Home. This word now has a slightly different meaning to me now that I’ve been at a UWC; according to what I’ve always believed, home is in Austin, yet the saying that “Home is where you heart is” splits mine. Obviously Austin will always be home with friends and family and everything I’ve grown up with, but everyone at UWCAC have become a sort of family, and this place a Home. It’s something that my friends and I have discussed quite a bit, and we all have determined that the word “home” becomes a bit different, as even when I was in Poland [which you will read about in a later post] with the UWC National Committee, with them it even felt like home because of a sort of “UWC Family” or “United World” as it’s been called. So, to begin this post, I was going home from my International home to my Texan Home for the first time since settling into my UWC, wondering how everyone would be and if they would accept how I’ve changed, grown, or whatever else may have occurred.
I stayed a day with my wonderful link family in Llanmaes and was fed like I was a large rugby player [whom both of their sons are], with amazing sausage and eggs and a breakfast that made me nearly explode. Not to mention tea throughout the day that always warms you up in the drizzly welsh weather. At 8am the next morning I began my journey to the Llantwit Train Station with a grande sized luggage that was full of things I don’t need, and full of space for me to bring back things from home. I shot over to Bridgend to relay from there on a train that would take me to Reading, and then to take the Heathrow Express bus straight to my Terminal in Heathrow. It was nice to be in London again, and the navigation through Heathrow was fast and easy, despite the fact that I apparently look very suspicious and was checked a billion times. Hm…I go to an international school that’s part of a movement for international understanding and peace…how terrorist of me! Waited for a few hours, hopped on the jumbo sized trans-Atlantic plane, and sat down. Calm quick flight right? Ah, if only that could be so. I got the window seat which was nice, but little did I know that there would be about 20 raging drunk brits on the plane going to Chicago as well to relay off to Las Vegas to watch a fight…who did I sit next to? An extremely drunk Britt with a memory span of about 15 minutes, a will to teach me about the ways with women, and his determination to make me switch my flight and come with him and his lads to Las Vegas and then back to Manchester so that he could find me a “Manchester Woman”. Hm. How long is this flight? 6 ½ hours, but with the apparent strong headwind it was predicted at 8 ½ hours. Oh lord, this is going to be a toughy. However, I managed to sleep a bit [until he woke me up to offer me more advice on women…], eat the wonderfully amazing [cough cough] United Airlines food, and get off into American Soil. Because of the Headwind, the flight I was supposed to take out was waiting for us, but right as I went through customs I was sent away for being a Terrorist again. They looked through my stuff as I impatiently stood there, and I finally told the guy that this really wasn’t necessary and that I was quite sure I was about to miss my flight because of him. He grabbed my ticket, realized that I had nearly no time to get to my plane, grabbed my bag and said “run”. So I ran through the plane and jumped on the psycho Chicago train to get to the terminal, ran to terminal number 12, and got on my plane. Ah, what a relief, a small plane with my own two seats, time to sleep…luckily this flight was only 2 hours. I literally slept the whole way, right until the lights turned on and we prepared for Landing…I looked out and it was hard to believe that the last time I had seen this part of the world was nearly three months earlier, and that I was in Texas on the other side of the world, finally coming home. I turned on my phone and a barrage of text messages appeared to greet me, which was kind of funny since over here it’s too ridiculously expensive to receive texts or calls on my cell phone and I only use it for an alarm clock. Oh, I forgot to mention that in order to make sure my weight limit was hit, I pull the whole Poisonwood Bible trick and wear a heckload, aka 5 pairs of boxers, 3 pairs of socks, two shirts a sweater and a hoodie, and a scarf. So, I tend to look like an abominal snowman. I walked out into the airport to the familiar sight of “Keep Austin Weird”, BBQ, and all that is in Austin, something I love compared to the other impersonal airports that really don’t contain anything related to the nature of where it is located. I got onto the escalator to go down to get my luggage, and about halfway down I saw a massive sign saying “Welcome Home” with my friends and my family, which was quite ironic because I waved at them and NONE of them except for Mary even recognized me. I got down, tackle hugged them all, my mom kept pinching my cheek to make sure I was real, and I got my luggage and hugged them all. It was great. Also, my luggage was lost, and because of my hectic situation in Chicago we just did some quick things and they sent it to us the next day.
The whole of winter break was such a blur, with heckloads of Fire bowl Thai food with pad thai and spicy coconut soup, seeing friends and realizing how much I missed them, and being thankful that I had actually changed for the better and that everyone was still as close as ever. It was so nice to be back, and so nice to DRIVE! However, um, driving was a bit interesting at first…my brain is confused because I don’t drive here at all, but my brain is on the left hand side when I’m here, and now that I was back I could see both ways and it was strange. So to help, I drove around the neighborhood for quite a while just to adjust. I went to Westwood which was a strange experience, and kept having to sneak through the back door because I didn’t want to go through the whole annoying taking my picture thing. It was great to see Mohr, Kirk, pretty much everyone. A funny experience was me bringing lunch to Jake since he was a dingbat and didn’t have money to buy lunch, so I walked into the building with subway sandwhiches [defreakinglicious] and my old World History Teacher opened up the door for me with this look that was a mix between confusion and a bit of sweet justice because he still thought I was a student and was therefore breaking the rules. I told him that I was bringing my brother lunch, he asked a question pointing out that I should be in a class, and then I informed him about what I was doing and that I was just bringing my brother lunch. He just seemed thoroughly confused, but nonetheless “let me off”. The next weekend I went with Layne and crew [aka the whole of the Sun Dancers, a hardcore Dancing squad at Westwood, my old school] to a Ranch for and winter social, with tons of Mexican food, smores, dancing, pool, and everything else that you can do on a ranch. It was fun to be back with them because of being an escort the year before.
Christmas was amazing, to have food and family together and to be back among the familiar Texas accents and customs, and the presents were great and often hilarious, some being some rattlesnake rattlers collected at our ranch, some fried pork skin, a robe [because everyone has them here and I don’t!], and some rockin noise canceling headphones from my aunt and uncle for any future flights with drunk brits… We also had a chance to go down to South Padre with the family, visit lovely Grandmama who was as hilarious as ever, and then into Nuevo Progresso over the border into mexico for my massive craving of Auturos, the restaurant that we’ve been going to for as long as I can remember. Ah, and how could I forget, a big bag of Leche Quemada to bring back here.
In TGIFs waiting for the food...
Zach and I had a competition to see who could jump over the entire cow.
New years was with friends, seemingly tradition to go to Cat’s house and have food, go outside by the Chimanea and talk until we go inside and pull the little firecrackers all over the place. Some more fun, some more food and attempts to keep the fire going, and I wandered back to my casa with Joel [whom I get to be British with] to hang out.
Ah yes, the departure came, the whole WAHHH sort of leaving that occurred as I walked into my gate through the passage to the plane, I sit down, and I’m ready to fly back “home”. Thankfully that was easy! HAH! Yeah, tell that to United Airlines as their plane’s engine wouldn’t start… So at this point I was pretty sure It was an omen telling me to not go, so we sat on the plane for approximately three decades, and then queued up to rebook our tickets. I was booked a ticket in a larger American Airlines flight that was leaving soon, and once I got on I found out I had a full row…ah, yes. Nice flight to Chicago, and in Chicago I decided to get a massive Burrito to prevent myself from having to suffer through Airline food, which is becoming more and more the dread of my existence. So, I had my black bean and chicken burrito, went to my terminal, and sat down. A few seconds later they started to call first class passengers [hah], so I checked my ticket to see what seat section I was in. Hm, there wasn’t a seat number, it just said “First”. Are you kidding me. SERIOUSLY? Oh wow, heavens above, they actually booked me in First class all the way from Chicago to London…amazing. So I walk down the passage to the plane, and for the first time in my life, I turn LEFT instead of right into the cabin, entering heaven. Woah, decked out bed of a seat with a touch screen plasma and a desk with newspapers and a sleep set?! Amazing. The flight attendents literally treated us like royalty, most likely because I was the little redneck international child looking confused amongst actual royalty, except I’m quite sure the guy next to me was a complete hick because he looked as fascinated as I was. We started out the flight with a mimosa or two, then some warm roasted assorted nuts and amazing cheeses. Dang. So for the rest of the trip I watched a movie, slept, had the best steak of my life, ate a salad, had an omlette for breakfast, had the biggest ice cream sundae the world has ever dared to make, and soaked it all in. Once I landed the Lindsay’s had even set up a private service that would drive me to their house, as it was funny to see my name on a sign when once I had grabbed my baggage. Hm, that trip was quite a bit better than the others…
As you can see, I thoroughly enjoyed my winter break, and was glad to be back into the Austin groovyness with everyone and to get to go downtown again to the places that symbolize home. I have to admit though, I thoroughly missed everyone here and was excited to come back, but I didn’t want to leave. So, thank you all for being groovy, and I love you all very much.
Kirby/Kevin/Whatever your choice may be.
P.S. Everyone I'm writing blogs as fast as I can, but there's so many things to type up it will take me a while...so just keep checking!
