Started terribly ended okay

When i woke up this morning I think it really hit me. I cried for an hour, got up and showered and then cried for 2 and a half more. When i dragged myself out of my room for lunch I barely kept it together. But I got on a bus with my book with the sole intention of sitting outside the main starbucks 'westener hunting'

Mainly it's familys - so that's not cool.
I saw a pretty girl and two germanish looking guys walk past whilst i was ordering my green tea frapp. and i nearly ran out and ran after them.

However about an hour in and a hundred pages of dorian gray later i spotted a school trip. granted some of them looked like they were 12 but some of them looked about 18. I played it cool. waited til they had ordered their drinks and sat down, then i POUNCED. felt like a total twat... but nevermind. anyway. turns out they were ALL in year 9. but they seemed pretty fun and they were from australia. I left them to it and sat down again. went to another western hotspot (haagen daz) nobody there so back to starbs. Sat at a table with two chairs and sure enough someone came to sit at that second seat. (MY GOD I AM A CALCULATING STALKER WEIRDO)

she was a student at one of xi'ans many universities. She spoke reasonable english and we spoke for about an hour although i'm almost certain half of it she didn't understand but she was polite and nodded anyway. She just kept talking about EVERYTHING being cheap/expensive... i think she has just done that topic in her english lessons. her 'english name' was Cherry - she has my mobile number and my e-mail... she's pretty much my best friend now.

last but not least - after cherry left - the seat was taken by pretty much my favourite person ever

I knew i would like him the second i saw him
overtly american and yet somehow not - he wore a baseball cap and had a large stomach but he was very tanned with greying hair and very yellow teeth

he reffered to himself as 'the wandering jew'
originally from new york he had moved to LA and then london SW5 was his postcode I think - right by gloucester tu be station (he had a friend who owned a pub in windsor)
then he went to live in amsterdam then on an a dutch island that no-one has ever heard of, then in the curacoa island in the caribean and now he was mooching.

i loved him

he was so witty and charming and although about 50 and a bit gross I think I kind of fell in love with him a bit.
he was a writer and just wrote pieces and articles where-ever he went (he had written one on the plane that morning) but he wrote about the world of commerce and finance etc.

he told me the most amazing stories and shared some great advice. He was going t take up a teaching placement for a year he thought (although he didn't knwo and didn't really care)
he wasn't married but had had plenty of 'girlfriends and friends with benefits' including one he had just left in south china.

it's interesting isn't it how strangers can have perhaps the most impact on your life. I don't mean in the sense of who you are as a person but in what you want to achieve etc. I felt my goals shift completely. Here was a man who had worked in business for years - earned a fortuen - and said F*ck it. It was amazing


Friends influence you to an extent but nothing like a stranger can. Friends know you and you know them and there is always a vested interest in any piece of advice they give you or anything they tell you about. There is an overt and beautiful honesty with a stanger. You don't care what they think of you - so you tell it like it is - and they don't know you - so they accept what you've said for what it is (and visaversa)


I kind of want to meet him again - he was certainly sad when i had to leave - but at the same time i really loved our fleeting friendship romance as what it was.

He smoked nearly a whole packet of cigerettes while we spoke - although i suppose you would at 30 p a packet - and commented on my book choice and we spoke about books for a while

as i left he said 'thanks for the conversation' and i knd of realised that even if I don't make good friends to last me the whole time here - as long as i have a couple of those a week i will be satisfied.


still lonely in general and still want a friend/to come home and be with friends

but i think i will do my best to stick it out and be alright


messages CONSTANTLY would be much appreciated though
xxx