Cold Summer

I got back from Rome last night. I had a wonderful time staying with my glorious friend Sara Pine and her mother and stepfather. We walked an enormous amount and ate an enormous amount. It was very hot and very humid; there is nothing quite like dripping sweat. Italy won a World Cup match while we were there, it was great watching all the celebrations. I walked through the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basillica, the Colloseum, the Spanish steps, the Jewish Ghetto, and the Forum during my two full days there so I venture to say that we made the most of it. Sara is intent on learning Italian now and she may even move to Venice in early September. I'm writing on my flatmate's computer now (there isn't wireless or an available connection here either though that should change in the next week or so) but I'll have pictures posted tomorrow most likely.

I've found a new place to live. Glasgow, my newest city, is on the West coast of Scotland even though it's a fifty minute train ride from Edinburgh, the East coast. No wonder I'm so much more comfortable here, I've always been a West coast girl.

I live in a neighborhood called Pollockshields in a two bedroom tenement with a 33 year-old woman named Kate Deeming. She's an American filmmaker and performance artist who has lived in Scotland for 7 years, after getting her Masters in theatre here. Kate owns the flat that we live in so it's very well maintained, clean, spacious, and beautiful. She reserves the bedroom that I'm living in for visiting artists: the rent is great, the room is beautiful and the bed is very comfortable. Today we walked to the organic green grocer's and a bread shop together near the flat and cooked dinner together. She fried sea bass and I roasted my potatoes and made a blue cheese/balsamic vinegar salad. She's very spiritual and talkative; she reminds me a great deal of Allison actually. When I came by to look at the place she was baking chocolate chip cookies. Today her staff (she's an Easy Going Boss at a film company) came over for breakfast and I got some great pancakes out of it.

So after getting a fix of Justin, finding a beautiful and stimulating place to live, getting a fix of Sara, and coming home to pancakes... I feel much better. I picked up a paying gig from Nokia while I was in Helsinki so I'm even making a wee bit more money this month than I thought I would be. So rest easy, I'm safe and adjusting to the Other Side a lot better now.

The one rather unexpected development that has slowly dawned on me is that I really am happy to be an American. I'm also pretty spoiled by it. I never considered myself to be a privileged member of society but I see now that the bottom line in the US is fabulous. In small cities we can get high-speed internet, fruit and vegetables, running water, working amenities, and a washer/dryer set. The things we (or I at least) have always taken for granted are the most obvious. I always assumed that the rest of the developed world had a similar standard of living. What a critically untrue assumption! Though I still don't agree with our foreign policy, or a lot of our civil policies for that matter, I have a greater appreciation for the efficient, self-regulating, logical, and luxurious systems of human management that we do have in the US. We are so lucky and so much richer than the rest of the world. It blows my mind and fills my heart with gratitude for my circumstance of birth.