I rented this room for a month in Philly. I had no job and I gave the landlord, who was also my roommate, the last of my money for rent. I had broken up with my boyfriend a few months before and left New York, but didn’t really know what I was doing in Philly. I just figured I needed to move, and that was where I ended up. I walked around the city, it was January and so cold, but I had no money for bus fare. I thought I was pretty and could get a job as a waitress somewhere, anything really, because I was so hungry and if I didn’t get some money soon I wouldn’t have a place to live either. It was so gray every day, but it never snowed. It was freezing though, and when I would come back to my room I would have to pile all my clothes on top of me at night because I was so cold and the house was this old Victorian thing in University City and had no insulation. It was so big and cold, it would’ve made a great studio, but at the moment I had no art supplies and could think of nothing but getting a job and food. I walked so much. Sometimes when I got home really late at night and all my roommates were sleeping, I would sneak into the kitchen and eat tiny bits of their leftovers so that no one would ever know that anything was gone. Then my grandmother called one day and sensed some kind of desperation in me, even though I never said anything about the fact that I was hungry. She said she wanted to send me some money, and she did. When I got the money I went to the tiny Vietnamese restaurant down the street and ordered grilled pork and bun (white noodles) and it was the best tasting food I had ever eaten. Then I went to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy a space heater. I was tired of having a runny nose all night. I took the train, which took an hour, and then lugged the big ass heater all the way back. That took me 4 or 5 hours, because I missed my stop and had to get off the train and walk.
My mom called a couple days after that and told me that she had breast cancer. I decided to sell all my things so I could buy a plane ticket to St. Petersburg, FL to be with her. I had been seeing this guy from Mexico, he was a film student in New York and then he moved to London to go to the film academy there. I wanted to see him before I went to FL, so he bought me a plane ticket to London and then I flew to FL from there. I sold my library for $50. I put half the books in my suitcase and wheeled them over to the store, and then came back for the other half. It took me 6 hours because the store was far away and I didn’t have cab fare and no car either. There were thousands of dollars of books in that suitcase that I had been collecting for years. I remember the next day I walked by the book store and they had put my hardback copy of The Davinci Code in the window for $14.95. I was livid.
When I got to London I had been drinking during the flight so my jet lag was magnified. While everyone else was eating breakfast I was drinking red wine. I got off the plane and felt like I was floating through the airport. It was so pleasant. I didn’t have a cell phone and neither did F., so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to find him. He was on a flight from Mexico that day too so we were rendez-vousing at Heathrow. I found him and we went into the city and got a hotel room. I hadn’t seen him in a month and I was so happy to be next to him. He had money so we went to dinner at this Lebanese restaurant. It was so beautiful. There was red velvet everywhere and candles and gilded things and darkness. The waitress was gorgeous, with long black hair and black eyes that had little specks of light in them. We ordered so much food, and it all came to the table on these little golden metal plates. Olives and tapenades and spreads and this amazing bread, and then a lamb dish and some curries that were so unusual. And lots of red wine.
I didn’t even think about Philly. It had been a failure from the beginning, but I memorized every part of the city because during the three weeks that I lived there, I walked from one end to the next numerous times.
F. and I did the same thing in London, just walking all around and watching as the neighborhoods changed from gritty to exciting to upscale to market-place to Chinatown. We ate at this Chinese restaurant one night and walked by this tiny casino, and I remember that the last time I was in London with my ex we had played some games at that casino. It was like I couldn’t escape him. I even left the country and I still saw things that reminded me of him everywhere! Oh well, I was starting to forget about him nonetheless. After dinner at the Chinese restaurant we went to this bar and got really drunk. The music was loud and there was this big bunch of balloons in the corner. I got so drunk that at one point I grabbed the whole bunch of balloons and started handing them out to everyone. They were all laughing and thought I was so weird. F. saw a guy flirting with me and grabbed me by the arm to take me home. I took that whole bunch of balloons with me and no one said anything. The bouncer made fun of me because I’m American. I told him to piss off.
London is always really gray and rainy too, so I felt at home there. When you order coffee they ask you “In or on the road?” The pubs are packed at noon. People smoke a lot. The red buses are funny, they look like toys. So do the cars. There are a lot of really beautiful stone buildings. We went to the British Museum. It’s so austere. Trafalgar Square is so beautiful too, and all of London is just enchanting with its history and architecture. And the Thames snakes through so if you walk all around you get to see it a couple times and even cross it over the Castle Bridge which is a blue and white castle, and the London Bridge and then this really cool footbridge that’s brand new. Only people are allowed on it.
And then when I left I was sad but at the same time a little excited because I was going to Florida to see my family and I like moving to new places, so I was looking forward to leaving dreary London to emerge in sunny Florida. And I really like palm trees.
F. had got me the cheapest flight he could possibly find so I had two layovers. One of them was in Toronto and it was overnight, but I had no money for a hotel so I sat in the airport and just tried to sleep. The unfortunate thing was that the seats had arm rests, so I couldn’t lay down. I tried a couple different positions but I just couldn’t sleep like that. So I went to the bathroom to wash my face because I felt gritty. When I walked through the door there was a wooden bench just inside the door of the bathroom. I laid on it and slept with my backpack as a pillow. A lady came in at like 7 am and gasped, which woke me up, but I just smiled at her and went out to see if the line was open for my flight. I had left F. at Paddington Station about 18 hours before that. I was starting to feel delirious. When I walked out there was NO ONE in the airport and I was confused. My flight was supposed to leave at 9:30 am. I paced around and no one showed up. I thought maybe I was still asleep. It was so weird to be standing in an empty airport. Then I asked a custodian what the hell was going on, and he said that departures were in another terminal. By this time I only had about 55 minutes before my flight left. I got to the other terminal and they had just closed check-in, and the lady in front of me pushed me and no one would let me go up to the front of the line to beg them to let me check in. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I just went to the ticketing agent and asked to be put on another flight. It didn’t leave for another 8 hours, so I went and sat on a bench and tried to get away from the smell of food because I was starting to get so hungry and had no money to buy food again. Once I got on the plane I slept so soundly that I drooled all over myself and it was so disgusting and the flight attendant had to shake me almost violently to wake me up. I went out and saw my dad and I was so happy to be in my new home.
