Rolling Lonliness

I am alone.

I awoke to the realization that I am in a foreign country, barely speak their language, and I don't know anyone. I had been awoken at 7 AM from the sun outside my window and wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep and maybe wake up in my bed at home and think this was all a nightmare.

I didn't.

I woke up at 9:30AM and hauled ass to the 7th floor to eat some breakfast. It was a free meal and I wasn't about to pass it up. Eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, bacon, and every type of fruit I could ever want, how could I pass on this? I was lost in the awe of the view of the city. Hundreds, no thousands, of little apartment like houses for as far as I could see to my left and to my right there was a fog covered mountain with more houses upon it sparsely dispersed. As I watched the streets below I saw plenty of cars and trucks passing by. This city sure loves its compact SUVs, Trucks, Chevy Aveos, and VW Beetles. The old ones. I saw four of them pass by the Hotel within 20 minutes. I can count how many VW Beetles I've seen in the last six months.

After I returned my room I became all sorts of depressed again and began to zone out. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had been abandoned by Mary, who I thought was a friend, but all of my female friends eventually leave me. I started to think back to my flight last night.

My flight from Ohio to Houston was nothing special. I now sympathize with BA Baracus. Flying can be terrifying. By happenstance I had met another lost soul on their way to Quito for studies. For four hours we just discussed everything: our complaints with the plane, school, our trips, our plans for after school, and anything that came to mind. It was a one in million chance that happened but she eased my fears for this trip and restored some confidence within myself.

I never got her name, I think it was Allison, there was no formal hello nor goodbye, and I don't have a picture. I think it's better this way. I can still see her walking away one last time. She'll never know how much she did for me or how much she means to me.

Goodbye Allison.

NOTES

You're not crazy, I changed the name of the blog from "Journey to End" to "Las Adventuras de el Gringo Loco. As much as I love Rancid and that song, it didn't fit. I think this one is more fitting and I am aware that it may not be grammatically correct. It sounds better though and Los Gringos Locos is one of the best tag teams ever. :P Just sayin'.

There's a lot more that happened today but I'll save that for another time.

Oh God...

Where do I begin?

I'm listening to Great Expectations for the 50th time in the last hour (<3 The '59 Sound) while I drink a beer and tell the Internet all about my fears for tomorrow. In the last week I've finished finals, said goodbye to people I hope to see again, moved out of Athens, said hello and goodbye to my high school friends in one sweep, and found out that my friends relationship's have crumbled.

I was going through my books, trying to find something to take me to Ecuador, and I stumbled upon Women by Charles Bukowski. It's my favorite of his. I opened it up and I read the line:

"I masturbated regularly, but the idea of having a relationship with a woman - even on nonsexual terms - was beyond my imagination."

It's 3 AM, I'm drinking in my parent's basement (I've only had one, relax), and one of the most comforting thing I can find is from a Bukowski novel. I am a melodramatic mess.

Welcome to my blog.

I make no promises that this will be funny or insightful. In fact, past this post, I don't make any promises that I will be making any more posts. I don't care if anybody reads this (please do) because I am doing this for myself. Fuck OEA (Ohio of Education Abroad). They rejected me to write blogs for them but it's ok I was going to do this anyway. Maybe I'll post what I wrote for them. Just remember, if this is terrible, you click the x in the upper right (or left if you're using OSX/Ubuntu) you can close this window and I no longer exist.

In 9 hours I am going to Ecuador.

Why am I going to Ecuador?

This is like saying "Captain Kirk is climbing a mountain, why is he climbing a mountain?" There's no logical answer besides "because he can." I've spent countless nights trying to figure this out and I don't have a reason other than because I have to. I find it amusing that for the last three years I have been studying Chinese and now I am going to a Spanish speaking country. After three years I realized that I don't like Chinese all that much. It doesn't sound nice to me. I should've stuck with Spanish. Sorry mom.

This post feels like it's all over. I know I've made several references to inside jokes and incidents that not everyone knows about. Do you ever watch the community? I feel like the character Abed. I make lots of references to TV, movies, games, and aspects of my life that not everybody gets. If there's anything that you don't get just Google it.

I suppose this post should be about Ecuador, or at least mention it a few times, and my feelings about the whole matter. I am terrified. There is nothing that I could've done to prepare myself for the trip that I have ahead of me. Everyone keeps telling me "Good luck" which is nice but I wish they would've stopped there. It's always followed by something like "please come back." Am I being naive or do we know nothing about South America?

Alright I better go to bed. Or go back to packing. I haven't quite finished packing yet and I have to be at the airport around 10:30. Yikes. I don't know when I'll get Internet again but hopefully the hotel tomorrow will have it. I will post my thoughts about the flight and there's some things I've been meaning to say but I haven't had the time to iron them out.