Alex's Alliterative Adventures

I have no choice but to give Ryan Air a terrible review. Yes, the ticket was cheap. Yes, the flight arrived early. Yes, my plane was pleasantly free of snakes of any noticable size. BUT I CAN’T HEAR. My right ear has been plugged for almost 12 hours. In my last-minute rush, I forgot to bring gum to chew on for the descent. I’m also mildly sick. However, the real culprit here is clearly Ryan Air; their planes simply have shitty cabin pressure, and we all know that poor cabin pressure leads to angry passengers, which leads to civil unrest, which leads to terrorism. And so, the reason for my negative review:

Ryan Air hates democracy.
And kittens.

Well, I’m leaving in under 3 hours to catch a bus, then a plane, then a train, then a taxi, then a couch. After that, some stuff should happen.

For those of you in the london area, give me a ring for a pint or two. This is not a request.

I’ll be back on Sunday. See you cats later.

So I’m a lazy ass, and I still haven’t uploaded the pictures. I probably won’t get it done any time soon, since there are a lot of other things on my plate which always seem to take priority. For example, booking my tickets to London.

I’m probably not going to cause too much anarchy in the UK while I’m there from the 5th to the 10th. At the moment, I don’t know how the trip will work out. I could be crashing with any combination of family members, friends, family members of friends, hostels, and random internet stalkers. I’ve had a few choice locations and activities recommended to me as things-I-must-do-or-suffer-eternal-regret, but my actual plans consist of a vague, fuzzy picture of people calling each other chap as they spin in the lorry for a quid, tally-ho. If you guys have any travel recommendations, I’d love to hear them.

When I get back, I spend around 2 days studying for each of my exams, then I say my final goodbyes to Sankt Lars. I’ll be floating to Oslo on the 17th, arriving on the 18th, and floating back for the 19th. I’ll spend a brief morning in Copenhagen and do my best to ingrain every last memory I’ve taken from these past four months, then I’m airborne and Canada-bound. Even though I’m definitely going to return to Europe in a few years and rekindle some of the amazing friendships I’ve made here, there’s an air of finality that I just can’t shake. As a coop student, the only constant in my life has been change; when you leave everyone you know for a new city every four months, you get used to wiping the slate clean without batting an eye. I never realized it before, but what I used to think were endings were simply pauses. Just when I think I’ve left people behind for good, I’ll bump into Chris Charlton at 2am on a Sunday night outside of the Burlington go station, or I’ll pass Pratik on the street in two separate cities in the span of two weeks. It’s true what they say, it’s a small world. I guess my small world is just feeling a bit bigger.

A less melancholy thought: There is almost nothing in this world that I like better than swapping philosophies with an eloquent stranger. There’s a sense of reaffirmation that’s undeniable about knowing that other people are just as bewildered as you are, and there are few things more satisfying than helping one another pick up the pieces when you’ve opened each other’s eyes to truths so beautiful they bring your worldview to its knees.

Pip pip, jolly good, ya wanker.