a busy week, whew! from food poisoning to snowstorms

I feel terrible to know that I have not written for a while, i love to be the entertainer. but for now i can only recall the events of the past week, and things have definitely been happening....

sunday i awoke to the nausia of bad cheese and sausage which left my head in the toilet about 4 times over the day. i stayed in bed literally all day and thought about how i felt terrible. i hated moving, breathing, being awake. my friend came over to do a french lesson but i turned him towards the living room with his friend so they could practice, and retreated to my horizontal position. I got him to buy me some powerade and i began my slow recovery. i remember little from that day, not more than pain and sleep and powerade. monday i stayed in bed as well, though much improved... I spoke with saji and jessica a lot and played chess. it was nice. pretty much the same thing as sunday with less vomit. tuesday i skipped class and ventured out in the night to take care of some business. i went out and tried to work on my bank account and classes as well as my first real excursion into culture.

i went by the Hot club de Jazz Lyon. It is the oldest jazz club in france. the music was really solid, nothing spectactular, no legends or anything. but the first group was good. the pianist was the oldest and the best. the drummer was the youngest and the worst. actually his movements annoyed me a lot. he was stiff and played a little bit like a rocker. his latin rhymthms were much more solid than his jazz ballad. throughtout the night the groups changed...people in the crowd would take the stage and suddenly my fellow spectator was the one filling my ears with jazz. in total i think in the whole place there were 25 people and at least 9 of them played on stage. i remember the guitarist was really good. he looked like chandler from friends a little dorkier with a moustache and glasses. then horn player looked like jay from say and silent bob and the others, i can't remember their dopelgangers...

the magic of the place was drawn directly from the walls. the entrance was a a indiscreet glass door which led to an abondoned hallway, something in a highschool but very small. that turned to a old cement walkway for about 20 feet with a metal gate to some stays and a metal door saying "lyon jazz club, no noise please" the door was quite intimidating and there were no signs of life in the strange hallway or ancient stone area. i didn't want to interrupt anything, so i looked around. i could hear music coming from somewhere but i didn't know if i was supposed to go upstairs, downstairs, take the elevator or what. eventually i grew some balls and opened the door and to my suprise there were stairs leading down into a old brick area. there was a foyer with a pub and a podium of wood and then a room not much larger than a large living room. everything was very old brick or stone or wood. the main room is like a small cavern with the highest point perhaps 5 feet above my head, and it curved down to eiather side where it was only about 6. there were bleacher like seats installed and abou 6 small round tables, that was it. was more like a cellar than anything else. no windows and no decoration save 4 photos of past acts. on teh stage there was barely enough room for the 3 piece set and the new players would often stand amongst the civilian patrons.

jazz is the greatest form of music. it is the study of good sounds and good rhythm. the meeting of methodic study and persistent deregulation. the bad plays a song with some known melody and progression and the players then take turns improvising and adding their own flavor over the harmonies. it turns these people who sit around for 5 hours a day on an instrument, studying and practising into outgoing and adventuress people. they must push themselves to express new ways and ideas in front of the public in the middle of everything. it is not like soccer where you do what you have to, in music you can do what you want to. your goal is to make your mark and failure is only on you. to be boring or to do something exciting. to make your instrument whine like no others.

the radio stations often have a slogan "i am jazz". well i am jazz. haha

wednesday i had no school and i went to the bank and opened my account finally, despite the now 4 meetings i had to go to. hopefully i will be able to transfer my money while things are still low. it was 1.28 yesterday, the lowest in like 14 months.

at night Muya and his friends took me out to the theater. we didn't pay because Muya has connections. the girl at the ticket place is also the girl who is allowing me to practic on the piano in the morning, starting tomorrow i believe. Veronique i think her name was. anyway the play was mostly silent, the interaction of 3 women clad in identical red dresses and various objects, cigars, coat rack, flower vase. they did everyday things and spoke and at one point simulated the presence of a man with a jacket that float around stage by 2 of the women as if it was a puppet. the girls monolouges were about men and their power, sexual desire, the fire within or anger and confusion. the women at one point simulated pregnancy and then laughed after a faking a birth and resumed to dance around the coat and be cheerful again, jeering the man's presence... it was strange to say the least... and i think it was written by a man.

afterwards we went to elodie's house and had a crepe party. we sat around this hot iron with 6 spots for crepes and cooked and chatted while we all made different crepes wth everything from cheese and meats to sauce to nutella to salmon. it was cool. i feel pretty cool with Muya's people now, but i still can't hold true conversations though i can hold simple ones. it was nice anyway.

the next day was miserable. i had 6 hours of class and i was on the internet with jessica for most of it. i couldn't sleep at all the night before. i tried to sleep at 2:30. fell asleep at 5:30, was back up at 7am, then i fell asleep at 10:30 until 11:30 in which i went to class.

i thought it was tat noon, but it was actually at 1pm. with the extra time i explored the huge strike march outside. the main road south of myappartment was covered with about 20,000 or more peaceful protestersa rallying against the governments inability to create and maintain jobs and salaries for public workers. all of the cities metro was shut down except for 2 lines and anyone trying to leave was pretty much screwed. i was quite amazing because it was so calm. maybe it was the cold keeping people form getting rowdy. people were playing music and carring signs. communists were not pleased either. they closed the main entracne to my school to keep people out. every eating place on the road was full. it was pretty cool and i took a few videos which i will upload later.

class was boring and i couldn't really stay awake. i don't remember much other than thinking the information was too important. my surrealism class is quite inresting and i enjoy it when i can stay awake.

afterwards i had to work on an application for the lead program. it is 2 year program for business students at uga. jessica turned in my transcript. writing ws very difficult and i stayed up all night trying to complete the essay. i slept for about 2 hours that night and it was pretty miserable. my essays were not very good but i hoped to at least inspire an interview where i could prove myself better than the application.

friday i had class at 9am and i went with my laptop intending to finish my essay. my teacher is a very friendly and professional busy woman, though a little strange. she reminded me very much of a doctor i met in tanzania. very smart, and polite, but a little awkward. and her assignments and actions don't always make sense...

anyway, i kept trying to write and i had to finish by the end of the class because i had a flight to london at 2:40 i had to walk to the bus then bus to the airport.
i kept messing up and at one point i erased quite a bit of what i wrote. i ended up finishing around noon-40 and i rememebered i didn't have my passport. which i need to go to london of course,....duh.. i sprinted home. now mind you this is the second night with 2 hours of sleep and this week my stomach was performing mutiny. all day it was gaseous and i felt like an animal was trying to escape. i felt bad for anyone sitting around me.

i attempted a run home, with my bag and hurting stomach. it was not easy. i'm not in my best shape right now either. i got home, tore my room to pieces and found the passport. then i tried to run to the bus. at this point i was worried of missing my flight entirely...i found the bus and the driver pointed to where to buy the ticket, but he did not inform me that he was leaving that moment. so i was back in 2 minutes and the asshole had driven off already. i was very upset with him for the whole remainder of the day... but on the bright side my italian buddy showed up and rode on the next bus with me. his english is so so, much like my french, so we practice. he was telling me about the police situation. it sounds frightening. there are now police on many street corners that just stand there and they were all black. it is like a fascist state again. he said the youth hate it and the old people like it. sounds about right...

i got to the airport at about 2:05. 5 minutes after the gate was going to close. i sprinted through the airport and to the easyjet desk. of course they had shut check in but with a walkie talkie call, they allowed me through because i had only a carry on...thank god.

i feel asleep instantly on the flight.

i arrived in london and had to take another small bus into town. by the way all the outside aiport travel has amount to almost 40-50 bucks this trip. it kind of sucks balls. i can't take these hits. next time i might just take the train because this is quite ridiculous.

once in london i followed saji's instructinos and found his station where he met me, the second time i've seen him in 7 months. it was his birthday so there was a big night planned. we chilled for a moment and i had instruction to pick up our friend melanie who was coming in from paris to celebrate as well. i was so tired and hungry and sick at this point i didn't care what happened really. i tried my hardest to follow saji's instruction but i forgot to take melanie back to the appartment to drop off her bag and forgot to get her a metro card. but, in my defense, i waited for 1 hour outside for her in the 30 degree weather because she took a long time to get in. she wasn't the culprit but the cold was freezing brain cells.

i took melanie to the bus stop and we got up with saji through the bus line he had directed me on.

we went to the university pub, the universities have pubs here and pretty much everywhere but the US. not really strange to me, much more logical really. anyway we hung out and I met some of saji's international friends. an emory girl on who was amazing horse rider apparently, and natalie, and french girl who was saji's good friend. i also met max and andi from emory and UGA. they were nice guys. we went to about 2 more pubs and i got pretty drunk. i hate to admit this because i am in all ways against drinking beyond reasonable nature, but under order of my best friend i had no choice. i had about 6 drinks throughout the night. i met many more people, mostly girls. saji and i make better friends with girls usually. it was fun. and cold and we got some food on the way as well. i felt bad that i hadnt planned on this night better so i could have cash and bu saji more than a couple drinks.

i was victim of alcohol induced amnesia for about 30 minutes once we returned home. it was 6 am and i began writing jessica an email and continued to fall asleep at the end. the next morning i found it and was a little suprised.

for those of you that don't know. this condition, often called "blacking out" comes when the brain loses the ability to transfer short-term memory into long-term memory. you can't remember past 2 minutes, though you operate normally. very frightening for anyone in a situation that could have any dangerous consequences. what are you to know when you do somethign and you can't remember why you did it, or how. only what others report to you. perhaps you had an inspriation, perhaps you became angry, or scared. but you affect other people and are affected, but in the end you don't know how are why. all you have is a couple sentences from a friend or an email to tell you who you were or are, but that is not enough.

the frightenting part is how it happens and how you can't predict it. you can only be extremely cautious not to drink to a level or with a speed that will result. i've never experienced this before but now i see the immense danger and complexity of this amnesia.

it is even more dangerous because in your drunken state, your decisino making is already altered, so now where you might defend a decision with the statement, well was drunk so that is why you did it, becasue you rememeber your illogical thought process and can identify the mistakes and where e you ignored your feelings or the truth, now you cannot know how much was you being drunk and how much was you being yourself. i've done 2 things i regret drunk and i know what i was thinking and i know why i regret doing them. i am lucky..

ive decided that if i could take away one thing from man kind it woudl alcohol. perhaps less children would be born and less people would meet eachother at first. but evetually we would all man up and just be honest with eachtoher and we find other reasons to hang out. somethings about muslim society are very amazing, particularly their lack or use of the substance.

saturday we chilled and ate and we went out to a music club and a dance club. we saw some of the centers of london and we met with friend british/american friend george who grew up in atlanta. it was a fun night. i drank very little.

sunday saji and i woke up and we walked around london, i saw big ben and parliment and some other great structures. it was snowing and very sunny at the same time. we watched a soccer game in a pub and chilled.

at night it was about 3-5 inches of snow and it was apparenlty a ridiculous site in london. much like atlanta, a lot of snow is very rare. we met natalie at the LSE dorms and partook in some pizza and pretended we were going to watch the super bowl. we chilled for about 45 minutes and then we went for a walk along the river. teh snow was quite strong and blowing in our faces, but the view was eerily beautiful. the fog blocked out anything in the distance and the whitness covered all surfaces making the simple london bridge in to a strange passage way of dreams. the lighst in the distance and the slience of hte snow along with teh old buildings sometimes made it seem like we were transported to some early18th century square. i took a lot of pictures.

through facebook mega jones, our friend of our earlier youth contacted us. she is working in london after having graduated from oberln, where my sister went to school. apparentyl she told me this, but of course i forgot. she was coming into town to hangout, but we couldn't reach her until we were back at our own station. but then the snow was so strong we turned back to make sure she was safe and new how to get home. we jumped on another bus back and on the ride we found out that all buses were on the verge of clsoing down. we found megan back near the bridge and walked got the last bus for half a mile, then they dumped us all out on the street. us savvy americans, the lost chinese students, the pissed of tired workers, and the young business couples. no metro running and the roads nearng impassable. we tranched home and I made some phone calls. i slept and awoke to find megan was gone back to her neck of the woods.

monday morning i found the i had missed my plane already, mistaking 0705 for a pm instead of an am. here of course, 7:05p is wrtten 19:05. so it was a pretty dumb mistake. lucky for me the flight was cancelle due to weather. so me and saji chilled and chilled some more. we walked around to get some pub food, my treat, seeing as i had royally f-ed up getting a cake on kirsten's accord. saji had spent a lot of money to keep me happy and we were both in the hole this weekend, so why not a good meal??

we got back home and i took a nap, and got my ticket for this morning.

so today, is tuesday. i walked to the train station at 3:30am only to find the train to teh airport was not running save from victoria. i was at london bridge so me and 3 africans i met split the taxi (my idea) to victoria to avoid risk of no more buses running or getting lost or what have. it was 4 20 per person and i paid the full balance. in the station we had 15 minutes to get tickets and I allowed the women to by my ticket--which was free for her because the 4th ticket is free--rather than pay me the full amount fo 12:60 she owed me. this saved me 3.60 pounds and allowed me to get on the train without withdrawing money because i was about 30 cents short to begin with.

on the train i slept for 20 minutes and spole briefly with the man i rode in the taxi with about france in french. i understood about 40%. i think he had an african accent..i don't know.

upon arrival at the aiport, i got my boarding pass in time and went to the gates, only to find the flight was cancelled. i feel like harry potter trying to get to hogwarts when dobby was f-ing everything up. (tw the was there is a fake 9 3/4s stop at the train station with a fake trolley going into the wall and you can pretend to run through it and take pictures)

so we were taken by the security back to the entrance of the airport where i transferred now for the second time to a new flight, but this time at 5:50 (written now as 17:40). so i have been in the airport for about 10 hours, most of which i slept on a wooden bench. i awoke to move into the departure area where i now stand and have now spent close to 45 minutes writing all this stuff....

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well folks what to report.

london is a crazy place. the kids are wearing very fashion known to man and there are people crowding the streets from every corner of the world. it is the most expensive place i've every been relative to the dollar but it also has the greatest selectino of serices it seems like. the kids seem like little punks though. i can see a lot of clock work orange stuff going on. one group of kdis was crowding an exit of the metro on their bikes, they looked up to no good but me and saji passed without problem. there was some random kids in the street throwing snowballs at a family loading their car. i can see people just being fed up with the mischeif and stuff.

it was nice to see saji. though this weekend has killed me. the ticket was okay, but the traveling and the metro and the eating as hit me for about 150 bucks. way over budget. but i am going to make up for it by not going to the grocery store this week and by not doing out at all.

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i saw an ad in the metro for the northern lights. this has convinced me i may try to go to norway at some point. i would love to see these lights in my lifetime so perhaps i can get up there with saji next month or something. i don't know...

anywnay. i'm tired and am going to find some water. i am looking forward to being home, running, eating a lot and watching heroes. tomorrow i have no class so i will probably try to go a free musuem or something.

this trip as given me a break from my french life and reminded me what i want to accomplish. time is short. only a few more months and i may not be in europe for several years. i need to prioritize and actually study french instead of just perform it. i need to be more organized.

hopefully tomorrow i can play piano and get my bank card. i need to review for school and start getting my online courses in order.

i want to work out no matter how i feel. before i wasn't willing to do this. but now i am. i know it will suck and i will freeze and i migh tbe sick. i want to back in shape and i want to get strong. it is just about doing it. after this week of no sleep and so much waiting i know i have the patience and will power to run everyday again. i've done it before... i just need to balance it with bike riding so i don't hurt my feet any more.

godo bye for now.

jessica i love you like the movies
family miss home cooked meals and atlanta excursions.
dennis i miss athens adventures
liz, dennis, all you guys, i'll call you
ariel i will call you.

everyone give love to jessica just because i said so.

peace peace and peaces.