Uncreated Conscience

I cannot decide whether the landscape of Austria looks familiar or like a fairytale. A bit of both, perhaps. At times I am reminded of New England and Pennsylvania Dutch country, and at others I’m thinking it’s MOTHERFUCKING AUSTRIA.

No, it is the hills that are distinctly foreign and fairytale-ish, alternately covered in patches of forest and rolling green. The hills of Vermont and Pennsylvania are similar, but seem more like an artist painting a picture from memory rather than life.

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• JJ: It was Psychic Roommate, me, and every 8-year-old boy in England—or people who might as well have been 8-year-old boys—at the Doctor Who Experience.
• Mum: So I imagine you fit right in.

As she is my Mum, I suppose she knows me best. But yeah, I really am an 8-year-old boy at heart, aren’t I?

White-Harp at the Haus der Musik.

Today and tomorrow are for music.

I came to Austria for one purpose, and that was to fangirl Mozart. Is it strange to admit a crush on a dead genius? The irony of these days being for music is that I have broken my headphones on the way over and therefore cannot listen to any. How gauche and American could I get, to wander Stephansplatz in search of an Apple store and coffee to go?

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Die Amerikanerin in Osterreich.

I am out of my depth.

Unlike Oxford, I came to Vienna to become verloren, to become lost. But I didn’t realize exactly how unmoored I would feel. Language barriers–normally never much trouble for me–suddenly seem insurmountable. I am passable in Spanish (once fluent, but now no longer), can get by in French, and can read Italian and Portuguese, but German is overwhelming. It is overwhelming because it is unfamiliar, and my paltry practiced phrases dry up in the face of actual speakers. It also doesn’t help I’m the sort of person whose travels are dictated by whim and impulse, and this includes ignoring and leaving behind my guidebook in search of spontaneous adventure. However, my guidebook also contained a useful glossary of German words and phrases, but I can say Servus, ich heisse JJ, und ich bin Amerikanerin and Sprechen Sie Englisch? all I like, but it won’t make a difference, for I cannot escape what I am: a gauche tourist.

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On Will & Lyra's bench in the Oxford Botanical Gardens.

Oxford doesn’t feel like mine.

It’s a funny thing to say about a city, but it’s true. It should perhaps be the funnier thing that I assume it should feel like mine, but I do. It’s the city which engendered Alice and Éowyn and Lyra–especially Lyra, dear Lyra–so I thought I would find a measure of my childhood here. I don’t.

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So I’m going to try and transcribe what I’ve handwritten in my journal about the past few days.

• Guest: Which one of Nita’s brothers are you: the Philosopher or the Doctor?
• Bear: I’m the Doctor.

See, I always knew I was dating a 900-year-old time-travelling alien. ♥ ♥

(It’s not often my geekery and my romantic life overlap in such a way as to bring me such intense nerdly joy.)

If you follow me on Twitter or Tumblr (especially Tumblr), then you know I am a huge fan of Doctor Who, and that I am a huge fan of David Tennant’s run as the Tenth Doctor, and that Catherine Tate as Donna is my favourite companion. They are performing as Beatrice and Benedick in a West End production of Much Ado About Nothing, and I wanted nothing more than to see them before the run ended (which, incidentally, is tomorrow).

Sometimes, if you wish really hard, magical things happen.

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Waiting to leave.

I don’t sleep on the flight from Newark to Heathrow, which is strange because I’ve always been able to sleep on planes. I don’t sleep but I doze, a restless, fitful state that is neither restful nor refreshing. I had hoped to arrive in London having fooled my body into believing it had gotten a good night’s rest.

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The word “vacation” is brilliant. Not only does it signify wonderful things, but it also contains the word “vacate”, which pretty much accurately sums up the condition of my brain right now. All thoughts, intelligent commentary, etc. have vacated my brain.

Next week I am off for an extended jaunt across Europe, the first proper holiday I’ve taken in 2 years. Ostensibly, I’m in England for Bear’s sister’s wedding, but after that I will gallivanting off to Austria before returning to London and showing Psychic Roommate my old haunts. I fully intend to read nothing but published books and give my work brain a rest.

Unfortunately, vacation brain tends to ignore the fact that I have a million things to sort out before I leave. A million. Vacation brain tells me my energy is better spent stuffing my face with Cheetos and watching old episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and Gargoyles (still brilliant–both totally pass the nostalgia test) instead of doing anything productive or useful. In fact, vacation brain pretty much looks like this:

Okay, JJ. Focus. FOCUS.