Lunacy

Consider me the moon 3:16 by Lunacy

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I watch the world in wonder as I look at the world and wonder. 

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Mind the Gap

London is hot in the summer. Little kids who speak in British accents sound so proper. Kopperberg Strawberry Kiwi Cider is the best thing ever...aside from English breakfasts. Foxes are like London’s raccoons. Everything is expensive, I try to figure each pound is about $2. Buying an Oyster card was so helpful since I rode the Tube everywhere and the Underground was fairly easy to navigate. Just be sure to Mind the Gap, I watched a women drop her iPad into “the Gap” and it was never to be retrieved. 

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Americans Can’t Roll Cigarettes

Noah and I went out to a pub where his friend’s were playing a gig that night where we danced and sang along to cover songs recreated by jazz musicians and a phenomenal female vocalist. I ended up outside and impressed a Swedish guy with my cigarette rolling skills, since apparently Americans are incapable of rolling a decent stog. 

When the pub closed, eight of us piled into a four person taxi cab and he drove us to the next open club. The DJ was the only one dancing, but the real highlight was the bathroom. Inside there was an attendant who dispensed my soap, turned the faucets for me, and towel dried my hands. I think my gratitude was a little overbearing because he laughed at me when I kept thanking him for each step and afterwards he gave me a lollipop. If I ever need a butler, I’m going to hire this man. 

On our way home, I rode in the front seat at the top of the red double decker bus and watched a storm brewing ahead while I told bad Italian jokes to Patrick. At our stop, we flagged a taxi to get us the rest of the way home. The exact moment the taxi opened its doors, the storm arrived, and the rain began. We collectively had 10 pounds for cab fare, and sure enough, the moment the meter hit 10, we were at the doorstep to Noah’s flat. 

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Westminster Abbey

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Big Ben.

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The Great Eye

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London

It had been 38 hours of no sleep, and I finally arrived in London at Heathrow airport. Customs questioned me for a good twenty minutes about where I was going, when I was leaving, the amount of money in my bank account, my dating life, everything. It’s hard to take security seriously when they speak in British accents and you’re in a dreamlike state. 

My T-Mobile service allows me free international data, unlimited text and $.20 a minute calling to US numbers, however, it takes the data a while to finally kick-in when I arrive in a new country. Because of this, I had no way of reaching Noah. I hadn’t seen him since my freshman year of high school, and even then we had only met briefly at the Empyrean Coffee House. When I had posted online that I was traveling to Europe, he was quick to invite me to stay with him and his wife Anna. It’s really amazing how hospitable people are to travelers. A stranger on the Picadilly line let me use his cell phone to call Noah and I met him and his beautiful wife Anna at the station. 

By the time we got to his flat it was midnight. I sat upon the front porch and smoked my cigarettes while I reveled in thought of what an unbelievable day it had been as I watched a fox prance through the street. I had spent the morning drinking mimosas in a New York cafe, screamed and cheered for Germany in the World Cup finals at a Manhattan bar, flown over Greenland where I saw the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced on Earth when a rainbow radiated out of the horizon and the Big Dipper twinkled out my window, watched day break over the icy Atlantic, spent the day in Iceland, and was finally in London. I had never been able to definitively say that one particular day was the best day of my life due to the fact that I’ve had some pretty incredible days, but after 14 July, 2014, nothing will ever compare.

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I arrived at the Keflavík Airport at 6:30 and I had not slept, nor was I in any hurry to. I had until 16:30 before I flew to London, so I intended to soak up every drop of Iceland I could. I was, for the first time in my life, completely alone and loneliness was the last thing on my mind, I finally felt free. 

The first thing I noticed was how small and personable the airport was. It was not a high security, white walled maze of terminals. It had wood paneling and art on the walls with windows all around. Despite the lack of security it possessed in comparison to American airports, it felt inexplicably more safe.

Taking my first steps on foreign soil, I breathed deep the salty, wet air that tasted like the ocean. I will always remember the taste on my tongue of Iceland air. 

The Flybussen took me down a small, two lane highway that followed the shore. The land in Iceland looks like it has never been touched by the hand of man. It is rugged and raw, untilled, untouched, and unexploited. Volcanic rock is strewn through grassy fields and the ocean seems to kiss the grassy shore. Flocks of hundreds of small black birds danced around the shoreline.

 I noticed there were rock sculptures of people along the roads edge, keeping watching of the drivers below. Scattered, lonely houses were dotted along the way. Each miles from the next, never closely clustered or overly extravagant. They seemed to just be speckled in seemingly random locations, but they never appeared invasive to the scenery. Their presence added a certain simplicity. 

It was the red house that caught my eye. It was placed so perfectly amongst the vivid green grass and the waving oceans edge that it resembled a painting. Retracing my route on Google Maps I was able to locate the exact house on street view here  https://www.google.com/maps/@64.0198017,-22.1439078,3a,15y,2.78h,87.17t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sWgqCJ78dJOwJFVkCVw30aQ!2e0 

Walking through the neighborhoods into Reykjavik I stumbled upon a large open park with a fountain in the middle. I stayed here for a while and picked flowers and let the morning unfold unto me on a park bench. Making my way into the town centre, I found myself charmed by its timeless, delicate nature that still made way for modern artistic flair. Street art highlighted every empty wall and every corner seemed to have a secret waiting for you to find it. I put some of Dan’s stickers on one of the walls, so there will always be a piece of him there. 

I found a record store, but they were sold out of Sigur Ros albums, of course. I guess they really are as popular there as you would think. 

I made my way to the beach, and sat for hours upon a stack of volcanic rocks, staring out at the sailboats in the bay. Cliffs of green loomed in the distance were made visible when the misty clouds of ocean air broke apart. Everything was slow-paced and took time to breathe. I was exhausted and  fueled off of nothing short of pure bliss by the end of the day. I felt like I was in a dream the whole time. It still feels like a dream. 

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https://www.google.com/maps/@64.0198017,-22.1439078,3a,15y,2.78h,87.17t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sWgqCJ78dJOwJFVkCVw30aQ!2e0 

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Street art in Reykjavik. 

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Sunrise over Greenland. 

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This empty Northern Hemisphere. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffrz7XUCUr0

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Daybreak over Greenland. 

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She’s still got infinity ahead of her. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84i7zQ_ACnU

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Heaven

I departed at 20:30 from JFK airport in New York City, and the sky quickly darkened as we began our ascent into the sky. We begin flying North along the Atlantic coastline, that I tracked on the screen in front of me, taking note of all that I was soaring above. As the night progressed and as we ventured farther North, there appeared a faint light in the distance. We continued towards it, and the light continued to grow. It gleamed like a rainbow, stretching to infinite distances across the horizon line. The closer we approached it, the more colours it displayed, radiating a green haze all around it. I looked straight out my window and I saw the Big Dipper keeping watch, but this time, I wasn’t looking up to the heavens at my Guardian Constellation, we shared the same plane of sky, occupying similar horizons simultaneously. I felt as if I were swimming in the vast heavens that always felt so far from my Earthbound feet. Immersed in wonder, I then witnessed the most vibrant shooting star I’ve ever seen dance across the sky. It was so incredibly perfect and magical that it brought me to tears.

We continued above Greenland, where I looked below me at hundreds of white crusted mountains that I imagine no man has ever trodden. The rainbow still luminescent behind the jagged skyline of peaks was giving way to the birth of a new day. It was 4:30 when the most powerful sunrise was born. Its rays radiated across the ocean and spanned the horizon in bright red streaks that reflected off the ice.  

This truly must be heaven.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CiNzRL1HIaU