Friday, February 28, 2003

 

After coming home from Starkville and showing the mom what UFS work she needed to take care of for work, I hit the sack and woke up Friday morning. Aunt Leslie stopped by for a visit, but shortly after that I bought a power adapter to convert the laptop from three to two prongs and then picked Sean up and headed to the school where we were meeting Patrice and Brent.

 

Things immediately got interesting because it seemed as if it were going to be impossible to fit all of the luggage in Patrice’s car, but with a little help from her parents, we managed. Brent’s giant suitcase got to sit in the backseat as an additional passenger! We then headed off to see one of Patrice’s aunts who drove us the rest of the way to Mobile. She was pretty nice, but had a few memorable lines such as, “I guess I’m too logical for philosophy.” She brought us to eat at Chic-fillet and then dropped us off at the Mobile airport, where we checked in and waited for our plane for a long while. Patrice got paged over the PA because she had a courtesy call – which ended up being from Alan who was at the airport!!! Heh, we made fun of her for that, because it was funny, and unexpected, but mostly because she got paged over the PA system.

 

The plane from Mobile to Charlotte was tiny, with only three seats to a row. We were all separated on that flight, but the guy I was next to made fun of the stewardess because she was impossible to understand and her demonstrations were so bad I really had no idea what to do in case of an emergency. But that flight went by really fast! And I had a window seat so that was pretty cool.

 

Once in Charlotte, we took the time to eat and then waited around some more. We found out we could request seat changes, so I tried to get on the same row as the other three. Some really angry British guy in a wheelchair showed up who complained about the service, but apparently my switching with him made things better, although he was still on the same row, so that was scary. Then some guy tried to move Brent to first class so the guy could sit by his wife. Brent refused because he wanted to be on our row, and then the airport automatically upgraded his wife, so the people gave Brent $20. He was supposed to get two seats to himself but ended up sitting next to a very clean doctor.

 

Patrice and Sean sat across and aisle from me, but Brent was all the way on the other side, and the wheel chair guy wouldn’t trade with him. That flight from Charlotte to Gadswick was really long. The food was pretty good though, and they kept it flowing throughout the trip. I was right behind some type of wall, so I got to prop my feet up on that and that helped me manage to get some amount of sleep. Probably no more than two hours total, but I woke up a lot. My DVD of X-files wouldn’t play on the laptop for some reason; it kept skipping. The movies they played on flight were horrible.

 

Saturday, March 1, 2003

 

I’m not really sure where Friday ended and Saturday began because of all the time zones, but I think it’s quite safe to say that by the time we landed it was Saturday. We had to go through the passport place, and all three of the others got through easily, but then they started grilling me and wanted an exact address of where I was going, which I didn’t have. I called Patrice over for help, but they were really mad and stamped my passport hard, telling me to have an address next time!

 

Thankfully that was over, and we met Patrice’s… cousin in law? He, Victor, is her cousin’s husband, at any rate. So! He brought us back to his house where we took a needed break and ate and played with his children. All of the children are so great! The youngest is only a few months old, then there are two boys who are around 2 and 4, and the oldest girl who’s in 1st grade, I believe. They’re all well behaved and fun to be around, so that’s really great.

 

Patrice’s cousin, Heather, arrived home from a hair appointment and we chatted for a while, before heading out to do our first touring of the closest thing to the house =) That happened to be the home of King Henry the VIII (Hampton Court Palace). It was definitely cool. There were some nice gardens, and the chimneys were way cool. There were also lots of paintings and wall hangings (made with real threads of gold and silver!) that were nice. That house was sooo huge! I got a few pictures, but I’ve now discovered I’m not able to upload them to my laptop, so I’ll have to look into that.

 

Victor then treated us all to dinner at a local pub, where I had fish and chips. It was good, although interestingly enough, it was billed as being very specific to this location, although it seemed very similar to Captain D’s. It was definitely better than Captain D’s though, and they ordered some great appetizer with hummus and salmon dipping sauce. Excellent meal! They even gave us some wine, which ended up being funny, because Victor poured us all a cup, but Heather was upset because that emptied the bottle and she didn’t get much. She wouldn’t have cared normally except that he didn’t know if any of us would even like it. I’m not sure anyone else heard that conversation besides me, because I was sitting closest to them. So I drank most of mine and it was decent, but the other three barely had any, so I felt pretty bad.

 

Then it was back to their house (which, by the way, is awesome! The backyard is so great! Hopefully I can get a picture of it!) We played some more and Patrice gave the kids the Mardi Gras things she brought.

 

Now I’m really tired because I’ve slept almost none in the past 48 hours or so. So it’s off to bed for me. It’s about 8:25 p.m. local time, and 2:25 p.m. LB time. So it’s kinda still not feeling like bed time, but I need the sleep!

 

Sunday, March 02, 2003

 

Today was good fun. I woke up to an absolutely wonderful breakfast of the best pancakes I’ve ever had in my life! They were purple for Mardi Gras! And they had banana in them. And chocolate. Then we watched some of “A Bugs Life” with the kids before getting ready for the big day.

 

We took the train into town and learned all about the tubes and railways in there as we traveled about the city. We bought a weekly pass that allows us to take all the trains, tubes, and busses for something like ₤45. We had lunch at Pizza Express, which was decent, but the pizza sort of tasted like the frozen pizzas you make at home. I only had the four cheese though, because money has suddenly become an issue. ₤1 is approximately $1.6, but the problem is that things are about the same price here in pounds as they are at home in dollars. But still, it’s way cool eating here.

 

Sean noted that all British people really were ugly, but we saw three girls at the pizza place that were not ugly, but not hot by any stretch of the word. So that was fun. It’s great just walking around the city. But unfortunately, Heather got really sick and took a cab home. We would find out later that she was running a temperature of 102. Sean and I both felt bad today also (but nowhere near as bad as Heather, we felt so… bad (okay, bad choice of words, heh)… for her.).

 

We went to Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. That was reallllllly expensive (almost ₤20!) It was really crowded and overall not that great. Everyone was taking pictures with the things and I kept thinking… it’s wax. I did get excited when I saw Buffy, and Sean got a picture, but I held out. I’ll probably be jealous when I see his picture, though. They had a chamber of horrors, but we didn’t get to go in there, even though it looked great. Harumph.

 

After that we went to see the horse guards closing shop for the night or something. I’ve never been much into guards, though it was not a bad experience. Oh! Right before that we did go to Abbey road, and took a picture like the album cover. It was extremely tourist-y but funny. We also got a close-up glimpse of Big Ben and us standing in front of it, and we saw the London Eye (Ashleigh says you spell it II) from afar. But yeah, we basically learned how to get around today. We’re getting a very early start tomorrow (have to wake up at 7… it’s 12:35 a.m. now... (heh, 6:25 p.m. at home)!

 

Once home we played with the kids a lot more. We went outside in the excellent back yard and played catch with some balls and other shenanigans. Once inside, they found our blankets from the pull out beds, which then led to jumping on them and getting buried. Mucho fun. I really enjoy all of their kids so much! They’re so nice, and well spoken, and they might get crabby every now and then, but they’re so great! It really makes me want to have kids, like whoa. *le sigh*

 

Heh, so anyway, then Victor made us a totally great dinner of chicken, macaroni and cheese, and corn. After we finished, we just sat around the table and talked for hours (until a few minutes ago, actually.) Loads of fun. Lots of sarcasm all around, which was a bit unusual for this particular group, I thought, but perhaps not. Anyway, some very funny exchanges, and some truths revealed (gum disease, smelliness and belly buttons, oh my!).

 

So now I lay me down to sleep, and get ready to do it again tomorrow! w00t.

 

Monday, March 03, 2003

 

The biggest news of the day was that Sean stayed behind today while Brent and Patrice and myself went out on the town. Apparently (Sean word!) he was feeling bad, but he was also supposed to get a paper done, but he didn’t do that at all. But he’s not worried about it, so I suppose it’s all good.

 

So yeah, this morning we got showered and the three of us headed out with Victor towards his work. He dropped us off there around The London Tower, where we went and toured for a few hours. The place was pretty interesting, actually. The main highlights for me were the crown jewels (just because they were interesting) and the armory. I took some pictures of the armory so Sean and I can have decorating ideas for the apartment. We also saw where Anne Boleyn was beheaded. Whoo doggies! There was just some plaque. And the chambers of Walter Raleigh where he was imprisoned and then killed. There were some neat torture things all around too. I also got to see the ravens making out. We were taking more pictures of wild life than anything, I think.

 

By that time we were all starving and then Patrice told us that Heather said we could bring some cereal bars to hold us over. But alas, we had them not. So then we had to see if our crash course with the Underground had worked. We got lucky catching the train the right direction the first time, but we caught on quickly and used them smartly the rest of day.

 

We managed to find our way to Picadilly where we ate at Burger King, where they had pay W.C.’s. There were lots of people using these, more than I ever see using free toilets in America. But apparently  none of these people were from around here, because none of them knew how to work it. That rocked. The burgers weren’t that good though, they tasted really old. We were having fun chatting it up in there, but then we decided we were in London, so we should probably do more than hang out in a Burger King. Not only that, but the Burger King was an American themed one! Ah!

 

So we got out of there and headed around Picadilly, taking in the various scenes. We stopped at a few places including Virgin and a bookstore called Waterstone (I think). That place was really cool and have seven floors total. There was a rockin’ bar on the top floor, with a huge window overlooking everything. We were going to have some drinks because we’re of age here, but then we saw the prices and that made us decide against it because, yeah, we’re way on a budget. But there were so many cool books there! Patrice became obsessed with seeing elephants yesterday, but we hadn’t seen them, so she made sure to point them all out to us today, especially the ones in the nature section of the bookstore!

 

We ended up walking right into some park that led to Buckingham palace! The park was great, we decided we should camp out there for the night – then later we saw someone with a tent! Also, on the wall, there was a great proof. I have a picture of it, but it goes something like, “Evil men kill people. Bush and Blair kill people, hence Bush and Blair are evil men. Q.E.D.” The QED really made it! Also, there’s apparently a murder loose in the city and is called the jogging murderer, so everytime we saw joggers I would hide behind Patrice in fear! Ahhh! Also, Patrice asked some guy in a concession stand if that building on the other side of the gate was Buckingham Palace. He looked at her like she was retarded, and we decided that would be like someone in the US asking us if a building was the White House. Haha, crazy stuff.

 

The Brent, Patrice, JJ combo was great today, and was probably what provided most of the entertainment. Between the two of them, I was laughing all day long. It’s really great. It makes me sad that I probably won’t ever hang out with the two of them together again because Patrice will be off to Ole Miss and Brent to Georgia State. Sigh. It seems like I just can’t stay around the people I have the most fun with, and this group here is definitely a lot of fun. While I got to know Patrice fairly well the summer before college and even better through a lot of letters, I’ve gotten to see a greater portion of her attitude, I guess because it’s the first time I’ve really been around her for extended periods of time. Anyway, trip equals major fun and lots of London sightseeing. Very great.

 

On the ride home, we were really the only people talking. It was really crazy. I don’t know why no one else talks. Maybe they like hearing our accents as much as we like hearing theirs? Doubt it, they probably just think we’re so stupid. Heh.

 

Tonight Victor helped me solve the problem with my digital pictures, because I could upload them to his computer and then to iminthepack, so that’s really good. And I e-mailed in my first newswriting assignment. We had a big family dinner, but they served chilly which Patrice can’t stand and chocolate king cake, which Brent can’t stand, but I liked it all a lot. But neither of them would tell them, and Brent got mad at Patrice at first, but when he got the king cake he wouldn’t say anything either. Oh man. Laughs. And stuff kept getting brought up that wasn’t supposed to, and it was hilarity.

 

Then we watched some British TV, and while I was working on my paper, Victor told them that after nine there’s a watershed and lots of nudity, apparently suggesting we should partake in it. But we found some really crazy TV stuff. Apparently everyone here is obsessed with text messaging! There was one station just for displaying them, but tons of other stations had them. Like a dating station with people on saying stuff, but you could text message in. It’s wild! Very funny TV.

 

We’re supposed to be waking up at 4:45 to get ready for our flight to Paris, but we didn’t have an alarm clock, so everyone was freaking out. We’ve now stayed up really, really late, as in midnight, which means very little sleep. BUT, oh well. Patrice’s cell phone was dead, so she tried to charge it but we really didn’t trust that to last in time to wake us up because it was only charged for about 10 minutes. So Brent got Victor’s cell phone to set it, and that came after a very heated debate, because he had lots of messages waiting and we didn’t want to use it without asking, but he’s long been in bed. So everyone went to bed then, but it keeps ringing every ten minutes or so, with text messages apparently. So I’m afraid Sean may have shut it off, and I really don’t know if we’re going to wake up in time for our flight in the morning. Yeep!

 

Also, we were worried about being loud last night, so we asked this morning and Victor said they couldn’t hear a thing, but tonight Patrice said she could hear every word we said when she was upstairs! I really hope we’re not causing them too many inconveniences, because they have been way overly nice and they are so great.

 

But I really need sleep in a bad way. So in summary, London has been great and fun, but the interaction between the four of us, and playing with the kids, may be equally as fun. It’s great.

 

Tuesday, March 4, 2003

 

I’m killing myself by not getting any sleep, and writing all of this down really isn’t helping, but I just feel as if I need to document my first out of the country trip!

 

Today was our whirlwind tour of Paris!! We woke up at 4:45 in order to get ready and be at the airport on time. That was really bad considering how late we stayed up last night. Anyhow, Victor drove us there and everything went fine, and they served some really great food on the plane, sausage on some type of bread – Brent has totally fallen in love with the bread and mentions it any time food comes up now.

 

Anyhow, once at the airport, we had to fill out an arrival card, so Sean asked someone for a pen. But he thinks he called them a pen instead of asking for one. It seems most of the signs in Paris are in many languages, but Sean insisted on talking to everyone in French at first. The first real test came when we were trying to buy our Metro ticket for the day. Sean tried talking to the guy for about 20 minutes in French with no success. Patrice finally went up there and used English and had a ticket after about 40 seconds. Hehe, funny stuff. So anyway, we got those, and the Paris metro worked about the same as the London underground, but the maps were a little bit more complex, and the trains were much dirtier. Generally, the whole city was dirtier, but it was also so pretty!

 

We went by the Louvre first, but just looked around at it and snapped a few photos. We then walked all the way from there through many, many street blocks to the Arc De Triomp (Sean can correct my spelling), where we bought a ticket and walked up the 186 something stairs. It seemed as if the gang with me was already tuckered out by then, but I’ve got to give it to them, they all stuck in there and really kept the pace up all day long. The view up there was really great, but we knew we were on an absolutely hectic schedule and we couldn’t stay anywhere very long at all, so we were off again.

 

We stopped somewhere in the Metro and ate lunch at this little sandwich shop. Everyone had something different (Patrice a beneit, which will enter the story later, and me a pita bread sandwich) but everyone seemed to love what they had.

 

The next stop was Notre Dame, which was a really awesome building, although I guess I couldn’t get the full religious experience out of it, though I still enjoyed it. Then we hit the museum which had the impressionism art that Patrice had been dying to see. There was some pretty cool stuff, but we really had to zoom through it. Patrice would see her favorite pieces and say, “It makes me happy!” That became the theme for the day, I do believe. We got really good at going fast and being happy.

 

After this we trekked out to the Eiffel Tower, which I really liked a lot. I also bought my first souvenirs of the trip there. The rest I’ll have to get in the coming few days. Eiffel Tower was very pretty. I love the view of Paris from far above.

 

Side note: Brent had several scary moments throughout the day. Once he hopped on a different section of the train than the other three of us, and said there was only one man on his, sitting all the way in the back alone, and he was scary. At the next stop he made it to our section before we were even able to get our door open. After that, he almost “fought a Harlem guy.” Some guy was doing something funny with his hands, and Brent started looking at him, and then turned around to look after they passed and the guy started yelling at him! (Sidenote 2: The other day we saw this lady who talked just by mumbling! It was like her lips were melted together and it was sooo crazy! It couldn’t have been any kind of language! We always imitate it now! (and later took to calling it Welsh))

 

We then got really lost trying to find a department store so Sean could replace something he’d bought for his mom on the last trip. We finally found it, and luckily he found something to get. Anyway, we were then low on time, and tried to go to the Louvre to hit the highlights, but then read that it was closed on Tuesdays! This turned out to be lucky because…

 

We decided to go ahead and start our trek back to the airport. We found the Metro we needed, but it went slow and reallllllly far in between stops. But it got really scary, because we were going through these really ghetto sections. Worse than that there was this man that was watching us and laughing at all of our jokes. He would try to say something every now and then, but no one could understand him. (We thought he said, “Don’t give me freedom,” but perhaps it was, “Don’t give me free laughs”) He really freaked us out, but thankfully he finally got off. That was lucky! Also, we were really nervous, because the train line had a fork, and the lights at the platform where we boarded were supposed to tell which it was going to, but ALL the lights were lit up, so we didn’t know if this one was actually going to the airport. By this time, we were running really low on time, like 25 minutes until the gate for our flight closed!!! OHHHH! And at one stop, there was a DEAD GIRL outside, and the police had her roped off and I guess they resuscitated her, because she started shaking a whole lot!! It was really scary!!!

 

We finally made it to the airport stop, but then Brent had to run around crazily to find out which bus we had to take to our terminal. Again, luckily, we found the right one! We made it to the airport and ran all over trying to find our gates. It was extremely hectic. We finally found the right place with 1 minute to spare. In that time, Patrice spent her remaining Euros and bought lots of drinks and candies and ice cream for her and Brent. Whoa! So we were reallllllllly lucky in many, many ways. If the Louvre had been open, or we had been on the wrong train, or just one thing would have slowed us down, we would have had no time to spare. But, we made it on the plane!!!! Yeah!

 

That’s where Brent and Patrice went absolutely delirious! Patrice had only eaten sugary stuff all day, and she was way jacked up! They were screaming and laughing, and Brent was taking paparrazi pictures of other people on the plane. It was really funny, and a little embarrassing, and I was just praying Sean didn’t start hating Patrice and Brent and they wouldn’t have a big fight. But we made it home, and we’re safe, and we saw a HUGE chunk of Paris for only one day.

 

My lips are chapped as hell, more than I’ve ever had them, and I’m way tired, and have to get up in about 5 hours. Thankfully I’m still in good walking shape from my years and years of walking with Jim and co. But I’m just having the time of my life. This whole trip has been immensely enjoyable to the nth power, and I’m so glad I’m here. I balanced my checkbook tonight, and thanks to a paycheck my mom is giving me from my work she’s doing this week, I’m doing reallllly good on cash, and don’t have to be as worried as I had been. This is soooooo much fun, I don’t even want to think about it ending.

 

SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!

 

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

 

Well, we slept in a bit this morning, because Patrice was too exhausted to get up at 7. This is probably a really good thing, because even with the extra hour of sleep, I feel exhausted, but still ready to go full throttle! Anyway, I got a long shower this morning because I really needed it, so now I’ve got a few free minutes while everyone else showers. There were a few extra things about yesterday’s trip that I wanted to jabber about.

 

One interesting conversation that we had was about language. Patrice and/or Brent posited that we should really just have one world language that all children start learning in school and we slowly phase it in. This sounds like a great idea on the surface, but Sean brought up the point that language really defines a culture to a large degree. I’ve never been one to support diversity simply for diversities sake, but in this case, I suppose some diversity of language can be a really great thing. There are some words that just won’t translate between different languages, because they represent ideas that other cultures and languages just don’t have. I suppose that the shining example in any language conversation is that the Eskimos have some 100 or something words for snow, because they recognize all of the different types, because snow is so important to their entire culture. Or perhaps the group of Indians that didn’t have any words for time. Language has just become so absolutely intriguing to me recently. Before I really hated it and wanted nothing to do with it, so this is a huge turn around.

 

The other thing that struck me was that I could understand a decent bit of French because it was derived from Latin. I’m sure I understood a great deal more than I would have been able to without Latin, even if I didn’t understand all that much. There’s no way I could understand any of the people speaking it, but some of the written stuff wasn’t too bad. And some of it even related to the very little Spanish that I know. The whole day just really made me want to learn lots of different languages so I could communicate all over the world. I guess I’m being a huge geek and going on about this endlessly, but I was really amazed all day yesterday. I’m quite eager to read that Steve Pinkerton book on language that I bough during Christmas.

 

Unfortunately, I have one other thing to document. Heather and all of the children became ill this week. They all went to the doctor yesterday. Heather had strep throat, and the kids were all running fever and had to have shots. We all felt really bad, hoping we didn’t give them anything, but I’m thinking we didn’t, because none of us had those symptoms. I know I’m just stuffy, which is really actually still from traveling and the change of climates, because that seems to have that effect on me, as much as that sucks. Anyway, hopefully they’re doing better, and hopefully none of us will get too ill.

 

Heh, we’ve all been riding each other for something different while we’re here. Sean for his morals of trying to blend into the culture you’re visiting, Patrice for her self-proclaimed whore-y-ness, and Brent for being scared all the time. They, Sean especially, has been on me about being so productive. I really didn’t know he held those views, but it was really funny hearing about it. He said I’m Ben Franklin’s poster child, so far that I could never truly be humble because I’d be proud of being humble. Funny stuff, but more than likely true, also.

 

Anyway, those are all of my extra thoughts for this morning, so I’m going to go see if everyone else is ready yet or what.

 

Wednesday, March 05, 2003 (part two)

 

We started off the day by heading to Westminster Abbey. On the way we saw lots of anti-war posters and stuff, which was pretty interesting and we took some pictures. Westminster was fairly interesting, with lots of dead people, but it smelled funny. Sean bowed down to Chaucer because he gave us our language, and Patrice gave a big thumbs down to Dickens. The museum there was more interesting, because it was all about the different monarchs of England, and the oldest stuffed bird known to exist.

 

I don’t really don’t remember what we did today, except for the fact that we attended an anti-war protest at Downing Street outside Blair’s house. I think Brent was the only one that actually supported the movement, but we all had lots of fun. Brent got way up in the mix, but the police set up barricades and we got behind them, and then eventually they threw and dragged all of the protestors behind the guardrail, so we ended up being right at the very front of all the action, looking like we were way hardcore! And Patrice made it in a PHOTO on some news site, which I’ll link to! It totally rocked! The protest was way exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It totally made the trip and was like the ‘60s all over again. I felt all rebellious, even though I didn’t support the movement. Patrice and I were protesting the protest. Brent got some great posters from the event also, and he got buttons for all of us. This will probably end up being the most exciting highlight of the trip, because it was so unexpected and such an event.

 

Anyway, we also ate lunch at Harrods for $30. I had a créperie with salmon and asparagus. And then we saw the British museum with the rosetta stone  and greek stuff and roman stuff. I really should tell more about this, but it’s late and we’re all about to have a sleep over in the computer room and get up in four hours. Ohhhh man.

 

And now my battery is running low – but today rocked and we were news worthy and blah blah, goodnight!

 

Thursday March 6, 2003

 

Today would probably best be remembered as the “bad day” of the trip. We woke up really early, but about 10 minutes too late to leave with Victor. So we had to walk to the train station and instead of waking up really early and having a really early start, we woke up really early and had a fairly early start. But none of us got very much sleep at all, whatsoever, and that really caused all of us to drag a little today.

 

It was pretty nice walking to the train station once we got to the park part. We weren’t really sure where we were going, but we got some help and it was fun. The very first thing we did once in London was to go to St. Paul’s cathedral. I really can’t say I took much enjoyment from it, because it was mostly just shrines to dead people and construction being done inside the church. The construction really made it suck. I think this played a large role in my sour mood. I mean, I was totally cool with going because I knew other people wanted to see it, but because I couldn’t get excited over it, that caused me to start dragging. I really tried not to take it out on anyone or be a sourpuss, so hopefully I wasn’t, although I know I didn’t have the normal pep to my step.

 

After that we spent a lot of time figuring out where we were. We seem to have great problems with that. We can find our way to places easily, but then we take a different exit and it takes an hour to find another Underground stop.

 

Speaking of the Underground, it seemed so so so cool at the beginning of the week, and like such a great idea, but it really has already lost most of its novelty. I mean, I just couldn’t see myself riding it to work every single day. Cars are so much nicer. Seeing everyone on the Underground just makes me feel very different, somehow old and worn down or something. It’s a bit strange, actually.

 

We were all absolutely starved by this point, so we found a Pizza Hut with an all you can eat buffet and free drink refills (a rarity here!). The food was great. I had about five pieces of pizza and eight or so of the cherry tomatoes, as well as some breadsticks and pasta. They only had Pepsi products though, but even 7-Up tasted good I was so hungry! That really hit the spot and picked up the general mood after that.

 

We then bought tickets to The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged. Lunch and tickets were all in Picadilly Circus, so since we had only a few hours before the play, we decided to stick around and Brent realized the place to get his hair cut was right around here. That actually ended up being quite an adventure! He went to Toni & Guy, which is the big chain around here. It’s really expensive, but they even serve you coffee during your cut. We had to wait a while for his appointment, and so we went to Virgin Megastore, where Sean found the DVD he eventually bought, containing episodes of Danger Mouse and Count Duckula. Fun stuff! And it was region 0, so it plays everywhere =)

 

Anyway, back to Brent’s haircut! Although Brent had the idea for his haircut a while back, we’d seen several people around here that had that look. Patrice really loved his old hair because it was a bit long and curly at the end. His new haircut is short on the sides but long in the middle. It really resembles a mohawk. Brent was way excited about it and was feeling some mega-punkage. The haircut took almost and hour and one-half, but it was a good break and entertainment. Plus Brent became a punk. It was weird, because at first his haircut was making me interpret the way he acts differently, but I suddenly realized how weird that was and snapped back to normal.

 

The play was next, and it was absolutely delicious. Three actors did all 37 plays in 97 minutes. There was lots of audience interaction and tons of energy in the play, and it was very, very funny! They even picked someone out of the audience to be Ophelia, but all she had to do was scream, but the audience had to give her quick acting lessons. Good stuff, great adaptations of Shakespeare, and superbly entertaining. I highly recommend it.

 

After that I think we hit Hamley’s toy store, where Sean bought Cluedo. We also looked around for a while, but after that it was off to Hard Rock café, where I got Carrie her souveneir – a t-shirt. I’m pretty sure she’ll like it. I didn’t get myself one, because it just didn’t seem worth all the extra money.

 

At this point, Sean really began to drag and became quite bitchy, though I knew it was mostly because he hasn’t had much sleep at all compared to normal. It just sucked because everyone felt bad, and we couldn’t really find a place to eat. I must admit, I was very glad to see how well he recovered, and everything went back to normal. I was thinking today that for spending just about every waking moment of the past seven days together, we’ve been able to get along quite well. No matter how nice people are, it seems problems and crabbiness always arises when you spend that much time together, I know that used to even happen between me and Jimmy sometimes. But yeah, I’ve thought our interaction on this trip has been great, and I’ve enjoyed it very much. I really didn’t know Brent at all before this trip, having only worked with him briefly on the prom slideshow, but it now almost feels like he’s an old chum, that’s always been around. Good stuff.

 

SO! Since we didn’t find food, we decided to just head on the Jack the Ripper the tour. We didn’t really see any people at first, but we approached and the guide slapped stickers on us and had a great accent, so we were sold. There ended up being over twenty people going, they were just hiding around the corner.

 

The tour was interesting, and we walked around some pretty scary parts of town, but the actual tour part wasn’t that scary. The worst part was that we were all really hungry and really cold, so it was hard to concentrate sometimes. But yeah, it was still enjoyable, and a neat experience, that I’m glad I had.

 

Friday, March 07, 2003

 

Today was interesting, all be it unproductive. We got to sleep in because we were going to go into Oxford with Victor and the family. That was a good thing. I got pretty sick yesterday, with a cough and what not, so sleep was good, and I had the good bed.

 

Anyway, we were going to Oxford because Brent and Patrice needed to look at a school to get an excuse for missing this week. We went to Lady Margarett Hall where they made us wait 45 minutes for some woman to get back from lunch, and then she was too busy to see us. But they wrote the note, and we walked a tiny bit, and that was enough. So then we went into the town of Oxford, which I thought was really cool.

 

I found a box for my dad and bought it, but it was raining and the bottom of the bag fell out and it broke, so I’m going to have to find something else now. Dunno what. Picking out souveneirs is so hard for me. Like, I don’t want to just buy junk that someone is going to throw into a corner and never look at, but most of the stuff that actually has anything to do with where you’re visiting is junk. It’s a hard line to walk.

 

So mostly we just shopped in Oxford. However, we did stop at a hotel where we had 4 o’clock tea. That was quite cool and a good “experience.” It ended up being quite more than just tea. We had tea and finger sandwiches of smoked salmon, cucumbers, and ham. Then we had scones with preserves, and then all of these really sweet tasting sweets. It was very filling and although only supposed to serve as a snack, kept me full most of the night. Patrice was quite funny because she tried to order iced tea. Victor said she offended all of England. Good times. I got peppermint tea, which Heather had recommended, and the first cup I just put in a cube of white sugar. It tasted pretty much like what Sean and I had made. In the second cup I had two cubes of brown sugar, and it was absolutely delicious!

 

After that we headed back home and wrote some postcards. Tomorrow is scheduled to be souvenir day, and we’re just going to go back to most of the places we’ve already been and buy stuff. A bit silly, but it should work. We’ve run into conflict with Sean again, because he doesn’t want to get up as early as we’re planning (8 o’clock) so he’s said that he’ll just do his own thing all day tomorrow so he doesn’t have to worry about planning to meet up with us. That makes us all feel really bad, because we don’t want him in London by himself, and we don’t want him to have a bad time on the trip, but we want to get in all the time in the city we can because we can sleep when we get back to the U.S. So it’s a really fine line to walk, and I don’t know of a good compromise or solution.

 

I can’t believe tomorrow is our last day. This trip has been so exciting and fast paced the whole time. Thinking about leaving leaves me with the same thought I always have when people leave. Why can’t we all just live in the same place? I mean, we go our separate ways so we can pursue what we really want, or the school we really like, and that seems to have been a trend. But if we all stayed together, would it matter if we had a crappy school? Wouldn’t we just have lots of fun anyway? The theory almost got tested with most of the Pack going to MSU, but once Sarah disappeared from the equation, things went downhill fast. Sean’s great and keeps me sane, but how much cooler would it be with the old Sarah, Steve, Scott, Jimmy, Patrice, etc. all living there? Or would it end up sucking and we’d all hate each other anyway? Who knows? At least there are these absolutely wonderful moments in my life which I can always have to hold and to cherish. Even though I’ve been sick this whole week, which usually makes me sad, I’ve had almost entirely happy thoughts the whole time. Everyone, Sean, Patrice, Brent, and the whole Fetter family feel like one big fun group or family. It’s really been amazing, and the Fetter’s have been so wonderful and are absolutely some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life.

 

PS: Talked to Sean and it seems like things for tomorrow are looking up. YAY! Hopefully it all works out and happiness abounds, because of course, we’re all shiny, happy people here, to quote a dear friend.

 

Cheers!

 

Saturday, March 08, 2003

 

Today began at approximately 8:00 A.M. Greenwich time—Patrice woke me up and said, “Hurry, hurry—we’ve only got ONE DAY LEFT!!!”  Silly her; she should be waking Sean up like this, not me!  Anyhow, we got to the train station in time to catch the 9:42 train into London.

 

First stop—Trafalgar’s Square.  We climbed up and down the lions.  Great pictures were taken.  No pigeon feeding today, but we met some Minnesooootians who took our pictures (and we took theirs) on the lions.

 

Next stop—Abbey Road.  Again.  Sean got first lunch.  Brent and Patrice went psycho-souvenir shopping at a small Beatles store.  After which, we trekked back down to the actual road itself to collect rocks.  Yes, rocks.  For the love of Patrice’s life, of course.  Catherine Stanford, that is.

 

Then comes—King’s Cross.  Platform 9 ¾ to be exact.  Disappointment is the only word that comes to mind.  We walked through tons of construction for a glimpse of platforms “9b” and “10b.”  So, yeah.  In your face, Harry Potter.  Boo.  Pictures were taken, and that seems to be what kept the crowds happy!

 

Mmm hmmm—Lunch.  Ready to eat sandwiches.  Sean learned that “chicken salad” equals chicken with lettuce.  After buying my lunch, I went with Patrice to get cookies (she did not find any sandwiches that appealed to her—picky bitch) across the way.  She got orange and chocolate—weird but good.  We sat down in McDonald’s to eat (the sandwich store had no tables).  Patrice got some freak-o pasta, so it was okay.

 

Yeah, so the real reason we were at the High Kensington Underground stop—Brent had an itch to go to this place called Urban Outfitters.  One word: hellaexpensivefornothinggreat.  It was an experience.  The clothes were nice, the shoes worn out, and the sweaters tickled Sean green (because they were green, not pink).

 

What next?—Hardrock Café, of course!!  More shirts, etc. were bought(en).  We even got one free!  W00t to that!

 

After Hardrock—a walk in the London rain.  I got a great painting of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament for my mummy.  It’s really nice, but the psycho painting-seller rolled it up to fit into a thing that holds rolled up things.  Brent, Sean, and Patrice bought t-shirts for friends/family.  Then we walked through Green/Hyde/St. James’s Park to Buckingham.  No queen home today.  We decided she had enough money to take Saturdays off.  Sean saw the “Q.E.D.” for real today, and he was excited.

 

Souvenir shopping, anyone?—Patrice had this “bright” idea to ask the Underground information booth for ideas on finding an “open air market.”  We were directed to the French Quarter (Camden Town).  It was scary, and I was barked at for getting some guy’s clothes (that he was selling) wet with my wet jacket.  Whoa now.  We did find a booth with London things and I got a nice box for my dad.

 

Get the Hell out of Dodge—Sean thought to go to Harrod’s where we would be both dry and safe.  We went into the “Harrod Shop” section only to find that they were selling souvenirs of Harrod’s, not of London.  Silly them; who cares about remembering a silly store.  We were pleasantly surprised, however, to find that they sold postcard stamps.  We got them and watched our postcards fall into the “Royal Mail”box.  Poor Seanery ended up with go-to-Europe-only stamps rather than go-to-America stamps (he’s writing his letters now).  We went up to the toys and found Heather and kids (minus Brandon).  How silly!

 

Next up—Covent Garden (per Heather’s suggestion).  Before leaving the Underground station, we realized that the area was too expensive for our kind and left promptly for our home away from our home away from home…

 

PICADILLY CIRCUS!—A circus, indeed.  Sean/Brent was in need of a seat/hungry (when is Brent not hungry?  Answer = never), so we took Patrice’s finger point and went to the nearest sit-down restaurant—Garfunkel’s.  Patrice left her order with us and went to a souvenir shop next to the restaurant (what else does a girl do in London?).  Problem—the waiter wouldn’t take our order until she came back.  Long meal short, we got a three course meal:  appetizer = ”shrimp” cocktail, entrée  = chicken parmesan (for Sean, Patrice, and me…Brent was the oddball again—he got some other chicken dish), desert = banana split split among four.  We even ordered a bottle of wine.  Gauche, but we got Merlot (red wine) with our chicken.  Patrice’s fault.  But it was good.  Between the four of us, the total reached the nineties (dollars—not pounds).  During the meal, we played the “Guess what J.J. doesn’t like to eat game.”  I won with three correct answers:  beer, coffee, and Pepsi.  No one else could think of anything.  I even like gross things like pineapples and mustard and pickles and brussel sprout and squash.  Ewwww to me.  Perhaps I was just lying and being mannerly in case any of the people at the table might have fed me any of the afore mentioned items in the past.  Nice ol’ me.  Okay, but I really do like all that stuff.  Sean said he needed to be stuck with a knife to drain his stomach.  Patrice volunteered.  That’s okay; he hates her anyway.

 

After dinner—we took pictures (in rotating groups of three) hanging out of the red telephone booths.  After which, we rode on the top of a double-decker bus.  So much fun.  We kept taking silly pictures (like the “fuck” sign, that really says “FCUK”—“French Connection United Kingdom).  Patrice raped Sean’s leg while we were taking a foot picture.  Oh, the fun.  Back to Oxford Circus to catch the Tube home.

 

WATERLOO (l’eau loo)—the phone booths were psycho-crazy!  They wouldn’t take Patrice’s money, so I had to pay for it.  That bitch (Patrice, of course) is always janking my bloody pounds.  We caught the 21:12 train home, and we played “Survivor Little Miss Star.”  Good times.  Brent was voted off first.  Next came Sean.  Neither Patrice nor I sucked enough to be cut.  But I’ll tell you about that later.  (Because that’s what the book says.)  There was porn on the train, and Brent thought it was great.  We made it home in enough time.  Funny that we thought we were alone on the train car the whole time—there was really another guy in the front of the car.  We sung “Love Me Do” as we waited for the doors to open.  Brent 80s aerobics’ed while we waited for Heather to collect us from Oxshott train station.

 

Argenta (home, of course)—we played “check everyone’s email,” bullshit, and MAO—the coolest game ever.  And I made up the four rule.  Cos’ I rule school.  Now I’m lying on the bed talking to Sean about “Miles to Go” like “Miles Davis,” but not.

 

Guess what?  Sean picked his nose on international television (Patrice’s video camera).  Oh, and also, I’m a bra size.

 

J2