The United Kingdom: It Takes Longer to Get Around Than You'd Think

I just felt like I was on a lot of trains, and that they went on for a long time, and that the distance traveled was insufficiently fulfilling to justify the hours lost from my day and the number of platforms down which I had to carry my things.  The destinations were not unsatisfying, exactly the opposite, and the journeys not unpleasant, but I guess sometimes my relationship with time becomes contentious, and the UK was just not a good place for us, me and time.

Taking a Turn About

Welcome to Stratford

Though Washington, D.C. is loved by all
(A great metropolis, to speak the truth)
And though New York is fairer in the fall
Than any city witnessed in my youth,
Aye, even though we have with brightest eyes
Seen palaces and monuments sublime
In London, where the Eye is giant size
And Tower walls have have stood the test of time,
A city girl must towards all this remark
That every street begins to look the same:
The hotel, shopping center, city park,
and Starbucks dominate my visual frame.
But I have yet to find a sweeter haven
Than quaint and cozy Stratford-Upon-Avon.

London People, London Sounds

Trying to be inconspicuous with a digital recorder sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. I got yelled at a few times. But it'd be a shame to pass up a beautiful or interesting sound, whether it's coming from a cathedral or from a man playing American folk music on a double-bass outside the Kensington subway stop.

Two more "interviews"...
We were undecided on whether or not to see a show in London, but ended up with the Royal Shakespeare Company's Indian-themed "Much Ado About Nothing" (amazing). On the way, we met two more wonderfully nice people who helped us on our quest to find some dinner. Our box office ticket seller pointed us towards pasta in Covent Garden, and a man selling magazines on the street recommended a place in Leicester Square. Incidentally, we ran into the Magazine Man again the next morning. He asked if we had found a cheap place to eat, and if Ahnya had gotten her smashed potatoes.

Blundering Through London

Let's get this straight. They speak English in England. English is my native language. We speak the same language. So there should be no reason for my complete inability to order a coffee from Starbucks without babbling like an idiot.

"I'd like a black regular drip regular coffee please with..." What do they call it? Is it cream here? Milk? Half-and-half? Do you even order that at the counter, or is it self-service? "...milk for room, I mean for cream. Please."

I am the reason the English have signs like this in their pubs:

There was also the unexpected difficulty of finding a public telephone that actually worked. In the end, a man from Birmingham overheard our plight in Starbucks and lent his cell (ahem, mobile). In return he got our first gift of macadamia nuts, which I awkwardly passed to him across the table, saying "We're from Hawaii. These are special chocolates. We've been looking for a phone for two days."

On the bright side, being tourists means we get to indulge in a little silliness. Who else could get away with it, after all?

Defense training

Somewhere in there, Neville is missing a toad.

Respects to the Queen

Cheers,
The North American

We Out

It is a good day for Adventuring.  So off we go.

Eyes on the Prize

When one is 40 hours from departure and has yet much to do but can think of nothing but sleep, there is no option but to put on another pot of coffee and pop in the Bourne Identity and study how to climb down the side of a building in Zurich.  I must encourage alertness and a sense of productivity in this moment, and anyway you never know what you might be called upon to do, and I don't want to be stuck four stories up in Switzerland one day, regretting a midnight nap I took in a moment of weakness.

Matriculation

The London School of Economics, our new digs, home to preeminent student economists,
social scientists, philosophers, rhetoricians, and three unemployed American bums.

Our motto:  Rerum cognoscere causas - "To Understand the Causes of Things"    (Google image.)

Please Enter Your Destination

D-minus-12 and the path is chosen and though we go where many, many, many have gone before sometimes I feel like parts of the chart are giant blocks of nothing and the corners read Here Be Dragons.