all of the arrangements are finally made. my visa application was a bit of a shit-show at first. because i’m out of ink and had to print from the computer that i used to apply for the visa, i decided to go to the portland library. this came with a hefty parking deck fee and a 50 minute time limit, the latter being not-so-conducive to filling out a long, mysterious, and often oddly worded internet application (given name, what?? is that what my momma calls me? no, my grandparents were no pakistani nationals—-at least i don’t THINK they were…hmmm. you need to know my religion? uh, whyyy?). it took three shots in all to get this done. the first time, i got all the way through the application (just barely), and slid into the copy room with 10 minutes to spare, only to find via loudspeaker that the copiers would be closing 10 minutes early. i got half my document before the desk biotch pulled the plug. i then raged to the skies, knowing that this meant i would need to go back again, fill the form out AGAIN and print it AGAIN.
the next day i decided i would go renew my driver’s license and then head back to the library. my sojourn at the dmv proved much longer than i had expected (my ticket number was 278, and they were on 220 when i got there), so i was late heading to the library. when i got downtown, i parked in the parking deck, walked to the library, and found out that oops they were closing early that day (southerners, if you move north, get used to things not being open late/at all). DING DING! round three. the next day, i went back, got everything done way before my time limit was up (being an old pro at it by this point), forked over $170 (most expensive sticker i’ve ever bought!), and crossed my fingers as i shipped my very own and absolute only passport to new york city with my paperwork. eeeek!!! the silver lining to my day was that, despite the 60-some-odd folks in line at the post office, there was zero wait for the self-serve kiosk that can do almost everything they can do at the window. i guess folks still don’t trust machines—that, or they get a thrill being in close proximity to the orneriest government workers in the world.
visa!!!
my visa came in the mail exactly one week later (just a sticker they put in your passport), and i waited for my preceptor midwife to get hers before i bought my plane tickets. which was another delightful experience 
. buying an international ticket is a pro-and-con-weighing nightmare requiring a knack for timing with regard to finding a good price. i had to choose between leaving from portland (5 minutes from the house, near zero possibility of missing my flight by being late, won’t have a drive left to make when i arrive back home, but a 34 hour flight with 3 layovers) or from boston (cheaper ticket, only 27 hour flight*, only 2 layovers, but a 2 hour drive from the house).
*there was actually a 23 hour flight from boston, but its layover was in doha, qatar, a city which, npr had informed me earlier in the morning, had just opened a motherfucking AL QAEADA OFFICE (they have actual offices now?) thanks but no thanks.
i chose boston. i am ready to be inconvenienced with some car travel in order to save $300, 6 hours of flight, and a layover in detroit (love you motor city, but you aren’t in the right direction).
my pack!
so here i sit, almost packed (kudos to karen cooper for teaching me how to load a hiking pack, and especially how to roll clothes, stuff them in gallon ziplocks, top with a heavy book, sit on them, and then zip them. you’d be *amazed* at what you can fit in a small space!) now i need to know if my pack is over 50 pounds, but one of the glorious things about being a woman of size that your scales don’t really go high enough to strap on and compare. i need a small person—stat!! and speaking of packing, i’m really loving my new approach to packing for long-term trips. when i went to england, i think i had two huge rolling suitcases, a backpack, and a carry-on bag (a nightmare when you’re running through the corridors of manchester airport because you got there late!). this trip is a hiking pack and a carry-on bag. period. love it!
my leave date is the 4th of july (you see what i did there? eh? eh? no traffic in boston!) and i’ll be back on thursday, december 12th. it’s been a long time since i’ve had a trip like this. 9 years to be exact. (goddess, has it been so long??). in 2004 i went to england for a 6 month semester of study abroad. spring of 2004 should have been my last semester of college, but because i couldn’t pull my ass out of signing up for religious studies classes (which later just became a second major as a result), i was running about a year behind. i needed an adventure to break up all the monotony of school and work, so i popped into capstone international to talk to an advisor about study abroad. after settling on a school, securing some scholarships, and learning the ins and outs of passports and international travel (my ticket back then was only $600 round trip!), i was off.
arriving at hull is still incredibly vivid in my memory, probably due to a mixture of jet-lag and pure goddamn amazement that i had just flown across the atlantic to a country i’d never visited, where i knew no one, to a school i’d never heard of in a city i’d never heard of. sounds like fun, right? right!
when i got to the manchester airport, i gathered my bags and sat at the passenger pick-up spot—-for 4 hours. no one was there to get me. i tried to call the school, but couldn’t figure out how to work the payphones (you think i’m joking–just try it if you’re ever in england). the woman at the airline desk spoke in the thickest scottish accent i’d ever heard and could barely decipher my southern accent when i asked her if a representative from hull university had been by. no dice. around an hour after that, more american students arrived on a noon plane, and to my pleasant surprise, they were going to hull as well. a representative and a charter bus showed up 30 minutes later, and we were all off on a (scary as hell stick-shift miniature charter bus) ride across the english countryside.
auckland ave
we arrived at hull a few hours later—i remember it was a characteristically english day: cold, gray, gloomy–we were given our keys and our addresses and were then dropped off by van at our destinations. my house was an old victorian row house on auckland avenue–the street was nearly-identical houses as far as the eye could see. i approached my house and knocked–no one home. i stood on the broken black and white checkered tile, unlocked the purple front door and went in–the house was FREEZING. like the kind of freezing that only happens when a home is unheated for a long, long time. turns out everyone was still on christmas break, so the house had been unoccupied for weeks. wrapping my coat tighter, i wandered around the house, checking everything out. in the foyer there were two locked bedroom doors, units one and two (i was five), and a door to the common room. there was some terribly 1970s-ish furniture in the common room, and that space was open to a messy kitchen. there was no tv in sight (i later learned that it had been stored in a closet over break because in the uk you have to pay a tax to own a tv, which none of the housemates did, and you are fined 1000 pounds for violations found during random inspections). at the back of the kitchen was a common half bath and a back door that led out to a little gravel garden and shed. opening the fridge i found beer, some rotten food, and a drawer labeled “hong” with some alien veggie remnants in it. mystery number one solved: i had one chinese roommate!
heading upstairs, i found room three, whose end of the hall smelled strongly of what roommate sonny (hong) later called “waaaackyyyyyyy backyyyyy!!”, then room four, a room with a shower and sink, a separate room with a toilet (with pull-chain flush) and up three stairs room five, mine! the old occupant’s name was still on the door–apparently a gal named kita.
my room was enormous. it was actually meant for two people, but jerome (the french inhabitant of the wacky backy room) had taken one set of furniture to his room so his girlfriend charlene could sleep there. i had a bed (significantly less than twin size), a desk, some shelves, a wardrobe, and a large bay window overlooking the street. the room had maybe 15-foot ceilings, and everything was heated by a small space heater near the window (it had a sticker on the top which read “may take up to 24 hours to heat large spaces”—great!). i was exhausted, and it was so cold in the room i could see my breath, so i cranked up the wee heater, put on a few more layers of clothes, put back on my hat and gloves, left on my tennis shoes, and went to bed.
i woke up some time the next day, after a night of fitful and freezing sleep, and had no clue what time it was. i didn’t bring my phone with me (it wouldn’t have worked anyway), i had no clock in my room, my computer couldn’t be plugged in because i didn’t have a converter yet, and the batteries were dead in the downstairs clock. add to this that i was jetlagged as hell, the sun hadn’t been out in days, and due to my change in latitude and time zone, the sun set incredibly early in england anyway, and you have the perfect recipe for an insane sense of timelessness. i think i got the time from someone on the street the next day, but suffice it to say that it was a weird couple of days.
pals at the reznikov bar
i have to say that all of the craziness was starting to wear on me (what was i doing? had i made the right choice? what if i had horrible roommates? was i ever going to meet actual living people? would i ever be warm again??) until day three when roommates steve and sonny, two of the most wonderful people i have ever met, came home from christmas break. they instantly welcomed me and made me feel at home. they took me grocery shopping and showed me the ropes of life at hull. in the coming days, i met jerome, the frenchman with a penchant for weed and bob marley and merche, the spanish gal who spoke 5 languages and was often too studious to come out with us on our late-night escapades. sonny was indeed chinese and could cook circles around anyone i’d ever met, and steve was a kind and philosophical soul with a deep love of manchester united football and communism. together, and with other friends like sean, charlene, hubert, guillome, kayzad, rosie, leon, and nicolas, we tore that city apart laughing, dancing, chatting, and partying the semester away. i’d taken a gamble on an adventure, and it paid off in ways i’d never imagine, changing me forever and leaving me with the strongest most enduring friendships i’ve ever known.
those first few days have really been on my mind as of late, as i prepare to take the plunge again. this time it’s harder, both because i’m leaving my love behind and because i’ll be doing serious work and learning while i’m there. (in england, i mostly learned about love, mixed drinks, hangover cures, and take-away curries). that first trip has given me limitless traveling courage, and even though i’m about to dive into a much different and more complicated country than england, i don’t feel afraid of traveling to india. there are bits i’m not generally looking forward to (see: squat toilets, cultural blunders, delhi belly), but i have to say (and pardon my french) that i feel pretty fucking fearless.
right now, i’m off to go waterproof my backpack in preparation for the 10 feet of rain expected in kochi while i’m there. sigh. i’ll post again from boston airport in a week!
to be continued…
idylls of acadia 