Good Night & Not Goodbye

Nomi recently left Brooklyn to set off on a new adventure -- living in Munich for a year and being an au pair for two German children. A few days before she left, we had dinner in Chinatown and she revealed that she hadn't been to all five boroughs -- she was missing Staten Island. While I can't call myself the biggest explorer on the Island (though I have a ton of coupons for it), it seemed a travesty to allow her to leave without having set foot in all the boroughs. So Liza, Monica, and I stepped in and decided that a proper send-off would be to take the (free) Staten Island Ferry and picnic while we watched the sun set.


Liza & Nomi by the ferry terminal.

Nomi watching for the Statue of Liberty.

Liza, Monica, & Nomi being ON A BOAT


I was really excited to find Fruit by the Foot at the grocery store, as I was under the impression that it had gone the way of the dodo.

(This is my favorite picture of the bunch, by far.)

Other than that -- trying to soak in the last of the free summer events that Brooklyn's blessed with. Saw Labyrinth on the big screen at McCarren Park last Wednesday (and the people-watching! all the hipster children with old-fashioned names!). Yesterday Cliff & I went to see Kid Sister and Chromeo play for free at the Williamsburg Waterfront. It was pouring and thunderstorming and wonderful. Now that I think of it, I think that every outdoor concert I've ever been to can be described as pouring, thunderstorming, and wonderful. I love thunderstorms.

I'm also really into sandwiches lately. I wonder if I started reviewing sandwiches on here if I could con[vince] anyone to give me free food.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

When Gwen asked me last spring if I would be one of her bridesmaids, I instantly said yes. I didn't know where I would be flying in from, or what my life would look like, or even if I'd be employed. But somehow, I felt better about my life knowing that there was at least one day in my future during which I knew where I'd be: Saturday, July 10, 2010.

I arrived in Oxford early on Tuesday morning, a few days before the wedding. Rebecca, Liza, and I had made arrangements to stay at the Central Backpackers Hostel, an exceptionally well-run hostel that had not only friendly staff (who were helpful with our rather unusual backpacker requests, such as where to dry-clean suitcase-wrinkly bridesmaid dresses), but Nutella included with the free continental breakfast.

We spent most of the first day orienting ourselves and catching up (since Rebecca had been in Dublin in grad school since graduation, and Liza and I had been in New York working & living life). We took a long walk by the river, and spoke to an eccentric Oxford student who explained to us about the mating habits of pheasants. In the evening, we went to see the world is not flat!, a folk duo comprised of Chris, a former SLC classmate of mine, and his bandmate whom he'd met studying in Oxford. The show was in a yurt. I wrote a postcard home in which I described their music as making me homesick for places I hadn't been yet, and I stand by that.

The next few days passed in a frenzy of wedding preparations. I have been to approximately a million weddings in my life, but it was my first time being a bridesmaid, so I had a rather weak understanding of all that goes into the preparations. All I had observed were the stress levels of the few friends of mine who've gotten married -- and the phone calls about photography, filming, flowers, dresses, cakes...I could go on. And of course, there's the added stressor that society builds up this day to make people feel like it must be The Best Day of Their Life (tm), and that everything must be perfect. And that's a little bit unfair. Because while weddings are beautiful things, they're beautiful because they're the start of a marriage -- and that's something to be excited about, too.

Gwen had decided to buy the flowers wholesale, so part of the preparations involved making our bouquets. I was really looking forward to this part, since I worked at a flower shop for one week helping out seasonally over Valentine's Day -- and, as it turns out, flower arranging is pretty fun. There's a lot that goes into it -- colors, shapes, aesthetics, balance.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I love irises.

Nomi & Honza, just arrived from Germany, holding four of the bridesmaid bouquets.

Gwen's Doe Night (English name for a bachelorette party) was pirate-themed. I rode on public transportation with an eye patch drawn on my face with black eyeliner. Somehow the night evolved into all of us trying to get a musical note sound from blowing on a watering can. Also, there was fire spinning (from some of Gwen's friends who are into circus arts -- not by me).

The day of the wedding, the bridesmaids gathered in Gwen's hotel room to get ready. I shifted into camp-counselor mode, hoping that I could help to keep her relaxed and happy, and hoping to avoid major crises. In the end, the only crises were workable. The first carload of bridesmaids forgot their bouquets at the hotel, so Gwen and I had to very cautiously carry all five bridesmaid bouquets plus hers with us in the car to the chapel. We also couldn't find her lucky sixpence, which she wanted to put in her shoe like in the "something borrowed, something blue" rhyme; I suggested that we implant an invisible one, which seemed to suffice. The groom was feeling a bit nauseous and was worried about throwing up, so he sent the best man over to talk to Gwen before the ceremony and send the message that, if he went to kiss her on the cheek instead of on the mouth, that was why and she shouldn't be offended. I could have sworn that when it reached that part in the ceremony, I could see her ever-so-slightly part her lips, in a nonverbal message of "now is the time to suck it up and kiss me".

Somehow, things managed to go off without a hitch (pun not intended). The ceremony was completely lovely. Then we ate cake, and I realized that I had eaten cake for basically every meal the day before and day of the wedding, and that I should write a lifestyle book called The Cake Diet. (Did I mentioned that I'm going to learn how to bake cakes? I spent a few hours before the wedding helping the best man make a few cakes, and he sent me the recipes. This is going to be my new project.) The reception involved drinking Pimm's with lemonade and lounging & frolicking about the most beautiful estate in the sunshine. And the food! So much delicious food, and wine, and champagne...and then dancing, and a lot of David Bowie.

Goofing around in the hotel room before the ceremony:

Gwen is a seriously stunning bride.

I ended the evening with a blend of emotions -- overall elation at my friend's happiness and the accumulated joy of everyone else present, but also the pang that comes with meeting really wonderful people and having to leave them immediately. I found that, in many ways, being in a wedding reminded me of theatre -- there's the hurry-up and the waiting, and the staging and costumes, the inevitable tensions that arise, the nervousness and the joy. And then afterward, there's a post-partum exhale -- and then wondering, "What do I do now?"

Big Stuff Happens in Brooklyn, Evening Edition

I interrupt the regular-scheduled tour-of-Wales-and-England program to bring you the evening edition of Big Stuff Happens in Brooklyn:

#1:

Sarah Rosner, with whom I went to Sarah Lawrence, started a dance company after graduation called The AO Movement Collective. On Sunday, she was on the front page of the NY Times dance section, with an overall positive review (albeit with some uncalled-for body snark) by notoriously hard-to-please critic Alastair Macaulay. I performed in a modern dance piece with Sarah my first year of college, and she is an extremely driven, passionate choreographer and dancer -- and I am so, so excited for her success.

#2:

Two of my very favorite people in the world, DJ Sicksentz and Matt Heern recently collaborated on a video that I am embedding below for your viewing pleasure:

#3:

I was walking around in Fort Greene last week, rather on a mission because I was running a little late, when suddenly a dude in a headset blocked my path. "Uh, excuse me, miss? I'm going to need you to cross the street. We're filming over here." Naturally, I asked what was being filmed -- it was a movie called My Last Day Without You. (My aunt B was disappointed when she looked at the cast -- she was that I am "famouser than anybody in that stupid movie", and lamented that I had to cross the street.) It probably speaks to my Midwestern spirit when I am still excited when I am slightly inconvenienced by filming -- my former flute teacher, who lives on the Upper West Side, once complained "Yeah, I had to move my car again."

Castle, Left. Castle, Right.

The youth hostel I stayed at in Conwy did not have free breakfast, but I got all of this for just a few pounds:

The best part of the hostel, though, was the reading room. It was situated as the highest point on the building, with windows all around, and doors that went out to a porch with the most beautiful view of the town:

I watched the World Cup championship here, sitting with a group of guys with whom I didn't share a common language. Still, I could tell their team allegiances by when they started screaming at the television.

I think the above picture illustrates quite well the sheer number of castles there are in Wales. Literally, whichever way you go, you will find a castle. Awesome.
The old & the new.

Houses & Horses

In Conwy, I spent a day walking along the harbor. I took a boat ride, snuggled with an adorable dog (have I mentioned how much I love how dog-friendly Wales is?), and came across this house:

Just one pound to go in and have a look around the smallest house in Great Britain. Granted, the tour doesn't take very long. Funny, how much it could cost to rent out a space even that size many parts of Manhattan...

I stopped into the public library to use the Internet and ask the librarian for directions to Snowdonia Riding Stables, which I had seen in a brochure advertising scenic mountain rides through Snowdonia National Park. She told me which bus to take and said, "Make sure you ride in the direction of Waunfawr." I scribbled down "Winevow" -- the way it sounded -- and she peered through her spectacles and laughed, but in a kindly way: "Oh, honey. Not quite like that."
Despite my inability to spell Welsh words, I managed to find the ponies. This one was mine:

He looks a lot like Fable, a horse we used to have at camp.

I signed up for the half-day mountain trek, which turned out to be extra-awesome because the ride consisted of just me, the guide, and another girl my age who had similar riding experience to me. So we got to gallivant all over, dodging wayward sheep and galloping up sides of mountains, through fields of heather.

I also really appreciated how safety-conscious this stable was -- I am extremely pro-helmet (/anti-brain injury), and I was happy to see that all of their rental helmets fit the British equivalent of ASTM-SEI standards. Also, when I rather cheekily (albeit politely) asked if I could help around the barn to work off part of my ride, the barn director said I could help tack up some horses and turn them out afterwards, and she'd give me 8 pounds off (about $12).

The young woman leading my ride had moved from Manchester in order to ride horses through the mountains and have it be her job. Sounds quite nice, when put like that, doesn't it?

A Visit to Caernarfon, Wales

Continuing my pattern of writing about my trip backwards -- before London, I came from Caernarfon, a very small (pop. 9611 according to Wikipedia) town in Wales. I took the train from Bangor to London Euston station, a ride that was essentially like watching an all-around movie of countryside, hills, castles, and sheep. I found Caernarfon itself to be sleepy and introverted -- the type of place that lends itself well self-reflection, in that it's completely beautiful, and everything closes around 5 pm.

I stayed at a small hostel that seemed to be run by a family as a hobby. There's something appealing in that -- the idea of having a place for travelers to come through, meeting new people from faraway lands, hearing their stories and listening to their languages. In the reading room I found a book written in the early 1900s on the Welsh language, practicing a few of the sentences in my head just for the mental exercise. Everybody in Wales speaks English, and I've read statistics that only about 15-25% of Welsh citizens even speak Welsh at all. The two languages have equal legal standing, and all official signs are written in both languages. Before coming to Caernarfon, I hadn't heard anyone speak Welsh at all during my few days in Wales. In Caernarfon, however, it was everywhere -- not spoken to me, but spoken among families that I heard walking on the streets. I could sit on a bench in the main square and just listen, and if I closed my eyes, it seemed as though I were among elves.

I find language fascinating, and I like the idea of claiming language as a source of home and nationalistic pride. I felt a similar appreciation listening to people in Bilbao speak Basque. I think being able to speak and understand every language would be a great super power. After all, keeping language alive means keeping stories alive, and I can't think of anything more important than that.

Since my plan was to explore castles in Wales for four days, I think I ended up in the right place.

Caernarfon Castle was one of several castles in Wales built by King Edward I of England. This one was built in 1283 and I have to say, as an American, it's hard for me to fathom anything that old, except maybe my parents (just kidding, Mom & Dad).

Next stop will be Riding-Ponies-in-the-Mountains -- if that were a country, I think I would live there.

Nothing Falls Like London Rain

Sifting through photos often makes me a bit unsure about where to begin. The end of my trip brought me back to London for less than 24 hours before I caught my flight home. This means that there are the fewest amount of pictures -- in other words, the perfect place to start.

I'm not so good at remembering to take pictures when I travel. I enjoy wandering and letting my thoughts wander with me. I like not having an agenda, and seeing what I stumble upon. So imagine my delight when I stumbled a few blocks from my hostel to find this:



My point is, sometimes the pictures take themselves.

I'd seen Parliament & Big Ben before, but there's something wonderful about almost tripping over them. (And I have to say, tripping is something that I'm pretty good at.)




I chose the hostel (The Steam Engine) somewhat arbitrarily and at the last minute, and was bemused to find certain eccentricities about it. First of all, the hostel is not only above a pub, but it is part of it. As in, when you go to check in at reception, you check in with the bartender. I stayed in one of the shared rooms and, even after many years as a camp professional, I was surprised to learn that there were such things as triple-layer bunk beds:



(Bed #3, on the bottom, was my temporary cave. I was worried about the people above me moving around and keeping me awake, but the triple-layer-bunk-bed proved to be surprisingly sturdy and non-avalanche-inducing.)

On Thursday morning, before I had to leave for Heathrow, I decided to take a long, wandering walk.

I thought this sign was really funny:



Stumbled upon a guard -- I told you that good things come from wandering:



If you're worried about this being the only horse photo of the trip, don't lose any sleep. Stay tuned.