Pre-Departure (sort-of) Update

Alright! This is about as pre-departure as it gets. I am sitting at my gate at LAX, but my family is so frightened of LAX that I am here 2 ½ hours early. So. Here we are. Let my last California post begin:

Anna came to visit me Friday night, and Saturday I tried to pack as much California as I could into 24 hours. We woke up early (aka 9am) and went to Venice beach, where we walked along the boardwalk and got medical marijuana licenses. Just kidding. But we did see two two-headed turtles. That’s right people, four, count ‘em, four heads. We also bought rings! I have a problem with rings. I buy them. ALL OF THE THEM. That’s basically the problem. I bought three, and Anna bought two. It was wonderful! The ring demon living in my spleen has been sated for now. We went to In-n-out Burger for lunch, another California staple. For dinner, I had my last meal at Native Foods, my most favoritest restaurant in the world! I had a bacon cheeseburger...mmmm...except the bacon, cheese, and burger were all fake. It was all a lie! I had been eating at a vegan restaurant the whole time! Still, it is the best bacon cheeseburger I have ever had. And now Anna can corroborate the deliciousness of the vegan cuisine. I absolutely loved having one of my Denison friends in California with me, it was like a meeting of two hitherto completely separate worlds! Like if you got Gandalf and Dumbledore together for dinner. That amazing. Better, even. Get excited people. Or better yet, get jealous! Yeah! Seriously though, the best of luck to Anna as she spends one more sunny day in California before going to sunnier Tahiti and getting on a sailboat for her semester at sea.

This morning I went for a run, inspired by thoughts of my forthcoming 12-hour butt-in-seat-fest. I was trying to exhaust myself. It didn’t really work. I had delicious Challah French toast for breakfast, magically rejuvenating all of my lost energy! (magically. No science allowed in Challah French toast.) I said goodbye to Ashmo, then to my dogs, then to Anna, and finally at the airport to my parents, all of whom I won’t be seeing for the next 5 months! It really isn’t too much longer than an average second semester at Denison, but the distance and the lack of phone communication made it all seem much more dramatic.  Those two characteristics are also forcing me to do something I have never done before...Skype my parents...dum Dum DUM!! Well we’ll see about that.

Anyhow, now I am sitting at my gate. My feelings are very subdued for some reason. I think it still hasn’t sunk in that I am finally embarking on the trip I have been dreaming about for an entire decade of my life. All I can think about is how directionally impaired I am and how I have to get from the airport to the train station (also in the airport) and take the correct train, then get off of said train and find my way (most likely by taxi) to the townhouse in Bath which I will be based out of for the next 4 months. The fact that the train station is actually at Heathrow airport should make me less nervous, but for some reason all I have is this fever-dream of me wandering around the airport for hours looking for a train. I think the fact that I have had it pounded into me for 20 years that I am so pathetic as to not even be able to find the mailbox without a GPS is now severely impairing my self-confidence. Thanks dad.

The fact of the matter is, all I have to do is buy a ticket from a stand somewhere in the airport I will already be at, get on the correct train, then find a taxi and tell the driver where to go. I have almost no navigating to do for myself. This is the mantra that calms me down. I just have to rely on other people and technology to get me where I need to go, which is really what I have done my entire life. Man, that’s a little pathetic. Oh well.

I’ll report to you next from Bath, where the real fun begins! See, things are still happy, even if I can’t tell you which way I came from to get to my gate!

P.S. This is being written in the airport to be posted when I arrive in Bath, since I can’t get wifi here. Therefore by me posting this you will know that I am alive and well in Bath.