5/25/05

5/25/05 (12:01am)

We’re back in Lille, and back at that hostel we stayed at with Jess. I saw a man pissing in the street today, outside the train station in broad daylight. He wasn’t a bum either. I guess that’s ok here, and that’s why the streets smell like urine. I just stepped over his little river and kept walking. I miss the woods…I don’t think I’ll ever get used to cities. I’m actually pretty ready to go home. My feet are accumulating blisters, my nose piercing is infected, and I must be malnourished. Today I ate: a yogurt, bread, cheese, a mango, an apple, some fries, and some ice cream.

5/25/05 (9:30am)

Somewhere along the way I’m gonna have to fill in the things I wanted to write about before, but didn’t have the chance to when they happened. Since we’re in Lille again (at MacDo’s right now), I’ll write about our first stay here. We came with Jess, and when we found our hostel, we went to go to the art museum here. I’m really glad I got to go to a museum in Europe, even though I plan to go again someday specifically for the purpose of museums and art. I could have stayed a lot longer, but we needed to find a place to eat.

----> 11:30am Currently: sitting on a bench in Lille, listening to pigeons squawk as they mate at the foot of statues on the cathedral in front of me. I’m wondering whether I should continue writing or draw instead, because I have a little time before Ruby comes back from her search for wine. She’s proving to have more energy than me at the end, and I’m trying to give her the reigns so she can do what she wants. I guess it’s a little hard for me, and maybe a little hard for her.

-----> 12:44am On the train to Dunkerque right now…Ruby keeps asking me if I’m alright, I guess I look sad. I’m pretty tired, and I’m in a very introspective mood, but I don’t think I’m sad. It’s hard for me to ever really know what I’m feeling, because emotions are hard to simplify into one word. I’m certainly feeling something, but how can you be thinking about your future, past, the present, the world at large, and analyzing your dreams all under the simple title “sad.” I hadn’t realized how important this trip was for me, and how much it tied into all my dreams for the future. I don’t know how long I’ve wanted to travel and see the world, but it feels like the desire’s always been there. This trip was my sample, my first taste of what my life could be, and I’m not sure I could do this. Throwing myself out into the wide world, in the midst of strange cultures was supposed to be enlightening, and while I’ve learned so much, it mostly just makes me feel lonely. What do I want? What do I want my life to sum up to? Could I live this lifestyle? Watching my back constantly, making connections with people only to never see them again, feeling homesick for a home I don’t have the I claimed I didn’t want, that I gave up to let myself loose on the world? This trip has been very humbling for me, with the only thing I though I wanted dissolving into uncertainty. I’ve also learned a lot about myself from Ruby because we’re very different in certain ways, and it’s been a while since I’ve had to work out solutions for communication and leadership problems with someone. I’m really glad I went with her though, I think she’s been the perfect companion and I hope she’s had all the fun and done all the things she wanted to on this trip.

-----> 9:42 (British time). We’re on the ferry to Dover right now, and we’re not sure where we’re gonna stay tonight. That’s not really anything new, but we might get into London too late to get a hostel. We’ve showered on the ferry, because we felt we absolutely had to, after renting bikes in Dunkerque and riding them to Belgium. It was about 2 hours of good riding, and we’re gonna be even more sore tomorrow. Especially with this sunburn I got on my shoulders and face. I actually really didn’t care about going so much, and when we didn’t have our shit together in time, I was ready to give up. But Ruby really really wanted to do this, and I had already gotten in the way of her doing some things she wanted to do, so I wanted her to be able to do this. So I ran back and grabbed my passport when we needed ID for the bike shop, and I pushed her on the bike riding, so we could make it all the way to Belgium (I did want to do it for the sake of doing it). We did make it, and when we got there, we bought a beer and tried to chug it (with the cap still on, because we had no bottle-opener) in the spare minute we had, because we’d heard the Belgian beer is the best. Anyways, I’m pretty much out of that mood I was in earlier. I think the bike ride helped (which I’m very glad we ended up doing, by the way) as well as the meal that The-Awesomest-Jess-In-The-World cooked for us.