My parents loved to travel. Because of this, I've been to 46 out of 50 states, all by car/motor home. I've been to mountains and oceans, canyons and caverns, and rivers and Great Lakes. The most interesting thing about all of this travel was definitely the sights and scenes. However, a very close second was meeting the different people from many various cultures. Some parts of this country made life in south Mississippi feel very cosmopolitan, while others made me feel like we rolled in straight off the set of Andy Griffith. I distinctly remember trying desperately to explain to a group of kids from Michigan, that I absolutely owned shoes and had never driven a tractor to school. They were shocked at the fact that Mississippi actually had roads and that my parents weren't a part of the klan. It was very frustrating. I found myself consciously straightening up my twangy southern accent and trying to reference all of the new, hip things I'd most recently seen on MTV.
It was shocking to be forced to understand, at such a young age, the vast cultural differences and ignorance that existed among the people of just one country. While assuming that it existed globally, one night in London really drove home the concept of how different people can be, even when they speak the same language.
Our college choir traveled to England during the spring of my junior year. We spent a week visiting different areas of the country side including Stratford, Canterbury, and Oxford. Eventually we ended up spending three days in London, singing in various churches, to round out our trip.
I may have mentioned this before, but I hate flying. I fly a lot with my job, but the anxiety has never subsided. The trip to England was the first time I'd ever been in an airplane. We took a small regional plane to Charlotte. It was a little bumpy, but overall not too bad. However, I had no idea what I was about to experience with an overnight transatlantic flight. First off, we were on the biggest damn plane I'd ever seen. It was some model of Airbus that could apparently accommodate around 10,000 passengers. It was HUGE. Well, no one told me that planes that size don't simply perform a rolling take off. No. You can imagine my surprise when we pulled on to the runway and revved the engines up so loud that everyone started sharing looks of concern. Just when the crescendo of jet propulsion reached a climax, the pilot dropped the emergency brake, slamming us back in our seats, and we blasted down the runway. I pretty sure I left fingerprints in the armrests of my coach seat, and I may have made a few sounds one would deem less than masculine.
There are a few things about transatlantic travel that no one ever cared to explain to me. Had I known these things, I could've probably saved myself a lot of mental anguish and pain.
1. Bring some type of sleeping aid.
Jet lag is one of nature's cruelest tricks on the human body. You can be square in the middle of an enlightening conversation, when you suddenly become drunk with unexplainable exhaustion and your body feels pinned to the earth by gravity. This is only exacerbated when your nerves of flying cause you to stay awake during your entire overnight, twelve hour flight.
2. The meaning of the term transatlantic.
It all seems very romantic and lofty to travel the world on a "transatlantic" flight. You half expect Humphrey Bogart to sit down next to you and order a nicely aged scotch. What you don't expect is the cacophony of dark and terrifying images that flash through your mind when you realize that once it starts, your only chance of survival, should the unthinkable happen, is to out swim the inevitable hoard of hungry sharks below until they've had their fill on the carcasses of those passengers who skipped their swimming lessons. In my exhausted state I began to stare down the aisles of the plane, imagining the oxygen masks dropping from the overhead as we bounce violently toward the sea below. I envisioned panicked flight attendants, screaming women and children, and a litany of sloppily filled vomit bags. This went on for TWELVE hours.
3. I would rather plummet than descend.
I have bad ears. I had tons of ear issues as a child, much like Jackson. But as a young adult I was sure that my years of ear aches were far behind me. Wrongo. The descent in to London was a long, arduous journey that completely changed my outlook on how I would hold up under torture. Around an hour in I would've drop kicked a kitten to make the pain stop. I tried not to cry, but I may have sprinkled an ounce or so. It was unbelievable how much pain I was in. I would look around at casual businessmen reading their papers, completely unaffected by the pressure in my head, and fantasize about running across the aisle and violently boxing their ears so I wouldn't be alone in my agony. Little did I know that my pain was centered around the fact that I was in the beginning stages of a pretty severe sinus infection. That explained a lot. Anyway, always bring gum.
4. London is foggy.
Two rules about flying in to London. Don't confuse fog with clouds. You're probably much closer to the ground than you realize. Also, DON'T scream like a girl when your plane apparently lands on a runway while in said clouds. Just because you can't see the ground, doesn't mean you should draw attention to yourself when the plane jolts to a sudden halt. Show some testicular fortitude.
Aside from the trip over, and the first few days of being incredibly sick, the trip to England was magical. We sang in front of Shakespeare's grave, visited Windsor castle, and I sang a solo during a master class in the catacombs of the Canterbury cathedral. We were constantly surrounded by history and culture. But like any good college story, eventually history and culture take a back seat to partying and the shaking of one's booty.
Our last night in London was pretty amazing. Some attended the theater. I, and a handful of professors and students saw Thomas Hampson perform Kindertotenlieder with the London Philharmonic. We got in rather early from our stuffy affair, and decided that there were just enough hours in the evening to see what the nightlife had to offer.
After listening to locals wail out Meatloaf's greatest hits at a local karaoke night and drinking a little, a few of us were sure that there was something great going on in north London, and we just had to find it. So, like in any harrowing adventure, a small band of us (slightly intoxicated) set out to find a decent place to dance. Our group consisted of four girls from the choir, all hooched up in their going out clothes, and a buddy and I. After being assured by many passerby's that a cool nightclub was just up the street, we chased our wild goose all the way to the end of the rainbow.
There it stood. A five story building, with very little activity going on outside. In fact, there was just one guy. In bright green neon letters near the top of the building read the work SCALA. Well, this was the place we were told of, but we all took a minute to exchange worried looks before our inner party animals forced us to take the plunge.
As we approached the bouncer at the front door, he moved in an aggressive manor, to block our path. "I'm sorry," he said, "club's closed for a private party."
We immediately freaked out. We'd walked about fifteen blocks to reach this place and were furious to find that our travels were in vain. I try to reason with the guy by explaining that it's our last night in London and we really want to find a fun place to party. He's not phased by my attempts of reason and guilt. Finally, one of the girls, who will remain nameless, decided that a flirting with the fine chap might do the trick. After talking to him for a couple of minutes, he relents and gives us passes in to the party. Girls are magic.
He hands us a small piece of paper with the following blanks and instructs us to go to the top floor:
Name:
Age:
Likes:
Dislikes:
Cell phone number:
We think nothing of the slips of paper and eagerly head in the front door, where we are met with a completely dark hallway. "Umm, this is weird." Noticing the stairs to our left we begin our climb. Floor two is made up of a pair of locked double doors and more stairs leading upward. The same can be said for floors three and four. By this time, all of us are definitely experiencing a chill as the hairs on the back's of our necks begin to rise. That's when we finally reached the fifth floor, where we are met with one final set of double doors. Behind them, we hear a faint thumping noise. Scared of what lie ahead, we gently crack one of the doors, where we are blown away by the sight before us. On the other side of the doors was a huge, open ballroom with club lights, loud techno music, and about 500 Londoners dancing to the beat.
We stumble forward, amazed, at the contrast of silently dark hallways that hid this raucous party only feet away. To our left was a huge bar, with young people crowded around it in a frenzy for social lubricant. To our right was a small DJ booth where the music was created and the slips of paper were processed. On the wall above the booth was a giant projector that would display a new slip of paper for all to see every few seconds. This was a hook up party, where single people would introduce themselves anonymously, and choose over their cells where and if they cared to meet up with potential suitors.
I couldn't have cared less about that. Mine and my buddy's target was the bar on the left. After fighting our way to the front of the bar we ordered ten shots of tequila to share. I wasn't much of a drinker, but I could handle tequila pretty well. Plus, there was no telling how long it would take us to get another drink, so we ordered all at once for the evening. After hearing our order, a young attractive South African girl approached us, aggressively. "You're American, aren't you?" "Yes, we are. Where are you from," I said. "South Africa. I have an internet boyfriend in Michigan, who I'm going to see soon. Do you live near Michigan?" I explained that we were no where close to Michigan and that we were leaving in the morning. After a few minutes of her telling us how badly she wanted to go to America, we decided to hit the dance floor.
The girls from our little band of idiots were tearing it up on the dance floor. They were going all out trying to lure some unsuspecting British chap. But, a small circle formed around them like a viewing party. None of the guys would dare approach the scantily clad vixens. It was weird. As my friend and I returned to the masses the environment completely changed. The circle dissipated and the dance floor felt as crowded as ever. After a few minutes of jumping up and down to the beat and tequila shots I began to notice a trend.
Everywhere I looked I saw a different version of an early twenties male, dressed predominantly in black and grey clothing. There was no color, no wild and crazy outfits, and very few females. That's when I realized why the girls from out party were having such a difficult time attracting a dance partner. We had crashed a party that was mostly made up of young, gay men.
One would think that the girls stood out like sore thumbs. While that's true, I think it was my buddy and I who were the most noticeable. We looked REALLY American. My outfit consisted of Timberlands, carpenter jeans, a peach polo shirt, and a fitted Alabama ball cap on backwards. We were a freaking parody of the American youth. We looked like walking glow sticks in a sea of black and grey slacks and cardigans.
And boy, were we popular on the dance floor. Here in this sea of humanity, instead of panicking at how outside of our elements we were, we decided to embrace it. We'd walked a long way to party. There was NO way that we were going to let this get in the way of our good time. The journey was too long to give up now. So we danced and had a great time. It was pretty obvious that we were straight, so there were no uncomfortable rejections on the dance floor. Instead, we acted like who we were, loud and bright Americans. After all, we were the freaking belles of the ball.
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