catching up.

Ok, so I wrote these a few days ago upon my arrival to the UK. I didn't have internet then, so here they are. Jeeblet, don't be jealous. These were to Bean, but you will get some soon, I promise.

September 26, 2009

Dear Beanie,

Hello love. I am currently on the plane to London, and I can assure you that I am missing you most terribly. I have been counting the hours thinking of how much Buffy we could have watched - and thus decided that my dream should have come true and you should be here with me. Unfortunate we did not realize this a bit sooner.

The travels so far haven’t been too bad. Walking away from Mom in the airport was really, really bad. I got all teary-eyed and scared and sad and it was no good. I remember feeling like that when I walked away from you and her when I went to Brazil. It consists of thinking about how much I don’t want to be going away and how much I want to just be at home. Thankfully, it only lasted a little while and then I felt okay. I think I would be excited now if I didn’t have a splitting headache. I am seriously becoming Mom.

They just brought us breakfast so it shouldn’t be too much longer before our arrival. Although all that means for me is train catching and ultimate confusion, so I’m not exactly in any hurry. If I actually get there, I might just have to believe in miracles.

While I’m thinking about miracles, I hope you know that you are my miracle. Not only are we real siblings, but I think we are soul-siblings, or almas gemeas (twin souls), as they say in Brazil. I am so thankful for you. You don’t know how much you mean to me. And I have no idea how to put it into words (blame is being placed on the headache) so this is a rather pointless declaration of affection. Maybe next time there will be more sensical ideas in my head.

Right now, for instance, all I can think about is how the air is poisoned on this plane. Maybe not poisoned, but at least bad. My lips are all dried out and my nose feels like it is about to spontaneously combust. I can’t seem to get a good breath, either. AND my head hurts so badly. I am convinced that they dehydrate the air to save on some money. Or something.

This plane cut a lot of corners to save on money. It is one of the old kinds, so no personal television on the seat in front of you like I had gotten used to. No wireless internet either, meaning my genius plan of watching all those shows has been foiled. I guess I’ll just have to stay in bed all day tomorrow and watch them. Wait a second...that sounds marvelous! Anyway, the plane. The food is terrible, but that is to be expected. Where else would comedians get their jokes, right? I haven’t even opened the breakfast thing - I can’t figure out what it is and, to be honest, I am a bit afraid of it. It looks like a sausage biscuit, but I don’t see any sausage in the middle - only this egg looking thing oozing some brown substance. And it is hot while still in plastic baggie, which is never a good sign. At least there is a banana with it, no mind the fact that it was completely bruised and noticeably old. Oh, good thing though! They played two movies at the beginning, and although the first one was terrible (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past or something like that - one word: MatthewMcConehay [I have no idea how to spell his name but you understand the implied message of his terribleness, yes?]), the next one was the new STAR TREK!! And it was really good! Well, I think. I could barely hear what was going because the plug-in on the seat was so low tech it barely transmitted sound, and the small tv screen five rows in front of me is not only far away and very, very small, but also a remnant from the Stone Age, hence making the colors and images a bit difficult to make out. Like I said, all possible corners were cut in the production of this plane.

Okay, just for you, I’m going to open the breakfast amalgam. Here goes.

Hmm. It appears to be an egg biscuit. Though the bready part looks more like oatmeal cookies. Oh, the brown substance is where the bread was burnt onto the baggie. Well, that’s repulsive. Oh my. After a small pinch to taste it, I immediately regret that decision. The “bread” is stale and hard, and I’m not sure this yellow thing is actually an egg. Maybe I should become a stand up comedian after this monologue. Ugh, I keep taking little bites of it against my will! The egg tastes like it has maple flavoring in it! Repulsive!

Okay, I am NOT going to take another bite. I will drink my small carton of orange juice and be done with breakfast. Plus, our time it is 1am, which is not time for breakfast at all. So I should be ok starving myself, I think. I had a decent dinner. There was some canned chicken product that I avoided, but I ate some rice and a stale, flavorless roll, and the salad that was mostly cucumbers and radishes which I hate, and a random block of cheddar cheese, and two club crackers, and a surprisingly delicious chocolate-chip blondie.

Okay, now I am really going to stop with the airplane food jokes.

Hey, the good news is that I got a blanket and a pillow in my seat, which means I am going to have things to sleep with when I finally make it to campus! I currently have 1 pillow in my suitcase - which means I have no covers, no fan, and no teddy bear. But now I have a cheaply made, synthetic blanket-like thing, and a small, also cheaply made, and also synthetic pillow-like thing that I can use as a teddy bear!

[note: Please take good care of Patches and ...whatever we names the other one... in my absence. I am afraid Patches might be in a bad state of emotions due to me ditching him after he was infected with the evil in my room and subsequently not letting him travel with me. Pay him some special attention. Wearing gloves and a mask, of course.

I could be mistaken, but I think I am seeing a bit of sunlight up ahead. At one in the morning. What a bizarre day.

I apologize this is so lengthy and boring. I am tired of listening to music and all they are playing on the tv now is Will and Grace, or at least that I can make out what with the Stone Age technology.

OH! I can’t believe I didn’t tell you this already! When I was talking to the guy sitting next to me, basically all of what I said sounded like Buffy. For instance, when I was telling him about what I was doing, I said, “So yeah, this is me exchanging!” Buffy says that “this is me [doing something]” line all the time. Luckily I haven’t said “wiggins” yet, but I suppose it is only a matter of time. My social skills are basically completely dependent on that show at this point.
Yep, this is definitely a sunrise. I can see a bit of orange now. Unfortunately, it is in front of the plane and my angle of visibility to that region is not so good.

I think I want to live up in the sky. Then I could look out my window and see just how small everyone and everything really is. Plus, I would feel huge and way more important than everyone.

I am severely confused about how this plane is flying. I’m no engineer, but we are a lot of people in a lot of metal, and all this thing has are some rather flimsy looking wings. And a motor, I guess. But so does my car, and it doesn’t fly.

There are two small boys in the row across from me. I thought they were going to be supremely annoying, but turns out they have only been a minor nuisance.

OH MY GOSH, I can see land! Perhaps Ireland! I CAN SEE IRELAND!!!

There are a lot of trees and only a few lights. Perhaps these are the outer reaches of civilization. Maybe these people still speak Gaelic and worship Merlin.

I think those are trees. It could be just really rough terrain. With kind of a green tint. It is still kind of dark. This sunrise needs to get moving.

The people behind me are speaking gibberish. Maybe it is Gaelic. They have just gotten really loud. Maybe they see their settlement.

Hmm. Ireland is not very wide. I can see the other side of it already. Maybe we crossed at a skinny, non-inhabited place.

I have to fill out some kind of paper thing before we land and I don’t have a pen. I am rather worried about this. The guy next to me said I can’t get in the country without it. He has a pen. He is doing Sudoku with it now. Too bad I am too scared to ask him for it.

Now we are over ocean again. I feel safer flying over the ocean, because this bad boy [supposedly] comes equipped with huge raft slides. If we crash in the water and I find out they left those off, I am going to be some kind of angry.

OOOOooh we are turning and I have a perfect view of the sunrise. WHOA, and some land beneath us! Maybe it is Ireland again. Oooh, and I can see lots of boats out in the water! I can count ten of them. There are quite a few settlements on the coast. They must be fisherman clans. Oooh, I see another five boats! They are so small and bright.

The ocean is much bigger than the land. The orange and pink is over the water horizon. Just being honest, sunrises are much prettier from land. They curve. This is just a flat line of pink with a flat line of orange on top of it all on top of a flat line of water. I like curves.

Whoa, big Irish settlements! These Irish people like the coast. Or maybe our pilot does.

All their lights are orange. They must be torches burning. Poor, old-fashioned Irish people.

Um crap. We are landing. Apparently this is London. I am going to be living in a fire burning village?!?!