A rekindled love affair ...

Alcohol has never been my drug. When I cast my thoughts back to my rambunctious days as a younger man at Allegheny College, and, let’s be honest, Carlisle High School, my relationship with this substance could be considered tenuous at best. To me, alcohol and I were like those two kids in your second grade class that were banned by the teacher from hanging out with each other, but did anyway, even though it always got them into trouble. Upon reviewing my experiences with this drug during the latter half of my tenure at Allegheny, I started to drift away from its practice and the crazed nights that come along with it. Why it took me this long to figure out that it is probably a good idea to actually remember most evenings, I'm not sure, but eventually the message got through.

But, drinking beer in England seemed to have a different effect on me than previous romances with this drug. In England, I have truly learned to love and respect beer; that is, real beer, ale, which is the top choice of true beer aficionados across the pond. When I consider the alarmingly poor and vile substances that would pass for beer during my days at Allegheny, I shudder with a strong buyer’s remorse. Just the idea of that thin, watery alcoholic substance known as Natural Light touching my lips makes me cringe, while the amounts I would typically consume fill me with repentance.

However, this week the Norwich Beer Festival revived a former love from the operating table of my relationship with alcohol. The Norwich Beer Festival houses approximately 3,000 different ales, local ales, non-ales and international beers every year for seven days during the city of Norwich’s nationally acclaimed ‘Real Ales’ festival. The festival is put on every year by the CAMRA foundation (CAMpaign for Real Ales), who take on the annual task of scouring the nation’s breweries in search of the kingdom’s finest ales to represent their respective breweries at the prestigious festival, known by the locals simply as, ‘Hangover Week.’

Last Tuesday (a day in which I had no class), I frequented the festival’s day session, running from early to mid-afternoon. (In addition to allocating the majority of one’s afternoon to ale drinking, it is also not uncommon for Norwich locals to take this entire week off from work in order to pursue their ale tasting). Of my session’s allocated hours of ale drinking, I spent them singularly in the local ales room, tasting everything from stouts to porters to pale ales, all from Norfolk County. Highlights include my favourite beer I have yet tasted in England, “Nelson’s Revenge” and a cracking good stout, “Old Stoatwobbler.” (And yes, I also noticed the correlation between the quality of the ale’s name and how good it tastes).

Through the consumption of many a fine ale in many a fine pub, as well as at the festival, my love of alcohol may have been partially restored from days past. If America taught me to eventually reject beer, than why did England restore my love of it? Or rather, to say it more correctly, living in England taught me to love beer, while America only taught me to love drinking. My past affiliations with alcohol brought me some fun times, sure, but regrettably few memories. And as I set off across the pond I assumed the alcoholic days of my past would be left behind, but I have become fascinated with these English Ales nevertheless. This paradoxical reality has me puzzled. With each day I spend living here, this nation has me more and more intrigued ... LW

Two things I learned at the Crystal Castles concert ...

I have heard many crazy stories about this band in performance, particularly regarding the band’s ex-heroin addict lead singer. Flanking the stage’s right hand side, there are four bottles of water and a couple towels (presumably to deal with perspiration and fatigue), and an enormous handle of Jim Beam whiskey. “Oh god. I’m in for an interesting night,” I think to myself while the aggressive sensation in my stomach starts to permeate elsewhere in my body.

The show starts. The first drum beat hits and reverberates through my substance-altered body while the band’s innovative mixer board pilot and cracked-out lead singer start putting on one hell of a performance. As my stomach starts to mellow out, the drug's feeling in the rest of my body kicks in. With each loud thump of the bass, I feel a shake all over, the drug's effect finally reaching it's full potential. The catchy riffs from the mixer board dance through my ears and around my head while the flashing psychedelic lights play games with my eyes. "Is this really happening?" I am asking myself now. The crazed lead singer seemed to be calling out towards me through her microphone, assuring me that indeed it was.

At this point in the night is where I discover the second portion of what I learned at the Crystal Castles concert: Crystal Castles are awesome. The band, which consists of a greatly skilled operator of the mixing board and a notorious lead singer who was, by unanimous opinion, “out of her goddamn mind,” put on an incredible show. Traditionally, my musical tastes, such as Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan and Prince, do not cater to this brand of electronic music, but Crystal Castles educated me immensely. Each time the heavy bass hooks would hit, sending at once the crowd up off their feet into the air, or when the partially insane lead singer would dive off the stage into the audience, I became more and more a believer.

Crystal Castles left a taste of electronic music in my mouth that perhaps will only be satiated by attending more concerts, but, hopefully, these will be concerts that I allocate substances more appropriately. I find that I am learning new things everyday ... ‘The More You Know’ ... LW

Finding the perfect word ...

It is a brisk, temperate and, for once all damn week, not rainy Sunday morning in London so, like all Sundays, I am set to commence in my weekly stroll through the winding streets and crowded city squares that make up the heartbeat of the city. From my hotel on Gower Street, I leave heading south on Tottenham Court Road and then take a quick break for a smoke, as I invariably do on these walks. I have a feeling that this one in particular will be of great quality. No particular destination is on my mind. I plan on wandering aimlessly, but with purpose, through this great city of so much character, letting my thoughts roam with the goal of coming up with one culminating statement on the city before I end my four-week Dickinson Humanities course and relocate to the University of East Anglia in Norwich on the following Wednesday.

I take Tottenham Court Road to Charing Cross Road and follow it to Liecester Square, the crime scene of a truly disappointing club I frequented the night before. From there I continue south, towards the river, the one destination that is never absent from these Sunday toke-and-strolls. I am now at Trafalgar Square, the great statue of Lord Admiral Nelson surrounded by the three great lions reminding me of England’s valour and bravery of wars past. I am standing at a crosswalk, waiting for the passing traffic to stop and for the little green man on the stop light to appear, signalling my right of passage. He appears, and I start to cross. I am a few feet from the curb, when a black Ford Fiesta comes whizzing towards me, honking its horn and runs through its red light, forcing me to step back quickly onto the curb. Filled with scorn and indignation, I search for some sort of insult that I can fling back at this disrespectful motorist. Something that will portray my annoyance, but nothing personal. Something that makes it clear how I feel about this person and their breach of societal rules, but nothing profane. The word comes. But not as a result of my search, but rather by instinct. It reaches my lips and I shout: “Wanker!”

Immediately, my indignation and sentiments of scorn and disrespect are dissolved at the hands of this word, this perfect word. My thirst for an insult towards this person was duly quenched with “Wanker,” for it proved to fit perfectly into its role. If I was in America, I probably would called the Ford Fiesta an ‘asshole,’ but this is far too harsh and I also respect the fact that I’m in public where profanity is not always welcome. The Ford Fiesta was not doing anything evil or wicked, but merely proving to be an annoyance. Not acting like an ‘asshole,’ but just being a wanker, as everyone does from time to time. The fact that I found this word instinctively now makes me feel gratitude towards this wanker, for I appreciate this opportunity to attune myself naturally to the English colloquial, even if it was just this once, before I leave London.

Chuckling a bit to myself after this comical encounter, a broad smile comes across my face as I realize I have reached my culminating statement of London. Or, it is not a statement but rather a short, individual event, so quintessentially English that I have nothing but thanks for the wanker in the Ford Fiesta as I now look back a couple of seconds after the event’s occurance. I cross the street. Contented and pleased, I decide it is time for another smoke before I reach the Thames ... LW

Mish Statement

I’ve been telling myself that I would do this for awhile, and now, it’s official, I have no excuses left. It may have been when I was talking with my flatmates about how I only have class three days a week, or that one of those days off is a Friday, or perhaps it was that I have yet to attend my Modernism seminar (at Allegheny, I would be over halfway done with the fall semester ... what the fuck?!) where I realized that I have a lot free time on my hands. The idea of writing some form travel blog for the duration of my stay in England (perhaps beyond?) seemed exciting, but time consuming. However, as much as I like an uphill argument, I find myself invariably defeated each time I attempt to enlist the “too busy” argument as an excuse for not embarking on this potentially rewarding blog.

So what will I be writing about? In short, I don’t know, but I’d like to think of this blog as the viewpoint of an American making humorous, yet socially penetrating, observations on the cultural norms surrounding me. This blog probably won’t contain all the crazy stories of the year. I won’t be writing about every time I do drugs off a supermodel’s body, about banging my TA or about one of my mates getting drunk in Amsterdam and fucking a prostitute ... you’ll have to get those stories from me personally (Eh ... maybe I'll sneak a few in, we'll see). Another reason for my choice in form is, frankly, I’m not much of a narrative writer; I’m more of an essayist, so that’s probably what you should expect.

I think the title of this blog “L.A. Wronski: Stud Abroad” is actually fairly relevant on the grounds of 1) I’m arguably a stud (just bear with me) and 2) I’m indisputably abroad and 3) isn’t the play on words with study abroad at least a bit funny? Originally, I wanted to do some sort of play on words with one of my favourite novels “Gulliver’s Travels,” but again I think that sounds more travel-bloggy (a quick heads up, I will make up words when I have to), but I think the idea of Stud Abroad focuses on what it is like to live abroad while simultaneously being a stud (a third heads up, if you’re not reading this and subsequent entries sarcastically, you should ...), which is ultimately what I aim to convey in this blog.

I hope anyone reading this doesn’t feel gypped for reading 400+ words about me starting a blog, as opposed to reading something of actual substance, but bear with me. If you have questions about being abroad and I feel I can adequately answer them in a blog, I will. If you have questions about being a stud, I will direct you to one of my many much more qualified friends to answer and will probably exclude them from the blog. In short, questions comments and feedback are very welcome, for this is a very new process for me and all opinions are relevant.

In short, I’m pretty pumped to be writing this sure-to-be-hilarious blog and hopefully it proves worthwhile to any readers. More entries coming soon ... LW