Goodbye to London, I'll miss you a lot
I'm sorry to leave you but you're getting hot.
I must return to my homeland of cold
At least I'll escape from Flat 2's kitchen mold.
I'm sad to leave you, Trafalgar square
I'm still half convinced that Aslan is there.
Adios to museums, and Hyde Park too
I never even had a chance to go to the zoo!
William and Kate, I wish you the best,
But I must go home at my parents' request
Without me they fear that violence they will do
To my teenaged sister, their Waterloo.
Without my Digestives, how will I survive?
I abhor the thought of living Cadbury-deprived!
I'm going to cry without my raspberry foam shrimp
I can't help but whimper and feel like a wimp!
So long to Steven and our new British friends
I can't believe my semester is about to end!
I'm going to be pining, for without John Makey,
I just know my poor heart is going to be aching!
I'll be missing Big Ben and Harrods as well
I'll even miss our flat, just not the smell.
Though I'll only miss London's dirty streets a smidgen,
I'm honestly sad to be leaving the pigeons!
I don't want to leave all the West End shows
Or the Tower of London, despite all its woes
I wish I could ride the tube a few more times
But now I think I'm about out of rhymes.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
An Unexpected New World
There's a verse in a musical by Jason Robert Brown called "Songs for a New World" that goes, "A new world calls across the ocean/ A new world calls across the sky/ A new world whispers in the shadows/ Time to fly! Time to fly!" I have always loved this song. At the beginning of this wonderful semester abroad, I used the first line as the "description" for this blog. I felt that it exactly expressed everything I was feeling about the impending adventure. When I look back a few months at younger, pre-London Me, I'm truly amazed at how this new world sucked me in, and how incredibly sad I will be to leave it. I'm also amazed at how that verse applies in more ways than I ever imagined it would.
When I first stepped off the plane at Heathrow, I was so tired and groggy I could hardly think. It's really a miracle that I made it off the plane, through customs, onto the tube and to Metrogate in the pouring rain lugging my suitcase. Walking up to Hyde Park Gate, I wasn't thinking about how many times I would repeat that simple action, or how this building was soon to become my home, but rather about how happy I was to be getting out of the wet! Everything from those first days is a blur to me. The day we strolled through Hyde Park and the Kensington neighborhood is a particularly large blur. I felt so lost and confused I couldn't help worrying that I was in over my head. In just a few short weeks, though, I had come to truly feel at home in the place that had once frightened me.
I had originally hoped to travel to as many countries as I could while I was here. Over New Years in our little remote cabin in the middle of nowhere, I poured over a guide to Europe, picking towns and sights I wanted to see while curled up next to the fire in an afghan my grandmother knitted. After getting here, though, I realized that what I really wanted to do was to thoroughly explore London. I realized that I could visit other countries any time in the future, but I would never again have a chance to spend 4 months in London, and I wanted to take advantage of that extended stay and really make myself feel like a Londoner. Every weekend I made sure to do something special, from seeing West End shows to going to museums to visiting the aquarium to wandering gardens. I'm so happy I did. I know I'll come back across the Atlantic in the near future and explore Europe, but for these brief, wonderful 4 months I was able to immerse myself in the British culture, and in doing so I really came to realize just what it means to be "American" and, well, "me."
I have never once felt homesick. There have of course been times when I have longed for the solitude of my own bedroom or the cleanliness of my own kitchen or the accessibility of my own closet, but I have never felt a real yearning to go home. I have been able to easily make myself a new home, one that includes 20 other girls and historic landmarks and bright green parrots above Hyde Park. I don't want to leave this new home of mine. I expect that in the next few months, I will be homesick for London. While I know that my Wisconsin home is waiting for me, unchanged, I know that my London home will disappear on April 22nd, with every suitcase my friends pack up and load onto a plane bound for France, Spain, or the United States.
I'm very proud of everything I was able to accomplish while I was here. I have hardly anything left to do that I haven't yet done. Hopefully today I'll be able to get a ticket to "Mamma Mia" and I'm thinking of going to see "The Lion King" for my 21st birthday next Tuesday. I'd like to take one last trip to Portobello Road, and of course I'll be out feeding my pigeons and the little robin that I've found in Hyde Park every day I can. I'll have to overload myself with curries and enough Thai food to hold me over for the summer. I'd also like to go back for a third visit to the British Library, something we did in the very first week that would make a nice bookend for this semester. Speaking of bookends, I kind of hope it rains on our last day here, mostly because it would be rather fitting, but also because I would really like to splash in every puddle on Gloucester Road one last time.
It's funny, but I realize that another "new world" is calling across the ocean. This time, though, it's the world I left 4 months ago. For the longest time, I thought of returning as "going home," but now I'm starting to see that home has become a new world. My experiences here have changed me. I'm more self-aware than ever before, and I look at the world differently. Even though I'm returning to the same place I've lived for 21 years, it's different now because I'm different. It really has become a new world, and now it's almost time to fly.
When I first stepped off the plane at Heathrow, I was so tired and groggy I could hardly think. It's really a miracle that I made it off the plane, through customs, onto the tube and to Metrogate in the pouring rain lugging my suitcase. Walking up to Hyde Park Gate, I wasn't thinking about how many times I would repeat that simple action, or how this building was soon to become my home, but rather about how happy I was to be getting out of the wet! Everything from those first days is a blur to me. The day we strolled through Hyde Park and the Kensington neighborhood is a particularly large blur. I felt so lost and confused I couldn't help worrying that I was in over my head. In just a few short weeks, though, I had come to truly feel at home in the place that had once frightened me.
I had originally hoped to travel to as many countries as I could while I was here. Over New Years in our little remote cabin in the middle of nowhere, I poured over a guide to Europe, picking towns and sights I wanted to see while curled up next to the fire in an afghan my grandmother knitted. After getting here, though, I realized that what I really wanted to do was to thoroughly explore London. I realized that I could visit other countries any time in the future, but I would never again have a chance to spend 4 months in London, and I wanted to take advantage of that extended stay and really make myself feel like a Londoner. Every weekend I made sure to do something special, from seeing West End shows to going to museums to visiting the aquarium to wandering gardens. I'm so happy I did. I know I'll come back across the Atlantic in the near future and explore Europe, but for these brief, wonderful 4 months I was able to immerse myself in the British culture, and in doing so I really came to realize just what it means to be "American" and, well, "me."
I have never once felt homesick. There have of course been times when I have longed for the solitude of my own bedroom or the cleanliness of my own kitchen or the accessibility of my own closet, but I have never felt a real yearning to go home. I have been able to easily make myself a new home, one that includes 20 other girls and historic landmarks and bright green parrots above Hyde Park. I don't want to leave this new home of mine. I expect that in the next few months, I will be homesick for London. While I know that my Wisconsin home is waiting for me, unchanged, I know that my London home will disappear on April 22nd, with every suitcase my friends pack up and load onto a plane bound for France, Spain, or the United States.
I'm very proud of everything I was able to accomplish while I was here. I have hardly anything left to do that I haven't yet done. Hopefully today I'll be able to get a ticket to "Mamma Mia" and I'm thinking of going to see "The Lion King" for my 21st birthday next Tuesday. I'd like to take one last trip to Portobello Road, and of course I'll be out feeding my pigeons and the little robin that I've found in Hyde Park every day I can. I'll have to overload myself with curries and enough Thai food to hold me over for the summer. I'd also like to go back for a third visit to the British Library, something we did in the very first week that would make a nice bookend for this semester. Speaking of bookends, I kind of hope it rains on our last day here, mostly because it would be rather fitting, but also because I would really like to splash in every puddle on Gloucester Road one last time.
It's funny, but I realize that another "new world" is calling across the ocean. This time, though, it's the world I left 4 months ago. For the longest time, I thought of returning as "going home," but now I'm starting to see that home has become a new world. My experiences here have changed me. I'm more self-aware than ever before, and I look at the world differently. Even though I'm returning to the same place I've lived for 21 years, it's different now because I'm different. It really has become a new world, and now it's almost time to fly.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
The Ballet
If I had to choose something to define myself by (which, by the way, I find an incredibly silly notion), I would have to choose Dance. Not dance, no I'm talking about Dance, with a capital DANCE. I just really, really like to dance. I like tap, love blues, am passionate about Latin, and can't imagine life without ballroom. I've been dancing for 19 years now. My very first experiences with dance were when I was 2 years old. I performed a tap routine to The Beach Boys' "Dance, Dance, Dance," dressed in a blue and silver sparkly costume that I think I still have. I didn't discover ballroom till 16 years later, as a freshman in college, but it has become incredibly essential to my life. It's where I met a good number of my best friends, where I learned the meaning of true self-confidence. But I never would have discovered the joys of the Madison ballroom scene without my years of ballet. Ballet was the catalyst I needed to really truly become a dancer.
I started late, when I was (gasp) 11 years old. There were girls in my class who were 3 and 4 years younger than I who had been doing it longer. I was humiliated at first, but I stuck it out. I just kept imagining the performance that had convinced me I needed to learn this beautiful art, a performance of "The Nutcracker" I had seen danced by the Central Wisconsin School of Ballet, who had imported a few amazing dancers from Moscow. I stuck it out for years, forcing my very much unflexible body to stretch and obey. It sounds silly, but making my arms and legs and feet and hands do what I wanted was an incredible thrill. I was at that horrible, gawky pre-teen age, but somehow I was able to master my ungainly limbs and pretend to be graceful, at least on stage. As I got older, ballet got more and more important. When life got confusing or upsetting, I knew I'd always be able to execute the perfect grand jete or pas de buree. Also, performing is FUN! I just really liked it.
When I got to college, I had to give up ballet. I just didn't have the time to keep up as I had. I couldn't practice 5 or 6 days a week anymore. It was horribly depressing for about a day and a half. Then a friend dragged me to a ballroom social and that was that. I found my new passion. But without the ballet training, I never would have been able to learn ballroom as quickly and painlessly as I did. I will always remember my ballet training as giving me the tools I needed to succeed, in more ways that I ever could have imagined.
Going to see "Cinderella" performed last week was by far one of the highlights of my semester abroad. Watching the dancers on stage, I could remember the feeling I'd had as a 16-year-old, dancing on my high school's stage en pointe, my toes blistered and bleeding, my costume itching, and loving every moment. Ballet gave me so much. Sure, it repeatedly broke both my little toes and destroyed all nerve function and permanently screwed up my feet, and caused me to fall and break my tail bone which had to be painfully operated on, and some of the costumes were not flattering in the least and I will probably never live down those pictures, but hey, I loved it. I could appreciate the difficulty of the dancer's moves as they reenacted the familiar scenes of "Cinderella," could cringe in sympathy with each creak and thump, could marvel at the beauty. I will never again be a ballerina, but I will always, always love ballet.
I started late, when I was (gasp) 11 years old. There were girls in my class who were 3 and 4 years younger than I who had been doing it longer. I was humiliated at first, but I stuck it out. I just kept imagining the performance that had convinced me I needed to learn this beautiful art, a performance of "The Nutcracker" I had seen danced by the Central Wisconsin School of Ballet, who had imported a few amazing dancers from Moscow. I stuck it out for years, forcing my very much unflexible body to stretch and obey. It sounds silly, but making my arms and legs and feet and hands do what I wanted was an incredible thrill. I was at that horrible, gawky pre-teen age, but somehow I was able to master my ungainly limbs and pretend to be graceful, at least on stage. As I got older, ballet got more and more important. When life got confusing or upsetting, I knew I'd always be able to execute the perfect grand jete or pas de buree. Also, performing is FUN! I just really liked it.
When I got to college, I had to give up ballet. I just didn't have the time to keep up as I had. I couldn't practice 5 or 6 days a week anymore. It was horribly depressing for about a day and a half. Then a friend dragged me to a ballroom social and that was that. I found my new passion. But without the ballet training, I never would have been able to learn ballroom as quickly and painlessly as I did. I will always remember my ballet training as giving me the tools I needed to succeed, in more ways that I ever could have imagined.
Going to see "Cinderella" performed last week was by far one of the highlights of my semester abroad. Watching the dancers on stage, I could remember the feeling I'd had as a 16-year-old, dancing on my high school's stage en pointe, my toes blistered and bleeding, my costume itching, and loving every moment. Ballet gave me so much. Sure, it repeatedly broke both my little toes and destroyed all nerve function and permanently screwed up my feet, and caused me to fall and break my tail bone which had to be painfully operated on, and some of the costumes were not flattering in the least and I will probably never live down those pictures, but hey, I loved it. I could appreciate the difficulty of the dancer's moves as they reenacted the familiar scenes of "Cinderella," could cringe in sympathy with each creak and thump, could marvel at the beauty. I will never again be a ballerina, but I will always, always love ballet.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)