tomorrow's itinerary: night flight to summer 2010

If I had a sitcom, one of my catchphrases could be "I call SHANanigansssss" and all the other characters would frown at me disapprovingly. I would be that guy. . . ....I feel like somebody would tell me right about now, "Shan, you already are that guy."

No judgment please, but I am in the mood to watch one of those old Mary Kate and Ashley movies where they TRAVEL ABROAD. You know what I'm talkin bout. Oh my God, I really might download one. I can't even remember which ones I've seen. They're all roughly the same anyway except the locale changes--Australia, Italy, London, blah blah. ((HOLD ON, POP CULTURE EMERGENCY, my 18 year old brother's talking to me right now and he doesn't know who Katy Perry is. What?)

So I'm traveling tomorrow. Again. I like to do that. Actually between my LA excursion, hoboing around at Rutgers, going to Connecticut avec Jackie for a weekend of chillaxatives, und zees, zees beeeing a trip to North Carolina, I have been relatively busy and entertained. Relatively. Since the beginning of this year my room has been in a constant state of chaos, caused by repeated wardrobe analysis and packing. See, my 2010 really is proving to be a fantastic travel year.

So! I'm going to visit my pals over at Duke, who I met last summer in Germany :) :) :) I booked a round trip flight from Newark last minute for a reasonable $140, and it takes just a bit longer than an hour and a half to get there. I'm of course stoked to see mah people againnn (it's been like... 8 months? sacre bleu!) but I've also never been to North Carolina before, and I'm always eager to check another state off my list. Or rather, that's something I started telling myself the summer my family went on a road trip to Michigan. Passing through Ohio. To be honest, I was not a huge fan of Ohio.

Actually, if I think... if I really try to imagine seeing all of those guys again, I get really ridiculously excited. I said before, what was it?--if I could crush that summer in Berlin into a powder and snort it, I'd be happy the rest of my life. But everybody who travels knows that a place is only as good as the people you meet and the company that you keep. Berlin was great because it was Berlin, but also because I had these great people to drink with at wine bars. And eat schwarma. And go to the zoo. And get rejected that one time at that really popular overpacked full-of-itself asshole club that hates Americans. And get yelled and told to move while laying on the grass outside of a palace, which I suppose was still part of the general palace... property. (See pertaining photos)

Do you suppose it's maybe inappropriate to put any pictures of people on here without their consent? Ermmm... Anyway! I hope to do a lot of reminiscing down there. Hahaha. Well, for now I have to worry about packing... I am really tired of packing, to be honest. Even if it's for a mere couple of days, meh, I don't want to deal with it. C'est la traveling vie. (mon Dieu,I need to get on the French thing. This is just sad.)

la vie L.A. (swears will now put end to posts titled 'la vie __')

I theorize that the universe does not want me to pack in advance for trips. Or be well-rested for plane travel. At any rate, neither of these things have ever happened to me once, so you can't say the theory's unfounded.
Hmm, it's four. Really, I'm not to blame for this one. The fam was over at my cousins', where the grandpuhpah and grandmumah have been staying. Mum was packing their bags for them, which took until three. And all I could do was sit on the couch, unable to take a nap, instead watching Definitely, Maybe.

Which, I don't know if it was the tiredness or what, but it wasn't as bad watching it for the second time. Not that it's a total crap film or anything, but if my memory serves me, I thought it was kind of a downer most of the way through. The dude just makes a lot of poor choices with women (applicable to the real R.R. possibly. Was he actually married to Scarlet Johansson or was that some kind of weird joke played on him/everyone?), and it's just aggravating to watch. Like, stop getting ready to propose to the wrong ladays and go for the cynical but sweet redhead played by the wife of Borat. You can't go wrong with that.

I have a relevant last minute packing account but I’m actually too tired to tell it right. In short though it’s me partying til dawn in Berlin (at the first place in Berlin the group had all gone to, overlooking the water. Sehr nostalgic), being advised by Hady the Berliner not to go to sleep at all lest I miss my flight, passing out, not waking up to the alarm I (possibly) set, panicking, and throwing—just plain throwing—everything I possessed into my suitcases like a madwoman, so that I could make my flight to London. What’s worse, when I was leaving Berlin again, this time for New Jersey, I did more or less the exact same thing. I was up all hours navigating back to a youth hostel, quite possibly ready to fall asleep at any moment. Although, silver lining, you can meet the nicest trilingual Spanish boys at shady S-Bahn stations at four in the morning. Pretty sure though that my hostel roommates were ticked off (they were.....hostile! Pfft!) (I'm sorry) at my traipsing into the room so late and then bailing out, noisily, a few hours later. LUCKILY this time, the alarm did wake me. No small miracle since the stupid-crap-German-brick-phone could set only one alarm at a time, and there was no snooze option. I always had ONE SHOT TO WAKE UP (which is actually why I’ll never really know what happened on the side-trip to Potsdam that first week in Berlin). So yeah, the door slammed outrageously loud as I was leaving. My eyes widened and I sped down the hallway fearing the West German secret police would arrest me for indefensible loudness, or UNENTSCHULTBARE LAUTSTÄRKE.

But hey, things all worked out juuust fine. More than fine! But oh frack. I need to go to bed now.