr2By5zgSxNsCN6AO6og0OpjR0w8rta49GFJ0LFJOI/s200/giddfdf.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412257469484086546" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ2BlNjjCQNmWyZZoUXISjAIwK5jzi3GSV-8MoApMY6aYwWEig-reYjr4jOA_I-f73GEKvlOKGXabe-A6NrzXG5DP8kyP8HdxEyvZNxC6Vx_tuespU3NvLRHBcqHk2WtbbNVHq4FbIbMs/s1600-h/New+Cross+real.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ2BlNjjCQNmWyZZoUXISjAIwK5jzi3GSV-8MoApMY6aYwWEig-reYjr4jOA_I-f73GEKvlOKGXabe-A6NrzXG5DP8kyP8HdxEyvZNxC6Vx_tuespU3NvLRHBcqHk2WtbbNVHq4FbIbMs/s320/New+Cross+real.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412255501981506050" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Wo6V9ELJozHW9gtUwV5KDVhacSx4ogBM2mUfgu705ry1SBBpgPmYY-3Hp3w1np1GWMkS5knrOB35KicCTWOtal11YsYscJy7qPKVwzj8TFfeB32hzdSERkrVkEV1I0eWXWXCmJl9M_E/s1600-h/new+cross+gate.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Wo6V9ELJozHW9gtUwV5KDVhacSx4ogBM2mUfgu705ry1SBBpgPmYY-3Hp3w1np1GWMkS5knrOB35KicCTWOtal11YsYscJy7qPKVwzj8TFfeB32hzdSERkrVkEV1I0eWXWXCmJl9M_E/s320/new+cross+gate.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412255337732457522" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />I had a long day at "The Church" which I'll blog some other time about because I just had an idea.<br /><br />I'm just going to recap some geographical stuff for myself real quick, so If you follow this blog and don't feel the need to read this, don't bother. Honestly it's just a poorly written/summary rant of a lot of stuff I've already said. I'm just dumping this information out real quick so I have it, kind of like notes.<br /><br /><br />I have less than a week. My friend Kyle moved out to California, and got to drive out west and see areas of the United States I have never seen. I haven't got a chance to talk to him yet, but I saw he penned a few lines on Gerry's facebook wall about what his trip was like. Even in these few lines, I got a really good sense of it, and I decided I should do the same thing. Kyle is an aspiring writer and I was moved by just the short paragraphs he wrote, I really got a sense of it.<br /><br /><br />I have spent 11 weeks living in New Cross, London. The Street is St James, the area code is SE14 6AD...and late at night at the New Cross Inn, the locals chant "This is New Cross, this is London, SE14!" and they sing and the sound vibrates all around you and you know you are there.<br />The first thing symbolic of New Cross is New Cross Gate.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />This is where I will start. This is a train station, similar to any other train station in the world. It looks a lot like train stations in Boston, not so much in NJ, but it's a normal train station. There is graffiti and signs that advertise British meat. One of the the things spray painted on the cement is "?!". The loudspeakers always say messages like " STEP AWAY FROM PLATFORM 5, THE APPROACHING TRAIN IS NOT SHED-UALED(get it?)TO STOP AT THIS STATION",and you watch a train whiz by. When you get on the train it lets you know what you're doing. The speaker will say, "THIS IS THE 19:20 SOUTHERN SERVICE TO, LONDON BRIDGE", or something like that. There are television screens so you can see if you are delayed. If the train is late, the voice will usually give a reason like, "THE 18:40 TRAIN TO ORPINGTON IS DELAYED BECAUSE OF LACK OF EMPLOYEES" or something literal like that.<br />When you walk out of the train station you are in the actual gate. You use your travel card/ or your ticket to get through. Inside there are machines where you buy tickets, or you could always buy tickets off the Jamaican guy who sells them dirt cheap like I do. This is about a 3 minute walk from my dorm.<br />When you leave the gate, you are in New Cross. New Cross smells like french fries and cars that have been running for a long time. It is a smell I love and have gotten used to. When I first got here, I thought all of England smelled like perfume, but the smell went away, maybe I just got used to it, or maybe it's symbolic.<br />If you observe the street you'll see a lot of activity. People move quickly,or they stand still. There are people standing and smoking or shouting. This is a lower class area of London, it's not the area of big Clock towers and important buildings. It looks more like Brooklyn. The street is filled with shops that sell weird electronics or sofas, or just like used crap. There is a lot of fast food. It's a big mix between college students, business men, and crazy looking bums, all shuffling around not making eye contact with each other. You can see from the street Double Decker London Buses go by, (there is a bus stop on either side), black cabs, and normal looking cars with normal looking people in them. The buildings look run down and modern, but still have something terrifically Victorian about them. They don't have that "Sir Christopher Wren" feel, but there is still something aged about the buildings, something just unamerican enough for me to notice.<br />If you go West you'll Head toward Elephant and Castle,and eventually make you're way over the Thames toward Waterloo and Westminster, the business district, which connects to Green Park and eventually Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus.This is whats known as "The Strand", where you would go to see like Big Ben and the Parliament Buildings, Westminster Abbey, and follow the park to Buckingham Palace, you know, all the touristy jazz.... but I'm getting ahead of myself. If you go East you'll head toward Lewisam, Deptford, Greenwich, Catford Bus Garage, southern areas, less/more interest sing areas depending on what kind of person you are. These are the areas of Curry Food and minorities.<br />Ok So New Cross.<br />Across the street from the train station you are greeted with 'THE HOBGOBLIN". This is a bar I rarely went to, but its a SPOT for college kids and live SPORT on Sundays. They actually have really good curry food too, I know because I sat at the bar by myself one day and ate it. It looks like a real homey place, like A father and his four drunk sons probably own it and they just love their lives. I hate their house beer. In the back is a huge beer garden where everyone smokes and hangs out and rages at each other during drunken college nights. I've gotten to know a few of my closest friends here at the Hobgoblin, in the beginning.<br /><br />Down the street a bit on my right is my dorm. A big, ordinary looking building that says, "Goldsmiths University of London". You walk down St. James and you can see a church, which I've only been to once, and then you pass security, swipe your card and go in. If you turn around you will see the noodley,famous Goldsmiths building, that I have never been in. Next to that building is the Richard Hoggart Building, which boasts an impressive front lawn that is on all the Goldsmith's brochures. I used to dream about it sometimes before I left for England.<br /><br />Most of my classes are by this area. In order to get there I have to walk through a very interesting little cottage-like area, where the houses look out of place and suspiciously like Netherlands-style housing. I have only hung out on the great lawn a couple of times.<br />side note, I was just thinking to myself, I wonder if I can add pictures, and sure enough, I can. Never knew I could do this in my blog. Fuck. Whatever.<br />Across the street over that way is all my favourite stuff. The New Cross Inn, which was my favourite pub, Goldsmith's Cafe, where you go for a solid English Breakfast and you can't understand a LICK of what the guy says, The Chinese food place Uncle Wrinkle that sucks, my Launderette place, some bad fast food like SEFA that sell donor and kebabs, and Square Pizza. All this food is essentially bad unless you're wasted.<br />Backtrack. So if you leave St James street from my dorm and go right back on the main road, you will see Iceland, where I did lots of poor grocery shopping. Continue up that way east toward Deptford and you'll see The Amersham Arms, my other favourite pub. Hope on a bus, I think the 179, and you're heading toward Greenwich. Greenwich is not a dump, its a cool place to be, I've blogged about it. If you to to Lewisham its alot like New Cross, just bigger and with a very American looking mall right smack in the center. I went there on Thanksgiving to buy a shirt.<br /><br />New Cross is artsy as it is poor. I wouldn't mind living here trying to make it with a band. Radiohead played at this place called Venue right down the street when they were getting started, near The New Cross Inn, but the club has been turned into a freaky night club. It's got a bohemian/industrial feel. Dire Straits got started here, lots of bands did the New Cross/Deptford/Greenwich pub scene.<br /><br />The sky is always gray and it always looks like it might rain, and eventually it does. To generalize, The girls who live at Goldsmiths/New Cross are not necessarily pretty, but you feel like you might want to get to know them better because they are probably really cool or have weird political beliefs. They all seem like, If I wanted to date one of them, I'd have to know a lot about movies like "Meshes of the Afternoon", they all seem really cool and look like they're hiding something. They're the kind of girls who smoke cigarettes on the break during class.<br /><br />Leaving New Cross, If you take the train to London Bridge, and just get out, you are in Southwark. The main street there is Borough High Street. If you go down there you'll see one of my favourite areas. There it is BUSY. It is the most like New York. There are loads of pubs and music venues and just cool stuff. There will be lots of people with suits. The Borough Market is there which I've blogged about. If you walk west long enough you will come to the Barbican Theater which is a great place to see music and shows because everything they do is International and really worldly,and it's subsidized by the government so we can benefit from it so it is cheap. Further that way toward Waterloo you'll see the London eye, and right now all the Christmas festivals and such. It's funny because in one of my firsts blogs I wrote about how I "got lost" all day in London, well, this is exactly where I was, I can still remember what it looked like when it was unfamiliar....<br /><br />If you go east you'll head towards like another bad area by the Arcola Theatre past Shoreditch, , and west you're heading toward Waterloo and Baker Street...I think.<br />If you walk through the market and over the cobblestone streets you will get to the Thames by the Globe. It becomes very pleasant there, cross the millennium Bridge and you are over by my favourite area in the world by the magnificent St. Paul's Cathedral. This area is more ritzy and commercial. There are important looking artsy people running around drinking coffee. The girls there look like ones on t.v. There are a lot of Starbucks and fancier looking pubs, but not clubs. The cars are nicer, it looks more like The West end of New York.<br />If you go down that way you're heading toward Farringdon, Shoreditch, and Islington. This is like theater world. It also has a really businessy feel to it, but, it is loaded with history. There are lots of ancient hospitals and narrow streets that survived from the Plague, you just have to look for them. There are lots of trendy night clubs and expensive places to eat too of course.<br />It's weird though because if you go somewhere between Farringdon and Shoreditch you hit Aldgate and Aldgate East. Over there is White Chapel Road which is like Afghanistan. Everything is in Arabic and VERY middleeastern for like a few streets, unexplained.<br /><br />But anyway besides Aldgate, that is where the actors hang out. You can reconnect with Borrough High Street somewhere that way, but best to take a bus up in the other direction to Trafalgar Square so I can blog about it.<br />Trafalgar Square is the London that you think of. There is the national gallery and all that, museums, pubs, statues. Piccadilly is the same way, behind Piccadilly is China town, Piccadilly is like the times Square of New York, so is Oxford Circus. It's very international. They are all just, very London. Westminster is more business looking, but they have all the old architecture down there, and big Ben of the Parliament buildings of course. If you walk around Westminster for a while you'll eventually hit Victoria, where there are like "broadway" plays like Wicked and such. The equivalent to Broadway in London is actually Shaftsbury avenue, which is over there somewhere.<br /><br /><br />Those are the main areas I hung around in. I like Covent Garden but it's just like really upper class and Christmasy. You can get to Covent Garden and Leiceter Square easily on the tube from Piccadilly. I just didn't want to NOT mention it.<br /><br />I've gone to Arsenal and St John's wood more north, and everything just seems really suburban, so I figure all those areas are a lot like that.<br /><br />I don't really know what the point of this blog was. I just feel like I'll enjoy reading this one day.<br /><br />Oh BTW, I wrote this whole thing without a map or a reference. I can't even get around Old Bridge without my GPS.<br /><br />Things have changed.<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-51639029579961992612009-12-05T16:19:00.000-08:002009-12-05T17:57:10.241-08:00Bloggy Blogg BLOG!? BLOG! ( A rough week in London)Hello Hello Blog plus readers!<br /><br />One week from right now I'll be sitting at a kitchen table eating dinner with my parents, with my ballin' cell phone in my pocket, probably blowing up with text messages, and a whole mess of the past three months dumped out chaotically on my bed.<br /><br />Couple of notes about things that suck about me before I come home:<br /><br />1.I suck at guitar now. Literally. I suck. My playing has gone to complete shit... I mean I have to admit it. I can't even play some stuff I wrote before I left. I'm going to have to practice like everyday when I get home to get normal again, I'm going to try and hide this fact at band practice for a little while by not improvising or doing anything but smiling, while I go home and feverishly practice all through out winter break and smash my head against my wall. Don't be mad at me though, I had nothing to practice on the past three months but my travel guitar that doesn't have enough frets and too wide of a neck and is constantly out of tune and I had no one to jam with. No Justin, no band, no British kids to play an open mic with....sad.<br />Sorry music, but I promise I'll start working hard again as soon as I land.<br /><br />2. I look the wrong way when I cross the street and will probably crash my car. I am the undisputed King of crashing my car, there is no way living in the UK has helped dethrone me.<br /><br />3. I think I put on like ten pounds. I'm not Gut-man Johnson like I used to be, but I feel like Carlsberg and pasties and fish and chips and English breakfast have systematically ruined my small intestines. That is what I feel like when I wake up in the morning, those food items. I need a vegetable. My body is all fucked up right now. I hope the track by the high school is open, I think I might actually have to run around in circles again to prevent onset type 2 Diabetes....<br /><br />4. Yeah yeah yeah it finally happened, the kid who drank a cup of coffee everyday since sixteen and raved about how great it was my whole life drinks tea now. I'm a traitor, but I got into it. Green tea or Earl Grey please... Cup of the Ol' Chai....kiss my ass Red Bank. Oh yeah and I like my toast with Jam or Marmalade WHAT!<br /><br />Ok. So more true to my "blog" what have I been up to since I left Liverpool?<br />NOT MUCH.<br /><br />I spent the week inside writing terrible papers. I know they are terrible papers because I am an English major, and completely and UTTERLY capable of knowing what constitutes a good paper, and these are downright bad.<br /><br />The UK system works like this<br />Instead of the very informed professor getting you motivated to explore a subject, and then you write a paper with your own unique thesis that is interesting because you really thought about it, know tons about it, and it's original, and dare I say, fun, (to us closet nerds at least), The professor stands in front of the room and drones off powerpoints and babbles incoherently and then you write a paper on some subject you have never been introduced to ever that requires a semesters worth of outside research because you didn't learn ANY of it in the classroom.<br />Fun right?<br />For example, For London History, we walked around London every Monday and the teacher told us, nice little tidbits about London. It was very pleasant.<br /><br />My essay: A 9 Page extravaganza on how because of the actual geographical city of London, The Pre-Raphaelite movement was formed and influenced art in the 19th century and France. We never learned about this once, I saw the term "Pre Raphaelite" in passing on a visit to the Tate Modern. I did hours and hours of my own research, formed a thesis, and wrote a bad paper because I've never studied art history and wasn't sure if I was stepping on toes or making the right connections. Regardless, I actually liked what I was learning, which was cool ( I am a closet nerd and do actually like this sort of thing), but I'm sure if someone who knows something about Art read this paper they'd say...I was just trying to get a C. Embarrassing.<br /><br />Great.<br /><br />So I stayed in and wrote bad papers. We didn't even have taco Tuesday, but we did get to see Sweet Charity the Musical which I sort of enjoyed because the music was so contemporary and it didn't have a god damn happy ending.<br /><br />Wednesday we saw this play about psychoanalysts who are old and have relationship problems which, I get it, I'm supposed to like because I'm a college student and this stuff is important to history saba da. All the bald men with collared shirts and half dead wives in the audience seemed to really enjoy it.<br /><br />Like I get it. I get these plays. I'm not stupid, I just don't find plays about things I could read a 101 textbook about and be equally as excited very entertaining or moving. It's not a good thing or a bad thing. I know plays aren't SUPPOSED to entertain you. I get it.<br /><br />But sue me for on this one night wanting to be entertained, I even said to Daria," I just want to relax tonight and watch a play". I know that's the taboo crime against "artists".The desire to watch some guy get eaten by a lion on stage instead of bored to death by three old ladies babbling about how their childhoods are fucked up. I'm a fuckin Roman I guess, I belong in a vomatorium. .<br /><br />I mean I'm half kidding, The Iceman Cometh is my favourite play in the whole world and I'm moved to tears after I read the four hour script that it comes with, and that is conceivably one of the most boring things one can read. I love Beckett too, I even actually liked Found in the Ground. I just don't see the fascination in these BORING plays that people go see because they put up with their boredom so they can learn something they already knew. Just go see something good. I mean this play wasn't even symbolic of anything or anything it was dribble.<br /><br />At least the Fahrenheit Twins was aesthetically pleasing in it's infinite boredom, and I personally found it interesting because of it's hidden biblical connotations. Reverse Eden, no happy ending. Anti- Disney, yeah that was good. I can dig that. That had something BESIDES what I was watching, if that shouldn't be enough. I like that.<br /><br />BUT I MEAN CMON!<br />Remember The Line?! That play SUCKED! It's supposed to be about one of the most important French artists, Edgar Degas. And I know Professor Dykes mentioned this, but I SWEAR if he called on me I was going to say the same thing. This play was as sterile as a fucking doctor's office, what was French about it?What made that place look like an art studio? I thought the whole time, "there is no way this British guy drew that, there is no way there is sexual frustration here", The guy had like a cockney accent. The play wasn't Sexual at all, HOW CAN A PLAY ABOUT ART BETWEEN AN ARTIST DRIVEN TO ISOLATION BY HIS OWN GENIUS AND A HOT YOUNG GIRL WHO FUCKS HIS LIFE UP NOT BE SEXUAL..... IN FRANCE......IN AN ART STUDIO? She takes her clothes off and I think the lighting guy did a better job of showing he was excited.<br /><br />Anyway that was a rant. I've seen a string of bad plays is what I'm trying to say.<br /><br />Thursday I slept in and wrote more papers.<br /><br />Friday, we were going to Spain.<br /><br />I got two hours of sleep. Went to sleep at 6:30, woke up at 8:30. I spent 16 pounds on a train to Luton airport. We got to the airport, went through a passport checkpoint, security, and waited for two hours.<br /><br />Upon getting to the plane, the old bag behind the counter tells us we needed to get our passports checked at baggage check in. We were supposed to get a stamp on our tickets saying our passport had been checked. Well lady, ok, I'm reading the ticket, and it doesn't exactly say that. We went through TWO passport checks, so WHY do I need the one at baggage check in? This was just ridiculous, it wasn't just us, there were a whole group of people quarantined and told they "can't board" because they didn't go through baggage check even though we only had a bookbag.<br />So we couldn't get on the plane and missed it for no reason. We lost about sixty five pounds on the round trip planes, and we'll see if we get refunded for our hotel. I spent 11 pounds on a trip back to New Cross. I didn't really care, I figured that the plane would go down or something and maybe God or Allah or The Force or Batman or whatever spared my life for whatever reason and I thought not to argue with fate. Someone tells me not to get on, I didn't wanna argue. I actually didn't care at all I was kind of happy to have my last weekend in London back. I'm glad I was just traveling with Emily and Daria, some of my previous travel-mates are not so positively charged. hehe. :)<br /><br />We went back to New Cross and ate dinner at Noodle and rice, which was weird. Than, we got drunk with Kyle and his friend from Montclair, NJ. Everyone got like black out drunk, I wasn't too bad. Daria and I went to the Amersham Arms, maybe my favorite pub in London, and had a beer and a real good talk.<br /><br />I walked into my flat drunk at this point at about 3:30am and found that there were fries cooking in the oven. I banged on Kyles door and found him sleeping in his bed. I woke him up and told him he had fries in the oven. Maybe that is why I didn't get to go to Spain, so I could prevent Kyle from burning down my flat. Me and Kyle drank a bit more, and then we had a very funny incident involving a chair which I will not detail right now. We had a good laugh though, and talked about how it sucks that we'll never get to hang again after this trip.<br /><br />I slept all day today, went to the "Winter Wonderland" in Hyde Park, which was cool. English people turn Christmas into like a German drinking competition, which is interesting. There are just like pubs and sausage stands set up everywhere. I bought a wooden tie.<br /><br />Ok, Tomorrow I'm going to "The Church". My alarm is set for 8:00am.<br /><br />That should be an interesting blog.<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-2403443423675146452009-12-01T19:37:00.000-08:002009-12-01T20:51:10.248-08:00Liverpool and Other Small Things in my Life (Never Get Comfortable)Misc.<br /><br />Here I am, 3:30am, after a night of not writing a paper and seeing yet another show, I'm reflecting on how in a few days this won't be my room anymore.<br />I was talking to Kerry on instant message tonight and she asked If I was still the same. I said no, I mean, no way. I don't feel the same at all.<br />She said, "how so?"<br />I said, "I feel like I've figured out how to introduce myself to a group of strangers and be honest".<br />Confused she asked what I meant, I told her I didn't really know but I think I leveled out.<br />I think I'm happy.<br />I think I like being called Andy.<br /><br />She said, "Well we all can't wait to get drunk and listen to your stories from England in a circle."<br />I thought to myself yeah and I can't wait to tell them, I do like the sound of my own voice, don't I?<br />But I am Virgo, can't be helped, it's in the stars.<br /><br />When I think about how I'm on the brink of going home I am overcome with three emotions.<br /><br />1. I am filled with girlish excitement, like I even caught myself smiling a few times when I thought about passing the Old Bridge water tower on Route 9, knowing any minute I'll be screaming with my friends, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">hangin</span>, saying "20" and being called a girl every five seconds again. . It's the warmest feeling I can conjure in my stomach. I can't wait. I can't wait to "scoop" you again.<br /><br />". 2. I feel like wait, freeze frame, I'm not <span style="font-style: italic;">ready</span>. I can't <span style="font-style: italic;">leave </span>Europe. I can't go back to the states, I can't go back. I still need more time. I still have more work to do, more to write about. I can't go back to the world of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">barbecues</span> and television. I can't. I told Kelly the other night that what will bother me the most when I go home is, that when I thought about Old Bridge, I thought about how my dirt road is happening right now, like the trees are swaying behind my house, and no one is there, and the night is calm, and I know it goes on without me. When I'm home, I'll know London will go on without me.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Loring</span> hall will be loud at 3am, the 453 to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Marlebone</span> will run through the night, people will go to the Hobgoblin on Wednesday nights, and O' <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Neills</span> on Thursdays, someone will stare at the Globe from under the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">millennium</span> bridge, and I won't be there. I feel like it's a carnival that should be torn down when I leave. Did this place actually exist because I saw it, will it be gone after I leave? Everything we love just becomes another hopeless memory a few seconds later. Will I ever fall in love with something permanent?<br /><br />But I guess if there's permanence then there is comfort, with comfort comes being content, with being content comes death inside a warm bed. You always have to get up, go out into the cold and walk through it, it's the only way to be happy. Never get warm. Never be comfortable. Never accept anything as everlasting. It's temporary moments in our temporary lives that leave us permanently remembering the good times and searching for the next one.<br /><br /><br />The third emotion is a rejection of that.... To ask for any more time would be selfish, no one else gets to do this, I am lucky, blessed, whatever you want to call it, I am lucky/blessed. It's time to go home. I did nothing to deserve this, I came here to find something and I did and now I have to go, Old Bridge served my purpose, Franklin Street served its purpose, London served its purpose, onto the next one. Always onto the next one. Never get comfortable.<br /><br /><br />Next week I'm going to take down my Obama poster, all my pictures of friends, my London shirt, pack my shit guitar, fill a bag with <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">souvenirs</span>, place my drawings in a notebook, and lay in a white space that will look the same as the night I moved in.<br /><br />I will always remember laying in my bed in EA1, I will always remember the way it looked in the morning when I woke up and thought I was in Old Bridge, and then looked around and remembered I flew thousands of miles away. I will always remember how slowly but surely, it became my room, not my dorm. I will always remember believing in something inside of it sometimes, somewhere, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">somenight</span>.<br /><br />Oh come now, now I'm just being over-dramatic.<br /><br />Liverpool.<br /><br />So we went to Liverpool. I think the people I traveled with had some idea of what this meant to me, whether they thought it was silly or didn't quite understand, or did understand, or really enjoyed it, it didn't matter. I was in my own head. To understand the impact the Beatles had on my life, I can't describe, and since I detailed that heartily in my Abbey Road blog, I won't back track. But this was something I had ALWAYS dreamed about, thought about, it was my final goodbye to every teenage dream I've ever had. Time to make new ones as a 21 year old man, it was a cleansing, a pilgrimage, and I'm alright with that. I finally dumped out the last of everything I had ever dreamed of, I finally purged.<br />Onto the next one.<br /><br />We met up at 3:30am. I was actually able to sleep that night. It was raining. We almost didn't make the train,<br /><br />We ran and shuffled, we got on buses and we ran again.<br /><br />On the first train to Stafford, everyone slept and I listened to Beatles songs in my head.<br />The second train to Liverpool I thought about everything.<br /><br />Once we arrived, Kate and I got pasties, and I felt good. Daria and Emily and Kate and I walked the streets of Liverpool. First impression. Exactly what I expected. There was the hollowed out church I'd seen Paul McCartney standing in front of in so many photographs. Bleak. It's the kind of place seagulls just belong in.<br />Some guy covered in blood walked up to us and said "birds".<br />I dunno.<br />We checked into our Hostel and all thought it was the best. Although we later discovered the sheets were covered in blood and urine, it was still the nicest hostel we stayed in recently, and they gave us free toast. Also, it was filled with people our own age.<br />We sat in the room and traded disgusting stories for a while, while we waited for the fab four taxi tour.<br />We payed a guy named Danny to drive us around in a black cab for 3 hours and take us to every Beatles site.<br /><br />I don't have to much to write about this stuff. This, like a lot of other stuff, feels safer in my head. I saw the hospital John Lennon was born in. I stood by the house he grew up in, I stood by the house Paul lived in where they wrote 100s of Beatles songs, we went to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Ringos</span> houses, John's Art School, I threw my first guitar pick from the age of thirteen on the doorstep of George Harrison's house. I stood at Strawberry Fields, I walked down Penny lane, saw the Bankers and the barber shop. I stood in the graveyard where Paul McCartney met John Lennon and years and years later changed my little life and led me to pick up a guitar and study abroad in England<br />.<br />The entire time, I stopped talking because I was fighting back serious tears. Everywhere we went I couldn't stop trying not to cry. I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with pride, guilt, happiness, gratitude. I couldn't believe I got to do this. The Beatles were at one point, my religion. This was literally my Mecca, my dome of the rock.<br />As soon as I had a second alone I thought how me and John Lennon shared a sidewalk in Liverpool, and have eyed down the same streets and houses, drank a beer in the same bar, and I cried. I really cried for the first time in a long time.<br /><br />I purged.<br /><br />Later we went to the cavern club where the Beatles got their start, it stands sort of unimpressive now and we watched a garbage band play hits from the 70s. That night we took a nap, discussed the misdoings of the do-do bandit, and Kate realized every sheet in the hostel appeared to be covered with blood or urine.<br /><br />We went out that night, this wouldn't be my blog if I didn't tell you we got wasted. Liverpool has an awesome night life. It was kind of like Dublin/Amsterdam. We drank in a place called "Lennon's Bar", and had a blast dancing to music. We ended the night wasted at the Cavern Club. We took a cab home.<br /><br />The next day we walked around in the Liverpool rain and rode a Ferris Wheel. We went to Albert Dock and it was the first time I'd gotten to stare out into water for a while. Really famous water, that I'd only dreamed about seeing....fighting back tears again.<br /><br />It was the end of my trip to England, my next trip should have been home. I can ask for nothing more from this place.<br /><br />I wrote "Cheers to Living on Borrowed time" on the wall of Strawberry Field. That is all I'm doing, one of my favorite Lennon quotes, and I knew if Keith ever heard about it, he'd appreciate it. We both went through the Beatles years together.<br /><br />I wrote "3" on the wall of the Cavern Club. Nobody knows what this means except for one person who will never read this blog and I will never tell you.<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-80465343711023566412009-11-27T08:06:00.001-08:002009-11-27T10:32:35.752-08:00LONG 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:<br />Thanksgiving<br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Cheers if you liked my list of things I'm thankful for. ONE LUV XOXOXOX.<br /><br /><br />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?<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br />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....<br /><br />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".<br />Cheers.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. .<br /><br />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"...<br /><br />Ten weeks later I just told a room full of the same people that I love them.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Then everyone left and me Joe and Monica spend the night doing Post Colonial Theory on ourselves.<br /><br />Part two. Femininity. A Biography.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />"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".<br /><br />I said to Gerry once<br /><br />"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"<br /><br />We just shrugged our shoulders and laughed over a cup of coffee.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />A return to girls.<br /><br />( by the way, look how much I've learned about myself, I'm kind of in disbelief as I'm typing)<br /><br />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.<br />It drove my dad nuts, I'm sure.<br />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.<br />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.<br />I wasn't nuts, I just spent all my time in my imagination.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />So I did.<br />And we laughed but I was in love. My first childhood love. Whatever that means.<br />It was about that time that I wrote my first poem that I still have in my room to this day.<br /><br />5th grade<br />If I tell you I love you<br />and you say no<br />Than I will have hot tears on my face<br />But if you say you love me too<br />we'll be married one day.<br /><br />That was my poem in the 5th grade.<br />Turns out Dad, I wasn't gay, I was a 19th century romantic. Things haven't changed too much.<br /><br />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.<br />Stupid kids.<br />I did grow up though.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />It worked.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />. 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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />It took me two and a half hours to write this blog.<br /><br />Cheers.<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-32198116547636163902009-11-25T18:05:00.001-08:002009-11-25T21:22:05.841-08:00What 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.<br /><br />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..<br />Real moments like...<br /><br />I'm thankful I lived in Franklin Street with Justin Hunt.<br /><br />I'm thankful I went to George's Birthday Party.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I'm thankful Lori wrote me that letter before I left,and I shuffled it in my fingers on the plane ride over.<br /><br />I'm thankful I drank wine with Nick Caliendo and Becca Nevins in front of an old church in London, England.<br /><br />I'm thankful I talked with Kristina in front of Dickson the weekend before I left.<br /><br />As far as my new friends...<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 ;).<br /><br />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.<br /><br />...and back at home<br />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.<br /><br />I'm thankful Meg has a screen name and IMs me late at night.<br /><br />I'm thankful Kyle Millman quit his job.<br /><br />I'm thankful Dan D and Gerry skyped me so much. I loved our skype sessions.<br /><br /> I'm thankful for Noistradamus still playing while I'm 5,000 miles away.<br /><br />I'm Thankful for Nick's porch. All of it.<br /><br />I'm thankful Bryan did this first.<br /><br />I'm thankful Bryan asked me if I was Ok in August. I've been OK since that conversation.<br /><br />I'm thankful Dan V. answers when I call him even if he's in class.<br /><br />I'm thankful Gerry and Lori bought me my first beer on my real 21st birthday.<br /><br />I'm thankful Gerry will drink coffee with me until I die.<br /><br />After living in London, I thankful Dan D gets to study in Boston.<br /><br />I'm thankful that Melissa is with Stan and is happy.<br /><br />I'm thankful that in Amsterdam I thought about Ramy, not because of the weed, but because the constellations were clear that night.<br /><br />I'm thankful Nine and Kerry know they're not birds.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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".<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I'm thankful for every person who has been there for me during this weird, weird year.<br /><br />Cheers.<br />Happy Thanksgiving<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-72815109239955481412009-11-24T19:42:00.001-08:002009-11-24T20:05:38.291-08:00Being SICKSo 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I slept all day, woke up for an hour, slept all night.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />I abstained from drinking, still feeling sick,and went back into my cave.<br /><br />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.<br />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?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I really should start writing these papers.<br /><br />I have drank 8 cartons of orange juice in the past two days.<br />I'm doing okay.<br /><br />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.<br />I wish I was a female so I could make a scrapbook of this trip.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Am I bored?<br /><br />"When you grow tired of London, you grow tired of life"<br /><br />Fuck.<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-21013493249025919482009-11-22T18:53:00.000-08:002009-11-22T19:43:51.810-08:00Family and Other Serious Stuff to ConsiderIt'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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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".<br /><br />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?<br />She said something along the lines of, eh, we're trying to convince you to stay when you get back. I felt heart warmed.<br />But<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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?<br />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..<br />I don't even know why I'm thinking about this stuff. My parents never said anything while I trashed their house.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />My whole life I've been waiting for a really good idea.<br /><br />Got it! Just kidding.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />I'm not a singer/songwriter.<br />I'm not a musician...I do have a hobby I really love though. <br />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.<br />I'm not ever going to wear a tie.<br />I'm not sure what the future holds, but the past is so much fun to write/talk about.<br /><br />All my stories aren't tall tales.<br /><br />Cheers.<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-41504992400906307992009-11-21T18:37:00.000-08:002009-11-21T19:21:06.182-08:00People as Places as PeopleI'm not going to formally write this blog. I think I'll write it as like a rant, so pardon the bad writing.<br /><br />So Here I am, sitting in my room at 2:30am, wishing so bad I could sleep, but<br /><br />A. I slept for 14 hours yesterday.<br />B. There is music bumping so loud from Jo's flat that I can actually sing along easily. But, I'm digging the playlist.<br />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.<br /><br /><br />Anyway I have like just over two weeks left. I had a wake up call the other day.<br /><br />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. <br />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.<br />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.<br />Wait, what am I talking about?<br />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.<br />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.<br />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!<br />Time to go home.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /> "Hey lady, you into young guys with neurotic behavior that read Shakespeare for fun and have no foreseeable income?".<br />Pass. <br /><br />So I took the bus home and drunk dialed some friends from the states.<br />Got in, hung out with Kyle, went to sleep.<br /><br />That was Thursday.<br />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.<br /><br />Friday, uh, Friday I sat in my room all day and stared at the walls and listened to Men at Work.<br />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".<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br /><br />Cheers-<br />Andrew<br /><br /><br /><br />That was Thursday.Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-63104882091687355572009-11-17T18:12:00.000-08:002009-11-18T06:12:52.623-08:00Winding DownYou find a wave and than you ride it until it crashes...not a wave, part of the ocean?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />I tried to steal my audio guide but the alarm went off.<br /><br />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.<br />Ha.Ha.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I'm trying to read books again, I failed all semester to read. It's ok though, I have next semester to read.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Other than that, I think I might be ready for New Jersey.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />It's useless to keep going over all the other stuff in my head, running on empty, clinging to scraps of October.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />I'm not a writer because I write blogs or stupid Facebook notes.<br /><br />I got started on Season six of The Office finally, it's fantastic I sit in my room LOLing.<br /><br />Sunday, me and my friends Zack and Kyle are waking up at 8am and drinking uncontrollably. Kegs and Eggs. Wish me luck.<br /><br />Cheers-<br />They'll be more detailed blogs coming soon.<br />Andrew.Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-44531440354197649982009-11-14T06:00:00.000-08:002009-11-14T06:13:47.442-08:00Fast BlogI 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.<br /><br />Traveling the world ruled but I'm excited to get home, I miss my crew.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />Friday night I got black out drunk, danced, walked around New Cross muttering to myself.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />I know this blog wasn't to detailed, I'm just tried, I may re-do it. I needed a blueprint.<br /><br />Cheers-<br />GinsAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-91898848066458735192009-11-10T07:16:00.001-08:002009-11-11T07:58:56.593-08:00"You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know"-Oscar Wilde.<br /><br />Intro:<br />Where do I really begin?<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />Before that night I had climbed the Eiffel Tower, and lit a candle in Notre Dame.<br />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.<br /><br />I spent an hour in Anne Frank's house and breathed when I walked outside.<br /><br />I rode a bicycle all over Amsterdam. I saw a pretty girl selling herself in a window.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: verdana;">My Trip Backpacking Across Europe. "A long blog"</span><br />Notes from Dublin. Day 1.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; font-family: verdana;">Sad, Beautiful, Lovesick, Dublin.</span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />Note: No one reminded me to bring flip flops. If you plan to shower in a hostel, you need flip flops.<br />Gross.<br /><br />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).<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />It was cool to see the people of all these different nationalities sitting around and chatting.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />I ordered a Guinness(this one was perfect).<br />This Irish people dimmed down the lights, got out a microphone, and started singing old, beautiful, sad, Irish folk songs a Capella.<br /><br />They all took turns over and over again, singing the saddest love songs I've ever heard. Pure beauty in Europe.<br /><br />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.<br />The guy made me feel sad.<br />Sad, beautiful, lovesick, Dublin.<br />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.<br />The next day I woke up in my bed, realising I was in a room with twenty other people, feeling a little strange.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />After my shower we headed out to the pub, I had Kerry Beef and Potatoes.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Ok. Guinness Factory.<br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />That night we ate at a pub. I had traditional Irish stew, and a pint of Bulmer's Irish Cider.<br />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.<br /><br />Dublin was an interesting city to say the least and a great place to drink.<br />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.<br />Time to smoke some Chronic.<br /><br />Cheers.<br />Andrew<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: verdana;">Amsterdam; This is the Place for Us. By: Andrew Ginsberg.</span><br />Blog 2.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />I'm losing my mind.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />Everyone there is so friendly, they have no laws but low crime, everyone is happy.<br />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.<br />Later that night we just went around to different coffee shops, uh, trying out different, uh, coffees.<br /><br />We went to the Red Light District.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />More coffee shops...more coffee.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Not gonna dwell on Anne Frank House.<br /><br />I ate a giant hot dog with everything on it...it was great.<br />Than we went to Grasshopper Cafe to eat a brownie.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />We went to the Amsterdam market, and bought some weird chocolates and such.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />We spent the night in more coffee shops, trying more kinds of coffee.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />That was Amsterdam.<br />We ditched our leftover weed in a garbage can before heading onto the Bus for Paris.<br /><br /><br />Blog 3:<br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold;">Paris:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Seulement la chose belle comme Paris vous est</span><br />...really.<br /><br /><br />Coming Soon. Paris Blog not finished. Stayed Tuned Readers!!!!!!Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-89060914458172915282009-10-30T16:57:00.000-07:002009-10-30T17:48:01.336-07:00In the scheme of things, this is the CLIMAX of my London plot.This is it. Tomorrow I leave for my unshaven journey through Ireland, Amsterdam, and Paris. It's funny that these are the three places that I planned to go before I came here, and now I'm actually going...with friends! <br /><br />This is the climax. I'll be living my dreams backpacking through Europe for 11 days, and when I get back I have one month left (falling action), and boom I'm home again. Back to New Jersey, no more city life and British people, fish and chips, double Decker buses, staring at the Thames, Globe Theater, New Cross Inn, hundreds of years of history, English countryside, Green Park, tower bridge, ...wait I don't want to think about all this right now, do I?<br /><br />I miss my friends so much, but I really don't know how I'm going to go back to driving my Altima up and down Browntown Shopping Center after all this. The world is just too impressive. To God Damn impressive.<br />Than again, I can almost hear my band blasting through Nick's basement again...that makes me smile. <br /><br />I still have a list of things to do when I get back though.<br />1. See an Arsenal Football game<br />2. Go to Manchester<br />3. Go to Liverpool<br />4. Take the Beatles walking tour<br />5. Go to King's Cross to try and find Platform 9 3/4's.<br />6. Go to Stratford upon Avon and other Shakespeare sites.<br />7. Go to Brighton.<br />8. Go to Warwick Castle.<br /><br />So there are still things. <br />I hope I can bring London home with me.<br /><br />There's so much I want to write about but this isn't the blog for it. I'm just so lucky, the world has moved me so much since I've been here. The world changed me. <br />I just think about how I came to London for no reason. Like, I had no reason to do this except that something told me to go to London. My first calling. I listened to my first calling in life and it's working out like callings do usually. <br />I hate how symmetrical and schematic life can be sometimes.<br /><br /><br />It feels good to feel good again, or feel something besides neutrality and general non-interest in life I guess. I feel sort of, re-energized. I feel back.<br /><br />Things are good.<br /><br />Yesterday I woke up and took the bus to Greenwich by myself. Greenwich is a really sweet little place, with shops and such. I walked around alone for a while going into stores and thinking about how it's strange that I'm getting into aesthetics. Like I see clothes or like interesting decorative shit and I think to myself..."maybe I should buy that"? Why? I never wanted things before, but lately I've been really fascinated by fantastical looking decorative clothes and like ornaments and pictures and things. It's weird because this is just something I noticed I've developed since I've been here, no one else is like that or introduced me to it, it's just like this small thing in the back of my mind. I like cool stuff now I guess. Am I turning into Justin?<br /><br /> I don't know, maybe the kid is changing.<br /><br />Anyway, I found a copy of Emmanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" that was published in like 1815 in an old book shop.( Holy crap I am turning into Justin). I was so happy about it, only 10 pounds. I used to read that book at the Breakfast table every morning on Franklin Street so I could start my day being fucked up in the head. I wanted to read it.<br /><br />I found the COOLEST, PUB, EVER. It was a real bar, with bar stools and stuff, and a fireplace.I sat there and ordered an Amstel Bier, and I read the book and drank alone for like two hours. Finally, I started feeling drunk, and the bartender who is like a dude my age asked what I was reading.<br />Long story short he started drinking and talking about philosophy with me, and before I knew it it was 5pm and I was totally drunk from drinking with a stranger while talking about Emmanuel Kant in England all day.<br /><br />I drunkenly took the bus back to my flat, and later Kate and Daria decided to bake a cake. Feeling drunk already, I bought 10 beers and drank them while they baked and I watched and made stupid jokes and was drunk. Jo eventually came in and helped me drink them, and after we finished we went back to the liquor store, moved it to my kitchen, and me and Jo wound up drinking and singing songs and talking about our lives until 8am. It was a beautiful night, because I bonded with someone I didn't know that well before, and it reminded me very much of a night at home, and centered me a bit.<br /><br />Today I laid around hungover and went on a tour of Haunted places in London. It was pretty interesting. There are lots of ghosts in London, I wish I could meet all of them.<br /><br />Well, tomorrow I leave. No Blog for 11 days. I will be writing a blog though, on actual paper (LOL)which I will transfer to this thing when I get back.<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-45505306967672430192009-10-28T19:51:00.000-07:002009-10-28T20:44:42.033-07:00Oh it starts and ends....you're like a sunset.Wasn't going to update this for a while (like post 11 day trip around Europe, a while)but once again I find myself lying in bed, unconvinced of a good reason to surrender to sleep. No T.V, too late to play guitar, music in the background, I figure might as well update my blog. Plus, I don't want to see the bald guy in my dreams again. Just kidding.<br /><br />BTW is anyone still reading this besides Lori and Tom? I find that I'm letting this get a bit personal and I'm wondering if anyone actually reads this.Knowing that I'm writing to empty cyberspace and two close friends would make me feel a little better I think. Shoot me an e-mail if you're following this blog<br />andrewstrums@hotmail.com<br /><br />just kidding, don't e-mail me.<br /><br />I'm feeling really fucking excellent right now. I know last week I had a bit of a setback, with homesickness and unexplained physical sickness (possibly brought on by anxiety which may or may not have been brought on by alcoholism and turkey sandwiches) but I think I discovered a few possible career choices for my "life" once May hits.<br /><br />Ok<br />A. Write a great book. Ok, ok, I know I always say this, but, I think I came up with a really good idea to write about...I'd have to start writing though, which is complicated because it would interfere with my facebook postings and away message checking.<br />B. Be in a Rock Band. I saw Phoenix tonight and the dream holds true, I wish I was doing that instead of pretending to be a young intellectual. <br />C. Open up an English style pub in Keyport with Nick. Yeah that's right. Me and Nick always talked about opening a bar, if I opened a pub like the ones here in London, I think it'd be a hit. We'd open for English Breakfast, tea lunch, live music every night (supplied by me), Currey Dinner, Sunday Roast, and of course all the English beer you can drink on tap! Oh yeah, and NO TIPPING! Big signs in the windows that say no tipping! ...now all I need is 900,000 dollars to get started.<br />D. Take out a 50,000 dollar loan for Grad School and continue to read books and get my degree in book reading, thus perpetuating my beatnik lifestyle and future (comparable to a sunrise) that will never come....i'm leaning toward this one.<br />E. Ok There are ALOT of street musicians in London. I was thinking like what if I got them all together in some BIG venue, charged people to see them all at once, for like, a good cause or something. (What cause worth fighting for is good?)I think that'd be awesome. The musicians would get exposure, somebody would benefit. I'd need to be backed by John Mayer and Kanye West or something though.<br />F. Live with my parents and deliver pizza.<br />G. Commit insurance fraud.<br />H. Sell my ballin car and live off the money for six months and then hang myself.<br />J. No ok J is serious. Maybe work for National Geographic? What if I got paid to like blog about places I've visited...that'd be a nice life, traveling and writing about it.<br />K. Eat 6 grease trucks sandwiches in 45 minutes, and have my last dying words be "Call it the Fandy (Fat Andy)".<br /><br /> Ok, that was comic relief. What have I actually been up to?<br />Sunday I went to a cooking class. I learned how to make Yorkshire Pudding and Scones. The lady was really weird and I felt immature the whole time. I felt like I was back in High School cooking class and all I wanted to do was be an asshole and make offhand comments and make the kids I was with laugh. I love scones though. Scones with marmalade and clotted cream...fire.<br />Afterwords this kid I don't know to well named Julian asked me to watch football (soccer) with him at a pub. It was like 1pm and I was pretty excited because I wanted to sit at a pub with a dude and get blasted in the middle of the afternoon...haven't done that since a few days before I left. He bailed though, but it was ok because me and my real friends went to Piccadilly. Jose and I got some Heineken's, and I got a german-style sausage with onions, and we sat in Green Park outside Buckingham Palace and spent the afternoon laying in the leaves in a circle. I had one of those, "God, I'm in London" moments. It had been a while and it felt good.<br />That night we saw "The Imaginerium of Dr. Parnassas" in a British movie theater. The movie was fuckin' awesome, but the British "PICTURE HOUSE" was way MORE awesome. The seats recline all the way back, the theater was clean, and every preview was for beer. Like literally every preview. Oh, and you can drink in the theater. <br /><br />Monday I went to class which was LAME, but our London History class was really interesting. We walked around like some places I haven't seen yet, down alleyways and stuff. We saw St. George's hospital which is like 600 years old, and we went to a few graveyards where people were buried during the plague. <br /><br />Later that night I went to see "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Young Vic. It was literally the worst play I've ever seen, and I know I always talk in extremes, but saba dah it was FUCKING bad. I loved it. I was entertained the entire time by how bad it was. I think, I could have made up better dances. I really do. I might see it again because it was so comically bad.<br /><br />Tuesday we had taco lunch, and then Kate and Chris and I walked around New Cross. That night we went to the New Cross Inn again, watched some bad bands, had a good time. I wound up getting drunk even though, I really tried not to. Toffee Vodka was just too good,and I'm a sucker for good friends and conversation.<br /><br />Today I woke up LATE and felt great. Kate and I went to see Phoenix at the O2 Academy Brixton. Brixton, turns out, is like the East Orange of London. I really wanted to eat at a nice place, but we could only find weird pubs with weirder menus. Finally, when I was about to give up, we spotted a really nice little place in an alleyway. It was a cool little place,, with like happy people and candles and such but the picture on the wall was of a bunch of different colored cartoon people holding each other's dicks...it was also the logo. That aside, I ordered an Ostrich Burger (yeap) and Kate had a Fish pie with an egg on it. I than proceeded to convince her of the joy's of beginning a relationship with Guinness. <br />After that we went to the show, got two Guinness's (yes), and watched Phoenix. The theater was so cool. It was like, if a theater at home put on a costume. Phoenix was amazing and it felt great to see real music again. I was really into it. The band that opened up was interesting as well, they have that song that goes, "I'm doing handstands for you" over and over again.<br />I love music and musicians. All I want to do is be a badass musician with a cool light show. This show was such a good experience, I miss seeing concerts so much.<br /><br />It was a great night, now I can't sleep, thinking about buffalo wings.<br /><br />I love England. I love London. This city is quite alive. This weekend I'm going to Dublin though, perhaps, the climax of this blog.<br /><br />My time is running short. Can't believe I've been here for six weeks. I can actually see going home now as something that is not so far away. It's ok. I still have to go to liverpool, manchester, brighton, wales, and Subway.<br /><br />Goodnight Friends. I love you!!!<br /><br />Cheers-<br />ANDREW M. GINSBERGAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-4030692661660631842009-10-24T17:16:00.000-07:002009-10-24T18:09:40.291-07:00Back On Track; Life in London.Ok So I've written long, ego-driven rants the past week or so on Abbey Road and other such things in life, but I strayed a bit from my actual London Blog.<br /><br />Trying to be as honest as possible, after Nick left I was feeling A. Physically destroyed, like McDonald's, meat pies, sausage, mash, and enough beer to keep an entire African village drunk for three weeks had taken a toll on my body, and B. a little lonely. This week was interesting for me as as part of this whole, I was feeling really stressed and I wasn't sure why, I was sleeping badly, and I was feeling just general tiredness.<br />Monday I announced it was Octsober and decided not to drink this week. I wanted to figure things out.<br />Tuesday I went to my favorite bar in New Cross, the New Cross Inn, watched some really bad local bands with two great people and got black out drunk and wished I could get on the stage...i'm itching. This kid I know Charlie busted out a passable rendition of "El Scorcho" and I felt really warm, but all the other music was bad, but bad in a drunken, sing-along, beautiful way. That night wound of being one of my favorite nights so far, but the next morning I felt awful again...more than a hangover I just felt like, my body couldn't exhale.<br />I deducted I've been treating my previously healthy body way to crappily over this time. I've made some changes with regards to certain habits, and I'm working on thinking about things again, not tuning out and diving into my current world of post youth vacation without a split second to remind myself...in May I'll be out of college.<br />Wed. I was hungover and we went to see a really interesting play about a guy who shows up at his sisters house covered in blood. We were a half hour late ( guess we still are tourists) after getting lost in Soho, but the play was good and I really dug it. I really like seeing all these plays. I felt so unbelievably drained on Wed night though, I declared that starting Thursday I would make myself feel better. After a small stint at the Hobgoblin, I called Kate via LL and asked if she'd wanna walk around Camden-town on Thursday.<br />So Thursday Kate and I headed out for Camden-town. Camdentown is not like Camden in NJ. You don't walk around strung out on mushrooms after a Phish show, or watch your car get towed. It's a happening, vibrant place.<br /> It's the place where I will live when I'm 50 and alone, scratching out the last makings of a book that will make me posthumously rich, 75 years later after my great great grandson discovers it in his kid's toy box.<br />This is like, what you picture when you think of where your favorite writer or musician wrote your favorite song. They were probably in a place just like Camden town, at least mentally.<br />There are foods of the world (literally) everywhere, this and thats, clothes, saba dah (hehe),. It is like if the Boardwalk got an education. You can find just about anything there and for a good price. I wanted to buy a jacket for 5 pounds but I couldn't determine if it was styled for women or just really European. We got mulled wine, which I was boasted to Kate "In the literary world we call that Mead", but, my assumption was wrong. It is like Sangria boiled and it taste fuzzy on your tongue. It's wonderful.<br />We walked around some more, bought some souvenirs and some hand rolled Indian cigarettes that were supposed to taste like coffee, but they tasted more like dutch master. I was feeling really good during this day, I remember when we walked by the tunnels in little Venice I thought to myself how I didn't feel homesick anymore.<br />Camden is a wonderful place and I plan on going back. We stopped at a music store and I almost bought a uke, but I figured, eh, ill save the money for a change. Kate got like a shaker shaped like a skull, it kept everyone company during dinner.<br />That night we made buffalo wings. It was cool, I tried Ranch and it changed my life. I don't know what I've been thinking all these years.<br />Oh yeah we did Laundry after Camden, and Sue the laundry lady loves her job and gladly washed my unmentionables. It really was one of those perfect days.<br /><br />That night everyone went home to do homework and I talked to Kelly about the concept of homesickness. It made me feel better, knowing I have such good friends here. I told her about stuff I did in High School, which I find I tell people a lot about here. I never even talked about High School at home, but lately things just remind me of these fucking wacky ass things my friends and I did that I forgot about, and I just gotta laugh and tell the story. I mean, if you're reading this from home, imagine getting the opportunity to tell someone who has never met Justin Hunt, about Justin Hunt.Things like "The Game", and stuff like that. I still haven't mentioned Jason Kennedy though, I'm saving it for a really good story.<br /><br /> I tried to sleep later but I wound up going through pictures of me and my friends from home and I got really reflective, and pretty sad. It's so weird growing up in a town where everyone you know understands each other completely, and we all root for each other but at the same time, when we hang out we make fun of each others lives, girlfriends, dreams, cars, parents, I mean we're so mean to each other really, but we love each other in such an interesting way and force each other to think about ourselves. The other night I told my friend Joe to shut up here, I was only joking but he seemed pissed off and I felt bad.<br /><br />I thought about this and I thought about the night Justin told me he wished my family hadn't survived the holocaust, and I told him I'm sorry his family didn't drown on the boat from Cuba, and we laughed and went to sleep as he mumbled..."jew" with his last waken breath of the day. It's weird how people from Old Bridge are, it's weird how this town churned us out to be. Cold, but at the same time...so sentimental.<br /><br />Anyway, so that was Thursday.<br /><br />Friday I woke up feeling better, following a much needed late night conversational pick me up from Lori, and I decided to relax. I went to my favorite coffee shop down the street, and just drank cups of coffee and watched people walk by. As I was sitting there, I was stricken with a melody that I ran back to my dorm to bang out on the guitar. I than spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in my dorm writing music for a new song. I think it's coming out really well, and It feels good to feel creative again.<br /><br />Friday night we had a power hour. It wasn't the best idea, I got really drunk and had my roughest night to date. I passed out at about 2am and woke up at 6am covered in sweat. My mind was racing uncontrollably and I couldn't stop thinking about what I was going to do when I graduate, how I was going to move, whether or not I should go to grad school, the state of my band, how much longer I have to live, free will, falling in love, death, and finally car insurance. I just couldn't relax and I don't know what was wrong with me. I fell asleep at around 11am, and slept for a few hours, waking up feeling, well pretty good actually.<br /><br />Today we picked up some Ramy Leaf and laid around on the big open grass field in front of my college, and we ate, and we had more Ramy Leaf, and we ate, and at night we laid on the grass and looked at the stars and it was all in all a very relaxing day. I know I will sleep well tonight.<br /><br />This week I'm going to take it easy. Keep chewin my gum and try to eat healthier until Saturday, when I go to Dublin. More posts to come.<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-28293501893305561462009-10-22T20:10:00.000-07:002009-10-22T20:28:36.308-07:00A Pang of Homesickness in the middle of the nightI decided I wanted to hang up some pictures of my friends from home on the wall at 3:30am, so I went on Facebook to print some off and I wound up flipping through every picture I was ever tagged in. Man. I'm so lucky to have lived the life I lived so far. Like, I feel totally lucky to be in all these pictures.<br /><br /><br /><br />I guess this is the first real pang of homesickness. Legitimate missing of my friends, of country place, nick's porch, my Nissan, Buffalo chicken slice, Marc and Celia, Johnbasement.<br /><br />Wouldn't mind crankin' a fucking amp either...<br /><br />...maybe a late night ending on the dirt road stumps, talking about life and love, sleeping on a bench at the park.<br /><br />I miss you guys.<br /><br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-13448836319201297102009-10-21T07:36:00.001-07:002009-10-21T08:51:31.340-07:00Abbey Road and my entire life until this point.I walked across Abbey Road.<br /><br />I remember November 2001. I remember being early into my thirteenth year, the mid stages of puberty in full swing, feeling accomplished because I was going to play "Tevye" in Fiddler on the Roof, and I had made honor roll that marking period. I can actually remember this, I have a really good memory for remembering myself at certain times in my life, and I remember November 2001. I remember doing Arts Middle School, theater training, being good at improv. I remember wanting to be just like Jim Carrey. I remember all this.<br />I remember this one day in November. I know this is a bit cinematic, and obviously cheesy, but I swear, I remember.<br />It was November. It was one of those days where you go through your parents stuff because you're a kid and your parents stuff seems awesome. Growing up I never had or knew what CDs were...just records. My parents didn't buy a CD player until Christmas 2002 if i recall correctly, so they always had lots of records laying around and my mom would always play all of her favorites really loud... which were typically like Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson but I remember her playing The Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival when I was real young and my mom was still young too, but I was too young to recall this sort of thing probably. Anyway, I rememeber bouncing on a ball next to the sofa on a Sunday after church while my mom made Speghetti and I listened the music she blasted out of the records.<br /><br />Ok, that was a bit off topic, I just want to say that there were records in my house.<br /><br /> Underneath the cabinet in my living room. That's where they are/were? I remember that day in November going through them and looking at all of them, my parents were out doing whatever parents do and I went through my moms records and I felt how big and old and cool they looked and I sifted through all the bullshit and I picked out the bands I remembered until I found Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The colorful, trance inducing cover just looked cool to me and I wanted to hang it on my wall. I always hung stuff on my wall. So I did.<br />Well, if you know my mom, she got real pissed after I hung HER record on MY wall for no reason, so she took it down. A few days later we were shopping in the East Brunswick mall and we were shopping at Sam Goody and I asked her to buy it for me.<br />I remember I listened to it, it was the very first time I ever really listened to music. It wasn't on the radio, it was just music I was listening to myself. I took the plastic off and got the CD open, and I listened to it, I mean really listened, and I learned a secret that changed my entire life that day, being 13, I discovered on that day that when you listen to music, you can tune out your entire life, you can turn off the noise. I no longer cared about anything, except the forty five minutes I would be listening to The Beatles when I got home at night. Literally, life became worthless to me unless I was listening to the Beatles. I was a 13 year old having a philosophical breakdown.<br />So I checked out<br />I stopped worrying about school, I stopped cutting my hair, I stopped acting,I smoked marijuana cause the Beatles did, I bought a guitar, I learned how to play, I got into Nirvana, I got into the 60s, I got into the 70s, by the end of my 8th grade year I had become one of those band shirt wearing, long haired kids who don't understand anything. Everything I said and did drove my parents nuts. I hung out with Keith and he smoked cigarettes, I hung out with Justin and we started Section1211, by my freshman year of High School I did whatever I wanted and I lived for two things. A. Band Practice. B. Listening to music at night.<br />The Beatles led me to my guitar my guitar led me to my band and all the people that would later become my best friends..my band led me to Caliendo's basement...a place where I feel more safe and at home than in my own bedroom in the middle of the night. The Beatles led me to Catcher in the Rye, Catcher in the Rye lead me to books like Cather in the Rye, it lead me into my literary studies. I read tons of books from the 60s, I read from the 70s, than I started reading old stuff, than Shakespeare, eventually everything I could get my hands on.<br /><br />When I listened to music at night I felt dead, like I didn't really have to exist as long as I had my headphones in, and so in that sense none of the things I did during the day in high school really affected me. That is what I miss the most about high school, checking out and listening in that way, things change as you get older. Music doesn't do the same thing anymore. It was youthful idealism, but picture perfect. I just knew back than that I had my albums, which had drastically increased in number. Every week I mowed the grass for my dad and every week he gave me 20 bucks and every week I bought a new CD with that money. Christmas money, birthday money, graduation money, all money I spent on CD's. By my sophomore year of high school I had the BEST CD collection in my eyes, nobody could touch it. I wouldn't lend out CD's. The Beatles were in my opinion the perfect band, at fifteen, I believed in John Lennon, I believed in peace, I believed in Love, the Beatles had in my eyes, made me a really good person.<br /><br />Of course what sixteen year old doesn't feel this way? I'm not saying that this is terribly original. I mean my friends and I were all the same, we all liked to get stoned and listen to music and jam and make fun of jocks and girls who cried and cut class, but I felt above all that, because I knew at the end of the day music was doing something for me that I wasn't sure it was doing for everyone else. I didn't desire anything but music, I didn't care about money or cars or anything worldly, I really didn't, and I still don't.<br /><br />Abbey Road was my favorite album. It was the soundtrack to my life. I feel like my whole six year relationship with Melissa can be summed up by listening to Abbey Road cover to cover, or my six year relationship with Section1211. I feel like I've talked about more times, listened to it more times, thought about it more times than anything else in my life. I lived by the lyrics, in a lot of ways, it was my bible, it was my religion.<br />I used to write , "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make" on stuff that was important to me. Notes to friends, yearbook signings, that sort of thing. I always wrote that quote. I believed in Love, I really did. I still believe in Love I suppose, I'll never be able to shake that, no matter how hard I try these days to be a realist, no matter how many conversations I've had with Justin about the temporal illusion of Love, or when I think about the nights I spent during winter in Franklin St.... I still believe in Love even if it's just an idea.<br />Mr. O'Neill asked me when I was sixteen what I wanted to do when I graduated. I said, "Walk across Abbey Road". I meant it. I wanted to walk across the cover of that album. I said the same thing to my parents on graduation day. I remember even talking about it on graduation night with my friends, I'm gonna walk across Abbey Road.<br />I graduated but I never let life get in the way of anything. Its true I lost this, what I'm writing about. I don't listen to music the same way anymore, I know I'm more cynical, I haven't listened to the Beatles in like two years, I mean really listened. Now I like observing my aging and indie bands and strong beer and dark chocolate and writing/reading at night. I like depressing art and sad songs and rainy days. I'd rather be drunk then stoned. I like philosophy and books more than anything else. I like weird experience, and living and having stories to tell. I don't pick up the guitar as much as I used to, I don't believe in peace and love although I'd wish for it for anyone. I'm not a hippe but I might be a hipster I suppose afterall. But being this person I am now, walking across Abbey road after all these years is a tribute to who I used to be and a tribute to who I am now. I guess it is a metaphor for the person I was and the person I am and I'm happy with both...crossing the road my entire life.<br />Life bothers me now I guess. There's no escape in music, just release. I think about how little I care about having a job and how I wish I was motivated to not be content in a tiny room the size of my current dorm. I wish there was something I wanted to do. I just don't need anything, I don't want anything. I just want to meet people, I want to know the human race. You don't need a BA for that, although I will sadly have one in a few months.<br />Life isn't about anything but this. Good relationships, knowing good people, having good stories to tell, living on the other side of life. That's love. Love for your life, love for your friends, love for a cloud or a rainy day. Never fall into the structure. If they tell you be a teacher cuz you can't write, tell them fuck you and write anyway. Reject the 9-5, keep your hands soft, make enough money to see what you need to and bargain for the rest. Life is temporary, so, fucking temporary. We don't have enough time to look out the window, we've got to go outside.<br /><br />I walked across Abbey Road in London, England because I wanted too show myself that it could be done, that there is a real place behind every idea. That there are real hands behind every chord I listen to. I walked across Abbey Road with my best friend because it is there, just like everything else in life, do it because it is there. I'm sorry if you expected this blog to be about what it's like at Abbey Road, but I have nothing to say, it's just a road. I crossed it.<br />Find your road, and cross it.<br /><br />In the End the love you take is Equal to the Love you make<br /><br />-Andrew.Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-77400985606656026472009-10-18T13:19:00.000-07:002009-10-18T14:59:38.718-07:00And in the End...I have so much to say, I hope someone is reading this.<br /><br />I had to pick up Nick at London Heathrow airport on Wed. morning at 9:00am, so naturally I stayed up all night. I left my room at like 6:50am and I got to Heathrow via the bus to Elephant and Castle, than the Bakerloo Line to the Picadilly line, all the way west.<br />I was pretty tired by the time I got to Heathrow, so I drank two red bulls and waited outside the gate for Nick. Sure enough, he eventually came shuffling off the plane looking tired but happy.<br />It felt weird to see him, and I felt weirder having him see me. Like I've said before, the possibility of seeing home feels so impossible here, and it was like, oh, wait, we can hang out?<br />So we gleefully embraced and than got to some serious catching up. Nick is the only one from home I haven't really explained what I've been doing here to. We sat on the long tube back (Nick was fascinated with the tube, and OYSTER CARDS)and I told him about everything I've done, the people I've met, living in the UK, all that jazz...<br />Bryan warned me about this, but it was really reallly realllly cool for me to watch Nick the way I was the first few days I came here, yano, snapping pictures out the window of everything and staring all gawk-eyed at things as we passed. It really made me appreciate this again, because I've stopped looking up when I pass Big Ben and I've stopped noticing British accents. I've settled so nicely into this world that I forgot it's not the one I belong to.<br />Later that day we took naps, and we went out for Nick's first fish and chips and Fuller's London Ale. Again it sweet for me to watch Nick do all this stuff, it made me happy to be doing it again, everything felt exciting again.<br />That night Nick met all of my friends. They were all super nice to him and I think he really enjoyed all of them. He said he liked Jose the best. We wound up getting irresponsibly drunk and I bought shots of sambuka at the New Cross Inn. The New Cross Inn is essentially Chubby's in Red Bank, just local bands and drunk ass locals. I love that place, because it reminds me of home. Oh and Emily made me an omlet.<br />The next morning we woke up hungover and set out to do all the major stuff I've already done 400 times. Big Ben, Parliament Buildings, Westminister Abbey, Buckingham Palace.<br /><br /> Westminister was cool for me this time to though, because we took like an inside tour of the church and there are SOOOOO many people buried in it. Kings, Queens, Lords, Dukes, Charles Darwin, and Isaac Newton all boast being buried in this fuckin church. The church itself was too impressive for words. It is one of the most beautiful and fascinating places you will ever see. It literally astounds the mind. Like your mind can't comprehend what your eyes are looking at.You just feel like you want to cry everytime you're in these places.<br />There was a room called the tomb of the unknown soldier where you could light candles that burn in Westminister Abbey, I lit one for Larry Imbro (thinkin about you always man), and felt sorta spiritual for like a few minutes.<br />After that we walked up to the Palace, took some pictures, and got bangers and mash at a pub. I showed Nick around Picadilly Circus, than we went back, got showered, went to O'Neills with Daria and Kelly, watched a coverband, called it a night.<br />Friday we woke up feeling better and decided to go shopping at Oxford Circus and also see Soho. I took Nick to Carnaby Street, and we shopped at Top Man in Oxford Circus. Nick bought an 85 pound jacket and I bought some british looking t-shirts, that my friends will surely make fun of me for wearing when I come home.<br />Soho was really cool. We went to countless music shops, book stores, sex shops, head shops, all that stuff. We dropped too much money on souvenirs,<br />That night I took Nick to a pub called the Mudlark, which claims to have the best meat pies in London (there was no barber shop above it though), and it was DELICIOUS. We got Guinness and steak meat pies, and Nick couldn't get over how good the food is here...also we ate McDonalds drunk later that night...twice.<br />That night I took Nick to my favourite spot in the world by St. Pauls Cathedral, which I've wrote about in these blogs extensively. I took him to the Globe as well. Also, we went to this pub called the George which has been there since 1617, both Shakespeare and Charles Dickens have drank there which was pretty surreal. Nick couldn't get over this place, yano, drinking in history...neither could I.<br />We went to some pub by the Thames and waited for Becca to get out of class. While we were waiting, we got completely drunk, and by the time Becca showed up we were shloshed. The three of us drank in this pub until the bartender literally begged us to leave, and then we got a bottle of wine and went down to the thames. We drank two more bottles of wine there, and me and Nick walked home from the Thames River and took the bus to New Cross black out drunk. We woke up the next morning with no recollection of how we got home, but the soda cups signified we stop at McDonalds.<br />Saturday I was the most hungover man in the world, but it was the day I had been waiting for my entire life. I will not write about this now, I will make a new post tomorrow called, "Abbey Road". I need to take that post more seriously that the mood I'm in now.<br />Last night we just watched some local bands in New Cross and rode the London Eye, and today I sadly took Nick back to the airport.<br />It was fun though friend.<br /><br />Cheers.<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-12990924533368831772009-10-15T05:32:00.001-07:002009-10-15T05:33:28.962-07:00ShampooNick asked me if he could use my shampoo, you know, the one I've been using since I got here. I said, "Yeah dude it's that giant bottle right there". He said, "Dude that's conditioner".Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-75017908155483450122009-10-12T17:10:00.000-07:002009-10-12T17:58:43.079-07:00I got a feelingOk, back on track. I've got a lot to report. <br /><br />Thursday I achieved one of my dreams. I saw a Shakespeare play, "Love Labour's Lost", performed at Shakespeare's Globe theater. It's a weird feeling, you know, achieving your dreams. When you sit around in High School and think about the world and the things you'd like to do in it, it never really seems possible, everything seems so old and text book.Doing stuff like this makes me feel like...wait, did that just happen?..all the time.<br />If anything upsets me the most on my trip abroad it's this nagging feeling of (which I've wrote about before)..what did I do to deserve this? It almost feels a little unclean, like stolen money or something. I feel like I haven't done enough for the world to be vibrating in it so well right now. Whatever. This is stuff no human thinks about besides me. Regardless of why I'm here I am here and I literally mull over every second of it, so there is my karmic payment I suppose. (millz)<br />We went to the Globe to try and catch the 7:30pm showing. Naturally, I bought a small bottle of cherry wine and a small bottle of gin and tonic that I drank on the streets of Southwark walking toward the Globe. Turns out you can walk to the Globe in 10 minutes from London Bridge, if I had known that two days earlier Kate and I probably would have caught the sunrise without rushing, but if you know me well, you know I can't do things correctly. <br />When we got there the tickets were sold out, but there were two tickets available for the matinee the next day, which I bought for 10 quid. We actually wound up getting tickets off someone on the street for that evening's performance though, so I wound up giving the tickets for the next day to my two bro roommates Zach and Kyle as an apology for letting my alarm clock go off for an hour and wake everyone up before I got home...(nevermind). <br />Anyway<br />It was surreal to be in the Globe. I don't even know how to write about it, which is weird. I was a groundling, I saw Shakespeare, it was Brilliant, I was in the Globe. My whole life being an "English" student and an "English" major lead up to this, and I did it and it was perfect. I drank a Grolsch and watched Shakespeare in the standing section. They still use no mics, they still do everything old school, it was beautiful man I tell you.<br />After the Globe we went to O' Neils, where we usually go on Thursday nights, I had a really sweet time there and then we went back to the flat to eat late night food.<br />I need to stop eating late night food. I haven't put on any weight yet but I know when I did put on weight when I was 18 it was because of late night food, which I spent the last year vehemently steering away from. I've been kinda on it again. No good. <br />Friday we went to see a production of INTO THE WOODS. The show was put on in this like attic of an awesome bar. We got bags of some turkey and gravy crisps, which were splendid, I had two Fullers and had to pee the whole time. I really enjoyed the show though. I like watching musical theater. <br />That night we went back and tried to sleep early so we could be ready to go to Stonehenge and Bath the next day. I went to sleep at 12:30am and stayed up all night. Please see my blog post below for reference.<br />I really wanted to go on this trip, the most possibly, but I was too fucked up from staying up all night. I couldn't function on the bus, I was anxious and tired and sweaty and bad. We got to Stonehenge and I managed to keep myself conscious long enough to appreciate how amazing it is there. If you know me, you know that I believe Stonehenge was set up for the aliens (hey kyle, are you reading this?), so I've always wanted to see it. What's fascinating about stonehenge isn't that it's just a bunch of rocks, it's that they weigh tons and someone dragged them like 300 miles into the middle of nowhere 1000 years ago and set them up. I really liked finally seeing it in real life, like I've said again and again, very surreal.<br />I passed out on the bus and missed the whole beautiful countryside on the trip to Bath. I felt like crap in Bath, although I ate a great burger (first one I've had since I left!). Bath is a city run by these natural hot springs that the Romans thought cured leprosy or some shit. It was ABSOLUTELY beautiful there, I mean, really, I could live there forever and die somewhere in a park. Also I have to say, I was sick when I got to Bath, and I was fine after I left.<br />That night we made pasta in my flat and ate fudge from Bath and ate scones and drank tea. It was a great night.<br />Sunday I slept till 1, waking up feeling the best I've ever felt in my life. Kelly and Kate hung out in my flat all day while we made plans to do things we never did, and then I just cooked them Franklin St. chicken and broccoli. <br />Sunday night we went to the New Cross Inn down the street. I chugged two Coronas for no reason before we left, So I was feeling good, and then for whatever reason I drank excessively on a Sunday night at the New Cross Inn. Everyone there was really friendly, I loved it, It's my kind of place.<br />They had a live band playing and it was during this time I felt my first pain of homesickness...loud,live,amplified music. I miss Noistradamus, I really do. This band sucked though, Noistradamus would have taken a big shit on this place.<br />Sorry.<br />Anyway I stayed up really late that night but I had to wake up for class at 8. Long story short I took the wrong bus, wrong tube, went to the wrong city,and missed my class. Today was one of those days.<br />Nick is coming in one day. I am girlishly excited for him to come. I felt a bit homesick today, I'm not going to lie. Sad news from home and lack of Murphy makes me feel a bit like, one Saturday in O.B would be great, that would be all I need. Fortunately, that Saturday has come in the form of Nick. I feel like I signed some contract coming here where I can't see my friends from home for 3 months, and Nick coming I feel like we're breaking that contract. Everyone here is super excited for him to come, and I'm excited to show him what I've learned, because trust me this blog and these words could never ever show you...<br /><br />Oh yeah I'll be spending Halloween in Dublin, followed by a week of Amsterdam and Paris.<br />Give me a break.<br /><br />Cheers.<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-33972053927208489182009-10-09T20:24:00.000-07:002009-10-09T21:09:04.560-07:00Off Track Middle of the night Blog4:15am, been trying to sleep since one. I've gotten about forty minutes of sleep I'd say. In two hours I have to get up, I'm going to Stonehendge for a day trip. I was really tired before but sleep didn't take me tonight...I couldn't think of what to do, laying in bed, mind racing, I thought maybe hey, I'll take comfort in my blog.<br />So I guess this post won't be about what I wanted to write it about...my trip to The Globe Theatre, my life in London, actualizing daily all the things I've ever dreamed about doing...no, I guess I'll reserve this one for some middle of the night post-teenage reflection, London takes the night off. Tonight I'm just gonna write.<br />Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with my trip, don't even read this, I'm just writing this for no reason.<br /><br />For some reason tonight I'm thinking about landmarks. Doesn't have to be a cathedral, or something 400 years old. Tonight I'm thinking about 51 Delafield, New Brunswick NJ. United States. Keith's old house.<br />I remember when I used to live for the night. Shuffling through work weeks at the Game Room, weekday nights spent on Mill'z couch in Calvin Court smoking hookah and watching Scrubs, fear of turning Brookdale into a four year school, hours and hours with Gerry at coffee shops talking about which direction life was heading in...I used to live for Saturday night, the great escape.<br />I spent so many nights on the floor of Keith's house. I remember one particular night. I was 18. We bought a 30 case of Miller High Life, and I drank pretty much the whole thing. It was one of those drunken nights, ash tray overflowing, cans in the backyard, one of those beautiful paintings of frustrated post high school/rejection of getting older nights. A perfect freeze-frame in time for any aging man to look back on and say, "Oh I remember me when...."<br />Beers till we can't stand, pizza from R.U Grill. The Great "Fuck You" to getting older, the only chance we had to pretend we were the people we read about in all our favorite books. I remember sitting on Keith's floor of his room while he was in the bathroom. I remember feeling drunk, and strange, and I looked at his wall and written on the wall was "life is beautiful because it is empty", and I remember repeating it out loud, and I remember thinking about how life IS beautiful because it is empty, in drunken, youthful poetry. Emptiness is beautiful, because you can fill it with anything, I always loved that idea of, no glass half full or half empty, not an optimist nor a pessimist, just free to fill it with whatever you want. Total Free Will, bound and tied to the pragmatic glass.<br />These were those beautiful nights when a guy could really think. <br />That is a sort of freeze frame I like to remember. 18 year old me, reading old lines on a wall in New Brunswick, finding the meaning of life somewhere inside a house that doesn't really have to even exist in the real world. The gravity world. The world we're all heading towards. Moments of realization. Moments of God.<br /><br />I remember our, "last night". Landmarks. LBI, 2:00AM, Justin, Brendan, Bryan, and myself, the night before everyone was to leave for college, the night before I would wake up the next morning, not packing clothes and bags and doritos and ramen, but still in my room with all of my friends gone. We stood on the beach and stared at the water in silence, and Justin made a fumbling motion with his hair, and I remember wondering, I mean really wondering ..."what's gonna happen tomorrow".<br />Freeze Frame. <br />I was scared. <br />Two years go by, Noistradamus records, the Java Joint Years, playing weekly sets for tips to crowds of 8. I met Dan, I took pictures. We lived in Nick's Basement again, we lived famously in our heads. I'll always remember recording "movie syndrome" , sliding across Nick's snowy deck, pale blue cigarette smoke invading the very fresh air we'd gone outside to get, thinking, man I'm apart of something. Feeling really warm. Feeling really happy that I didn't go away to school, feeling really important with my three best friends.<br />Freeze Frame.<br />Moving day, my leg charred from standing in a fire. I'm about to live with Justin, the same guy who a few years ago on that beach I thought I'd never see again. Franklin Street, the birthplace of the absurd, of the lonely, walls where you could ask any question and find a response somewhere in your dreams in the middle of the night. Books. Books. Books. Rice for Breakfast. Justin would disappear for days at a time, I'll always remember Franklin St in January...heat turns off at 12am, walking around with a blanket, sitting without internet or television feeling bad for anyone who is lonely because in 235, you are always alone. Jim, Ebenezer, the saddest men I had ever met, living next door, hearing them through the walls. Breaking up with my girlfriend, visits from friends. Going home and eating Krispy Pizza. Making dinners with Justin....and the greatest thing of all is....all and all, the most meaningful few months of my life. My trip to London was born in a dream I had while sleeping in Franklin St. My whole life changed once I started living it. Landmarks.<br /><br />Go home, summer time. Great job, Great friends, fleeing the country, can't complain.<br /> <br />Living in London, living in a city, meeting new people, feeling at home. Never been happier.<br /><br />4:56am.Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-42006051464194199972009-10-07T20:35:00.001-07:002009-10-07T21:39:33.808-07:00I Invented the world.So here is what has regretfully become my once weekly blog posting. I swear I'm going to make more of an effort to post daily, but hey, thats ok, I have a superb memory for minor forgettable details.<br /><br />Now that I have assimilated (quite peacefully) into the life of being an American Werewolf in London,I am happy to be that Werewolf. Wait, what am I talking about? Sorry it's 4:30am.<br /><br />Ok Lets Begin.<br /><br />So Friday I slept in because I always sleep in. I woke up hungover and made my way down to the international office to switch out of my "Music and Culture" class, solely because it was more culture than music, and I switched into American and British Musical Theater, so that rules.<br /><br />Later that day it was agreed that we were going to ride the "London Eye"...at last. The eye is ideally a Ferris Wheel, but Ferris Wheel is too much of a negative term for something like this. The term "Ferris Wheel" brings up (to me at least)gaseous imagery of non-romantics feebly and uncreativley impressing each other by proving that they are capable of love and awkward bony hand holding 50 feet above the St.Ambrose Carnival. LAME.<br /><br />The Eye is a humongous observation wheel (there you go) where you can go and see all of London from the very top. It's something that we had always seen in passing, impressive during the day but more like, I dunno, important looking at night. It's something that most tourists should do, and you can see it on like any postcard in London. <br />We took the bus to it and first we were greeted with the "4D" experience, which was a weird little 3D show...the 4th dimension was the security guard checking for food or drink before we entered I believe, and soon we were off. I didn't bring my camera because I really wanted to take the whole thing in, and it worked out nicely. We rode it as the sun was setting so it was pretty cool to see all the lights of London and Big Ben turning on as we got closer to that top. The eye could be potentially very romantic if you ever have the POUNDS to get a private ride with champagne...I imagine it's a great place to fall in love...but only at night. During the day it's a bit like going to the liberty science center, but I think at night it could be really really worthwhile for your soul.<br />Also, if it didn't have glass, It'd be the best. I wanted to feel the air coming off the Thames from that high up.<br /><br />We had a lot of fun on the wheel, taking pictures and such in front of all of London as our backdrop. Weird Europeans asked me to take several pictures for them. This happens to me a lot here, people ask me to take pictures for them. I'm bad at stuff, so I usually take the worst picture of all time and they grumpily choke out "thank you" before ranting in presumably Russian about what a moron I am.<br /><br />After the wheel we goofed around in the gift shop for a bit, and I saw a really cool British Flag hat that I wanted...maybe I'll go back and get it. After that we laid in the grass outside and stared at the sky and the eye and the London skyline. I was really enjoying this because I love greenery and I felt like I haven't seen it in a while, and lying on the grass in London looking at London had this really peaceful dualistic quality. Every time I give myself a second to cool off I think about how lucky I am to be where I am with the people I'm with, things really couldn't be more perfect right now. I have been thinking lately about how a few years ago I was working 60 hours a week at the Game Room during this time, sad and confused to be out of high school and a member of the working class, and now I'm lying on London grass feeling pretty good about myself, wondering what the fuck I did to deserve this. Absolutely nothing. That's why I plan on taking none of this for granted.<br /><br /><br /><br />Now it was time to head off, as the nights usually go, to drink, in London.<br /><br />Me Kate and Daria reallly want to go to this place, "The Shakespeare's Head" to drink, but it just wasn't in the cards that night. We had to help our friend find a bus home, which took kind of long, so we wanted to just go to the first pub we saw. We got lost for a little bit by the bank of the Thames, and I remember saying how great it is to get lost in London, because you just get to look at wonderful stuff....I'm fascinated by the Thames by the way, don't know if anyones picked up on that yet.<br /><br />We crossed the footbridge to the other side of the Thames, which was reallllllllly great. It was so nice to walk across and I felt human. I love that footbridge. After some more searching, We decided to eat at a pub called the "silver cross". I ordered fish and chips, which was AWESOME again, even though this time it was literally in the shape of a fish just deep fried. Than, I finally tried Fuller London's Pride Ale...5 times. I was trying to drink six but the bar closed. Me, Jose, Kate, Emily, Kelly, and Chris enjoyed a really good night there though, I was having a blast.<br /><br />After that we left in search of a new bar. They wanted to stop in this one place just to pee, but I ordered two Spanish beers and Jose and I drank them, it was one of the weirdest beers I've ever tasted in my life.<br /><br />After that we went back to the flat, I drank an entire bottle of wine, stayed up till 7:30am, and sang "goodnight sweetheart" with Jose all night. It was a perfect night, and that was just Friday.<br /><br />On Saturday I slept until 3:30 in the afternoon. At about 5, Kelly and I ate dinner (Franklin st chicken), and at about 6, everyone came over just to stay in and drink a bit. I had a good time hanging out in my kitchen, Kate wound up getting locked out of her room and it was fun asking Francis the security guy to let her in at 5am. Francis is weird. I don't even know if his name is Francis, it could be Charles. I had a solid night, playing drinking games and stupid kids from Italy.<br /><br />OK, so I stayed up again that night till 7:30am totally drunk, and we were supposed to wake up at 11am to take a tour of the British Museum. I woke up drunk, Kate was hungover, everyone was tired as a collective. We took an hour bus ride to the museum, but I was too hungover to focus on what the tour guide was saying. <br />We just decided to leave and try again some other time, we were all too tired and hungover.<br />I did see the Rosetta stone before I left though, which is cool because I mean, well cmon it's the fucking Rosetta stone.<br /><br />That night we just hung out in my room and I played guitar and we just had fun. <br /><br />Monday I had class. I took a tour of the Museum of London which was really interesting because London at one point burned down in a fire, so we learned all about that and saw a lot of interesting relics and stuff from the fire. St. Paul's Cathedral initially burned in 16somethin, and the model in the museum of the old St. Paul's is older than America. This is a cool place if you should ever get the chance to check it out.<br /><br />Later I had poetry, which was fun. I had coffee with my professor afterwords and we talked about British poets I haven't heard of. It's cool to hang with your professors.<br />Tuesday I had British and American Musical theatre...cool class, cool professor. I don't LOVE musical theater but I can dig this class. <br />Tuesday night our friend Vaughn bought like 9 cases of Budweiser and threw a bit of an American party. There was beer pong and stuff, it was fun to pretend we were at home...oh yeah and it was TACO NIGHT again, and that was bangin! TACOS RULE <3!.<br />Later that night Kate, Kelly, and I went back to my kitchen to cook the remaining taco meet in omlets. These were very tasty. After this, I stayed up really late with Katie and exchanged life stories and ideas. I'm really getting to know the people I'm hanging with, and it feels good. <br />At about 6am, Kate and I set out to watch the sunrise at my favourite spot in London by the Thames in front of St. Pauls, and we raced against the sky and made it there in time for a rainy sunrise. I really enjoyed showing her this spot, because it is literally my favourite spot in the entire world. My favourite spot used to be the cement block by the dirt road in old bridge, but this is kind of like that on a larger scale...We walked across the millennium bridge, and talked about architecture, London, Shakespeare, and everything else there is to talk about when in London. It was one of the best nights I've had here, and I'm finding that these experiences are better when you share them with someone else, now that I've surrounded myself with great people I now call friends, this has become easier.<br />I got in at 9:30am, and went to sleep feeling good. Slept till four, woke up, saw an awful av ant guard show about Nazis, went to the HOBOBLIN, went home, now I'm here.<br /><br />Oh and I had a burger on ciabatta bread from McDonalds...give me a break.<br /><br />More to come<br /><br />Cheers<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-28861369355235472522009-10-01T19:20:00.001-07:002009-10-01T20:17:56.475-07:004AM UPDATESo I've been slacking on my blog, which, I think is a good thing, because it means I'm caught up in my new life here and not thinking about home as much. Writing this is a way for me to write home, and when I don't update, I feel like it's because I got caught up in what I'm doing here. I know to someone reading this from home, that probably sounds like a bad thing. But to me it's good, because I have a long trip here and I want to be in every moment of it...not lost in my head thinking about stuff I could never get to...that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about you guys though, and this post goes out to all the people who are actually reading this...including Lori, who reminded me to stop slacking and keep writing.<br /><br />But alas here I am, 3:15 am on a Friday morning. Monday was the first day I woke up here and felt at ease. I went grocery shopping finally, so I poured myself a my first bowl of cereal in forever (i've just been eating turkey sandwiches) and it felt, well, comfortable. I got dressed, walked out into my busy city and felt totally calm...or like used to it. I smelled the daily morning scent of eggs clashing with kebab that always wafts through New Cross at any time of the day, English Breakfast and English dinner always being served, and I felt warm. I walked across my same busy cross walk I've been going on, but I didn't feel anxious and I'm no longer comparing everything I see to the US or Old Bridge, I finally feel welcome, no longer a stranger to this strange new land. I'm used to talking in polite English, I don't think I've used slang since I've been here. I say "cheers" when someone holds the door for me, and can quickly count out british pence and pounds to pay for something with no effort now. I'm no longer shocked when the teacher (tutors, they're called here) refers to me as "foreign student" , and I no longer feel that distanced or strange from the British people I've met. I'm starting to feel comfortable. Really comfortable.<br /><br />After breakfast I trudged out with my friend Casey for my first class. We got a cup of coffee (garbage coffee) in the student center. In England, they ask you if you what black coffee, or white. I'm sure you can figure that out, but it took me awhile to realize that if I wanted milk in my coffee I had to ask for white. I had London History. This is an international class, so the class is largely American with the tutor being British of course. She assigned some easy work, and every other week we meet at some famous place in London and have class there. Next Monday I have to take the train into central and meet at some museum...which I'm really excited for. The class was good, my friend Kyle (who is also my flatmate) was in the class as well so at least I'll be able to make sure were doing the right stuff to please these teachers in the UK.<br /><br />After that class, I had my first British class. I entered the room, and sat with all British kids who were friends. They were all talking in heavy accents, commenting on the pub last night or talking about British music. Some British people have such a heavy accent that I can't understand them, this is usually people from different cities like Leeds or Cambridge. I felt like the whole class was talking like this. The professor walked in, and he looked...just...like...Alan Richman....yano, Snape. He talked like him too.<br /><br />The first thing the tutor said was, "Is there a Mr. Ginsberg in the class?". I raised my hand and everyone looked at me. Snape continued, "Congratulations on finding the room on the first day, even some locals can't do that....how are you finding the UK...is it different from the U.S?". "It's fine" I mumbled quietly, "not to different".<br /><br />"Good".<br /><br />So now everyone knows that I'm American. We read through a bunch of British poets, all the students commenting and raising their hands, talking wisely about poets they've probably read their whole lives, and I , for the first time in an English class...had nothing to say. I've never heard of these poets, I never read these poems...I have some catching up to do.<br /><br />Eventually Snape gave us a cigarette break...no literally, he said, "I have a terrible cigarette problem so if you want to join me for a smoke, come out now, if you don't smoke...well, I don't know what nonsmokers do...I suppose they knit or something..." and he trailed off and walked out of the room.<br /><br />After the class ended I was tired, but I cooked my flatmate Kelly some Franklin St chicken!!! They don't have Adobo here but I found some bootleg spices that taste sort of the same. We made chicken wraps and she made some brown rice, and I was really feeling good about this whole situation. I have friends, I have class, I have a great city, and a whole future ahead of me.<br /><br />I didn't do too much that night I don't think.<br /><br />The next day I had no class so I slept late, and got ready for TACO NIGHT. Me and my friends here had decided to cook tacos for TACO NIGHT. It is the single best night ever. Everybody I hang with here is really different from the friends I have at home, and just like the people from Old Bridge, my friends from CEA/LORING/LONDON are all beautiful and interesting in their own unique ways and I feel so well rounded from all the different people I've met and called friends in my life.. ahhaa, of course,Some things are the same...like they love tacos as well, and its the similarities that I find so funny sometimes. Since they had class, I spent the afternoon cooking black beans which I later brought over to Kate's apartment for taco night, and we ate tacos and wraps and beans all night. It was real communal, and I felt good having friends and no longer feeling alone in London, this feeling of moving along.<br /><br />Afterwords, a few people wanted to go to O'Neils, but me Kate, Emily, and Daria, wanted to walk around central. We took the train in and got lost in a really ritzy area. It was so weird to be lost in a place surrounded by like "Gucci" and such. I was pronouncing all the names of the stores wrong and yelling things in a New York accent which they got a kick out of...hehe its funny how they are starting to get exposed to the real Andrew Ginsberg as I get more comfortable with them....Kate and I really wanted to find a cool British pub, (like the SHAKESPEARE'S HEAD) but everything closes at like 10:30 during the week, so we wound up at O'Neills, and I got drunk on double shot gin and tonics and just had a good time. I also think I had an Extra Cold Guinness, which ruled.<br /><br />The next day, I think I'm at Wed now (wipes sweat from brow), whew, lots to talk about...the next day I had one class at 5pm. It was my london theatre class. The class is simply we get to go to see a show in London every week, and talk about the show for one hour before the play. The teacher announced that, that night, we would be seeing "Inherit the Wind" with Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic. Daria and Jose were in that class so we were really excited. He gave us our tickets ( 20 pounds each) and said "seeya there".<br />We wound up taking the wrong train, but its ok, we ran as fast as we could and took a few tubes to get to the Old Vic in time. The play was awesome, Kevin Spacey was great, it was about creationism versus evolution in public schools. All the British actors had to like have southern accents, and some were bad, so it was funny.It was just neat to sit in an old theatre that is currently run by Kevin Spacey, and watch a play in London. After the play we looked for some food, and ate some rubbish at a fast food place. We got back, went to our favourite bar in New Cross, the Hobgoblin, had a few drinks and chilled. I got a warm british beer with no carbonation, which wasn't to good, but worth trying. I met a Brit named Charlie at the bar and he says he plays guitar and he beatboxes really good. He reminded me of Larry Imbro. Charlie and I plan on jamming soon...well, maybe. We left the bar and I went to bed that night not feeling homesick at all.<br /><br />You know what, I'm realizing I got my dates messed up. This is why I need to post like every two days....Monday I didn't sit in and do nothing, THAT was the night we went to O'Neils...all that stuff happened on Monday, and I drank the gin and all that....TUESDAY night AFTER taco night, yeah, yeah I remember now, Me Chris and Kate went to a Casino...<br /><br />It was great! We went out to a Casino in central London, got membership cards, and gambled a bit. I won like 8 pounds but than I lost it. We fooled around in the casino for like an hour and then we went to search for another bar. We were walking by a neat little bar called Oxygen, and Chris talked the guy outside into letting us skip the 10 pound cover and get in for free. Since we got in for free, we all ordered weird drinks...I had Mai Thai, although Kate says hers tasted the best. It was really cool watching them make it, she must have poured like twenty different things into my glass.<br /><br />The downstairs area was relaxing but after I finished my drink we went upstairs and it was a more personal environment. It was all little nice with buddha statues and zenish light. I was a little buzzed from the drink and we all got to exchanging stories. It was cool for me to watch as I told them stories about home for the first time, stories about parties at Nick's house, or the night I burned my leg in the fire. I told them aboutt how my friends pee in stuff and drink it by accident, and how I got suspended from high school. I told them about me and Justin in Franklin Street, and the jobs I worked over the summer. It was during this time that I started to feel really proud to be we're I'm from, I love my friends and I can never ever run out of stories to tell about them when I'm meeting new ones.<br /><br />We called it a night, I learned alot about everyone through stories exchanging and went home.<br /><br />Today I woke up and did laundry. I don't want to talk about it. The dryers don't work and my clothes are dangling all over the kitchen trying to dry. My class at night sucked, and I'm going to try and switch out of it tomorrow.<br />...the night was good though, My friends and I just stayed in and cooked food, and we exchanged more stories, I told them some serious stories...so now we're definitely friends.<br /><br />Anyway I will try and post again soon. Tomorrow I'm going on the London Eye with a bottle of champagne and knowing myself I'll have a lot to say about it. Saturday were doing something, and Sunday I'm going on another tour.<br />Oh yeah, and we're planning our trip to Amsterdam, Dublin, Paris tomorrow...boo yeah.<br />Oh yeah, and Nick is coming in a week and a half, all my friends can't wait to meet him.<br /><br />Oh yeah, I'm really enjoying myself.<br /><br />Cheers-<br />Andrew<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> I got was awoken by the sounds of the nearby comprehensive school as usual My first class was cool because it's a London History course,Andrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5700521735582205560.post-66849793615707644592009-09-27T16:19:00.000-07:002009-09-27T17:24:27.608-07:00Sunday Night.So I have successfully completed my first week in London. I've eaten fried food, drank thick beer, made new friends, took small but eventual dives into the waters of public transport, rode the Hogwarts Express, and hey, I even managed to meet up with an old friend. I can't really complain.<br />This week was beyond excellent in so many ways. It seems a bit stale to say, "I <3 lONDON OMG", maybe even a bit premature... I know the homesick bug bites slowly over time, but I find myself in love with this city, admiring of the culture, and in good company everywhere I go, or at least, feeling like I am.<br /><br />What I like the most about London is it seems impossible to feel alone here. This place pulsates and vibrates, it moves royally during the day and slickly at night, the nights in London make you feel like they are sneaking something from your day that the sun blinds you from seeing everywhere else. From friendly bartenders to curious natives, to life-giving views, it's so comforting being here for some reason. I feel like you can never get lost in such an unfamiliar place. The feeling of being somewhere is something I'm not used to, this feeling of having somewhere to go.<br /><br />But I'm not writing a travel brochure. I'm writing my experience. My experience has been good, but it's also been spiritually very strange.<br /><br /> Once you decide to live in another world besides the U.S.A, you start to feel like the values of the U.S.A might not necessarily be, as we are taught, the best values in the world. They are just our values. They are great values, but who says they are the best values besides other Americans? Sure we value freedom and our right to vote, and that is important,but so do the British. Their government practically works just as our does. What I've noticed is that America promises us life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but all those things are already guaranteed to us by simply existing. Individuals will always have those rights...it's the society that takes it away. It's how people physically cooperate within themselves that makes a country truly a country, it's how their leaders lead within that construct, and I think the English have that figured out better than everyone else...the art of pursuing happiness by not getting in anyone's way...because we all have the same unalienable rights, but the British don't walk on anyone to get where they're going because of those rights.<br /><br /> What I mean by that is, all the stuff we idolatrously bow to, our constitutional rights, our waving flag, our right to mouth off to a McDonald's employee if we need to, seem irrelevant when living outside of the states. Like you start to feel like, "everyone should just relax" back home.These people here are not Americans, and shockingly, they are happy, maybe even happier then we are. Everyone seems less concerned with their identity as it compares to how someone else perceives it, and more concerned with what they see when they look at themselves. New York City has a pulse too, but it definitely beats to a different time than London. Londoners aren't trying to change the world, they just seem to be living in it...and happily. I don't really know how to explain this but thats the main difference I've noticed here. I haven't met too many people that say, "I moved to London because that's where the money is, that's where my , "happiness" is", they move here because it's alive. I mean really, truly alive. Like a bunch of human beings with the hospitality of a small farm boy, built a big city and got along all sharing in the same effort to be...well alive.<br /><br />It's weird how young America is too. Yesterday, I took a tour of Buckingham palace and thought about how old it is. As I walked through state rooms with magnificent artwork I was baffled, just thinking about how all this precious stuff has existed for so long and it's all compacted into one tangible environment.<br /><br />Today we took a tour around Oxford, and it really got me thinking. I spent the whole day looking at old church after old church. Churches that are hundreds of years old. So many geniuses were taught at Oxford, so many thoughts were created here. The blackboard Einstein wrote the theory of relativity on still sits in the basement. The place is magical, it's like the CPU of the world. People lived and died in Oxford, and they are buried within it's churches and schools, leaving their entire fortunes to the school.There is a feeling there that an old man probably feels as he takes his last breath, a feeling America is still too young and fit to understand. England has a real feeling of...slow, gradual, but beautiful aging....like wine. America is still too wide eyed and young to understand the wisdom of an aging empire, but it's a beautiful observation I've made indeed.<br /><br />We walked into this Church today called Christ Church, Oxford. It has beautiful art, arched ceilings, Victorian design, stain glass windows, and tombs where people are actually buried on the floor underneath the church. It is literally hundreds of years old...there is too much history, to many politics, to ever understand it. For some reason I was standing looking around at all the art, standing on someones grave actually, having a beautiful time, and I start feeling really weird. I felt anxious at first, like I was really nervous, then I wanted to be sick, followed by a feeling of "I want to leave". Not just the church, but I want to leave, go home, back to Old Bridge, and go crawl up on the dirt road and forget this whole thing. Then, I felt so sad, and I noticed my eyes were tearing a bit. I started to walk away and I felt better as I neared the gift shop. As I sat there alone, a girl here named Tori who I've found to be really strange, but nice came up to me. She is definitely out there in alot of ways but metaphysically she is on point. She stared at me and was like "Did you feel it to?" (I swear). She continued "I have to get out of here. This place is making me feel sick, it's making me feel awful and sad for some reason". She felt the same thing in the same spot! We talked about it and laughed for ten minutes, and deducted, uh I guess there's a ghost in there or something?<br /><br />As I started to feel better I realized that spiritually I'm not ready to embrace hundreds of years of life and death, depicted in art, castles, and shrines by humans, immortal monuments to the temporary specs of dust in time that sadly we all are. It's like trying to take in everything all at once when you see these masterpieces...the only way to play chess is to move each piece one at a time...the same with solving a puzzle. Too much will make you quit, not enough will leave you with not enough spaces filled in. A perfect picture doesn't happen by throwing the pieces up in the air and watching them land in perfect symmetry.<br /><br />But then again, life sometimes is perfect symmetry. As I think about my life at home, my temporal life in London, and my return, I think about how symmetrical things seem, how for whatever reason I'm learning something now, and I'll take it back to whatever is waiting for me at home. Everything has been so symmetrical, so purposeful, and so obvious this year all at once.<br /><br />Ok so this is a deep post, but I need a few of these to remember my trip. Everyone I've met here is really great, each contributing their own personalities to making my experience even better. I do miss my friends at home though, and I wonder if there's ever a time when me Nick Dan and Jeff are all jamming in our separate rooms at different times, unknowingly playing a song together, or something romantic and impossible like that. It's all symmetry. I think about every single person from home before I go to sleep, and it helps me drift off and continue facing this new, strange stuff with confidence, knowing that somewhere out there nicks porch is rootin for me.<br /><br />Oh yeah, and I saw harry potter stuff today, like where they shot the movie and shit, it ruled.<br /><br />Cheers-<br />AndrewAndrew Ginsberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14310494749913555453noreply@blogger.com3