London, Hamburg, & Traveling Alone.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 6:57AM Ciao a tutti!
This entry will be rather quick-finals are approaching and I don't have time to properly update! All I do is work, work, work.
This past weekend was my birthday weekend and I treated myself to a six-day-long excursion to London, UK and Hamburg, Germany. The catch? I went alone. Granted, I met up with a lovely girl in London who I met in Paris and is studying in Warick (us study abroad kids have the craziest stories...), but the traveling bit was done completely alone.
Why London and Hamburg, you ask? My very favorite band, Motion City Soundtrack (NEW ALBUM JUNE 12TH!!!!!!!!), were playing two nights in London and one night in Hamburg (coincidentally on my birthday). Not only that, but London was on my bucket list and I'm up for traveling anywhere at least once. For the record, all three shows were special and amazing in their own way, and I couldn't have asked for a better birthday!
London-Four things; delays, rain, English and Nando's. My flight from Pisa was delayed TWO HOURS due to "AIR TRAFFIC" [excuse me?] and I had to step off of the plane at Gatwick and hurry to XOYO for the first concert I had purchased tickets to. I was almost late and it caused me major anxiety. New city, completely alone, no idea where to go-I'm thankful that I'm well-versed with subway systems. I ended up making it with plenty of time to spare.
Rain. The entire time I was there from the minute I stepped off the plane to when I hopped borders, it was either cold or torrential downpouring. The real London experience! I didn't mind & refused to allow it to get to me-there's nothing I could do about it!
English. I will selfishly admit that it was wonderful being in an English-speaking country. It felt great to be 100% completely understood when I spoke and not have to cut corners. On Thursday I met up with my friend and she showed me around. Buckingham, the London Eye, Cybercandy (massive candy store-in love), but most importantly...
NANDO'S! Famous for their chicken, Nando's is a chain restaurant in the UK that serves dangerously delish sandwich-things. Since I do not partake in foods of the meaty variety, I had a bean burger with hot sauce, a side of ratatouille and finished up with CHEESECAKE AND CUSTARD. I want to go back. So. Badly. It was fantastic!
My last night in London was spent at the second night of Motion City Soundtrack and friends I had met the night before. I got up the next morning at 4:30 to fly to Hamburg.
The band signed my tattoo (why: it's a Motion City Soundtrack tattoo) !
Buckingham via torrential downpour! Still beautiful.
Hamburg-Three things; smoothies, German, and punk rock.
Smoothies: I arrived in Hamburg around 9am Friday morning and immediately entered the first supermarket and saw what I have been looking for since my arrival in Florence: Smoothies! These beauts were only 89 cents a piece; strawberry, raspberry and banana. For some reason, I can't find things distinctly smoothie-like in Florence, so I had at least two of these a day my entire stay in Hamburg.
German: This language, I tell ya. Angry, angry language. Most of the time when I travel around, I can get by with the Romance languages; they're all similar in sound and pronunciation. GERMAN IS THE WONDERLAND OF LANGUAGES. I couldn't even try to guess what signs said or what people were saying to each other, let alone me. Very frustrating, but I found humor in the fact that no one could tell I wasn't a native. I am completely Aryan: fair skinned, blue-eyed, and before I dyed my locks red, dirty blonde hair. I was spoken at in German right off the bat and given a puzzled look when I obviously didn't understand. It was a great change from Italy, where I stick out like a sore thumb. ;]
Wait...huh?
Punk rock: The place I was staying in Hamburg oozed this weird, punk/grunge feeling. I liked it, of course, but felt unsafe walking around at night. There were so many homeless punx asking for money, just generally causing trouble. I loved it, but I had to be careful.
When I said oozing-I meant it.
Traveling Alone: Traveling alone was nice, actually. Therapeutic. I already love traveling, so that wasn't the issue at all. Traveling is almost like a game to me. A formula, you could say. To the plane to the shuttle to the train to the subway. This stop, that stop, west/east. Good fun, in my opinion! The only thing that miffed me a bit was not having anyone to share in my excitement of something new; I had no one to tell. In one aspect, it taught me so much to support myself and keep myself entertained, but it got a bit lonely at times.
Spending my nineteenth birthday alone? More fun than I thought it would be! Of course I would have loved to spend it with my family and friends, but I am on another continent and can't. In fact, I was in Hamburg, Germany. How could I complain?! I had Starbucks coffee and bagels for breakfast. I told the diner I chose to eat at that it was my birthday and they gave me free cheesecake. It was a relaxing day of window-shopping and at the end, another Motion City show. It was perfect with minor hiccups (getting lost looking for the venue, riot police, torrential rain, you know. the usual)!
All of the members from the band signed my ticket, I got the setlist and a guitar pick!
I'm headed to Milan, Amsterdam/Arnhem and Meerhout (Belgium) this weekend, look for words on that in the coming weeks.
Hope everything is well with you across the pond!
-m.
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Reader Comments (1)
I need to be there.