A few weeks short of two years ago I packed up all the stuff I could fit into a suitcase and a back pack full of books and took off for half way around the world (or if you want to be precise 3.78/8 of the way) to further my intellectual betterment courses (a.k.a. to attend school).
Like most endeavors I’ve undertaken in my life, I was quite unprepared for living in another country. When I boarded the plane that was bound for my new home country, the only thing I knew was the name of the my school and that even after flying for 12 hours a night long train ride to the treacherous north would await me. See the thing is, I could have studied up, had an actual idea what I was getting myself into, but I chose not too. Actually I was too apathetic about things to actually make a choice, the only real reason for me not reading up on the situation I was about to embark on was due more to laziness than anything else. The only thing I knew was that I was in for a change of scenery, and that was really the only thing that I cared about.
Although this is a recipe for disaster 97% of the time, things worked out. I finally shook things up, breaking out of the stupor that had plagued me much of the previous two and a half years. It was good for me. I traveled like I never had before, I watched it snow ash on a unforgiving-ly cold beach, I got groped by a stalker in a night club, I drank brandy from an Eiffel Tower shaped bottle found at the bottom of a dumpster, and broke my ankle. Oh yeah I also met Jimmy and some other people who flipped my shit. If I were better at cuttin’ to the chase I would have just written that I lived life, maybe for the first time ever.
I bring this up for no particular reason, other than it’s cold and overcast out and it reminds me of the place I called home for the first half of 2006. This whole thing is of course viewed through the awesome colored glasses sometimes referred to as nostalgia, but maybe there’s a reason for the happy go fun memories I have of life across the ocean.
If you couldn’t tell already, I specialize in unreliable narrative.
