Adolescence in Amsterdam

The River Thames from the London Eye.

I am not going to write much. I want to say it is cold here right now. My roommates are in Amsterdam. I am worried about one of them. He is a very young chap at the tender age of 18. He does think he knows everything about the world and I am here to tell him he doesn't, although most of the time I allow him to live in his own world. Anyway, I fear he may not come back. I really hope he doesn't get mollested over there by a group of women...or most likely men that have an attraction toward little school boys. The other roommate, Adam, has a lot more sense to him and he might end up babysitting Keith for the weekend.

A trip to the National Portrait Gallery is in store for this afternoon, but I don't know what else I will do. I am getting pretty eager to leave the premises of London again, so I am really thankful for the trip to Scotland next week and the latter half of this semester because I will be travelling a lot more. Paris, Prague (hopefully), maybe some other place, and Israel are on the docket.

A Legend Passes On

This blog has nothing to do with London, but since you people know to come to this one while I am here, and not SHoS, I am posting this here.

The Legend that is Emmons Kitty has passed on. Yes, that friendly animal that you all came to love...or torment had a stroke yesterday. She was left crippled and mentally unstable by the stroke and my parents joined her yesterday at the vet to put her down. My family, and many of you, my friends had been blessed by Emmons for thirteen years. Fond memories of my interaction with Emmons came to mind this morning when I got the news from my Mom in an email. I remember putting her in a blanket, hotdog style, with a friend on the other end, and spinning it her around like a jump rope. I won't forget how many times I held her on her back and flipped her through the air to see if she would land on her feet. To my surprise, she landed on all fours every single time. Nor will I forget her fondness for the outdoors, it didn't extend pass the lawn because she would just sit there and graze...literally like a cow. I really do believe she was happiest in her life the few times I let her do that. If you didn't see Emmons take on a plate of food you missed out. She was like a Hoover. Forget trying to munch on the kitty kernels one at a time. She would open wide and sink her face into that bowl of food. For the food to disappear as quickly as it did she had to swallow some of those things whole. There is no other way such a feat could have been achieved. It didn't take me that long to don on her the affectionate nickname, Beefcake. She wore it proudly and always loved a good belly scratch. She did have an alter ego though. When my friends came around, specifically some of those reading this now, she would put those ears back, dilate her eyes and put on a hiss fiesta. Emmons didn't have any front claws, but that never kept her from trying to swat at our hands the many times they attempted to pet her when she was in such a mood. I always did love getting a nose full of that breath. Mmm, fish and other rottenness.

This is my tribute to a memorable feline, Emmons, that left us on this day, the 20th of February, in the year of Our Lord, 2006.

The Hooter

Cambridge...a lot happened there in the last 1000 years, but there isn't a lot to do there in the few hours of free time one might have when you take a daytrip there. I took the majority of my pictures of the buildings. Some of them King's College Chapel, the State House, and a church that was built in 1025 before the Norman Invasion of this wee island. I did see the punts on the Cam, but I didn't go punting on the Cam. It was too darn cold so I just walked along the river. That was cold too...

You know how Americans call the horn at the end of a sporting event or period the 'horn' or the 'buzzer'? Well the Brits, at least some of them, call it the 'hooter'. I heard one of the commentators on the BBC's coverage of the Olympics say "hooter" last night and I had a hearty chuckle. They also say 'vitamins' with a short 'i' in 'vit', like 'vittamins'. I would spell it phonetically for you but I am not good at that. I hope I am explaining this well enough. One last word before moving on, 'renaissance'. They say "Renee" as in Renee Zellwegger, followed by 'sance' as we would normally pronounce it in America. Now, I really don't care which pronounciation is correct, I am simply noticing the differcences between them, and how I find them goofy.

There are a lot of Kentucky Fried Chickens over here, and naturally you have your rip-offs. However, London has many, many rip-offs of the famous chain. I think you could substitute any word starting with a 'K' for 'Kentucky' and that would be an actual restaurant somewhere in London. Examples include Kansas Fried Chicken, Kabal Fried Chicken, and others that are changed up a bit like Perfect Fried Chicken, or London Fried Chicken. Certainly one of the biggest legacies American consumerism/materialism has left on at least this part of the world is the 'brand name'. It sells a lot over here, even if the chicken is fried in Kansas, and not in Kentucky. I haven't been anywhere else yet, but as I do get to see other parts of the world throughout my life I wouldn't be surprised to encounter other variations of a famous American brand.

I aim to not take any part of the British accent home with me. I don't like the sound of it really. The accent gives a flair of femininity to men, but this is not as disturbing as the solid dose of masculinity it gives to women. There are quite a few good-looking women in England and then I hear them speak, "Good God, what is that sound?" I make camp in the land of the American accent and of better teeth.

Ugly White Van

Apologies for the shortness of this blog, but I have class in less than ten minutes. I wanted to post this picture though. There are a lot of these cars in London. I tend to see a different model more than this one, but they are both small and I could pick them up if I wanted to. I shall return for a longer blog later in the week about Cambridge, the weekend, KFC (Kansas Fried Chicken), and other tomfoolery.

The Lone Guard

Welcome to my blog. It isn't very popular, but a few people visit regularly. Thanks Mom and Dad. Well, about the picture. This is the lone guard at St. James' Palace that basically gets picked on all day long. I have two pictures with him. In this one I am smiling, and in the other I am trying to be serious. These guys are on guard for two hours, then off for four, the same as the guards at Buckingham...I believe. An hour after this picture was taken I returned with my roommates and there was a different guard on duty. Keith wanted us to take a picture of him standing next to the guard smoking a cigar. Keith tried, but the guard actually spoke to him. He did so without moving much and simply uttered, "You can't do that here." And since he was quite taller than the one pictured, holding a gun with a bayonet on it, we kindly trotted away.

On Friday I saw Stonehenge and the town of Salisbury. Stonehenge was chill, but the highlight for me was Salisbury Cathedral. The church has the tallest spire in all of England. It is the second tallest spire in Europe as well. Something like over 400 feet tall. Freaking massive. It was beautiful inside and I took many pictures. They also have a copy of the Magna Carta there. That was sort of cool to see, but damn those people have small handwriting. I don't care if they were trying to not waste any space, didn't they think about those people 700 years down the road that were going to try to read it. C'mon?

It rained all day on Sunday and I walked about in my Mountain Hardwear waterproof jacket. That was fun. The water just beaded off of the hood and down my sleeves.

I hear NYC got dumped with snow. I also know that Cheney shot a man while hunting...oops. I haven't read the story on that, but don't really have any interest.

Cambridge is my destination for this Friday. The temperature is supposed to be around 9 C, or maybe double digits, that will be nice. The computer lab is closing down. I must venture off now. Really, thanks again for coming here. I hope I did not bore.

The TIX

Hey, I don't have much time to write at this moment, but I just wanted to share that I booked the flight to Israel on El Al Airlines. I leave April 7th and get back to London on the 16th, in time for my flight back home from Heathrow on the 17th. The flight is direct, thus it cost me a little more than some of the other options with layovers, but it will be more than worth it. I have never been so happy about spending so much money. This is great. It will be amazing to be in Israel for Holy Week. Word.

That is all I have to say for now. Shalom!

Page Three Girl

I am happy to say that although I haven't been putting up that many blogs I have been writing nearly everyday in a journal I keep at the homestay. Occasionally I take the journal out with me and write while at a park. However, I am fearful of losing it so that doesn't happen that much.

It is 46 degrees today. That is the warmest it has been in London in a few weeks. My search for a coat has proved unsuccessful so far, but I have not given up. There are a lot of coats to be had in London, but not for people who are over two meters tall. I did find an official English soccer jersey for £11.99. That is quite the deal. I will probably buy a couple more jerseys of different teams while I am here. The Germany jersey is sweet, as well as the Chelsea, Man. U., and the Arsenal jerseys. They all cost money though...bummer. Anyway, I just wanted to announce my obsession with the material that these jerseys are made out of.

Another trip will be taken to Parliament today for a lecture on British Politics. Many might find this boring, but I believe I could be intrigued by it...not enough to become a politician, but enough to keep me from falling asleep.

I will be going to Stonehenge and Salisbury on Friday. A lot of the students here didn't go for that trip because they didn't want to see some rocks, but I do, and I am excited about it so there! That is my trip out of London this week. I have a longer weekend coming up and I need to figure out what I should do. If you read this and have any suggestions let me know. You should be able to leave a comment even if you are not registered with blogger.com

I did not watch the Super Bowl last night. I really had no interest in the winner, and they had silly British commercials and not the dumb, but sometimes funny American ones. I watched the kick-off and then sat up in bed and turned the TV off. One thing I do enjoy about British TV is the extreme lack of commercials. Some programs don't have commercials, and then the ones that do have them only last for a few minutes per half hour. One more thing about TV here, it isn't censored. You can hear plenty of foul language and see naked people from time to time. The lack of censorship is a great idea I believe, but I probably wouldn't be too happy about my kids seeing some of the stuff at such an early age. Oh, and every time I see someone with The Sun I look at them looking at the paper and see how long they stop on page 3. Everyday in the The Sun there is a topless girl on page three. I can't take anything in that paper seriously just because of the Page Three Girl.

There Is No Warm Beer Here

Okay, realistically it might be closer to one blog a week, rather than two or three. The weeks are getting busier here, but I am still having a blast. I am busy on Thursdays all day with my internship even though I don't have any classes beyond Wednesday. I am not going out to a different country every weekend. I have some trips planned, but it is expensive enough just to live here so I don't have mounds of money around to fly to a different country every weekend. To do that is not hard and it is very cheap, but things add up.

I do have a 3-4 day trip to Scotland the first weekend of March. I am also going to make it to Paris...probably twice. I am also communicating with Guy about my trip to Israel. Although flying to Israel from here is a lot cheaper than doing it from the United States, it's not cheap. The trip will still run me close to $700 if I don't want to have a two-stopper to Tel Aviv with long lay-overs.

Kate is due here the 12th and as I do more things in and around London I am making an informal list of things we could do while I am here. I can't believe we will have the opportunity to have a vacation in London! I am sure we won't get to all of them, but we will get to most I bet.

Tonight I am going to see The Producers. I don't know anything about The Producers, except that the movie version looked like it could be funny. I can't remember all that I have done since the last blog. I got thorough tours of Westminster Abbey and Parliament. On Sunday I went to the free organ recital at St. Paul's Cathedral and felt really old when I discovered that the organist was younger than I, and already a sub-organist at St. Paul's. I just thought...jeez, I need to get on with my life and do something with it. St. Paul's could eat Central Presbyterian for a midday snack and have plenty of room for more. Central's sanctuary could definitely fit under the dome without touching any surface of St. Paul's except for the floor.

I also went to Stratford last Friday and saw everything Shakespeare. You know how it is. Hey! Friday is my birthday and I will no doubt eventually wind up in a pub, either with some American students, but preferably with my British co-workers from my internship. They are a lot more fun to talk to and hang out with, plus they buy me pints. Ah...pints.

Contrary to the trash everyone told me before I left about the British drinking "warm beer", they in fact do not. You have to ask if you want a "warm" beer, and they might have a few kinds that they serve at room temperature, which is not warm. I had a Broadside at room temperature and it wasn't that bad. Most of the beer the British drink is no warmer than a beer you would order at a bar in the U.S. I am glad I brought that little lie out from the dark.

Oh, and I found that theatre, Aaron, that Earthy theatre or something. Apparently the playwright that is sononymous with the Earthy theatre was pretty popular. And, get this, to this day his plays are still performed in London. Crazy.