So I’m sitting in JFK International Airport waiting for my parents to come pick me up. After 4 months of being away, a domestic flight to and from Pisa to East Midlands, and an 8 hour flight back plus a ridiculous line in the US customs line (to be fair, I didn’t wait as long as I thought I would have but man, it must suck to be a non-resident and ahve to go through the fingerprint/photo thing) I have to wait another hour and a half because of miscommunication with my dad.
No, I’m not complaining. Seriously.
Notthingham was slightly chilly with some hail here and there. It was wonderful seeing Danielle, my friend from home who moved there about four years ago, and she managed to get off work while I was there. We mostly hung out and bummed around for the ten days I was there but it was good having a break from having to get stuff done. After a while, though, I did miss having something to occupy my mind and hands with.
I spent a weekend in London, crashed at a friend of a friend of my room mate’s room who was studying abroad there. I had met him before I went to London, letting him crash at our place in Florence for a night, so I guess it was paid forward. London reminds me much of New York, but cleaner and less hectic. I had one absolutely lovely day there before it got rainy again, but I got to read a comic book while eating lunch outside on the steps of the National Gallery on said good day. Lovely! I went through the British Museum, stuck mainly to the asian galleries and the exhibition they had on American prints (because we all know how much of a print dork I am!). REALLY nice exhibition, mainly lithos and some etchings and woodcuts and screenprints thrown in. Before then, I didn’t know Pollock dabbled in lithos aside from the paintings he’s best known for. Even looking at his realistically rendered landscapes, you can see the loose approach he had before the action paintings. At least, that’s how I saw it.
It was too late to go inside, but I did manage to pass by Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace (God save the Queen!), read some more while sitting next to the Thames (which really IS quite dirty, sorry England). While wandering around I found the Cartoon Museum, a modest privately owned and operated two floor dedication to comics, from caricatures to modern graphic novels (mainly concentrating on British comics, of course). There was even a comic book store in front! Around the corner, I spotted the Batman sign which can only mean one thing: comic book store. So of course, I bought a comic: Scott Pilgrim #4!
It already feels weird being back, being around American English speakers, using Aerican dollars. I spent the last of my cash (pounds, euros, and dollars) so I’m left with some spare foreign change. But that doesn’t compare to the memories and experience that I’m now rich with!
