England, the metaphors.

“The horses may bite or kick” reads a sign outside the Household Cavalry in Central London.

Coming to England as an English major was going to affect my literary side one way or another; I knew it. When you read back home about the mist, the gray days, and the black alleys at night, you can't help but think that your life in here will be no less than a novel. At the beginning I just sat in Essex, staring at the blue sky, the horizon line and the greenery of the country side interrupted by high roofs of brick houses. At that point I was so desperate for inspiration or for something that connected me to my English major side that almost forced the assimilation of the surroundings as magical rather than just let it happen. Everything changed when I came to my project. Before I even thought of the opening song of Sweeny Todd and pranced around saying “there is no place like London,” I wanted to take some time and be the tourist. While visiting all the must sees in the city, I read the sign about the horses, but it wasn’t until a month later that my mind turned it into a metaphor. Horses, as royal as they are, may bite or kick because they are horses linked to an instinctive nature. English people, as polite and proper as I keep thinking they generally are, are just people; they may behave accordingly. I came here to find that people were no puzzle to me. I was to face with them the same situations I encountered back home.

The story might have some omens as well. One of these days, as I came to a crossroad, I could hear the sound of a crow from the nearest treetop. It might not mean anything since I’m in England now and crows abound in here, but I couldn’t help but go back to my study of archetypal symbols and feel threatened. Is this event foreseeing something? My literary side is inclined to believe yes, while my reason keeps telling me such worry does not have reason to be.

The third and most interesting literary figure in my life is something simpler but not less important. There’s a flyer that I pasted on my door that keeps falling every day. I picked it up while walking in Soho; the radiant smile of the girl who was giving them away was so compelling that I had to even walk closer and take it. I kept it with me and taped it against the door as a reminder of one of my daily battles, an ideal I definitely have to pick up from the floor constantly. The funny part is that every day that the flyer falls down and I have to post it again, I can’t help but read the inscription and feel challenged; it's because of the metaphor. What does the flyer say? Two words: End Homophobia.

I have seen no mist on the riverbank of the Thames or anything, but boy, have I seen metaphores.

I fell in love with a country!

I can't precise how my leve relationship with Scotland started, but the moment I found myself buying its flag and thinking about booking another trip, I knew that I had hopelessly surrendered to the country. If somebody is interested in the before, I didn't know much about these lands. I bought my ticket thinking about bagpipes, men with skirts - not to be thought out of context, and yeah, the breathtaking scenery... but nothing else!!! Yeah, I had heard about William Wallance and I was even listening to the Soundtrack of Braveheart as I crossed the border, but still, I need to declare that I was utterly oblivious of the Edinburgh that could be seen beyond a touristic flyer. Alright, I get out of the bus and I immediately feel the chilling wind. Nobody warned me about that, but I want to see the city and I don't mind - I certainly did at night after clubbing, but that's another story. I start the trekking by myself and it isn't long before I joined a couple of Colombians. We comment on how the high roofs, the different levels of the city, the gardens, and the castle as a guardian above the hill make us feel in a fairy tale. After saying goodbye to my temporary companions, I decided to go to Calton hill and then Arthur's Seat. I spent almost the rest of my day hiking, almost measuring every single square meter of Calton Hill and Holyrood Park with my steps. It felt like being in a movie - the soundtrack might have contributed to that perspective; I found hard to believe that a location could provide both modernity and nature whithin miles. I dunno what happened exactly, as I've been saying, but I'm in love with Edinburgh.

My friend Sage told me that Edinburgh is her mom's favorite place and all world; now I understand that. I ignore her motivation beyond the obvious beauty, but I can certainly try to put into words what charmed me. I feel like home from day one. I know what is it about these people that appeals to me that much. I think that their English does not intimidate me because they're highly critized worldwide just because of their accent. It surely from the posh London accent, but I can understand every single word and even find cute the way they say "sorry." I had heard so many stories about the Glasgow accent... and guess who ended up chatting mostly with people from there? I loved the highlands cattle and even bought a stuffed animal, and I also learned about the Jacobites.I appreciate a good walk and Edinburgh is all about moving in the city on foot (buses? what for?.)
I found ways to really piss off a Scottish as well, which in a way shows how interested I am in thw whole Scottish deal. For example, asking for a scott instead of saying just whisky immediately makes Scottish people to think that you're another shallow American tourist. Nevermind asking them why their notes (bills) are different to the English notes. I honestly spent all the Scottish pounds in my possesion because I only wanted to bring "real money" to London. Don't elaborate on why you'd sooner french-kiss a sheep instead of trying Haggis. Don't dare to mention that Edimburgh's castle on the inside is way overrated.
I might go back... what am I saying? I know I have to go back!

Tired of Essex. Time for London.

I would most likely remember September 9 as my niece’s birthday… and as the day I got lost in London. I had recently arrived to the city, and, since I had the day off, I decided to hit Westminster all by myself. I did all that I could have done wrong just for proving myself that I was the greatest traveler. Immediate fail. I got on the tube with no map of the stations or of the city and got off on Victoria Station just to see how far away that was from Westminster. Trusting my inner GPS and relaying on my mental pictures of Google earth, I started heading what I thought it was east. It was not long before I run into the Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with the abbey) and decided that I wasn’t THAT lost. At least minutes of relentless second thinking elapsed before I spotted lots of tourist and the emblematic Westminster Abbey. I was there, in the city I had longed to visit since childhood dreams. The Big Ben emerged amongst the trees planted in front of the abbey. As I kept walking, the London Eye emerged just next to the renowned tower and then, I caught a glimpse of the Thames. I was left speechless. I started thanking my mom in my head for paying for this and kept walking with a smile covering my face. This is London and it feels so surreal. That was day one, and although I could go for hours on how I spend an entire afternoon looking for Soho and how after I found it, I had a long way back to Victoria station while almost peeing my pants, more things are going on. London has been my refuge after a long day of work. Now that I am incorporated to a routine and life turns blah blah blah, I always enjoy taking the tube and going to a new destination. That way of catharsis has certainly affect my pockets (each round trip to the center costs about 4 pounds,) but still, I can’t get enough of the free museums and galleries, of the activities at open air, of the pubs with friendly fellows and bartenders, and of the long walks around those stone buildings which majestic façades makes you feel tiny and insignificant. My admiration does not come only from the sightseeing tour and the fireworks at the riverbank of the Thames in the Mayor’s Thames Festival. All the previous look amazing in postcards, but London isn’t only about that. The city is also the fanfare of the little boys skating in the gardens of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the salsa crew that dances in the open in front of the library in Brixton, the multiple cultures manifested in books, markets, outfits, venues. Yeah, London is the place to be. In addition, with my tendency to capture the quirkiest events around and to get in trouble, I can anticipate that I’m going to have fun. What I am talking about? My bladder here is accelerated; of course I’m going to have fun.

The diary of England I'm keeping... sorta. 1st part

1st Day in England.
It’s been the craziest, yet the most exciting day. At the beginning you don’t really know what to think. You just boarded the plane in Mexico – after having taken a plane earlier in my country and that right after leaving my favorite disco downtown. Since the tiresome trip has got you completely exhausted, you will open your eyes after crossing the Atlantic just a few hours after you surrendered to the fatigue; still, you’ll be on the other side. Advancing your watch 7 hours is not even the most significant thing you’re doing. Next moment, you’re riding a train between terminals, next moment you’re thinking in pounds and being impressed by how expensive everything is. This is England, and the lady with the burka who gave you the entry clearance is about the least diverse thing you’re about to witness. Those are the things that would happen to everyone, and these are the things that only happen to me. I get off the plane and watching all the blondes around I start having the pleasant discomfort of being totally outside of my “I’m the rule not the exception” racial comfort zone. I’m the only Latin American in the crew not being sent to health check, but that’s only because I spoke English and the guys didn’t. I see this girl holding the ICYE sign and I come right away to her. I realize there’s just no way of getting free internet anywhere in London Heathrow Airport and get the ICYE staff looking for a solution for me. I end up even annoying one poor waitress that seems tired of people asking her for Wi-Fi access and of luggage blocking her way to the kitchen- it was everybody’s suitcases, just that she picked it up on me. I meet a girl from Germany and we start talking very amicably. I meet the rest of the volunteers and staff, and I shake the hand of the first African I’ve met in my life. I end up paying, not without some resignation, a public, coin-operated computer that would give me ten minutes of Facebook for a pound. I take a banana from the food ICYE brought for us and keep thinking that it is hilarious that my first food in England happens to be a banana. We get on the bus, and I right away monopolize this girl from Minnesota. I come to the campsite to find a place like the mountains of Heredia, just that we have brick buildings in here. This girl from Uganda asks for my name just to end up calling me as their Swahili – English phonetics would change the pronunciation of it. I start mingling and find the smoking crew, so we go for a cigarette. We have dinner. Everybody wants to sleep, just that for my biological clock it is only four and it would be insane to go to bed now. I take a walk with a guy from Uganda and we talk about how bored we are now, but how great expectations we have from the experience. We question the British sense of fun just for releasing tension, but we both wouldn’t trade spaces with anybody. I sit down and write while the American girl plays a movie and everybody gathers in the common room. I keep wondering what the second day is going to bring for me.

2nd Day in England.
Morning
Right, by the second day, you can’t feel or act or even pretend you’re an alien. The officer at the UK border gave you permission to be here for the six months, so you’d better wake up early and start living the British Day. We’re on the Bank’s Holiday, so this day promises to be very relaxed and laid back. I’m the first person up, but it is only because I slept tight. Kat is impressed because the Costa Ricans are the first to show up in the common room. Kat, the moment I asked her yesterday where could we smoke and she gave me all the directions, I should have known we would get along pretty well. She is very friendly, and hundred percent approachable – the fact that she fed me with cereal and yoghurt only strengthens all the goodness inside of her. My morning starts looking promising as I find that six small containers of yoghurt cost only 90 “p” (pences) at TESCO – that’s even cheaper than back home. I discover that Winny (I have to check for spelling soon,) the famous girl from Uganda who keeps changing the pronunciation of my name, will also work for SHAD. I’m excited about this because she’s been treating me very familiarly since the moment we met. I’m also seduced by that African color in her speech. I’m going to take a break now, but only because it does not get any warmer and I need to get some sunlight and some body heat.
Afternoon and evening.
We have plenty of time to write in here, so here I go again. The morning/early afternoon turned into a visit to the local grocery store. I bought cherries and my first copy of The Guardian. It felt truly great touching the paper after a year of just getting tweets and reading the website of this renowned medium. Being snoopy friendly got me to inspect, along with Kat, the building where we had to move later on. I could choose the room I wanted and automatically affected the distribution of the rest of the house. It feels like back home where ACI staff is used to treat me as part of the leading team. We moved, I finally showered, and then the crew went out for the first experience at the local pub – what did I do in between all that? Taking pictures and thanking my mom and my older sister for sending me here. After a twenty minute walk for a town made out of brick and flowers that looks exactly like what you would imagine when you hear “Victorian” country side, we get to the crossroad where a sign of a silver deer announces the The White Hart. Inka, a girl from Germany, is the first in crossing the threshold of this beautiful traditional pub embellished by black window sills and pink bunches of flowers. I cowardly shield behind her just to see the wooden interior with seductive lights and some very friendly locals welcoming us. I feel like in wonderland, just a very alcoholic version of it. I was tempted to neglect I had ever been in a dirty Costa Rican bar after sitting comfortably in a decorated stool and having a pint of foster in this room of dark wood panels decorated with gold and some crests that sell me the idea of royalty right away. All the volunteers seem enthusiastic. How could they not be? We are in an English pub, and the locals haven’t stop making us feel home. The smoking crew ends up sitting outside after an hour and I get to know them better. The guys only came outside to tell us that it is about time to go, so I had to swallow the pint I had on my hand—good thing the American girl helped me. Back to the camp, the routine of meeting the new arrivals start, and as the group gets larger I realize that I like even less people, and then everything stars being blurry because my brain is trying to stick to how nice and cozy it was with a smaller group. It seems like it is about time to destroy the comfort zone we built with the group of the volunteers who arrived first. Still, I remember the nice chats of the day, the constant and funny displays of testosterone of the Bolivian guy, the red clay tile roof of the houses nearby just seldom being visited by a couple of birds, the rumor of the threatening English rain that just never shows up, the warmth feeling when you talk to people from Uganda, and the face of this American girl who I would totally try to hit on if I were into girls.

Writers: Sinners!

We writers commit sin all the time. We watch from afar, we don't get involved, and yet we live people's lives with them. Thieves. This could be called schizophrenia by psychologists, even lying to ourselves - we called it delight. Sick. We share moments with people, and they never find out. We watch over in the creepiest way, yet people keep the idea that we're making art. Stalkers. We enjoy the company of strangers that will later give birth to characters, and they will never know the fictional person has their genes. In this sense, we create a lot of fatherless bastards --no, this is not redundant, the second alludes to their personality. We take the place of a god and modify reality to make it look better and tell god we have a second opinion. Profane. Liars. We denigrate, humiliate, and expose. Monsters. We're the worst. We deprive ourselves from some humanity to make people purge to what does even tickle us. We're helpless, and we wouldn't choose another life if we had to.

One Episode of Dramatic Irony

Some people walk our footsteps, and we wouldn't ever realize it until a torrential rain corners you in that bakery store you haven't visited since 2008.
I came in because I felt like some pastry, because I needed the bathroom, but mostly because I wanted to shelter from the rain in a place that reminded me of him. I came in and bought the worst piece of cake ever - I had the idea they were terrific in the past, and there I saw this blond princess that reminded me of Tinkerbell right away. She was having a piece of bread, just that, no drink, no coffee, just the mouthful of baked, inflated flour. If her looks weren't enough to give her away as a foreigner, her big blue back pack would and her feeble, soaked umbrella would do the job.
My first thought as a foreigner collector and as a magnet for damsels in distress was to approach her and start a conversation, but I was too wet to add rejection to my list of things that had gone wrong in my day - the cake included, and the book I brought to remain enclosed in myself was too good to stop reading.
I would raise my sight to check if she was still there for a while until, for my relief and distress, she left. She took her Norse and alien-like look through the door, and I thought that she, as it has happened with many strangers I'm fond of while in my range, would disappear from my life. But the vice of smoking took me to the supermarket across the street just to find her buying bananas. Bread and bananas: people who know a bit about my adventures and about the novel that they inspired know how important bread and bananas are for me. They're the only way in which you can keep your meal for less than a dollar without fainting or starving to death. That's what Vlad and I ate back then in 2008 because we had either bought a big bottle of wine or because the day's budget was no more than 2 dollars. And there I had a lady following our steps, doing the same thing in the exact same places...
I paid for the cigarettes and walk away smiling. "We were first" I thought, "and this story will be mine when I finally publish this novel that talks about it." But how do I know how many people came before us and have done the same to save some money? I thought she would disappear when I resumed my walking under the raindrops that pounded against my umbrella... but the truth is that this girl is going to stay in my head for a season at least.

I call it one episode of dramatic irony because the viewer, me, knows how the story goes.

Observations at my Workplace and Rants on People Living in Small Worlds

I might need to get some sleep, but before hitting the pillow, I wanted to share an experience I had this morning. The statement I have to make is that working in a language academy can be fun. Yeah, you can laugh AT your students a great deal and still keep your job. Or so it is what some people think.
It's Saturday morning and I was asked to evaluate tribunal exams today. In spite of knowing that I was going to be hangover as hell, I said early in the week that I could do it, and there I was, with thirst, a headache, and listening to the first adolescent in the list struggling to utter the sounds of "I'm fine." I thought that my morning couldn't suck more, until the other professor in the tribunal tried to socialize with me. After minutes of dull talk with the adult, I actually started looking forward the arrival of the rest of the students. This professor, a lovely lady deep inside no doubt, spoke regular English, and that pissed me off because she had been a teacher for more than six years! She defied my belief on the longing for improvement that I thought every human had. Well, as much as I would like to analyze the character of a woman who lives in a very small world and who does not even excel at what she does for a living, I need to focus on the students.
Giving tribunal exams is like being a judge in one of this T.V. reality shows. Somebody sits in front of you, you ask questions, and you give a number that corresponds to how much the person impressed you. If you could fast forward the tape, you would see faces smiling, some others just blank, and the rest actually talking. We get into their lives and ask "What's your favorite food/drink/music genre/activity/book/movie/artist?" and sometimes, if we are not mature enough like this professor I worked with, you feel that you're entitled to make comments about their tastes --I can't help talking about this person. Favorite food: nearly 70% of the students said Pizza. I laugh to myself here because when you're a teenager, you probably don't know that eating healthy is actually delicious. Favorite drink: Coke, no wonder. I just want to see how that answer changes when they become eighteen. Place they would like to visit: They described France as the land of love and romanticism. I was surprised they didn't say "the States," but I was disappointed on them buying all the stereotypes. I guess I was laughing inside, but it was more like a laugh with a patronizing comment "Oh, you've got so much to learn." I turned to the professor and she was laughing blatantly and saying "assuming that that's a meal," "assuming that that music genre even exists," "assuming that you don't know better."
Still, if you see all that these kids, with their limited world and all, still have ahead of them, you think "well, they may have time for discovering that pizza isn't the best, that Coke tastes to too much sugar, and that Paris is overrated." However, if you see the lady, you can't help but feeling that she's hopeless, that her narrow vision won't broaden anytime soon, and that she misses so much of what is happening around everyday. Then it makes me wonder... who looks the most stupid in this situation?