Stealth in a Tube II

So I said I would post these pictures on Thursday. Thursday has come and gone, and I was unable to post the stealth in a tube pics for a number of reasons. Better late than never. Just pretend that it's Thursday and I'm not late. Kapish? 

On a side note, I've noticed some people looking directly at me in these pictures. I just stop what I'm doing and smile at them. When you have flaming red hair that sticks out in every direction despite all odds, and can't help but wear colorful clothes every day, you learn how to fly under the radar by other means. To play it cool. After this picture, however, I checked to make sure you can't tell a picture is being taken from the other side of the phone. You can't.

Stealth in a Tube

Before I left I promised to update this blog at least every Sunday, relaying my weeks adventures if I hadn’t earlier in the week, maybe sharing photos, maybe just writing words. And then this week came.

I have almost nothing to say this week. Nothing really seems new. But when I think about it everything is. I could tell you about how the study abroad program I’m in is such a disorganized mess, that I’m barely studying at all. 

I could tell you about how I started a class called Historic London where we just tour the city until we have a final and presentation at the end. I could tell you about how I still haven’t heard about whether or not I get piano lessons this semester, and who my professor is going to be. 

I could tell you that I saw a piano in Kings Cross St. Pancras station this morning and realized I missed playing. I could tell you that I miss the sound of music. I could tell you about how, for my Performing Arts in London class I saw a play called, “The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas,” in which a man becomes terribly corrupted throughout his life.  

I could tell you about how everything mildews here. 

I could tell you I take double decker buses all the time, and that swan swim around with the geese and wag their tails at you. I could tell you that the city is beautiful and I’m finding my way around. I could tell you about how I can get goats milk at any grocery store and drink it all I want.  I could tell you that I’m lonely.

But none of that seems riveting so I’ll just tell you about a new game I’ve started playing. I call it, “Stealth in a Tube.” Since I’ve only once ridden the Tube with a group of people, I almost always take it alone. This affords me great people-watching opportunities as I sit in silence and watch the world go by. I had not fully taken advantage of the opportunity until this week while watching a young couple as they spoke in Spanish and English. As they caught my attention, I noticed that I had my iPhone readily accessible, as did many other people who were browsing the web. If I were to take out my phone, turn off all sound effects, hold it on the down low, point, and shoot, no one would be the wiser. So I did. Here are the first “Stealth in a Tube” shots this week. I think I’ll make this a regular segment on my blog. I arbitrarily select Thursday to be “Stealth in a Tube” day from here until I no longer take public transport regularly. 

Dreamland

Lately I haven’t been sleeping when I want to, and no amount of wearing myself out or getting up early and then wearing myself out seems to help me fall asleep earlier than twelve in the morning. (One day, I went for a ten mile run, a four mile walk, two of it carrying groceries, and come bedtime, I was wide awake.) So I broke down and bought valerian at Whole Foods last night. Man, that stuff is effective. 

While I was sleeping, I was reminded that I’ve been having really weird and vivid dreams lately. When I wake up they are still fresh in my head for the most part, so I’ll go ahead and tell you about my dream last night because I think it’s good for entertainment value.

Last night I dreamt that my high school Spanish and American Literature teacher invited me over to have dinner with her. She served two overflowing plates of some sort of rice and pasta with tons of sauce and suggested we eat it on her unmade bed. I don’t know why I agreed to this given that I couldn’t seem to keep my food on my plate. The food was piled so high, that sauce and rice kept running over the edges onto the sheets. I managed to scoop it back on my plate for the first little while, but then the task became impossible and there was just too much food on her sheets. (Also, where was her husband at this point? If it was dinnertime, shouldn’t he have been there scooping food back on his plate too?) The food on the sheets became too much to sleep in, and Jenn went and got another sheet that she laid aside for after we were done eating, chastising me for the mess I created. I never finished. As soon as she got out the extra sheet, I was whisked away by some unknown force that only inhabits dreamland, and landed back at home, wishing I could finish my meal and help Jenn clean up, but knowing that I was desperately needed at home. I walked down a dirt path leading to our side door. (We don’t have a side door and according to my dream, we’re missing more exterior wall than I remember.)  Anyway as I walked towards home, a neighbor who I’ve never seen before shot out of her kitchen to tell me all about how my mother had been at her house and threatened to turn our neighbor into the Arapahoe county inspectors if she found one more painted tile in her house. I really didn’t know what she wanted me to do with this information, and she said it with such venom that I tried to respectfully get out of the conversation. With the neighbor continuing to berade me,  I simply said that I had no knowledge of this ploy. She then replied, “Oh I know you’re involved, you tiller!” By which I think she meant tallyer, as in I was involved in this plan to turn her into inspections by tallying the number of painted tiles she had in her house. I thought that if my mother was planning on turning someone into inspections for the structure of their house, it had to be for a really good, well-deserved reason, and shook off the neighbor’s words that she had spewed in such a venomous manner.

Anyway, someone met me at a trashcan who knows where to give me a hug because she hadn’t seen me in a while, although I’m pretty sure this person is no longer my friend in real life, and then somehow I was walking down the street with a little girl talking. I’m pretty sure there was more in between those two events as transition material, but that’s all I can remember from that period of the dream. As I was walking down the street with this little girl, a bug, footlong, hot pink, and with tubular antenna began flying behind me (inexpicably of course, because it didn’t have wings). When I sped up, it sped up, and when I slowed down it slowed down, but it was all I could do to keep it from running into my legs. So I picked it up. Lo and behold, it was a puppy! With glowing, hot-pink antenna! (What is with all the puppies in my dreams?) Walking along with the girl and the puppy for a while longer, I heard a blood-curdling shriek and looked ahead to find the little girl screaming her head off. “Did you get bit?” I asked her. She calmed down immediately and said, “No, stung,” rubbing the intersection between thigh and bottom.

Then my alarm went off to issue in a new day so I rolled out of

In Which Kailey Makes Friends

          This weekend I finally got an opportunity to hang out with people. Since I left Denver two weeks ago, it’s been a very rousing episode of Kailey Kaes vs. the World. This summer, I lived with the Kaes family plus in a house under construction. Someone slept on my bedroom floor for six weeks while we all carried shower water in camp style washbasins out to the back patio for dishes.  And as fun as that was, it was refreshing to be alone and in a completely functional dwelling at first.  But then life reminded me that this was no vacation. Wading through City University's administration made any poor administration I’ve ever dealt with look like a well-oiled machine. I am not exaggerating. As life hit me like a ton of bricks, I began to feel very much alone. Although I've talked, smiled, made conversation, and shaken people’s hands, I haven’t spent any significant time with any one person, and I haven’t been invited to join anyone in their goings about along the way. Nor have I met anyone very interested in being around me. So come Friday night, I closed my curtains, curled up, and fell asleep without ceremony.

            But Saturday was a different story.  A couple of months ago, one of my childhood friends and I reconnected at a birthday party of a mutual friend, and hit it off. (We were the only two post-adolescent, pre-child rearing people there, so of course we struck up a conversation.) We knew each other in the eighth grade, and hadn’t really spoken since then, but found out that we were both going to be studying in England this semester. Naturally I contacted her when I got to England to see if she wanted to hang out. She did, and this weekend she and her roommates extended open arms, very kindly allowing me to follow them around Oxford while they explored some of their surroundings. We walked through a pasture, made memories in the Eagle and Child (the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien met), went to the Pritt museum, and attended an evensong service at New College, where, incidentally, a scene from Harry Potter was filmed on the lawn. The evensong service is a whole nother story that I will tell at a different time. (Yes, I realize that is not a word. But what is an alternative?) 

            Today, I went to King’s Cross Baptist Church, not far from where I live. I happened to be there for the church’s “Global Service,” a day set aside every two months for both the people who attend the English service and those who attend the French service to come together as a body. The folks were very welcoming, and many people were visiting there from Alabama for some sort of training program. I met one guy my age who plays organized Ultimate Frisbee for a team in London. When he found out what school I attend here, he immediately tried to put me in contact with the president of the Christian Union at City, whipping out his phone and wielding social media to all of its ends.  After lunch, some of us split into teams and went on a scavenger hunt around London looking for different monuments, landmarks, and shops in the area. Please excuse my phraseology, but there are a butt load of historical landmarks in west central London. Just saying. 

            All that to say, it was nice to interact with and enjoy so many people this weekend. To know that I’m not entirely alone. And that I never really am.

Avert your eyes little brother. He was just so beautiful. 

My friend Maddie is a huge fan of snails. I respect her for this because I'm pretty sure I love snails more than anyone roaming the face of the earth.  

A wall hanging in the Eagle and Child. 

On the way to meet back up with our group, we saw hundreds of rollerbladers led by this man, rolling in droves down the street to loud music that I wasn't familiar with but that got stuck in the heads of the European among us.

The courtyard in New College

Kailey is a superhero. YAY!

When I started blogging, I never promised it would be interesting…

You know those people who blog and/or post on facebook about their favorite breakfast this season, or their child’s bowel movements, or the best brand of diaper, or when diapering your baby it should always be cloth, or how they’ve started buying clothes from an online website because it’s the shizznat, and you really need to copy their apparel establishment preference, or the latest and greatest diet/workout regime and how awesome they are doing at it? You know those people? I am about to become those people in the next few paragraphs. Consider yourselves warned.

When I was a kid, I had inhuman energy and endurance. As a toddler, if I took a nap too late in the day, I would not sleep at night. Add to that any sort of nutritional stimulation such as chocolate after noon, and I was sure to be up till the wee small hours of the morning. From what I’ve heard, I wasn’t a spaz, but I was definitely awake and active during the day, so much so that my mother had to walk me for miles even at the tender age of three, and use various other techniques to wear me out so that come nightfall, I would sleep.

Then came the Great Meth Saga of my adolescence. No, I never took meth, but my parents accidently bought what had been previously used as a meth lab. It’s a long story worn out from too many tellings so I’ll reserve it for another time if you’re lucky. In any case it caused my family’s health to deteriorate at a rate that would shake the resolve of many people weaker than my mother. But she fought to keep us alive, and when the ordeal was over, help us heal from all the contamination. Now, three years outside of that house, I’ve returned to the old Kailey, the one with superhuman energy and stamina. The one that never gets sick and can’t take naps. The one for whom a cup of coffee is not just a little pick me up, but causes a superhero complex for up to three hours after consumption.

While I prefer being this Kailey, and am more than thankful for this change, being healthy has proven to be an adjustment. Yesterday, in the hopes that I could induce sleepiness before bedtime, I ran ten miles. I have not run ten miles maybe ever.  In my life. Then I went grocery shopping. Grocery shopping in London, with my diet, means I walk two miles to Whole Foods with an empty backpack. Then I buy food. Then I fill my empty backpack and walk another two miles home with a full backpack. After putting in approximately fourteen miles on foot yesterday, some with added weight, most at a running pace, I was wide awake come bedtime. I need to learn how to wear myself out again because after not sleeping well last night, I am dragging today. And I know that with the old Kailey returning, tiredness during the day does not guarantee sleep at night unless I add more exercise to the mix. So here I go running again.

If you read through all of that…Kudos! I might have stopped earlier. Nothing like someone talking about themselves for five hundred words about the way their body functions. Maybe next time I post I’ll have some pictures or something to make it worthwhile.  Until then, cheers! ß(That’s another thing. As far as I can figure, this little English word is complicated)

In Which Kailey Acclamates to Her Environment and Writes to You in a Rambling Fashion

So. London is great. I’m settling in fine. I arrived to my apartment in the later afternoon on Monday, after stumbling through public transportation the narrow streets to my apartment, I met two of my roommates immediately. I swear the first one shot out of nowhere greeting me with enthusiasm that I couldn’t hope to match under my current level of fatigue.  As I greeted them, the smell of two continents, polyester, twelve hours of travel, and several hours of exertion emanated from my body. That is not a good smell. Especially when you are meeting your roommates for the first time.

            I live in a flat in the heart of London along with four other Americans. The first I met is a guy who also goes to DU (we had never met before, go figure), one girl is from New York, one guy from Minneapolis, and another girl from I don’t know where. I didn’t meet her until Tuesday night after she’d gotten back from Oktoberfest in Germany and then only in passing. I have a well outfitted, fairly spacious bedroom and we all share two bathrooms, a small room with a couch overlooking the street, a kitchen, and a very small refrigerator. Luckily the kitchen has more cabinets than we know what to do with.

            Sleeping in till twelve on Tuesday (which, by the way, did not help my jetlag), I spent the rest of the day shopping for essentials because I couldn’t iron my clothes or charge my phone. Also there was the hunger. After spending five hours searching for one Whole Foods a mile and a half away from me, I had not only found Whole Foods (Finally!), but also the theatre district, China Town, a cute little park, Drury Lane, a few music stores, and Chipotle. No joke. Chipotle is everywhere.

In the evening I decided to go to Ikea out in Boonyville, England. Not really, but it’s over an hour away by bus. So less than forty-eight hours after I had landed in London, I decided to tackle the bus system. Word to the wise: when boarding a double decker bus, if the driver is wearing a turban, don’t give him a ten pound note. It will make him cranky. He will be ill-equipped to handle such a large bill and will have to go searching in the nether regions of his cabin to find enough coins to hand out the change required. This will not only hold up the bus, but also attract the attention of everyone on the first level of the bus while the busdriver persists in asking for your presentation of an Oystercard or smaller bill. Which you know you would hand over in a heartbeat if you only just had it. But you don’t. If you don’t have an Oystercard, just pay in coins in the city, my friends. Just pay in coins in the city.

            Anyway, orientation was as unimpressive as it was disorienting, but I think I’ve mostly organized all of the conflicting information and we’ll see how it sorts itself out this first week of school. Also, when I got home from Scotland, a main supply line had burst in the plumbing, and we were rendered waterless for all but a few hours this past day. I spent the day buying water and bumming restrooms off of non-assuming retail establishments. Luckily I was able to procure a shower sometime during the day, in between water crises, so I don't smell as bad as I could. Just a minor inconvenience, but it caused a lot of mumblings, moanings, and grumblings in the ranks as students used to running water and functional living quarters sorted through their various emotions pertaining to this event. It made me feel like my life so far has amply prepared me for moments like these, that my peers may not be as well equipped for. 

            So. London is great. I miss you all back home, but I’m making out on my own alright so far.