I Love the bus and Vampire Weekend and everything.

The car was out of action the last couple of days. I was driving, then it got all hot under the bonnet, then I wasn’t driving and liquid was bubbling and spurting out of the beast’s left nostril. This means I’ve been relying on public transport to get me places which hasn’t been all that unpleasant. Strangely enough I have actually enjoyed it.

Firstly I’ve been able to listen to more music. I usually only ever listen to the radio when I’m driving and only listen to my iPod when I’m running or at the gym. This means a lot of stuff on my iPod gets very little air time because it isn’t suitable for running or rowing or cycling or stretching or ‘pumping iron’

I can’t download too much music at home because of download limits and I’m too tight to buy CD’s so my iPod has been synced with someone else’s iTunes. What this means is there is a lot of music on there that I have never even listened to, so my bus trips today have been a journey of discovery.

Today on the bus I fell in love with a band. I now have this one album on repeat, listening to it right now. Beer in hand, hot outside, happy summer music, had an awesome day. Bliss.

My day was particularly awesome and not just because of my new found (and I’m sure short lived) love of public transport. I started the day with an invigorating swim, then a big breakfast with mushrooms, then a trip down memory lane with an old friend. We visited our old hangouts with her SLR in tow and followed the footsteps our 16yo selves used to take everyday. She lives in M-town and is in P-town for Xmas so has no transport either so we caught the bus – which of course added to the nostalgia. We went for iced coffee at our old iced coffee spot and were unsurprised to see the same people from 9 years ago still there doing the same things – they used to talk so big but seemed like ants today.

We then wandered, aimlessly, but ended up walking the same routes we used to take. Most things hadn’t changed at all, but pretty much everything looked a little bit different. At one stage all our dreams and memories were so entwined in the places we went to that it was easy to think the place itself had some magic. Today, seeing these places together as adults whose dreams are starting to become realities it was even clearer that there was no magic there at all. This was partly empowering – reinforcing that those great times were entirely of our creation so we can create them again and again, but partly sad to see our old haunts without the rose coloured glasses, cherry docs and fake pigtails.

One day, back in those days, we toured the town with camera in tow and took photos of ourselves and our favourite spots. We re-enacted this today – older, wiser and with a better camera. We also talked a lot. There’s nothing better than catching up with a great friend to reinforce your identity. I’m not someone who puts on too much of an act for people but it’s still wonderfully relaxing to spend a day with someone who knows everything about you and knows what you are going to say before you say it – and still loves you anyway.

Awesomeness. Bring on more summer!