do blah blah blah in london town.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

I think I made the decision that one day I wanted to live in London when I was about thirteen, this might have been under the influence of teen punch drunk crush on one Jude Law and complete awe of the Spice Girls...I know, I know, it was ten years ago, I was young and ridiculous... get over it. It has taken plenty of years of false starts to finally be able to say I am going to London, yes the reasons have shifted and evolved just as I have but at the moment that thirteen year old is screaming her heart out...oh wait I think she just passed out from uttter excitement...no worries, she will be fine :)

I have always had this sense of London was something I had to do for myself. I am fascinated by the history, the culture and the people. I have always wanted to experience it all myself. Mind you, this is not the only place I want to visit, if I could I would want to live everywhere just for a little while. 

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

I am excited, terrified, anxious, ecstatic and buried under a mountain of paper work and information I am trying to make sense of. I think it just hit me today that I am really doing this and in came the questions, where will I live?, what's the best place?, the cheapest?, the closest to school?, can I get a job,? do I need a job?, what about my phone?, can I use it there without AT&T? what about my netflix account? Will I meet people? Will my visa get here on time? is the tube easy to learn? and a whole gang of other questions and concerns I haven't even thought about yet. One thing I am not worried about is the English differences. I was raised on the Queens English and hallelujah to that, even now ten years later, I still say till and gawked at like a crazy person, so at least that's one less thing. 

I am just excited about the opportunity and the experiences that are in store for me and how they will change me as a person. 

Been There, Done That.

While it might not look it, based on my lack of new posts. Its been a busy February. I managed to go to the most violent city in the world (Juarez, Mexico) without even a clue that's what I was getting myself into, thank God, I lived to tell the tale. It didn't look dangerous, it had a lot of character and a lot of history as well. It starts like this, I went to L.A to help Rebecca move back east, and that included yet another coast to coast roadtrip, the first one was almost two years ago helping her move to L.A. I hate sitting in a car for a long time, actually I hate actual travel, whether by plane, train, car, boat whatever, I don't like it one bit, but the world traveler in me takes it because the destination is always worth it. So with an obnoxious thousands of miles to drive we hit the road on a Monday. Driving from Los Angeles, California to El Paso, Texas. this is were we decided to go to Mexico , the opportunity was there so we went. It never crossed our minds to check to see exactly were we were going. It was only after we are in Mexico and we see men with guns and such patroling that we thought well, this might be unsafe. So in all my wisdom we got a taxi tour of the city and were out of there in under an hour . So what can be learned from this. Always google your destination.