Oh, This Wacky Island!
A Day Trip to the Moon - 2.12.04
Anne
Another week, another £100. How this astronomical spending rate occurs is completely beyond me. It may have something to do with my love of eating, and my inability to avoid pub crawls. My attempts at being frugal have been thwarted several times by my unfortunate habit of thinking of prices in dollars instead of in pounds. For example, I see something marked £2.00 and I think: "Oh, that's only $2.00!" But in actuality, it's almost $4.00. I think we can all see the potential trouble this gets me into.
This is also exacerbated by something I would normally consider a blessing: my strangely high metabolism. On the one hand, it helps me to quickly process all the alcohol that keeps ending up in my stomach, helping me to avoid states of embarrassing drunkenness. On the other hand, it means that I have to keep drinking more in order to dull my senses enough to stand the terribly cheesy music that's played in every club here. Ah, the vicious cycle continues!
Speaking of the club scene here, it can be summed up in two words: cheesy disco. It's like a Bee Gees video shot in a fondue restaurant. Normally, I would be fine with this. I have a healthy sense of irony, and, alright, I secretly like dancing to early Blink 182. But there doesn't seem to be any music to make the cheese ironic. There's nothing to compare it to so that we can quietly chuckle to ourselves as we dance to the music and secretly think how bad it is. It's just bad.
What makes it worse is that Manchester, that musical bastion of the North, is so tantalizingly close, and yet so far. Technically it's only an hour south of Lancaster. For Americans, an hour is the distance we'd drive for a movie or a decent hamburger; but to speak of taking an hour-long trip to a native Briton is almost like suggesting a jaunt to the moon. This discrepancy in judging distances might be due to the fact that the entire UK is roughly the size of Oregon.
Think about that. This country, which once owned and ran a considerable portion of the globe, is the size one state. It's crazy. In fact, you might even say it's... wacky!
But still, I always enjoy the bewildered looks I get when I mention that my brother travels six hours by train to get from Miami to Orlando, which is only in the middle of the state. If you travelled six hours from Lancaster, you'd either be well into Scotland or out in the Irish Sea. I love the idea that I can, in theory, say: "I'm in mood for some ice cream. I think I'll go to Wales and buy some," or "I'd like to see Pretentious Art House Film X. It's playing in Glasgow. Let's go!"
This is, of course, all in Hypothetical Land, where I'm not a poor, starving college student who's too lazy to do laundry, let alone plan a day trip.
Well, that's a bit of a lie. I do have a few shekels to my name, at least for the moment. How long they'll survive my newfound penchant for Reef Orange vodka drinks, I'm not sure. This evening, I also did laundry for the first time since arriving in this country. That's right. I went a monumental month and a half before doing serious laundry. Never fear, I did wash a few essentials by hand, but really, I was too busy wearing my clothes or throwing them on the floor to worry about washing them. And I'm also taking a day trip (well, a trip of several days, anyway) to Manchester tomorrow. And it's Valentine's Day weekend, no less.
Ok, so the above statement was completely a lie. But once I have returned from the home of David Beckham's left and right foot, Morrissey and soccer hooliganism, I'll be sure to write up a detailed field report. Hopefully, I will be able to assert that there is, indeed, cool and edgy music to be found on this island, this earth, this realm, this... England.
Until then, keep warm and stay safe.
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