Summer Travels

“Took a little time to make it a little better  It's only going out, just one thing and another”

Dear Future Isa, 

Today has indeed been (mostly) Better than yesterday :) you ventured into the middle of Munich with the dad and the brother, using a bus and two underground trains. On the bus, you noticed that one of the billboard adverts was for a vibrator, and wasn't particularly subtle (it was literally a giant fucking photo) - which you thought was hilarious. After about 45 minutes of travelling, you got to the central square - sort of like Trafalgar Square but wayyyy bigger and wayyyy more Bavarian. There was a gorgeous clock tower, a couple of pretty churches, and, oddly enough, three different H&Ms on the same street. There was also a pretty spectacular chapel, in which the organist was playing a whiter shade of pale, for reasons best known to the organist. 

Once you'd taken in the sights of the city, you headed back to olympiapark for lunch - in a revolving restaurant - up a 181 metre tower. Now, let's start this bit by stating, for the record, that you have a hate/hate relationship with lifts. You're terrified of getting stuck in them/the cables breaking/anything that could Go Wrong - and that's just up 1 floor in the grafton centre back home. Soooooo this lift brought back memories of other Lifts from Hell: ie the Empire State Building, and Wielsicka Salt Mines. Tbf, both of those covered more height than this one did, HOWEVER the lift up to restaurant 181 was the fastest motherfucking metal box you've ever been in. It was all over in less than 10 seconds, but oh boy, that deceleration made you feel like you'd been compressed to about 20cm tall. It was Weird.  

But hey, yeah, revolving restaurant! Turns out you're not as over your fear of heights as you thought you were, but once you got used to it Oh My Gosh. The view was incredible, and so was the pasta (and the coffee.) You stayed up there for 2 hours, or two full rotations, and then travelled back down via Satan's Lift To The Inferno. It was raining by this time, but you still got some nice photos, and even a couple of dorky ones of your dad. Seems like unfair payback for holding his hand rly tight in the lift, but oh well.

You chilled in the hotel for a bit in the afternoon, and then headed out for dinner at a jazz club called Unterfahrt (haha) to see a musician called Richard Bona (haha again.) He was really good! There were two (very upper class) english couples on the table next to you, and they legit spent a full half hour discussing different types of tea. You, dad, and J left a bit early because you were all exhausted. You think DFF was a little annoyed by this but oh well. 

Tomorrow’s your last proper day here, so obvs your only current plan is to go bowling. Should be good. 

Yours lift-phobically, 

Past Isa (13/07/16)

“I watch the stars from my window sill  The whole world is moving and I’m standing still”

Dear Future Isa, 

Well. Today was…………………………………….An Interesting One. After breakfast with yet another lovely coffee, you met dad’s friend’s friend (ha), and then you all drove to the Buchheim Museum, about an hour away. It was……………………. a tad cramped. Dad’s friend’s friend (henceforth referred to as DFF) initiated many a conversation with you, and you replied as much as you could, but sometimes the language barriers were just Too Much so there was a lot of nodding-and-pretending-you-understood. You got to the museum and saw a pretty funky painted helicopter parked outside, and then the museum building (which looked eerily like the mansion from Ex Machina?), and you thought “hey, this place looks pretty interesting. Today will be a Good Day!” 

It was…………………………Not. 

Tbf, it was very interesting at first - loads of Expressionism, weird sculptures, hippyish 60s posters, and even a café! You fully exploited the Meme Goldmine™ and posted a fuckton of obligatory gallery snapchats, and had pizza for lunch - along with a new type of beer. So far, you’ve had a pint of a different type of local beer each lunchtime, and you certainly plan to keep this up for the rest of the week. Your favourite so far is also the most fantastically named of them all: it’s called Hell. 

Coincidentally, the name of that beer is what the rest of the day turned into! Dad, DF, and DFF then spent 5 hours more reading every word of the (german, with no english translations,) information about all the art; and having Top Secret conversations in German, slipping into english only to make fun of you and your brother for looking bored/tired/checking your phones/walking too fast/walking too slow. At one point, you drank an espresso with two sugars in, just to try and make things a bit more exciting. It didn't. It turns out DF is also quite sexist, which didn’t help you deal with situation: his highlights included “no don’t ask her, women are rubbish with money,” and “you’d rather be shopping for shoes, wouldn’t you?” 

Actually, yes, I would, at the time. I would have rather been Anywhere doing Anything else. But that’s not the point. 

EVENTUALLY you left the museum, DF took you on a Very Interesting™ detour back to the hotel (through the pouring rain and winding country roads, at top speed) whilst blaring the Exact type of guitar music that you Really Do Not Like. So that took another two hours. 

Dinner was better! You went back to the nice chinese buffet place, and ATE WITH CHOPSTICKS?! This is a skill you did NOT know you possessed. They gave you more free wine at the end of the meal (although a glass, rather than a bottle, this time - oh well,) and fortune cookies! Yours said “the time has come to make some new friends,” so wow watch out for those snakes, dude. Your Brother’s!! said!!! literally!!!!!!!!! “SIZE DOES MATTER” 

You laughed enough at that to cancel out most of the rest of the day. He did not. That made you laugh Even More. 

Also, it made you happy that the fortune cookies were made by a company called “The Red Dragon,” because yay, Hannibal. …………..and it made you even happier to discover that these chinese fortune cookies, that you were consuming in Munich, were manufactured on Crown Street, Enfield. 

So yeah, dinner was good. DF then took you to a monument (you’re not kidding, unfortunately,) in the pouring rain (you were all wearing t-shirts, not him though ofc), and then you walked back through the pouring rain in the other direction back to the hotel. 

OKAY RANT OVER. 

You’re in bed now, and things are much better because you have some paprika crisps left. 

Next post will be a happier one, for sure. 

(grumpy) Past Isa (12/07/16)

“One glass of wine, a waltz with the moon  Silvery light, the earth's sweet perfume”

Dear Future Isa, 

Everything is clam and quiet, it’s warm but there’s a nice breeze, and best of all, you have paprika crisps. Alles ist gut (especially the paprika crisps.) 

After the concert last night, you went out for dinner at a cute chinese buffet place. While you were there, the conversations you had with your Dad and Brother switched back and forth between “what would happen if you got sucked into a black hole” and top ten favourite movies. Normal family stuff, y’know? At the end of the meal, you got fortune cookies - yours said “sometimes a quiet voice can be the most persuasive,” whereas Jack’s told him to stop spending money. AND THEN. The waiter came out from the kitchen and gave you a free bottle of plum wine??????????? Like, a decent-sized bottle, totally free?????? With no explanation except a smile??????? It was so nice! 

This morning, you had an early breakfast, and then mutually decided that you were Too Tired and Too Hot (hot damn) to do cycling, like you’d planned. So you napped for two hours. It was so nice! A few hours later, you wandered around Ottobrün for a while, before returning to your new fave italian place (the one from the first night,) for Lunch. You demolished a tuna salad, along with the obligatory local beer, and then had lemon sorbet for dessert which was served in an Actual Frozen Lemon. It was so nice! 

You wandered back up the high street, commented on the superfluous pharmacies that dotted said street, and then popped into a supermarket to buy PAPRIKA CRISPS (as well as pretzels! many pretzels!) You managed to pay without Dad’s help, despite not actually speaking the same language as the cashier - you got by using many smiles and many nods. Then you walked back up to the holiday, surrounded by that weird balance of scorching sunshine and cool breezes. It was so nice! 

After that, you had a pretty relaxed afternoon - Dad and J are off to see Joe Satriani so you’ve been watching Steven Universe, reading, writing, and consuming many paprika crisps. 

This post has been almost entirely about food but it was all so nice!

Past Isa (11/07/16)

“I hear an endless sound   I wanna be there now”

Dear Future Isa, 

BEIRUTBEIRUTBEIRUTBEIRUT they were sooooooo good and now you want to give Zach an even bigger hug than you did before. The normal-sized hug was for the backstory of this album, and the larger one is because of how beautifully he performed it. It really was gorgeous to listen to - except when his mic broke during Santa Fe and the whole crowd begged them to start the song again rather than ploughing on without lyrics (so hey, you sorta got to hear that one twice in the end.) 

You hadn’t realised before the concert that it was actually just one gig in a pretty massive festival, called Tollwood. The festival had a very unique vibe: almost everything they sold there was vegan, everyone looked like they’d been dressed by an aesthetic blog, and everything was basically just hella indie. It was aite, although you were happy to not spend too much time wandering around the rest of the festival, because it was still sooooooooo fucking humid, even at 6pm. Besides, J was getting hangry and you had a date with the bae(rut.) 

So you made your way to the (bloody massive) tent, found some good standing room, and waiting for your smol sad ukulele son to emerge. He did! He sang! And played 5 different instruments! Not at once! 

You LOVED it you LOVED IT ALL you LOVED the trombone bit in No No No, and the ukulele introduction to Elephant Gun, and the way he sang the high parts in August Holland, and the other ukulele introduction to Postcards from Italy, and the entirety of East Harlem because hey, that’s your favourite. 

You’ve realised over the past few years that of the two opposing types of concerts - those which are loud because they are loud, vs those which are quiet music played loud - you much prefer the latter. Sure, there’s a time and place for more rock-y concerts where you can jump around and everyone yells the lyrics, but, for you, there needn’t even be a specific time and place for the other type. You are always ready to go to that second type, where everyone sways and smiles and sometimes sings quietly, but mostly just feels absolutely content in where they are. It’s such a beautiful atmosphere to surround yourself with for a couple of hours, to immerse yourself wholly in that simple contentedness for a while, and to contribute to the smiling and swaying and sometimes singing quietly. 

tl;dr: crowds don’t always have to feel crowded. 

oh and yeah, been there, done that, got the ridiculously overpriced band t-shirt to prove it :) 

Past Isa (10/07/16)

“And I chalked a line south down the coast Going where my thirst was open For the things that I don't know”

Dear Future Isa, 

KLAUS WASN’T KIDDING. JUST YOU WAIT. 

First things first, continental breakfast was güt. Mostly because there’s an amazingly fancy coffee machine, and oh boy, German coffee is spectacular. 

After fancy coffee and not-quite-so-fancy rest of breakfast, you headed out to some nearby hills, a little way down the river Isar. Yes, that’s Isar, as in someone saying your name in a rly posh way. Isarrrrr. You took some gorgeous photos of said river, and then went for a bit of a walk down through the hills to a different part of the river. It was still gorgeous, and you skimmed stones with Dad and J. Then, you headed back upstream, and WERE GREETED BY THE UNMISTAKABLE SOUND OF AN OOMPAH BAND. 

It’s tricky to explain the next bit, so you’ll post a video - but fundamentally, massive rafts were speeding down the slope under a bridge, and said bands were ONBOARD THE RAFTS. The video will definitely make more sense, but just bear in mind that you were expecting “raft” to mean the floats you get at a swimming pool to go down a flume..... rather than 50-person wooden vehicles. 

You also experienced your first bavarian beer, which, of course, tasted even better than it actually should’ve because it was Not Consumed In England. It was also, like, a full litre of beer in a single (massive) glass. So that was a bit exciting. You also had a slice of lemon cake, which was delicious, and would’ve made your wife, Sansa, very proud. There were lots of other people eating/drinking/cheering on the rafts nearby, and NO WORD OF A LIE, SEVERAL OF THEM WERE WEARING LEDERHOSEN, COMPLETELY UNIRONICALLY. With woollen socks, leather shoes, and those hats with feathers in them. It was Fantastic. 

So yeah, today’s adventure certainly surpassed expectations. Unfortunately, the sweltering heat meant you couldn’t stay outside quite as long as you would’ve liked, but oh well - the only other solution would have been a dip in the river, and judging from the locals’ actions, it would have been a skinny dip. You saw wayyyyyyy too many dicks today. 

On that glorious note, you need to leave the hotel now to go and see one of your favourite bands perform - it’s a tough life, I know. 

Byyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Past Isa (10/07/16) 

“Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes  There beneath the blue suburban skies”

Dear Future Isa, 

You’ve spent TEN HOURS on trains today. TEN WHOLE HOURS. That’s as many as TEN ONES. And that’s NOT fantastic. Tbf though, you did spend several of those hours snoozing, especially on the last one (Stuttgart->Munich.) From central Munich, you got the S-Bahn out to a station with a long German name that you can’t remember right now. You think it had the word “Sid” in it for some reason?? You’ll ask Dad tomorrow. But anyway, at Sid station, Dad’s best friend Klaus (who lives nearby) was waiting to meet you, and gave you a lift to the hotel. He’s just as odd and eccentric as you remember from whenever you last saw him, and he’s one of those people who is highly entertaining without intending to be. You feel that he can be aptly summed up by 3 things he did this evening: 

During an otherwise quiet moment, and without any context, showed you a video on his phone of a dude being hit in the face with a football 3 times... complete with a very bavarian orchestral soundtrack, for some reason???

Was a speed demon in his audi on the Munich streets, all while blasting the aforementioned Beatles album

Responded to a photo of your kittens with a quiet “leetle.... they are leetle.” 

So yeah, that’s your trusted native for the week. He’s already given plenty of “stuff-to-do” suggestions, which all sound great - tomorrow, in fact, you’re going to eat lunch next to a waterfall where you can watch drunk people raft down the river.........................................and for some reason, again, this spectacle is apparently accompanied by a bavarian orchestra??? That is, according to Klaus, anyway. You can never quite tell if he’s being serious, but you really do hope there’s an oom-pah band next to that waterfall. 

Even if he is kidding, you still appreciate the heck out of his local knowledge and, y’know, driving you literally everywhere you want to go. Speaking of which, after he’d dropped you at the hotel, you quickly discovered that it is GREAT here. You have a double bend, ensuite shower, fully-stocked mini fridge and FOUR different choices of types of tea. This is definitely a different type of travelling to last year’s thoroughly budgeted interrail trip, but in this instance, different is a-okay. So, with that thought in mind, you’re going to go and sleep in the lovely double bed because hey, gotta be well-rested for a glorious continental breakfast. 

til soon. 

Past Isa (09/07/16)

“In our wheels that roll around As we move over the ground And all day it seems we've been in between A past and future town”

Dear Future Isa, 

It’s 1pm, and you’ve been awake for 8 hours already – this is Bad. Bad, as in Not Good, as in your head is gradually dipping down and feeling as though it weighs several kilos (kilos of feathers, or kilos of steel though?) It doesn’t help that the TGV you’re on is a lowkey sauna, except that everyone has more clothes on thank god. But yeah, you’re on the top deck of a 300km/h train which is currently storming its way through the French countryside, so now seems like as good a time as any for a recap post.

You woke up with the sunrise this morning, and briefly mourned for the morning-person capabilities that you seem to have lost recently. No stress though, after a shower and a cup of coffee you were…… actually yeah no, you were still exhausted. After ANOTHER cup of coffee though, you were wired af.

At 7am, the taxi arrived and you grabbed your impressively-small-but-ridiculously-heavy backpack, as well as your stressed Dad and sleepy Brother, and all of the above headed to the station. The train to London was uneventful, besides quizzing Dad about his favourite Game of Thrones characters (he’s up to season 2 now, and pretending not to know the gruesome ways in which they all die. Then, you arrived at King’s Cross and trekked across mountains, forests, and oceans, alllllllllllll the way to St. Pancras.

The next leg of the journey was the Eurostar – sidenote btw, if we’re calling each train a “leg” then this journey is a motherfucking centipede oh my gosh. The Eurostar was certainly the most attractive leg, the one you were looking forward to most, mostly due to the whole going under the ocean thing. No-one can tell you that isn’t the coolest thing ever. In hindsight, it was actually a bit of an anti-climax – but more on that later. Before you could board, you had to go through airport-style security, during which your brother set off the beeps, lol. You had yet another coffee after that, and then settled into the train-that-felt-more-like-a-plane-than-an-actual-plane-does. THERE WAS WIFI UNDER THE SEA but besides that, it was just kinda dark. If you were ever to make a Eurostar, you’d make the tunnel run along the sea floor, and have glass sides so you could see all the fish. Except then it would collapse. And everyone would die, maybe even some of the fish would too. Maybe stick to Not Making Eurostars.

Eventually, you rolled into Paris and walked from North Gare to East Gare, which didn’t take very long and only smelt of pee a little bit. At East Gare, you got to watch Dad order food in French, using the well-known “say all the unknown words in English, with a French accent” technique. It’s true that you could’ve helped out with your #IBskills, but hey, then it wouldn’t have been as entertaining. So, you ate your “amm ahnd chiz sondweech”, which tasted nicer because it was Not In England, and then you got onto this train – a 3.5 hour TGV to Stuttgart. There’s no wifi on this one, but there are some nice views, and some entertaining German men with bikes and excellent moustaches.

And that, just about, takes you up to the present moment – which is of course, a past moment for you. Oh, and a final note on the titles: you’ve decided to name these posts with album titles – specifically, the albums you’re listening to whilst you’re here. Each album will link to the post in some way, although you’re can’t promise that any of these links will be particularly intricate. It’s more a case of, “hey, I like these songs and I remember listening to them while doing this thing, or that thing.” So there you go, you get to cringe at your past self’s writing style AND music taste this time around.

For now though, ajuu paraplu.

Past Isa (09/07/16)

Dear Future Isa,

 It’s been a while now since you got back from the Big Apple, and you haven’t seen much over-sized fruit since then so you’re glad to have had this unique experience. You wish that you could honestly tell your future self that you’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on all the new shit you learnt since you got back, but that’d be a lie. You’ve been moving through the days one at a time, just as you did when you were in America, just with less of a daily struggle trying to help people understand your “super adorable” accent. It’s odd to think that it’s now been almost 2 months since you boarded your first long-haul flight, with panic in your eyes and phlegm in your throat. Ew.

And hey, if New York seems like a long time ago, then that means interrailing was practically during the era of Christ by comparison. If Christ was even a real thing, that is. (Too edgy? …too edgy.) One thing’s certain though: you have definitely caught the travelling bug. At the moment, you’re pretty much down for going anywhere as long as someone gives you a couple of hours notice so you can pack some snacks. However, current circumstances mean that instead of having those opportunities available everywhere, as they seemed to be over the summer, you now have other opportunities to focus on. Namely, university and all of the beautiful chaos that has come with it.

You’ve been living in halls for about a week now, and it’s gone absolutely nothing like the way you thought it would. Lectures are easy (for now, at least,) you’ve made friends with some unbelievably amazing people, and most surprisingly of all, you’ve done very little hermit-ing in your room in order to avoid social interaction at all costs. I know, cray.

You’re definitely still an introvert, but mostly thanks to travelling, at least you’re now an introvert who is sometimes vaguely capable of normal human conversation maybe possibly. Congrats on that one, dude.

But, to conclude, the purpose of this post is to remind you to say “yes” to things. You don’t have to go, like, Yes-Man on everything and end up like Jim Carey in that film you watched that one time, but at least promise you’ll always consider at least a “maybe.” Learn to get rid of that weird internalised anxiety that means your automatic response to “do you want to go to x?” or “are you coming to y?”, is a vague excuse. Don’t avoid things! They usually turn out pretty great! If you ever need to be reassured of that, just think back on this summer and how many times the word “yes” led to you seeing incredible things.

Fundamentally, you’re allowed to be an introvert – that’s totally chill by me and all your other past and future selves. BUT you’re not allowed to be an introvert who doesn’t let herself take a risk every once in a while. I promise you it will lead to many more great things.

Anywayyyyyyyyy.

I’m sure you’ll think of something to write for “Z” eventually…. So I’ll zee you zen.