Quite Evening

I'm just enjoying a quite night in right now. I worked on my coursework all afternoon and did some laundry. The weather has been so LOVELY in London. I almost didn't know sunshine could exist in this rainy bit of the world! The breeze is blowing in, cool, but not chilly, from my open window and I've got some Andy McKee guitar playing on my laptop. When I stopped at Summerfield's to pick up laundry detergent I got one of those rotisserie chickens (wonderful that they have those in the UK too and it fits perfectly in my largest tupperware), some salad greens, pre-made mash and a bottle of Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon from the Bordeaux region (haha 3£)! An amazingly simple yet comforting and delicious meal. I think it cost me 10£ and will make at least three meals! Plus I didn't have to cook it, just heated it up in the microwave after my laundry was done.

As I fold my laundry, I am separating out clothes to take on Easter Holiday. I'm going to Germany and Poland with Beth. With the lovely weather I almost don't want to leave London! My mood is contemplative and sitting in Trefalgar Square, just watching people sounds like the best thing to do in the world (which I would have done this bright shiny afternoon except for my three course works due this coming Wednesday and not nearly enough progress on them!). However, Europe calls, and besides I found out the due date for my art history paper is April 16, so I'll be cutting my travels short and returning to London to spend some time in the Library and the National Gallery. Oh, such misery my life is - studying the great artists and genres in the greatest city on earth, eating roasted chicken and drinking wine, feeling at home. I love being here.

It occured to me that nothing makes you feel like your home than the little routines. Making dinner. Doing laundry. Cleaning house. I've already put down my roots here. I was home three weeks after I arrived. I miss London and I haven't even left. I suppose I'm nostolgic because before April 1st I have to decide where my next home will be - Atlanta GA or Newark DE. I don't want to go back and start another home. I can't imagine any place holding my heart like this one, besides Traverse City, Mi. In college, at Michigan, it was the PEOPLE that hold my love for the place. Now that many of my closest friends (aside from Kate) have graduated and moved on, I don't feel much about Ann Arbor, besides Michigan Pride and loyalty. Austin, TX was amazing but I think a lot of it was also the people. I've made some friends here but not super close friends like in Austin, Ann Arbor or Traverse City. The people I'm with are all just so different from me - different interests and studies - and we all know that there's not time to really bond, so friendships are looser. The only explaination for my attactment to London then is that I truely love the PLACE itself.

I'm also feeling contemplative, about the future and the past and the present because I found an old friend on Facebook today while I was doing my laundry. She never really updates her profile, so when I saw the new pictures - baby pictures (!) - I had to check it out. Ally and I were friends in High School. We weren't super close but I would count her among my good friends and was invited to her wedding, as she will be to mine if I have one. We've drifted apart since she got married (at age 20) and we were both off at different universities. This January she had a son. I found her blog on a link to her profile and am reading about her trip to Isreal with her husband who is a seminary student.

Just thinking about it. Having a baby! She's young but not terribly. It makes me think about my future and my plans for my life. It makes me savour this time here, drinking it like this wine. I am my own person. I am alone here. But alone in an indepentend way. I know that if I am in trouble there are a dozen people to call. I am alone the way you are alone when you sit out by the dock on the lake and look up at the stars. It's strange and amazing to think that with the millions of people in this city - the sirens, the car alarms, the motor bikes, the traffic, the congestion on the tube - that I can feel like I do when I'm at the lake. Alone and content.

Someday there will be no alone time. Nothing will be private and there will be a husband and a child. At least that's on the goal list. Alone time will have to be portioned out like I portion out chocolate. I am glad that I have learned to enjoy it, and treasure it now. I am glad I can travel the world on my whims and not be constantly comprimising and catering to other people. I am choosing to see Eastern Europe with Beth. If she and her friends drive me nuts then I can go off on my own without much concern. I am so completely blessed to be here, to have this opportunity and to have these experiences. A tight group of friends would be great but I think I'm doing more growing this way.

So in addition to finding out my Art and Society paper is due April 16 (it's our LAST essay) I found out my Rise of the Novel exam is April 24th. My courseworks for Writing London and Theater are due Wednesday and that's the end of the course. The exam period extends well into May and I'd assumed I would have more class. I cannot believe how short the semester was! Truly this is not what I was expecting, though it's a pleasant surprise. Essentially I have April 25th until July 6th that I have no classes! Again, not in the plan. Though traveling was in the plan so I'll get another Eurorail pass, hurang Melissa into traveling with me, and see where we end up.

I haven't forgotten why I am here however! To learn literature was one of the goals of the Fellowship, and since I just devoured "Northanger Abbey" (what can I say I am smitten with Jane Austin) I am in the mood for more literature. The bad thing about train travel is the long streches of traveling through the countryside - the wonderful thing about train travel is the long strechtes of traveling through the countryside. I picked up Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein, Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King" and Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" at the discout book shop today for my train trips. These are three books that I feel you cannot be well read, without having read and which I have felt downright illiterate having not yet read. The list of such books is long (including quite a bit of Shakespear that I'm saving for my weekend jaunts around the UK when I'm at Cambridge), but these three will be a good start on my 7 hour train ride from Brussels to Berlin, and the 6 hour ride from Berlin to Krakow. I'd like to pick up a book or two on the Holocost and World War II because we will be visiting some of the most historic sights of that era on Easter Holiday and I know I would enjoy it more if I could at least refresh the details in my mind. I must be careful however, my backpack will get quite heavy if I take too many books!