At Northwestern, I know two people who took a gap year. In London, it’s much less of an anomaly. One of my flatmates worked full-time at a grocery store for half a year to save up for spending half a year in India. Many others take at least half a year to travel Europe, or just save up for uni. It’s definitely a different perspective on career.

Every time a Northwestern friend tells me about his or her fabulous internship, it sounds like they’re taking one step closer to being a career person — and getting a job is what growing up is all about, right? The idea of going home to Ann Arbor, Mich. wasn’t an option for me this summer. I’d rather work three jobs so I could hold an internship because not having something related to my career seemed like a waste of time. Even my friends from my hippie-tastic home who took a gap year seem to do it out of necessity for money. And often times, they still took classes at a community college.

Having a gap year to find yourself or to see the world just doesn’t seem like an option, an archaic idea better left to the Beat Generation. In London, it’s not. I’ve met plenty of people who took the gap year not because they had to but because they want to. They want to do things like find themselves, see the world and things like that — not career things.

Perhaps it is because we attend Northwestern whose population is admittedly driven. Or perhaps it’s an English cultural difference. Perhaps you aren’t as defined here by your occupation as much as in the States. And if Willy Loman has taught Americans nothing, it’s that we really, really care about our jobs.

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One of my most enjoyable experiences traveling abroad has been staying in hostels with a motley crew of impoverished students and professionals in their late twenties and thirties who’ve decided to travel the world for six months instead of buying a Ferrari. Meeting a bunch of strangers from all over the world who are as disoriented and out of place as you are is one of the most genuinely European experiences I’ve ever had. It’s like The Real World but with less sex and fewer rednecks.

Being at a university with more than 200 mostly American exchange students makes it hard to make real British friends. It is weird hanging out exclusively with 18-year-olds who are drinking and experiencing freedom for the first time — be honest, would you want to be best friends with you right out of high school? I don’t — and the juniors already have their friendship circles, all live off-campus and have seen enough Americans so you can’t even play the novelty card. And then there’s the ton of traveling which you will inevitably do, seeing as you’re already in Europe and you only have to get Cs in your classes.

Hostels are among the few places where you can really become friends with people who are in the same boat as you are. You have a lot of beers with strangers, get great travel advice (hint: Sandeman’s free tours are excellent), random lessons in geography (The Grenadines is not where Shirley Temple is from unless she’s from the Caribbean), and have uncomfortable encounters which inevitably make for fantastic stories. For example, I was proposed to in Bruges because I am “not bad looking,” (the charmer’s words, not mine) and American. Apparently, the guy wanted to become an American citizen and marrying in is the easiest way to do it. After declining his offer, I had to sleep in the same room as this guy for one more night and trust me, that comforter was on like a strait jacket, or a chastity belt.

Almost as interesting as meeting bizarre people from around the world was the unexpected opportunity to compare myself to the “average American tourist,” which is a chance that we don’t get too regularly inside our Northwestern bubble. Removed from my journalist, film major and other future-waiters-of-America friends, I realize how un-American I am. I don’t like asking for help all that much, I’m far too sarcastic, I’m not particularly loud, I don’t like confrontation, I don’t like beer all that much, and I’m not overtly friendly or always upbeat enough to be properly American. My Italian roommate at Uni says so too.

The hostel is a snapshot of people from all over the world who are in the same place as you — poor and transient — but at the same time from a completely different background. It’s really the only place where people have to hang out with each other even though they’ve only known one another for an hour and probably won’t ever see each other again. Really, it’s what the United Nations wished it was.

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Writing this blog has been hard. As you might have been able to tell from a few recent half-assed posts, I just don’t know what to write about. I’ve had thoughts that I’m willing to share like “you can buy boxed lunches everywhere in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin, and they are not nearly as bad as I had first thought,” but that’s not insightful or even that culturally significant. Instead of fast food Londoners more commonly eat pre-packaged sandwiches, which are pretty much the same thing as getting a sandwich to go (especially at Subway where they don’t toast the bread) when you think about it. And just like how Coca-Cola tastes slightly different in every country (and in most countries is made with real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup in America), it’s neat but nothing to write home about.

I was at Blackwell’s today, picking up a French phrase book so I’m not that terrible American when I visit Belgium and France, and saw an entire display of Bertrand Russell books. I couldn’t imagine an entire display of a philosopher’s works at an American chain bookstore (which Blackwell’s is, a chain, not American) like Barnes and Noble or Borders, so does that mean British people are smarter and more literate? In the States there are plenty of independent or smaller chain bookstores that would display and carry things like that.

A Borders down the street in London looked just like any American Borders, with The Lost Symbol proudly and prominently on display. People on the Tube seem to read more than on the El, but is it because fewer people seem to have iPods or because they like to read? Does it all mean Americans are dumb and illiterate while Brits are thoughtful and deep? And while I certainly doubt that to be true, there are too many nuances to be truly understood on the blogging timeline.

I’ve seen fellow American study abroaders make snap judgments that seemed patently wrong and/or close-minded to me and I’m sure I have similar thoughts, but I don’t want to share those ideas or whims because travel and culture are difficult to understand. It’s called culture shock not because you are having rational and coherent thoughts but because, like having a near panic attack in front of the mummies at the British Museum (true story), they are impulsive and irrational. Even though Brendan Fraser made movies about villainous mummies, I know beef jerky can’t come alive. It was just an inexplicable gut reaction and those sort of reactions aren’t illuminating to anyone. I don’t want to portray London as something it isn’t because of one good or bad experience.

The best stories about travel are always written years after the actual event because even if it sounds like a stream of consciousness, it isn’t whatever pops into the author’s head one sunny afternoon. Jack Kerouac’s On the Road took years and many drafts to complete. The trip, dated in the novel to begin in 1947, wasn’t completed until 1951 and published until 1957. Not that I’m comparing myself to Kerouac, but there’s real difficulty in writing about a new experience that has to be aged.

For the time being, I am proud to report a few fun facts about London food — there is also fried chicken everywhere, especially in heavily Islamic areas (like Mile End where I’m currently situated) because it’s halal. I saw a Bansky today but Time Out London’s Student Guide tells me there are far better street artists in London. So there you go. Neat.

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I spent the weekend on the bonnie (better known as “rainy”) shores of Scotland, and yes, just like in London it rains a lot. The five day trip was phenomenal and made a little better because I was on my own.

After a series of people falling through for various reasons, my increasingly misanthropic self got to head into the Highlands alone. I had my plane tickets and my hostel booked, I didn’t want to waste those.

As a traveler, I like getting as much information as possible. I read books weeks beforehand on everywhere to visit and spend days organizing them in the most efficient way possible. Today, I wrote out seven lists of things to do in Dublin, where I’m going in two weekends, and created a pile of bookmarks of Paris ‘must-sees.’

A view of Edinburgh Castle. Photo by the author.

Generally, it’s hard to convince friends to get up at 8 a.m. and be at the gates of Edinburgh Castle at 9:30 in the morning to avoid the crowds and luckily, now I don’t have to. And, if you get lost on the way, it’s not nearly as stressful when nobody is asking “Where are we?” or “Are we there yet?” There’s no pressure to get the directions right or get right away because someone is hungry — you can just wander when you want.

At the same time, living in a 14-bed hostel room means you’re never alone. Whenever you want someone to hang out with, they’re there and from all over (I made friends with Aussies, Germans, and Frenchies). It’s funny that Kings is a universal game. In Europe they sometimes call it Ring of Fire or King’s Cup but it’s still the same game.

After five long days, I saw all the sights, took a lot of pictures and made new friends — even one who was willing to go to Edinburgh Castle at 9:30 a.m. with me.

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My liver hurts. Fresher’s Week (Queen Mary’s version of New Student Week) just ended and the drinking can finally conclude.

It’s strange being in the dorms because my roommates are almost only first years (freshmen — it’s like Harry Potter!) who are starry-eyed and oozing with enthusiasm at being on their own and able to drink. The legal drinking age in England is 18, after all. I don’t want to pull the “back in my day” card, but I feel too old to be drinking until I get miserably intoxicated until 3 a.m. anymore. On Sunday, I cheered at the prospect of not having to drink since I could use class on Monday morning as an excuse.

Not that there’s much to do aside from drink. For the first week, the only student union-organized events aside from orientations and a hideously crowded activities fair were on-campus parties until 2 a.m. at the campus bar, where the drinks were subsidized by the University and cheaper than in most of London. All my school wants me to do is get drunk.

It’s a strange view of drinking from a university. At least at the associate students’ orientation — which consisted of mostly study abroad students — drinking was referred to only as something not to get carried away with. There’s no hour-long skit about how drinking will lead to rape, STDs and eventually death while experiencing your first hangover. And yet, drinking is just as prevalent as in the States, but instead of it happening in a fraternity (which, let’s face it, is a freshman-infested shitshow), it happens at the campus pub (just as freshman-infested and just as shitty). Maybe drinking and coming of age will always be the same when they meet.

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I asked my friend from Northwestern the other day if I could stay with her in Montpellier while I visited. She’d been at the University there for more than three weeks but when I asked her, she mentioned that she had to ask Rene, who I assumed was her roommate, before she knew for sure. At that point, it didn’t look good. Everyone at Northwestern has a roommate horror story and I figured it was one of those but nope, it was a homestay.

Though bias is probable (full disclosure: I grew up an only child and recently moved to a one bedroom apartment because I didn’t like living with other people), living and eating with strangers who are your new family for a bit is supremely awkward.

Last week, I spent three days in Gloucester, a small pier town best known for being the hometown of J.K. Rowling and where some of that Harry Potter movie was filmed. I stayed with a nice woman named Pam and her tattoo-covered husband who she insisted was dumb after a fall but could do Sudoku puzzles like a fiend, a German exchange student who hated everything, her foster child who is 23-years-old and obsessed with his motorcycle and her two German Shepherds who were loving, needy and sent off my allergies. After realizing I was allergic, she offered to keep the dogs outside but looking at the fur covered throws on the couch, interior of her Honda CRV and the tables and tables full of German Shepherd statuettes, I felt too guilty, popped some pills and sucked it up.

She lovingly made me and my fellow homestay student sandwiches every morning of our three day visit that were filled with the standard cheese and lettuce (but also butter) and stayed up for us when we went to the pub for a pint. One evening while watching British soap operas (with shockingly low production values), my t-shirt rode up an inch from the top of my jeans. Pam jokingly pinched my love handle and I covered myself up with pillows for the rest of the night.

If the opening lines of Anna Karenina and the Royal Tenenbaums have taught humankind nothing, it’s that most families are really bizarre. You put up with the Christmas sweaters. You have to because of blood. Ugly sweaters are your own tradition because of your upbringing. Perhaps it’s different when you’re in a place for more than just a few days and the oddity of a group of people is allowed to rub off on you, but homestay did not teach me about another culture. And eating sandwiches with pats of butter? No, I did not do that either.

Pam has been taking in homestay students for more than 12 years and has a guest book out of an inch and a half binder. She flipped through and would tell us about them: a Japanese boy was very sweet and sent her an orchid statuette because she grew them, a group of Belgian boys were “little shits,” etc. And I wondered what she’d tell people after I’d left. After boarding the bus (known as coaches in the UK), a girl who stayed with Pam’s best friend let us know my title. I was the girl who didn’t like being touched. I guess neither of us could get used to the other.

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I arrived in London at approximately 8:45 a.m. local time after a brief delay in the Detroit airport. There were individual screens in coach on the plane which were too neat to allow me to sleep through.

On my first night here, I did like the locals and went out at 7:30 for a drink. Unlike the States, pubs here are on every block, are relatively quiet (no pounding JT in the background) and function more as coffee shop than watering hole. In the residential, vastly middle-aged professional area near Euston Square where we were staying, there were plenty of men and women just enjoying a pint with a book by themselves. And at less than four pounds a pint (20 oz. vs. the average 12 oz. beer can), there’s a lot to be excited about.

A good deal later at night, let’s say at 11:30 p.m., I was at another bar talking to a British man in his 40s or 50s. After five minutes of standard conversation (Where are you from? What do you do? What are you studying?), he told a racist joke. I was surprised. I will be the first to admit that I’m not the most politically correct person in the world — there’s just a charm about the dead baby joke that hasn’t worn off — but I certainly won’t make jokes about all black people working at McDonalds. I genuinely do believe it was a joke; the man was certainly no different to little Asian me than the blondes from the South also on my program. He told me that was something I had to get used to, because everyone in England is pretty politically incorrect and nobody takes it personally.

“It’s not personal” actually has some weight here, and not in a bad way like when your friend says that nobody should ever wear yellow while you’re donning a bright new goldenrod coat.

While everything in America focuses on the personal — just think about the service industry with its silly and rather irrational phrases like “the customer is always right” (which is logically impossible) — it often isn’t that way in England. Not that people are rude; people are much more willing to stop and give directions or advice than in American cities like Chicago or New York. It’s just not personal. It’s being nice because that’s what you’re supposed to do, because it’s the nice thing to do and not because you’re supposed to feel special or someone has taken a special interest.

I was standing, not in line, for a bit while trying to get a SIM card for my cell phone. A man and a woman got in line ahead of me before I figured out where the line was, and I hurried in. The woman was already being helped but when the clerks called “next,” the man gestured for me to go ahead, and it wasn’t because he wanted to get in my pants (I tried to say “thanks” after I was through but he wouldn’t give me the time of day) but because it was fair, or something like that. It’s worth noting that cutting in line (or “queue” as they call it here) is highly frowned upon, but I think it is for similar reasons. It wasn’t personal. It was just what you did.

Of course, interpersonal relationships — friendships are often for life in the U.K. which at least for me has been rare in the U.S. — are still important. But just as important, it seems, are the relationships we have with people with whom we don’t have a personal connection.

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I have a lot of shit. This became much less of a problem when I moved out of a 4-bedroom, 5-person apartment and into my own one-bedroom early this summer. I had an entire room to clutter with my clothes and accessories and another to fill with other things I need — a vast collection of stationery, crafting supplies like ribbon and Swarovski crystal, and tea, lots and lots of tea. You know, the bare necessities of life.

Being faced with one big suitcase, a weekender bag and the command that I could only fill that much — getting a suitcase shipped to London and shipped back would be too much a wake-up call that I don’t need to keep t-shirts from my high school orchestra — was heartbreaking. I finally had to make a decision about what stuff was just that, stuff. A few American Apparel dresses got the “Sorry, you’re not nearly as versatile as the mannequins suggest. I can’t actually wear sheer white jersey to class and not accidentally enter wet T-shirt contests.” A few pairs of flats got the “Sorry, the hole in your sole is just too much to ignore. It’ll be wet and cold when I get there.” And the saddest part is that all this spring cleaning came too late for me to be able to sell my stuff to Crossroads.

The guides from my program, Arcadia University, don’t help. Neither does the rest of the Internet. The Internet which can teach me how to hack my neighbor’s WiFi can’t just give me a rundown of how many shirts, skirts, dresses, pants, etc. I need. It’s infuriating.

Their advice: bring jeans. Thanks, I was planning on bringing my large collection of rainbow sweatpants that cuff at the ankle to live in for the next four months. (Note: Nobody should ever wear sweatpants that cuff at the ankle, ever. There’s always a better substitute — for the gym, for going to bed, though not for a celibacy plan. Those sweatpants are a great aid to celibacy.)

Of course that’s an exaggeration. The Arcadia guide has helpful advice like limiting the amount of stuff you bring — you mean I don’t need my blow dryer which I’ve used once in my life? – and the oft-forgotten fact that Europe is a country with stores that sell things, normal things that won’t turn your skin green or make your hair fall out. It also offers interesting cultural tips. Did you know that it’s socially acceptable in Europe to wear the same outfit a few days in a row?

In the end, none of that is good enough. What I really want is someone to go into my closet, fold everything into perfect squares and provide me just enough outfits to look great while fitting into a manageable load. Someone who will notify all my friends that calling my phone in the next four months is dumb — no, I can’t hang out and you just charged me $1.20 for asking that — and really, just take care of all those details that come with traveling, leaving and being somewhere you’ve never been after you’ve carved out your beautiful Evanston nest.

But until the money train rolls in and I can pay someone to take care of that, I will pack, sit, zip, unpack and repeat until Sunday.

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Photo courtesy of Albert Yu

The subversion of embracing weed creates a powerful bond. It’s a bond that has permeated Ann Arbor ever since the ‘70s, when we considered ourselves the “Berkeley of the Midwest.”

Ann Arbor is famous for its lax marijuana possession penalties. A first-time possession charge is a misdemeanor with a $25 fine, only $5 more than an expired meter – not that anyone I know ever got busted. Unless you walk in front of a daycare center with a joint in hand, it is generally acknowledged that nobody cares.

During the spring and summer months, advocates for the legalization of medical marijuana stand on corners with petitions, but they aren’t all grizzly hippies. Plenty of middle-aged men in pressed and tucked shirts work beside them.

It’s this sort of community unity that makes Hash Bash a must-attend event. The yearly celebration of all things cannabis began in 1972 to protest the first state laws that banned weed. Ann Arborites don their favorite piece of tie-dye and march around the downtown. Police line-up beside the crowds to make sure everything runs smoothly while middle school kids prep water balloons to throw at the dowdier hippies.

Nothing really happens. People walk around, they sit, they pull out a joint. A year ago, a poet who self-medicated with alcohol and weed told me he loved me because he felt we could “sit in silence.” Though it was quickly added to my list of “WTF?” moments, it makes a lot of sense when you watch stoners. But this year might be the end of that camaraderie.

Hippies of Ann Arbor claimed victory on November 4, 2008. Sure, Obama was elected, but more importantly, medical marijuana was legalized in Michigan. This year’s 39th Hash Bash, held at high noon on the first Saturday of April just as folklore dictated, was a celebration of the law’s passing.

The day after the event, I got a Facebook invite asking for pictures. The message ended with “get ready for Hash Bash 2010!” but I wonder if The Bash will make it over the hill.

With the law backing marijuana and attesting to the medicinal properties Lil’ Jon has been preaching all along, where’s the subversion now? You can’t rally for a law that has already passed, and rather resoundingly, too. Imagine a rally celebrating penicillin. You’d just be an asshole.

Though the legalization of medical marijuana might be a victory for liberal politics, it might not be one for Ann Arbor.

A friend at Northwestern worried that the majority of his friendships were based on the fact that they did drugs together. I wouldn’t call him a druggie but there’s still something about drugs that creates instant bonds between those who do them.

Ann Arbor’s drug affinity was our dirty little secret. The rest of Michigan frowned upon us for it, but like knowing what someone’s most embarrassing moment is, we also clicked because of it. But with our subversion gone, what can Ann Arbor rally around now when it isn’t football season?

The members of Tally Hall are known for their dapper outfits, but the five musicians from Ann Arbor, Mich. are also master storytellers. Zubin Sedghi (bass, vocals) and Rob Cantor (guitar, vocals) spoke to North by Northwestern from a rest stop in Ohio as they trekked over to Evanston for Dillo Day.

Where are you coming from?

Rob: We just got off from doing nine shows. We’re doing the Chicago show, a Detroit show and then a Brooklyn show, but we’ve been mostly focusing on the new album.

It’s been about four years since you’ve released an album, though it was re-released a year ago. Is anything coming up soon?

Rob: Ugh. Thanks for bringing that up. It’s just taken a while for the record company to finance it and get into the studio to get started.

How is this one different from the last one (2005’s Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum)?

Zubin: The material’s going to be a little lighter, more eco-friendly.

Rob: It’s going to be a little more focused and the topics are going to be a little more serious. It’s hard to say but it’ll feel a little bit older. It’ll sound like we’ve grown.

You are from Ann Arbor. What did you learn about performing in front of college kids?

Rob: We learned how to respect an audience. When we first started performing we learned that every band had a specific way they were and they acted and it seemed like they were doing it for them and not for the connection between them and the audience. We try to make that connection.

Zubin: I also think that when we started out we played a lot of covers at frat parties and when we analyzed other people’s material we are really selective with the covers we play. There’s something we learn whenever we bring out a cover. There’s something exciting for us.

You’re well-known for your covers. Any hints on what you’ll be playing on Dillo Day?

Zubin: I’m not going to tell her, but I do have a hint. It’s encoded in all your other answers, maybe. I just don’t want to be confined like that.

You’ve started a television show on your Web site. How did that come about?

Rob: We’d always made videos in our spare time as a band and even before the band when we were just friends. Originally we didn’t have any specific goals. Then we found out we were being re-released and we decided to take that opportunity. We had about a year during which we weren’t expected to produce a musical album, and decided to make an album of video vignettes.

So, the ties. Why the different colors?

Zubin: It’s not so important to us what color we wear but that there is something uniform across the band and that there are elements that are distinct between the members, sort of like a balance between togetherness and individuality.