Showing Faraway Friends Around My Home City
I’ve mentioned a few times on this blog over the past year how I haven’t gone out much since the COVID-19 pandemic. Whenever each lockdown was lifted, I kept on living as if they were still in place. I didn’t go out much before Coronavirus, so the isolation hasn’t hit me quite as hard. In the game of life, I feel like I have a +1 stat boost against cabin fever. But even I miss things. Trying out new restaurants. Playing footy. Getting shitfaced on cocktails. Hitting up the Watershed Cinema for foreign films or The Tobacco Factory Theatre for gritty plays. My friends.
A few weeks ago, I got my second shot of Pfizer, and while I’m hesitant to go anywhere too crowded, I’m making small steps lately to rejoin society. There’s also the fact that I’m moving to London in a few short weeks. Throughout the summer I’ve been talking with my friends Elizabeth and George about meeting up before I go. Initially we had planned a weekend in London together, but various factors that couldn’t be bridged forced us to scale back this idea. For one thing, public transport is an utter scam in this country. London is only an hour and a half away by train and yet a weekend in Portugal would cost less. My friends couldn’t spare more than a day due to work and other commitments, and so we figured that it made more sense for us to meet up in London once I was settled there. That was when they suggested coming to see me in Bristol.
I asked them if they were sure, since it would make everything highly convenient for me. But they countered with the fact that I had visited them in Oxford several times and that it made more sense to come here while I still lived here. It was also clear that George and Elizabeth simply wanted to visit Bristol. George had never been, and Elizabeth had seen a sliver of it when she visited me in 2015. On that occasion we ate at Frankie & Bennies in Cabot Circus (a shopping mall), walked around a little, popped in the Bristol Cathedral, and then drove back to my house via the Suspension Bridge. Which brings up an important point for this post- I don’t actually live in Bristol. I’ve lived my whole life in a town called Nailsea which is about 15 minutes to the west. So while I’m familiar with the central area due its restaurants, cinemas, and shops, I’m not a true native of the city. I’m not familiar with the nightlife- knowing…
