It's eerie to imagine New York City shut down and quiet. I remember NYC fondly from when Alicia and Laura and I took the Nissan Bona Vista XTrail SE ;) down to visit Anat and see the sights. It was so alive...it's hard to imagine it stilled in any way. This picture from Joanna Goddard's blog was really quite powerful...I thought I'd juxtapose it with my own, taken from the same side of the Hudson.
I've been thinking recently about setting down roots here in Jolly Olde. Though that may come as no surprise to some of you, I think most of us (I've used "us" because I included myself in this group for the longest time) believed that sometime soon, I'd be on my way home, returning to "my life". Being that life is where you live it, I have started to envision what my life could look like if I were to plant a a more solid foundation riiiiight here.
We celebrated my birthday with a very small group of
people in some of our old haunts.I can’t say it was the best night I’ve ever had: Aleisha was running
late, and so the full day of cooking I’d done in preparation for our trip was
catching up to me; it was raining a little bit (weather plays such an important
part in our happiness, doesn’t it?It still amazes me after two full years here); they didn’t have us on
the guest list at Jewel; and we ran into some awfully rude b!*&h at night’s
end.Not an all-around great show,
but there were some pretty funny parts…
When we arrived at Jewel, we were told we weren’t, “on
the list”.Keep in mind it was
about 6:15 pm on a Saturday (who goes out then?Turns out: no one!) and there were twenty-three people
inside the bar, twelve of whom were employees.We chose the best table, sat down at it, and told the man
who was frantically searching for our reservation that when Chitt Bardwha
actually showed up, we would gladly move for him.Chitt didn’t make it to the bar in the hours between when we
arrived and when Happy Hour ended.Thankfully though, many a cocktail did arrive and we were pretty
intoxicated when we left.
On our walk to Little Korea (is that what it’s called?),
we passed by this beauty at the Prince Charles Cinema: it’s a Quentin Tarantino
Marathon next Saturday.Frank and
I were in (we’ve since purchased our tickets and are quite excited about
staying out so late in the city!Lame!).
We moved on to the Korean restaurant we like the
most.The owner exercised the best
example of Korean Shame when she admitted she gave up our table because we were
soooooo late.Luckily, however,
reminded a co-worker, there were plenty of seats downstairs that we could call
our own.Winning.Korean is the best, isn’t it?I can’t get enough of it.Though it’s certainly not the same as
it was back in The Old Country, it’s…I don’t know…charm? just makes it so
amazing.I feel the same way about
it as I did about eating a burger at that expensive burger joint in Beomgye:
like I was eating food from home.Though it was never quite right (just like this Korean isn’t quite
right), it’s still a warm reminder of what once was the norm.And that’s so nice sometimes, isn’t it?
We hit up the Walkabout after that: what a strange
place.It wasn’t great and I
nearly got into a bar fight with a married Englishman, when an old, messy
Aussie with a big, loud guitar started playing on the stage.It was then that the night was
oooookay.
Until we had an unfortunate incident with somebody that
one of us used to know.To protect
the privacy of the innocent, I won’t get into it.Suffice it to say that we used the Carrie Bradshaw line, “We
have to get out of here immediately” that is commonly referenced when a big
fool of oneself has been made.That was not the case on Saturday night, but al the same, we had to get
the hell out of dodge.
We stumbled out onto the street and came across a sign
that made us giggle:
“Models
1st, 2nd
Floor”
Frank couldn’t resist the urge to see just what was
going on up there.Who does a
casting call at this time of the night?
Insert a conversation I had with Steven on Sunday night
over a romantic dinner.He asked
me what we found when we ascended the stairs to investigate, laughing our heads
off all the while.I reported that
there were two doors at the top of a staircase and that it sounded like some
funny business was going on behind said doors.He then informed me that “models” was the common term used
for prostitutes and that we’d inadvertently knocked (yes, we knocked on the
door, a little drunk off our faces) on the door of one that was most probably
manned by an angry Asian man.Oh
my.Feeling like a complete div
now, but at the time, it was pretty hilarious.
As a token, we of course took the sign reserving the
spot for Chitt.After all, he didn’t
need it.
Our last day in Scotland was a quiet one.We opted to explore Hawick a little bit
rather than venture out too far.After all, the hike the day before had left us a little, um, tired.
Steven tried his hand (super successfully ;) , might I add)
at using the camera to capture the church on the way from the cottage to the
town.It was hard to relinquish
control of the Black Beauty after being the only one who uses her on the
regular.
We’d had some of those conversations you have when
you’re into someone and really, really want to know more...
We’d exposed many a layer over the last month or
so, and this time away from our homes, from our friends, from our jobs was the
perfect opportunity to get a bit deeper.
I love when you get to know someone more and you
find that you like them more…perhaps as a result of that extra information;
perhaps despite it.
Either way, there was very little quiet time in
Scotland.Much of it was spent
doing what I like to do most (again, entirely suggestive…I’m terribly sorry):
talk.
We talked about…well all sorts of things and
perhaps that’s the only details that need to be released...
…suffice it to say that we thoroughly enjoyed each
other’s company and will certainly find all this time apart a
bit of an an awful adjustment.
I’m showing you these pictures not because they’re
particularly nice, but because you’ll hopefully get a sense of the vastness,
the emptiness, the grandeur that we experienced on Day 3 in Scotland.We jumped in the car and headed to
Selkirk, a town we unfortunately didn’t really get to see, being that we were
clinging to life by the time The Walk was over.
I leafed through some pamphlets and opted for an 8
kilometre hike through the scenic valleys and hills nearby.The guidebook, which usually grossly
underestimates the physical abilities of people, told me that we should allow
3-4 hours for this hike.I read
that to mean we’d be done in two hours, tops.The weather wasn’t exactly idyllic, but it wasn’t dismal
either: I didn’t expect much from Scotland, especially after Jocelyn and Dani
told me they needed mittens in May!The hike started with a 500 metre incline (I wish that was a joke.Wasn’t it a huge hill, Steven?).Near the top, we paused for water, to
remove a vast majority of our clothes (that sounds awesome…I’ll leave that one
alone), and to revel in the views from what we thought was “the top”.Ha!Amateurs!
I was quite concerned when Steven, who, in a previous
life was in the Royal Navy, could not ascertain where the path was (this
happened repeatedly, giving credence to the fact that the map was out of date,
rather to the fact that this guy got us lost.It was so poorly marked, I couldn’t even joke about
it).We continued to climb for
what felt like hours across what felt like scores of miles.When we actually reached the apex, I
had to stop for some sustenance.
ONE banana muffin
each.
I thought we were going to die out there, especially
when we happened upon the grubby, rusty, half-baked ram’s pen out in the middle
of nowhere.Oh, and when we saw
the dead fox body (what in tarnation killed a FOX?!), followed closely by the
long-dead fox’s SKULL.We were
going to die for sure, if not from starvation or exposure, from the surely
enormous monster that was out here killing foxes left, right, and centre.Or two of them: you take your pick.
We reached the reservoir; the oasis of our dreams at
looooong last.I thought all along
that we’d long passed this infamous reservoir that appeared on the map.Only when we reached it did we realize
just how short a distance we’d actually come.I nearly turned into Misery Guts again and sat down and
cried.
It was Steven’s eternal optimism that kept me
going.He was literally thigh-deep
in mud and water (his jeans were completely soaked, boots filled with what can
only be described as foot-sized lakes of water), and somehow he was all smiles,
urging me forward.“What an
adventure”, he kept repeating.Yeah sure, Navy.
At the bottom of the famed reservoir was a road that led
in the direction back to the car.Or
at least I thought so.And since I’m
the most directionally-challenged person I’ve ever known aside from my
grandmother, I was even hesitant about taking this pathway.However, the path to redemption,
freedom, safety was in fact all of those things.I nearly kissed a man walking toward us with his wife and
dog: finally we were saved!It sounds
like we were trekking up a mountain from the story, but I was pretty convinced
we’d never see the inside of that darling cottage again, I’ll tell you.
The man and his wife informed us that we were about a
mile from the car, and I was all smiles (we matched!) once again.I snapped some pictures of us in the
most gloriously organized forest I’d seen in a long while.Check out that orb, Mom!
Shepherd’s Pie, some good music, and a rousing round of
Scrabble rounded out the evening.At
least that’s what the kids are calling it these days ;)
We
took a drive to Edinburgh because that’s what you do when you’re 50 miles away
from “one of the most beautiful cities in the world”.
Maybe
it was the rain; maybe it was the fact that Main Street has been torn up for
the installation of a tram, rendering it uncrossable at most parts; maybe it
was the fact that Haymarket and Grassmarket are certainly two VERY different
places, located at VERY opposite ends of the city.Despite the fact that the man was great, my endearing
nickname, “Misery Guts” was born on this day in Edinburgh.
It
wasn’t my favourite thing to do.As a matter of fact, getting back to the car (where I’m pictured dancing
on the sidewalk) was the highlight of the gloomy day.That and returning to the Scottage for homemade pizza and
plenty of wine.I’ll take it.
After
my birthday celebrations with my friends on Saturday night, I drove the rental
car to Steven’s on Sunday for an early start on Monday.EARLY.We left the house at 5:15 am.Getting around London is trying and it’s long; getting
through London, though shorter in distance, is even worse, being that forty
million people frequent the streets even as early as 7 am.So in leaving so early that this was
the ghostly scene through the streets of Clapham, we avoided all the traffic and
took advantage of shortcutting through the city.Winning.
The
six-hour journey was just beautiful: it was the England of my dreams.Languid, rolling hills, vibrant trees
dotting the landscape…it was great.To see the sun rise to the east of us as we made our way through the
country was awesome. And might I
say that spending time with someone this fabulous was pretty awesome, too.
Imagine
our surprise when we actually entered Scotland!We thought this cottage was in England, just bordering
Scotland.Nope.Of course, there is no real division of
countries, unless you ask a Scottish person (or an English person, to be
fair).That distance north of the
city, however, certainly does get colder, more vast, and waaaay more beautiful.
