hull in my head

We rounded off the adventure by spending the last few days in Hull itself. Sadly at his point I became somewhat of a bad host. I had some things to finish up for the Zuperman premiere, so on the first day I actually sent Tony off on his own to the explore my fair city. It was the first time we had spent any time away from each other in the past 10 days so it was strange. I felt like a kid who lost his puppy.

I did manage to find some time however to show him around a bit. The following day we explored Hull’s Old Town, where you can still see the wagon wheel grooves in some of the cobblestone roads. The whole area is full of very old buildings and is quite neat actually. I had never been before so I looked on with as eager eyes as Tony. I had arranged for a colleague I met a while back to show us around a bit. He does professional tours for groups so hearing his knowledge on the area was great. And most graciously he agreed to show us around despite the buckets of rain pouring down on us.

We also went to a few of Hull’s free museums, an art gallery, saw the 8 wonder of the world; England’s smallest window… and after all that unbearable excitement, went to The Deep. The Deep is the world’s only submarium and is actually quite cool. If I were 10 years old I would think it was heaven because of all the hands-on stations and Patrick Stewart narrated exhibits. Even at 22 I was not immune to not try the submarine-pilot training or the fish coloring section.

All and all we did more than it seemed in those few Hull days. Besides what I’ve just listed there was the Zuperman premiere (more on that next post), fish and chip consumption, snooker playing, and English countryside viewing. Granted there was a lot of down time but just hanging out was good as well.

It’s funny, having Tony around really made me understand how much of my humor or how many comments I make are lost in translation. Tony always knew what I was talking about as I quoted slogans, sang lines from a song or jingle, and made just generic pop culture references and that made me realize just how often it is that I do that. Quite a lot really. Whereas the English don’t know what I’m on about, they can only take the words that I say at face value. It was a strange revelation, I must seem to say many queer things, things that at face value don’t apply. You wouldn’t think there would be that much of difference in the two countries popular culture but I guess what they say is true: We are two countries divided by a common language.

On Sunday morning I bid farewell to Tony at the train station. He was headed back to London for a day and then home. The adventure had ended. We had made some great memories however. I wished that Tony could stay and be my roommate since he was so amiable the whole trip. Despite us both being tired and busy and spending every second together he got along with everyone he met and met each occasion we faced with humor and optimism. I said goodbye and knew I’d miss him.

As the train doors closed I imagined was in one of those over the top TV dramas where at the end someone has died and their friends are at the gravesite saying goodbye forever.
I placed a rose on his coffin, and whispered: “Keep it real T-Dawg…. keep it real.”

My mental movie was quickly interrupted by the remembrance that I had exams the next day and had been running all over God’s green earth rather than studying! I had a bus to catch and hours of cramming to do. Ah, the life of a University student…