Let England shake

Ach ja, die wundervolle Polly Jean singt auch mal wieder. :-)

London

After some lovely days in Bristol and loads of Banksy spotting, I went to London (where I even spotted some more Banksy, the bloke´s everywhere).

Oh, London. You dirty, crowded, and gorgeous city. Who can´t but fall in love with you? *sigh*

• Royal National Theatre: Death and the King´s Horseman
• Tate Modern
• The Swimmer in Islington
• British Museum
• Walking the full length of the Embankment
• St. Paul´s Cathedral
• Synecdoche, New York and Chinatown
• The Crowne in Islington
• Highgate Cemetery and High Tea of Highgate
• Greenwich
• Tipsy nights at Slim Jim´s

Spending cracking days

Hey ya,

• I´ve been spending too much money. In all kinds of different ways. Either I buy Vintage clothing at Grassmarket second hand shops (cashmere pullovers), leave mobile phones on busses (and get greeted with “Say heil Hitler” by the sad youngster picking it up) or eat 3 grilled chicken legs and have a Fleisch-flash afterwards (which includes a lot of giggling).
• I have a sunburn, like I want to resemble a genuine British girl with short shorts and everything. I even managed to spray sunscreen (real hightech German Nivea invisible sunspray) into my friends eyes, so yeah, it probably might seem that I´m not sure how to use it properly.
• I´m learning B.E. (and loving it). Want to sound British? Incorporate plenty of the following words into your daily conversations: literally, massive, loads, reckon, gorgeous, lovely, brilliant, properly, lousy, fairly, cracking… I learnt them on the street, from my friend and from old British ladies that you can chatter with on the bus.
• B´s witty comment as we were lazily laying in the Princes Street Gardens: “Wenn man nichts tut, sollte man darauf achten, dass man es draußen tut.”

Cheers, MJF

Städte

• Edinburgh ist eher “gorgeous”. Eine wunderbare mittelalterliche Stadt mit schönen Parks und einer Klippe auf der oben der Wind richtig weht. Und auf der man sich von der ewigen Dudelsackmusik, die durch die Highstreet tönt, erholen kann.
• Glasgow ist eher krass.  Das beginnt schon mit der Sprache. Versteht doch kein Mensch, was die von einem wollen. Aber sie haben ein cooles Museum über Weltreligionen und ein Museum für Moderne Kunst. Und jede Menge abgestürzte Leute. Wirklich wahr.
• Britische Mädchen haben echt Komplexe. Wer sich so aufstylen muss, um angeguckt zu werden, dem empfehle ich nur dieses Video (how to dress sexy without looking slutty). Die Jungs hingegen… Brakedancing boys are damn handsome. They´ve just got the nicest bodies.

Trainspotting at the river Clyde. Where´s Dr. House?

Loving rather bad graffiti.

This sign in Glasgow reminded me of  “It´s a free world”.

Lovely view from Arthur´s Seat.

Parks. And a new metro line under construction.

 

Europe by train once again

Hi audience,

MJF is travelling again. I´m on a sort of UK round trip with a short stop in Brussels. My friend in Brussels has a lovely flat and an 8 week old baby. I really must say: I had no idea what that means. It means: No time for yourself. It means: a 20 hours a day job. And maybe 4 hours of sleep. It means this baby controls your life. And I do not know if I could to this right now. Right now I am a rather (notice my UK vocabulary) self-focused and self-centered being who needs all her time for herself because she is still searching for the meaning of life. So I guess this wish for children that has come up in me in the last year has to be resettled. Children? Yeah. But I think 30 is early enough for me. So, I did not really see much of Brussels, but I liked the small parts I saw. It´s like Paris but a bit less arrogant.

Travelling through the chunnel is always nice. Changing in St. Pancras to King´s Cross is easy. And then I just met the coolest actress on the train and we had a three hours talk in which I became deeply sorry for my American accent because British English is just so beautiful. Sorry, gorgeous! ;-) Maybe I can catch some in the next two weeks.

Late in the afternoon I arrived at Edinburgh, which looks like a medieval city. It was very sunny yesterday.  When you buy things in the supermarket you scan them yourself. How cool is that?

St. Pancras Eurostar arrival

Changing at King´s Cross

Calling at…

Irgendwo hinter Newcastle

It´s a free world

Aua, dieser Film tut weh. Ist es dies, an dem unsere Gesellschaft krankt? Jeder versucht das Beste für sich herauszuholen. Koste es was es wolle. Und sie sieht dabei noch gut aus und spricht diesen herrlichen englischen Akzent.

Und dann ist es auch so unbequem, wenn man sich als Zuschauerin nicht mit der Hauptdarstellerin identifizieren kann. Will man das an einem Samstag Abend?  Im Kino war es jedenfalls atmosphärisch so unangenehm, dass ich fast froh war, mit meinem Fahrrad bei -3 Grad in die dunklen Straßen flüchten zu können.

Ausführliche Kritik der SZ.

Das Bett ist heilig

Wir werden in einem Bett geboren, wir schlafen darin, wir sterben darin. Das Bett ist weich und warm. Ich assoziiere es mit Nichtstun, mit wohltuendem Schlaf, mit dem Rückzug aus der Welt, mit der Heimkehr zu mir selbst.

In England lag ich bereits einmal in so einem Bett und habe mich überglücklich gefühlt. An was es lag? An dem schönen Zimmer, dunkle Holzbalken, ein großes Bett, ein weißer feiner Stoff über die Balken gelegt, so dass man nur ein wenig vom Bett sehen konnte. Wunderschöne weiße Satinbettwäsche mit kleinen weißen Blumen drauf. Verschiedene große Kopfkissen in unterschiedlichen Formen und Stoffen, in weiß, beige und rot. Und ich dazwischen, beleuchtet von einer kleinen Lampe. Mit zwei Büchern: Eins wo ich reinschreibe, eins wo ich drin lese. Was, ich frage, was kann einen auf der Welt glücklicher machen?

An English course in Southampton III

This evening I met Tim at the Lizard Lounge and afterwards we went to a bar called „Polar“, which was fabulously decorated.

Oh yes, then we went home, I stayed there all night, we talked for hours about:
- fancy dress parties (I will never understand this English habit)
- his sister, who´s ill (but who paints nice things)
- cushions (it´s important to have many).

I slept very very long, and I cried a damn lot when I got home, feeling guilty and sad about everything. Everything is falling apart in a strange way.

I feel I can lead a nice life, I feel I can improve, the only things I need are:
- a laptop
- glow enhancer from the bodyshop
- velvet cushions
- cushions of all kinds and
- love, real love.

An English course in Southampton II

Today our class went to Salisbury and sat on the lawn infront of the cathedral. There was a family, low-social-class, the „father“ was shooting his multiple children with a plastic gun, the mother was drinking beer and smoking and after a short while she began quarreling with her little daughter, every second word was „fucking“, of course we stared. So she said „What are you looking at? I´m not killing her, she´s fucking strangeling me“. I mean, what a horrible situation: the child was crying and swearing back, komon!

What did I do in the evening? Oh right, I met Tim at the Fez Bar, where we had some nice cocktails. Afterwards we walked home, ending up in his flat, messy, messy, messy! He lives there with 6 other people, whom I also met, you know, hard to understand them, but nice and really crazy (throwing popcorn at each other, the popcorn ending up on the floor, the hover not working, god!). It was the birthday of one of them, they bought him a „Sally the fucking slut“-sex toy, very slimy, I guess you´re supposed to put your finger or other parts in it.

An English course in Southampton I

As you go on living, you realize that certain things become important to you, invaluably important. They are based on an experience you had, and the greater the effect of the experience, the more valuable are those important things to you. When I was 17, something happened in my life that taught me to value being sincere, being trustworthy, being faithful.

There I am, 20 years old, strolling through the commons of a big English city in the early morning hours, my feet are getting wet, but the peace of the empty park makes me walk through the grass anyway, believing fiercely in faithfulness, believing too fiercely in my relationship to a boy who never let me be myself and who is very far away right now. I´m walking home from an apartment, where exactly now in one of the rooms a boy lays unsatisfied on his bed. I did not sleep with him…

“hello marie, its tim from sat night. how was london? would you like to meet up tonight and teach me some more german?”

Of course I did!

At eleven, when everything closes down here, we walked home and when we finally were standing in front of Mrs. Ps house, well… I had just told him minutes ago that I had a boyfriend and he said „Well, why did you agree on coming out tonight?“ and I said „Because I like you.“ So finally it´s sorta obvious what happened infront of the house, he told me something like „hm, who´s going to start, your´re the one with the boyfriend“. We both sort of started I guess. He thought I was single, I told him that I was sorry and I asked him whether he thought kissing to be cheating and of course he said no.

My problem now is: I know this is absolutely hopeless, but he makes me feel like I´m o u t o f m y m i n d, turning me on like hell, and I never feel like this with A, so I don´t know if it is wrong what I´m doing, I am really confused.

Today, after lessons, I went to the city with a friend, bought some postcards, then we sat down in the BelowBar and really had a good talk about relationships and all these things. Back at home I told Mrs. P that I had met someone on Saturday, she thought it was ok and that nobody would be hurt if I kept buttoned up. I was quite amazed that she took it that easily.