Goodbye England

Time: The middle of the night.
Location: My sister's living room, Oxford.
Mode of blogging: My sister's laptop.

Already I'm regretting packing the ukelele. It doesn't stay in tune and just because it's a lot smaller than a guitar doesn't mean it fits easily in my rucksack. I spent years pronouncing 'rucksack' like a German or a northerner, with a 'rook' sound for the first syllable. I think it's because that's how my dad says it and of all the people I regularly to talk to, he is probably the most prolific user of the word 'rucksack'. Some mates pointed out a few years back that I said it 'wrong', and for a while I started pronouncing it poshly, but now I've switched back. In case you're wondering, I'm not going anywhere with this ramble, I'm just bored waiting for a 4am bus to Heathrow Airport and I'm scared that if I go to sleep I'll miss said bus and wake up five minutes before check-in, in the wrong city.

According to the Blogger account login control panel thingy, this will be my 100th post. I imagine that includes all the ones that I start writing but don't finish. Still, I suppose it's a landmark of sorts. Still half an hour before I have to leave for the bus station. I just used the word 'still' to begin two consecutive sentences. I'm also not too sure about my spelling of 'syllable' in the first paragraph. This is as close as you can get to just reading my thoughts as they happen. I'm just typing whatever comes into my head. I've got two creme eggs in my rucksack. I've spent the last three or four weeks attempting to grow a beard, and it hasn't worked. I'm starting to wish I'd got rid of it when I had a shower this morning. I've loaded up my MP3 player with 8GB of music and 10 episodes of Scrubs. I doubt I'm going to watch any Scrubs on my 2-inch screen - it seems like a sad thing to do whilst exploring the world - but I like knowing that I could if I wanted to. Here's my prediction for what will be the soundtrack to my holiday:

Radiohead - Pablo Honey
Sigur Ros - Afaskljhfakjsh Bdfajkfhdlkjsfh (can't spell it, it's Icelandic)
Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors
Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate
Kanye West - Late Registration
Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump (that's how it's spelt, promise)
Bjork - Homogenic
Ekkeko - The Canal Boat Sessions (yes, my band is a lot shitter than everyone else on the list but I want to see what we sound like in various settings, like on a plane or on a beach)

I think that's enough typing. I'm not sure how much I'll update this for the next few months. Probably not much. Right, nearly time to walk to the bus station. I prefer trains. You know where you are with trains. Buses rely on some knowledge of the local geography, instead of a clear and calm robot voice, supplemented by a clear, decisive LED display, telling you when you're at your stop. I wonder where San Francisco airport is. I hope it's near San Francisco.