Monday, August 4, 2008

Goin' solo with no panini

My feet pounded down on the pavement, briefly feeling the tiny indents in the concrete. Every few seconds, water crashed over me, sometimes chilling my clothes, other times feeling warm and relaxing on my skin. My face got wet and I closed my eyes, wiping them and then raising my eyelids to see the big chair.

My mouth curved to make a smile. I squeezed out my Michigan shirt and picked up the frisbee.

I was at the fountains in Geneva, across from the U.N.

Speak to me, wish you could see- you're always on my mi-ind.
The things you do are your pursuits, try to keep your distance, I know your kind ...

I had that part of the song stuck in my head all day and would keep lip syncing it. (Your Kind {Speak to Me} by Danger Radio)

We stayed there for like 15 minutes and then I went home on the bus all by myself. I had met Erez and Oren at the Gare Cornavin (train/tram/bus station in Geneva) at around 2 and we got lunch and stuff. I was hungry. I wanted a panini. We walked past several people sitting on the sidewalk, asking for money and some street musicians. I even saw this girl with her knees bent forward, which was kinda...unnerving. The panini place wasn't there anymore. Ugh. It was a trailer, so I guess they ran out of 'em and moved. I was so bummed. But we went into the co-op and got pizza. I got salami picante, which is like pepperoni. It was really really good. I also gulped down my lemon iced tea, which was so dang good. We sat down at this plaza-type thing. Lots of pigeons and stuff. And then there was something really quite...interesting that happened.

There were these like 3 people sitting to the right of us, a few yards away and this one lady was like yelling at this older-looking guy, and there was this other guy who was also yelling with a cigarette in his mouth. There were a handful of beer cans around them, and they smoked. So everyone was yelling at each other. Eventually the older guy went and sat by a tree, glaring at the lady. But the rest of them eventually followed him there and gathered around, doing hand gestures and giving off fierce looks. The one was still blowing off steam, and then like two other people joined in. I don't even know if they were speaking French. It was really weird. But rather entertaining. I mean, these people were literally yelling, as if they were in some play. And they seemed to be pretty oblivient to the fact they were doing this in public, where lots of people walked past. Erez, sitting next to me, first commented that he thought it was quite entertaining. I said back, "And they're making it just so public," He said, "Oh yeah, totally." Geez. Definitely drunks. But we left eventually, still hearing the yelling and I could still see the yellowish eyes of the man sitting next to the tree. Creepy.

So then we walked around downtown Geneva, passing the carnival-like rides and stuff. There was a festival going on. Oren wanted to do bumper cars, but Erez and I were like, "it's more little kids, man". We got ice cream in the Cornavin mall. Oren set a record pretty much, because he literally took like 10 minutes to decide what ice cream to get. Geez. He would stare at the thing, picking up one package, then deciding against it, and picking up a different one. Then he'd go back to the other one. Argh. Eventually he finally picked one and we waited for our bus to come. We rode it to the fountains and yeah.

Today was cool. I feel accomplished. Sure, it's not really even that big of a thing. But I rode the bus by myself to the Cornavin and back home. Plus, I bought my own ticket and may I remind you, I'm in a different country. Yeah whatever. Sure sure, all I had to do is stand up on the bus and like, give the machine money. Yeah well I'm just saying.

It's weird though, being so independent like that. Like, you suddenly just feel so...by yourself and alone and almost vulnerable. It's a nice feeling, though. You're just...you don't have to talk to anyone, you're just by yourself with your own thoughts.

Riding the bus there, I had that "Speak to me" song stuck in my head like I said. A lot of the people had iPods. Heck, every other person had an iPod here it seemed. I hope I get my new one soon. Anyway. And then I would try to get a different song stuck in my head. I tried Bicycle Race, but I kept going back to the Speak to me part. So annoying. It's a good song and all, just when your brain plays it over and over, it starts to get...redundant. So that's what I did on the bus. I checked my watch and wondered what my friends back home were doing. It was around 8am there, so I thought they'd be sleeping or something. Yeah so. I haven't gotten a comment on my posts for like...years. Does anyone even read my blog anymore? Ugh.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey-I see you have "one" by apocalypta (sp?) on your playlist--have you heard the original 'one" by Metallica?
-becca b

Amelia said...

No I haven't actually. I might check it out. Thanks for commenting.