Back in the Netherlands

Yesterday it was good being back, I missed James but the weather was nice, it was great seeing my family again, and I was hyper all day (which helped me stay awake). It's set in now, though, nobody's home but the help, the weather is grey, and I feel incredibly groggy. I'm glad my job starts next week, because I can't stand doing nothing, and I need something to distract me from thinking about James all the time.

Oh well. At least the last days were fun. As you know, we spent them in the "greatest city in the world" (James managed to make me admit it is as great as Paris, after mucho nagging), and here, at last, is my report.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon. Unexpectedly, I had to fly over Cincinnati instead of directly. It was a little annoying, but on the other hand, it means I have now set foot in 4 states, and it also meant James and I arrived in NY within ten minutes of each other. We took a van service that James' uncle recommended, which used a yellow school bus as a van, and after two hours in traffic we arrived at James' uncle's apartment in the south of the Bronx. The apartment was kind of small and dirty, but the view was amazing: we were right on the border of the Hudson.

In the morning -well, around 1 pm, when I finally managed to wake James up- we took the train to Grand Central Station, which is absolutely gorgeous. Big, with a really nice dining concourse, and over 100 tracks. From there, we walked to the NY library, another building that amazes by it's spaciousness in such a cramped city, where they had a Gutenberg bible. After seeing the library we walked up fifth avenue, seeing many of the famous shops (Tiffany and co. for example) and buildings, and the Rockefeller center. When we came to Central Park we of course went into it, and I have to admit this is where I fell in love with New York. It's great walking in this enormous, huge park, seeing the Bethesda fountain I only knew from the Angels in America opening sequence, and all along seeing sky scrapers sticking out behind the trees.

We spent the evening looking for, first, James' pizza place and, after it turned out it probably had moved, for a pizza place his parents had liked 30 years earlier. Unfortunately, when we finally found it, the pizza wasn't that great. After dinner, we walked to Times Square, which is really something to be experienced. According to my guide, nothing can be built there without neon, and it shows: huge moving bilboards you wouldn't expect outside of Japan, flashing light everywhere, een the subway signs flashed on and off.

We took the subway home, but that turned out not to be too great and idea. The train didn't stop at the station we were supposed to get out, and from the next one it was a long walk back, through a kind of shady neighbourhood.

The following day, for some reason, we left very late, only around four, and didn't arrive at Central Station until five. We bought bread and cheese at the Grand Central market, took the subway to Central Park, and had a very nice breakfast/lunch/dinner in the park. After this we spent about an hour and a half in the metropolitan museum (seeing only a small fraction, it took us fifteen minutes just to find the entrance, that's how big the thing is), and after some searching finally had real, good, NY pizza, pizza that James had been telling me for months is the best in the world.

Sunday was the big money spending day. First we did the Circle Line cruise, a three-hour boat tour around Manhattan. The guide was entertaining (though not always 100% accurate, as far as I know, "Yankee" isn't the Dutch word for "Johnny"), and it was amazing seeing the skyline for real. Of course, seeing the Statue of Liberty was really cool too. After the tour was over, we walked to the Empire State Building and -after an hour in line- went to the top. Unfortunately James got really bad vertigo up there, but I absolutely loved it. It was dark by then, and Manhattan was a sea of light. My favorite sky scraper, the Crysler building, looked especially gorgeous, but i was also the sheer scale of the island that was imposing.

We had dinner on Times Square, unfortunately at a chain, bought hard lemonade and went to James' uncle's home for the last time, staying up as long as we could (we were planning on staying up all night, but we were just too tired) to enjoy as much time together as possible. Around two, James went with me to JFK, and we had to say goodbye.

I'm not going to whine too much about how I miss him, but I do. A lot.

I loved New York, and I'm determined to go back. I mean, I have seen nothing of Lower Manhattan yet, and I feel like I only caught a glimpse of what there is to do and see there.

I had the best six month stretch in my life during this exchange. It's going to be hard to get re-adjusted to my life here, but I'm sure I'll manage. I'll cherish the memories I made forever, as corny as that sounds. I had a blast, and I want to thank everyone who made it so great, not just James but the whole 1-0-5 crew, my apartment mates, my professors for interesting classes, etc.

Interested in what I'll do from now? It will probably be much less exciting, but I'll update from time to time on the 105 blog. Also, I'm planning on making at least one more update on this blog, to tell you about my short trip to San Franciso.

Cheers, and thanks for reading!

Hedwig

NY!

I don't have time for a full update, but I just wanted to let you all know: I'm safely in NY and it rules!!!

Only five more days now...

I don't wanna go I don't wanna go I don't wanna go...

I mean, thanks mom for trying to make me feel better about coming back, reminding me of apple pie and rose, but I don't wanna go...

Oh well. I think it's just that I hate how everything is ending. Thursday night I stayed up until five in the morning to finish my final paper. James stayed up until eight to finish his, and slept only for two hours. Friday I stressed out moving out, going to James' commencement ceremony in between (Umberto Eco was there, but the favorite speaker seemed to be Cookie Monster), checking out finally at 9:30 pm, half an hour before the deadline, only to find James missing. He didn't answer his door (even if I'd phoned him and told him I'd be there in 10 minutes), didn't answer his phone, nobody had seen him...As he'd had a big fight with his parents before, I was afraid he'd gone out somewhere, wandering around. When I came back from checking if he was maybe in my apartment and being confronted with a closed door and the realisation that I really couldn't live there any more, I rang his doorbell many times out of frustration, and this managed to drag him out of the coma he'd apparently fallen in.

Saturday morning we had to get up early: graduation! It is unbelievable how many history graduates there are at UCLA; according to the speaker, it is the biggest history department in the country and possibly in the whole world. James doesn't really finish college until the end of summer quarter, but he got to walk this saturday. The names of hundreds and hundreds of graduates were called, and finally..."James Kennedy"; and he got his 5 seconds on the stage. Oh well. He looked cute in his outfit, and I am glad I could be there.



The Graduate & Me

After graduation James parents took us to lunch, and after a little bit of shopping in Santa Monica we went back to James' apartment, where a huge task awaited us: packing. So much stuff... The short version is James stayed up until 6 packing (I felt sick around 2 am from finishing off all the frozen foods, and went to bed), screwed up his lower back in the process (packing all books in one box is not very wise), and we still weren't done.

I'll make a long, long, interminable story short again: we spent all day packing and moving. James couldn't move into his sublet until tuesday, but he could already put his stuff there, and James was able to check out about ten minutes to the 10 pm deadline.

The problem was, Tidey, Bridie, Jordy, Max and Martin were leaving on their roadtrip somewhere that Sunday night, and I really wanted to say goodbye. Another problem was that during lunch at South Street on Sunday, I'd left behind my phone, and some $(&^(@#* asshole took it (my only consolation is that I had only 80 cents of phone credit left). This meant the only phone numbers we had were Jordy's and Max's, and neither was answering their phone.

We didn't really want to risk taking one of the last busses to go to Bridie's if there was a chance of them already being gone, and we were homeless after check-out, so we decided we wouldn't go, and see Batman Begins instead. Guess what happened during previews? Jordy called, and we decided to walk out and go to Bridie's anyway. We even managed to get a refund, and to catch the last bus to Bridie's...The first of the two busses you have to take, anyway. The second? Unfortunately, we had to take a taxi, but it was worth it: we got to spend about half an hour to say goodbye, and I'm very able I was able to. From Bridie's, we took another cab to James' parents' hotel, where they had kindly reserved a room for us, and collapsed.

We didn't do much on Monday, which was probably good: James really needed to relax, and I could use for rest too. I tried an ice-cream float, which, to my great surprise, actually tasted good (it's a scoop of vanilla ice-cream in soda, in my case in coke). In the evening, some of James' friends came down from Palm Springs, and we had a good time with them, first at dinner, then in the hooka bar in Westwood.

Yesterday we checked out of the hotel, went to James' new apartment, and walked to the UCLA store to sell back my books. With the money, I bought a New York City guide. My parents already gave me a thin, handy one for my birthday when they were here, but this one's more meaty, for reading in at night in preparation for the next day. We drove a bit up the coast, had seafood for dinner, and unfortunately had a bad surprise when we came back to the apartment: there had been a "miscommunication", and this meant Jams would not have a bed when he would come back from New York. All this, of course, didn't really contribute to relaxation

We watched a movie in the hotel with James' parents, and headed back to the apartment. We had to move some boxes, and unfortunately James hurt his back again, worse this time, and the pain persisted until the next day. He's ok now, thanks to painkillers mostly, but I hope he'll be ok tomorrow when we have to wake up at 4 to catch our respective planes. He flies at 8, I fly at 9, and tomorrow afternoon? We'll be in New York! We'll be staying at James' uncle's place, in the Bronx just across from Manhattan.

I'll post my adventures soon!

11 days to go

These last weeks are passing so quickly, I can't believe it. I don't wanna leave yet, but at the same time, some things make me uneasy about staying, too. The four (4!) earthquakes we've had in the past week for example. I haven't actually felt any of them, true, but still, two of them were big enough to be reported on nu.nl, and one of them elicited a tsunami warning (quickly withdrawn, but still). So yeah, being on the West coast in a week doesn't sound that bad after all.

Of couse, I'm also starting to miss home. Mom wasn't feeling too well lately, and I felt bad about being away, my great aunt died and I had no opportunity to say goodbye, and after seeing the pictures from graduation at UCU and the picnic afterwards I must admit I felt homesick.

Then again, I'm having so much fun here. I'm not just talking about James (but, trust me, we're having plenty of fun), but also all the friends I've made here and all the things we do together. Like going to see "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", an absolutely perfect mindless popcorn-flick I would definitely recommend, especially with a big group. Or like, for example, the undierun, which you have all seen the pictures of. Suffice to say, it took some alcohol to get us out of our clothes, and alcohol and running…not an advisable combo. It was very much fun though, worth the twenty bucks that the panties cost.

I will miss getting drunk among my friends, talking with people from Ireland, New-Zealand, France all at once. Brigid and Sylvia each had a book for people to write messages in, and for a moment I felt like being very derivative and getting a blank book too, but then I came up with another nice idea. The idea is: I would like everyone to send me a touristic post card from their hometown (or else their university town), inscribed with whatever. If you feel like contributing, the address I would like them sent to:

(erased)

I’m looking forward to having crrrazy pictures from New Zealand, girls in G-strings with “Brisbane” on their butts, etc.

I’m drunk now from Sylvia’s fab party, and I’m going to see how its continuation in 105 goes. Don’t forget to check out the new communal blog, 1-0-5.blogspot.com !

Cheers, bitches!

Hedwig

Sylvia in her porn-star pose..and of course me and the jamester. 

The butt of my undierun panties 

His cuteness himself (aka. James) 

Red Rock, the american way (from the car) 

Vegas Baby!

I'll just summarize my not writing lately to this: I don't really know why I haven't been writing, and I apologize. Too much has happened to put in one post, but that's good news for you: I'll be putting those online bit by bit over the coming two weeks. For now, I'll just tell you about my past weekend, in Vegas with Dad.

The thing is, Dad works in Houston every once in a while, and even before I went to L.A., he proposed 'hopping over' sometime. Not really realizing that he would have to hop 1400 miles (+/- 2200 km). He did finally do it this weekend, and vegas was our destination. We drove, of course, in an SUV, a white jeep, because as he says, in America, you have to do as the americans do (plus, he kinda likes big cars).

It took us about two hours to get away from L.A., friday traffic being friday standing still, but after that the ride was pretty smooth, and arrived on the strip we immediately located our hotel, the "Tropicana" (the big neon letters on the facade were a give-away). We also immediately saw a big black pyramid with a shaft of light coming out of the top, many weird towers, and the statue of liberty. Yes, we were in Las Vegas. And our room offered us a view of the MGM, the Excalibur (the place with all the strangely colored towers) and the NYNY.

That night we explored our hotel (not very interesting, lots of slot machines and tables), the NYNY (nice on the outside, pretty much the same on the inside, or at least what we saw of it that night was), the MGM (big lion outside, biggest bronze statue in the world apparently, invisible lions inside, not much else), and walked a bit along the strip. Dad was of course very jetlagged, and I was quite tired too, so we went to bed early.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early, around 8, and started walking. In the sunlight, everything looked very different. The Excalibur looked even tackier, but the statue of liberty looked quite nice.


Warning: not really New York. You'll see those pictures in about three weeks

We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge (according to my handy little travel guide, many more people walk over this one each year than traverse the real one) and after some steady walking ended up near the Eiffel tower. Wonderful, isn't it, being able to walk from NY to Paris? It was quite nicely recreated too, the opera was there too, and inside they recreated the feel of paris pretty well, although they had paid surprisingly little attention to langue ("Eiffel tour" it said, for example, on a street sign). We had a very nice breakfast with french coffee, pains au raisin and little baguettes there and on we went, walking more, to see other casinos. We took a picture on the steps of the Bellagio, bought souvenirs and ended up at the Venetian. It was convenient to have the san Marco tower and the Rialto bridge next to one another, and the gondolers were very good. The canals ran into the casino also, where there was -as in the Paris- a beautifully painted fake indoor sky, a recreation of the san marco square, opera singing costumed people, a living statue of Dante, and real venice masks. We had lunch there, looking out onto the square, and afterwards slowly made our way back to the hotel.

We wanted to see something besides neon and slot machines also, so we drove to Red Rock Canyon and did the scenic drive there. Red rock canyon is pretty much, as the name implies, red rock, but it is beautiful and we made many great pictures (see above).

At night we had tickets for a comedy show, but unfortunately it turned out the comedy was in a bar, meaning I couldn't go in. We considered going to "Zumanity", a cirque du soleil show, but I wasn't allowed in there either because it featured "sexual content" (yes, at twenty, I can't possible handle anything of a sexual nature. And while flyers for "hot one-on-one action" are handed out in the street, I can't see an erotic acrobatic show). We ended up having a very nice dinner at the Irish pub, with live irish music, and even jog dancing, by a girl who, admirably, kept her smile firmly fixed on her face while dancing like crazy.

We went home early this morning, because dad had to catch his flight. We did make one stop at the ghost town of calico, a miner's town that's been entirely commercialised, but is still fun to see ( a cowboy tipped his hat at me). There was a saloon, a photo shop and everything, it was a perfect stop along the way.

Back in L.A., we had lunch at Chili's with James and we went back to the rental place with dad (I've become a pretty good navigator apparently).

That was it for Vegas. Updates about San Franciso, surfing, parties, films, James, underpants and more will soon follow (I hope).

Sorry to have kept you waiting so long!

Hedwig