Cat's Cradle

Then, Now and the Time Between

2007-10-13T20:41:00.000Z

Hello. I have been harsh in my neglect, I know, but I hope you'll forgive me... I have much to say.

Italy has still not been documented, even though it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and by not writing about it I am doing a great disservice to myself. However, it is mostly logged in my travel journal and just needs transferring; I've just been lazy.

The Danger Within

2007-04-20T14:14:00.000Z

Weather in the good ol' UK has been unusually excellent for the past few weeks, allowing for maximum exploitation of outdoor activities. I have used this time to bike ride, sit outside, garden, and do various other random outdoor activities. Sunshine every day, flowers everywhere, lambs bouncing through fields in ignorant bliss, birds singing and happy people -- Glorious.

However, all of this extended sunlight and absolute lack of rain has uncovered an unexpected and terrible truth: I have discovered that, contrary to my previous belief, England is indeed a wild and dangerous place to live, and certainly not suitable for children (and not just because the UN says so).

Venomous snakes? Deadly spiders? Large opportunistic reptiles?

No, what I have uncovered is far worse... Britain might not have hurricanes, F1 or higher tornadoes, discernable earthquakes, volcanic activity or tsunamis, but by god do they have thorny weeds. Stinging nettles and indestructible vines with blood thirsty thorns invade every corner of the English landscape; stinging nettles always waiting to sting the crap out of you and cause great discomfort that can only be relieved by the leaves of the dot plant that always grows next to it; thorny vines, shrubs and undergrowth that are always ready to trip you up, snag your clothes and rip into your epidermis.

They are always lying in wait for their next unsuspecting victim.

Clearly in control of the battlefield, these plants deserve a lot of credit not simply for their survival in this country, but more so for their triumphant and highly successful occupancy of the land and its people -- for not only have they evolved with time to survive slightly frozen winters, months of continuous drizzle, mucky soils and avid gardeners, but they have also managed to evolve highly effective defenses against England's most dangerous predator, the sheep.

Thus while the landscape may appear quite lovely, things are not always as they seem: for all you know those apparently joyful lambs actually just incurred the wrath of a stinging nettle.

So much stuff... so little time. Damn.

2007-03-18T20:27:00.000Z

My time in the UK is drawing to a close, and while there are many, many things I want to write about, I do not have the time right now. Until I have time to write about that, all I have to share now is my itinerary for my 15 day trip to Italy, starting on Thursday:

March 22: Arrive in Milan at 2pm. Spend night.
March 23: Day in Milan. Catch overnight train to Naples at 10pm.
March 24: Arrive in Naples at 8am. Day in Naples.
March 25: Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius.
March 26: Amalfi coast and extra time in Pompeii or Mt. Vesuvius, depending on how many rocks were left unturned.
March 27: Catch 8am train to Rome. Day in Rome.
March 28: Vatican city, other sights.
March 29: Take in some more sights. Catch 4pm train to Florence.
March 30: Day in Florence.
March 31: Pisa.
April 1 : Orvietto.
April 2 : Catch train to awesome natural spa hotel outside of Sienna.
April 3 : Still at awesome natural spa hotel. See a bit of Sienna.
April 4 : Catch 11am train to Ravenna. Day in Ravenna. Catch 9pm train to Milan.
April 5 : Fly back to the UK and hope I don't get held up too long in customs this time.

So there's a rough sketch of some of the things I'll be writing about upon my return.

Until next time...

With Love,
Joey

Answers!!

2007-03-01T10:52:00.000Z

Explanation Guide to What Do You Mean by That, Anyway?©

1) Pram:
Also called a “push chair,” the word pram is used to refer to the object that people in the U.S. call a “stroller.” When you say “stroller” in England, people don’t know what you’re talking about.

2) Jumper:
In the U.S. we call them “sweaters,” and you’ll get strange looks if you try to indicate that a person was wearing overalls by saying something to the effect of “he ripped the knee of his jumpers when he leapt off the tractor.”

3) Brekki:
Short for breakfast and used more frequently than the whole, mouth tiring word “breakfast.”

4) Tarmac:
The name of the stuff that the English lay their roads with… mention the word “Asphalt” and you’ll get laughed out of the room for being stupid… I mean, come on, who calls it “Asphalt” anyway? IDIOTS! That’s who!

5) Bog Roll:
You know, rolls of bog material… detritus and the like. Naw, dawg, I'm just kidding. The term “bog roll” actually refers to toilet paper, or toilet roll.

6) Pants:
Whatever you do, don’t try to tell anyone English that you ripped your pants in a tussle with the dog, or that you spilled something on your pants during dinner, because when they say “pants” in England, what they’re referring to is what we call “underwear,” or “panties.”

7) Apples and Pears:
For reasons I am unaware of, it is known by most, possibly all English people that “apples and pears” means “stairs,” and while it is not the most widely used term referring to stairs, it is used.
Apparently there is quite a large body of information on Cockney Slang, but I have not yet looked into this.

8) Lift:
English people generally find it hilarious that we call “lifts” “elevators,” and most people in this country that I have spoken to believe that “elevator” is a stupid name for the object the name refers to and don't understand why we don't use a more reasonable term, such as "lift." I have tried to explain that, as far as I know, we do indeed use the word “lift,” but that it more describes those old elevators that you see in movies where you have to open the cage/gate thingy… you know, like in old city apartment buildings. They still think it’s incredibly stupid.

9) Winge:
To winge is to complain about things.

10) Zebra Crossing: (pronounced zeb - ra)
Due to the endangered wild population of zebras in the UK, the government has mandated a series of wildlife habitat links, such as we have in the US, and the places where zebras must cross the road to get to another habitat are called “zebra crossings.”
Ok, you’re right… England doesn’t have exciting or exotic animals (although you should always beware of badgers), but if someone said “zebra crossing” to you, wouldn’t that scene play out in your head?
Citizens of the US call “zebra crossings” “crosswalks,” although people in England that I’ve said “crosswalk” to didn’t know what I was talking about, because as far as they were concerned, there are only “zebra crossings” and “crosswalks” do not exist. While explaining to a group of English people that Americans call "zebra crossings" "crosswalks," it was said with great authority by one individual to another concerning the American word “crosswalk,” “Isn’t that a stupid thing to call it?”

11) Sick:
While sick in the US is generally used as an adverb and refers to the state of one’s physical health, sick in the UK is generally used as a noun and refers to the actual vomit. To “feel sick” is to feel as though you are going to vomit, to “be sick” is to vomit, and the vomit itself is “sick.” “I cleaned the sick off the floor,” “I got sick all over my jumper.”
If you are referring to the state of your health, if you have a cold, for instance, then you say that you feel ill. Saying “I feel sick” when you actually mean “I feel ill” creates a lot of confusion and often sends people sprinting for buckets.

12) Lorry:
People in the US would call this a “truck,” an “18-wheeler,” a "semi," a “Mack truck,” or a “tractor trailer,” and probably a variety of other names that I do not know about. What I’m pretty sure we don’t call it, however, is a “lorry.”
In the UK the word “truck” refers only to a pick-up truck, and definitely never, ever to a lorry, because that would be ridiculous.

13) Spot:
“You have a spot” means “you have a pimple/zit,” and it is always called a spot, not a pimple or zit, although I’ve never been under the impression that anyone thought it was wrong/silly/ridiculous to call a spot a pimple or a zit.

14) Nappies:
Contrary to the apparently popular belief among my friends and family, the English word “nappies” has nothing to do with hair or race. Rather, the word refers to what we call "diapers.” I have never heard them called anything but nappies. You can call them diapers if you want, but no one else does.

15) Lemonade:
Lemonade as we know it in the US does not exist in the UK, and, honestly, the idea of lemons made into a delicious beverage seems to freak the English out. No, in the UK, and for people who have learned their English from the UK, “lemonade” refers to Sprite, 7UP and similar carbonated beverages.

16) Football:
Growing up, I never understood why, in the US, we called the sport we call “football” football instead of calling “soccer” football, so it really only makes sense, in my opinion, that in the rest of the world the sport you play with your feet is called football, and the sport we call “football” in the US is called “American football” everywhere else.

17) Indicator:
Okay, so this one is pretty obvious, and my point here was not that the US and UK share a common term but use it differently, oh no, my point here, really, is that you should NEVER EVER NO MATTER WHAT call your car indicator a “blinker” in the presence of someone from England, because they will not be able to get over how stupid that term is, and they will tell everyone they know, while in your presence, about how “in America they call it a blinker! How stupid is that?!” and then everyone will look at you for confirmation of your culture’s overall idiocy and inability to chose appropriate names for things.

18) Pavement:
Well, pavement is pavement, right? That hard stuff they put over the ground in populated areas to make getting around easier for everyone?
WRONG! Pavement, in England, refers only to sidewalks, which are not always made out of concrete. Pavement does NOT refer generally to hard, paved surfaces, and if someone on a bicycle and someone in a car are both going down the road, and the bicyclist is knocked over by the car and falls on the road, the bicyclist does NOT “hit the pavement,” because the bicyclist was on the road, not the “pavement,” and he therefore would have “hit the tarmac.”
The term “sidewalk” does not exist in England, and from what I have gathered thus far, English people will laugh at you for saying “sidewalk” when referring to “pavement.”

19) Larry:
There exist two usages for this word in the world of the English. One is a saying, “Happy as Larry.” Larry is the imaginary UK citizen that symbolizes the happiest person anyone has ever met.
Now, as for the second manner of using this term: After having written the quiz, an English person told me that the word “larry,” when referring to the second meaning, was probably (although they did not know for certain) spelled “lerry” because it was pronounced differently. Upon demonstration of the difference in pronunciation, however, I could not tell the difference.
Other UK citizens have also assured me that “Larry” is only used in “happy as Larry” and that what I am about to call the second usage of the word is actually a different word. However, due to the fact that I would never have known that they were different words had someone not explicitly told me so, and due to the fact that when I said, “So what exactly does ‘larry’ mean again,” the person I asked proceeded to explain the meaning I am about to give you, and due to the fact that when the difference between the two words was demonstrated to me I could hear no difference, AND due to the fact that no one I asked could tell me how to spell the second term even though it has been insisted that they are different words, I feel as though I can and should categorize both meanings under the same word to alleviate confusion for potential UK travelers.
Having said that, the second usage for this word refers to a person who is boisterous, in your face, jumping around all over the place, and quite possibly (probably) drunk. “She was larry,” “They were all larry last night,” Etc. I have also heard a radio DJ describe an article of clothing as “larry.”

20) Shandy:
As far as I know, we do not have Shandy’s in the US. What we have instead is light beer, which, in my opinion, tastes much better.
An English Shandy is a half a pint of beer and half a pint of “lemonade” (Sprite). This creates a kind of version of light beer so that the driver can have one or two drinks without having to worry about going over the legal limit.
I find this combination rather gross and unhappily sweet, and have never once wondered why it isn’t popular in the US.

21) Sledge:
While it sounds like some gross accumulation of grease, fried crumbs, dirt, dust and unidentified materials found in the crevices of your favorite diner, the word “sledge” actually refers to the object we call a “sled” in the US.

22) Garden:
Citizens of the UK love their gardens, and they are usually very well manicured, but the open, grassy spaces they often refer to as their “garden” are what citizens of the US would refer to as their “yard.” However, both UK and US citizens also call the small areas that plants are grown, as well as little plots of land where vegetables are grown, “gardens.”

23) Tea:
The term “tea” is a tricky little bugger here in sunny England.
The international stereotype of the English loving tea is absolutely correct… man do they love tea. In fact, they love tea so much that they want their children to love it too and will not deprive kids of the stuff, opting to start feeding it to babies while they’re still nursing. Therefore, obviously, “tea” in the UK is the same as “tea” in the US (although not iced tea… iced tea is the drink of the devil, especially sweet iced tea).
However -- and take careful note of this “however,” because it’s an important one -- the English also use the term “tea,” far and wide… all of them… to refer to what we in the US call “dinner.” Yes, that’s right, tea for your mug and tea for your plate.
This caused me a little bit of confusion for the first couple of months I was here: “What would you like for tea?” “Oh, I don’t want any, thank you.” “You don’t want any tea?” “No thank you, I’m fine.” “You’re not hungry?” “Oh, yes, I’m hungry.” “Oh… so would you like some tea?” “Well, I’ll just have water, please.” “Okay… that’s fine… but would you like some tea?”

24) Trolley:
Shopping cart, although the English would never call it that.

25) Serviette:
United States citizens call them “napkins,” and might give you a funny/confused initial look if you said “serviette” instead, because as far as I know, “serviettes” are those little cocktail napkins you get with sausages on toothpicks. While the term “napkin” does exist in England, it is rarely used; I believe that this is because the word “napkin” is too close to “nappy.”

26) Chips:
Did you ever order “fish and chips” and wonder why they came with fries? Probably not, because you probably had it figured out when you were a kid that you can call French fries chips sometimes as well. However, if you’re in England, ONLY the word “chips” refer to those fried strips of potato that we all know and love for their delicious, unhealthy qualities and compatibility with catsup, and calling French fries anything other than “chips” in the UK will get you weird looks and blunt corrections to your word choice.

27) Pudding:
Mmm… delicious, gelatinous, milky dessert in flavors including but not limited to chocolate, vanilla and butterscotch… yumm…
Pudding as we know it is yummy, not to mention an excellent means of making cakes richer, moister morsels of deliciousness.
But not in England. In England, “pudding” refers to desserts in general, and the substance that we call “pudding” in the US does not have a name in the UK. I have heard it referred to as “chocolate yogurt" (pronounced yaug-gert), “that… chocolate… pudding… thing…,” and “milky chocolate dessert stuff.” “Puddings” is the word that you will see at the top of the dessert list in place of the word “desserts.”
There is also a difference between “Puddings” and “Sweets” when looking on the dessert menu, but I’m not completely certain what it is, and sometimes they’re both used for the same types of desserts despite the fact that they’re supposed to categorize different types of desserts, which makes it rather difficult for me to explain to you.

28) Alright:
When used by the Brits, “alright” is rarely an answer. Rather, it is a greeting and question given by most people when you come into contact with them for the first time in a day, or after several hours of not seeing them.
It usually goes like this:
Joey: *walks into room*
Other: “Alright?” or “’Ello Joey, alright?”
This really threw me for a while because I had only ever heard “alright” used as a response to something, not as a greeting or single word question, which doesn’t even always sound like a question because it is assumed by everyone in the UK that everyone else knows what this means. So at first, I just looked at the person that had uttered this word and smiled at them, sometimes nodded, and later on, simply said, “yes.”
Greetings such as “Hello, how’re you doing” or “Hey, what’s up,” widely used in the US, are considered ridiculous and rather stupid by every English person I’ve spoken to about the matter.

29) Biscuit:
In the UK the word “biscuit” is used to refer to two consumable items we have in the US: “crackers” and “cookies.” Most often, an English “biscuit” is what we would call a “cracker” in the US. They also have sweet “biscuits,” however, that we would generally call “cookies” in the US.
What we call biscuits in the US are somewhat similar to what they call scones, although scones are not a very good explanation of American biscuits and are more like really dry, crumbly drop biscuits, often baked with fruit in them, than typical US biscuits, like the type of biscuits we would use for biscuits and gravy, which they do not have in England, nor have most people in England ever heard of the stuff. In fact, the idea of “biscuits and gravy” has made the majority of English people I have tried to explain it to rather uncomfortable; they seem to have great difficulties understanding the concept of “white gravy” (sausage gravy) as well as why people would put gravy on the likes of scones.

30) Minger:
“Minger” refers, generally, to a very unattractive female. It is not a nice word.

31) Fries:
Surprisingly, the term “fries” does actually exist in the UK, although they use it to refer to a food product with a consistency similar to Bugles, although not made of corn, and sold in little foil bags. They are heavily seasoned, greasy, crunchy snacks eaten in great quantities by drinkers at pubs.
I have also been told that “fries” refers to thinner, longer style “chips,” although I have never seen this.

32) Chemist:
The word chemist, contrary to the popular belief among the quiz takers, does not refer to a drug dealer. Rather, the word “chemist” refers to the people that bottle, sell and give advice on medication prescribed by your doctor as well as to their place of work. Thus, “chemist” refers to both the pharmacist as well as the pharmacy.

33) Wellies:
Rubber boots! Wellington Boots, created by The Duke of Wellington and called Wellies by everyone in the UK, are extremely popular in this wet, muddy, clothes mucking country.

34) Crisps:
So if crispy, puffy snacks are “fries,” and French fries are “chips,” then what are “crisps?”
Chips! But you can’t call them that if you’re in the UK… anywhere else in Europe, feel free to call potato chips “chips” and French fries “fries,” because it’s only in the UK part of Europe that “French fries” are “chips” and “chips” are “crisps,” which makes observing conversations between the English and Europeans VERY amusing when the topic is food and an English person is telling a European person that putting gravy on chips is fantastic, and the European, trying very hard not to betray their confusion, grimaces, smiles and nods all at the same time.

35) Rumpy Pumpy:
Uh… remember that warning in the test? Well it applies here, and is therefore not suitable for children… at least, not if I’m doing the explaining… if you want to explain, feel free to read it to the neighborhood, but I’d rather not be responsible… alright… Ready? I discovered, to my dismay, that the term “Rumpy Pumpy” refers to sex, and, apparently, is widely known as “Rumpy Pumpy” throughout the UK. In fact, the way that I discovered the existence of the term “rumpy pumpy” was driving through the streets of a town in Devon, seeing a billboard with a scantily clad, busty woman with the words “Money and Rumpy Pumpy are What Make the World go Round” written to the left of the woman’s chest, and subsequently asking, hoping that it was not what I thought, “What’s ‘rumpy pumpy?’”
I thought that the term sounded more like the name of a Telly Tubbies character, and was horror stricken and highly amused when I discovered what the real meaning was… of course my dismay and amusement only lasted about ten minutes, and then it seemed like a perfectly normal name for a rich, perverted, decaying old man to call that thing he used to do back when Viagra could still help him.

36) Trainers:
In the US, we call them “sneakers,” but in the UK, “sneakers” is a really silly thing to call “trainers,” and we are laughed at for our poor choice of names.

37) Car Park:
This is another one of those obvious ones like “indicator.”
Ok, so all areas for parking your car, weather it’s a three story building or a large expanse of “tarmac” with lines painted all over it creating spaces for your car to stay while you go elsewhere, are called “car parks.” Car parks. Nothing else. JUST car parks.
The terms “parking lot” and “parking garage” are absolutely unacceptable terms for what should be called a “car park,” so NEVER call a “car park” anything except a “car park” because you will be made to answer (again) for your cultures absurd, impractical and stupid choice of names.

38) Carriage Way:
I figured out immediately that "carriage way" was another term for road, but for the first couple of weeks I was here I had no idea what people actually meant when they would say "The Jewel Carriage Way," and I thought that it was just an incredibly popular road that everyone talked about. Then, one day while I was sitting in the car wondering if I was completely missing the meaning of "Jewel Carriage Way," and wondering how I would know when we were on it, I saw a sign that said "Dual Carriage Way," and I said (almost shouted), "OH! DUAL Carriage Way! Is that what you guys are saying? DUAL Carriage way?"
So, as it turns out, carriage way is what the English often call the road, and if it is a two lane road, they always call it a “dual carriage way” (pronounced jewuahl or jewel carriage way) and never a two lane road. I used this one simply because I usually find it amusing when I hear people talking about carriage ways… mostly because it implies that they still use carriages in the UK.

39) Ginger Kid:
Even though ginger is pale brown in color and used to make delicious cookies, Asian cuisine and improvements in heath, “Ginger Kid” is a derogatory term applied to children with red hair, blue eyes and pale skin. Apparently it is advisable to avoid Ginger Kids in school so as not to make yourself unpopular.
Ginger Kids can usually be found walking home from school by themselves at safe distances between the large groups of normal children.

40) BONUS QUESTION! --- Wife (in New Castle):
If you guessed that in New Castle they refer to every living female regardless of age, as a “wife,” YOU WERE RIGHT!!!
That’s right… in New Castle “the wife behind the counter” can refer to the 16 year old single, virgin daughter of the shop owner who rang up your newspaper OR the 78 year old bored widower working as a toll collector because she hates being home alone all the time.
In any case, thank God it’s only in New Castle…

Quiz Time!!

2007-02-24T13:42:00.000Z

What Do You Mean by That, Anyway?©

The Game:

Here’s the deal: I will supply an every day word or phrase used in England and known generally throughout the UK. Of course I understand that different parts of England and the UK have different slang for things and that one word or phrase might have various meanings depending where the word is said, but this game is based on what I have seen, heard and experienced, so please, don’t take this too incredibly seriously.
Simply copy and past the list of words into a reply and put down what you think the words mean in England.

The Rules:

NO LOOKING THINGS UP! No Google, no reading back in my blog, no asking for help, no internet assistance… nothing.
Do not read other people’s answers before answering yourself.
After I have received the results from my initial quiz, which was sent via old school methods of written communication to friends and family back in the states, I will post an Explanation Guide.

Alrighty then... I present to you, THE LIST!

1. Pram
2. Jumper
3. Brekki
4. Tarmac
5. Bog Roll
6. Pants
7. Apples and Pears
8. Lift
9. Winge
10. Zebra Crossing
11. Sick
12. Lorry
13. Spot
14. Nappies
15. Lemonade
16. Football
17. Indicator
18. Pavement
19. Larry
20. Shandy
21. Sledge
22. Garden
23. Tea
24. Trolley
25. Serviette
26. Chips
27. Pudding
28. Alright
29. Biscuit
30. Minger
31. Fries
32. Chemist
33. Wellies
34. Crisps
35. Rumpy Pumpy
36. Trainers
37. Car Park
38. Dual Carriage Way
39. Ginger Kid

BONUS WORD: Wife (in New Castle)

WARNING: Some words may not be suitable for children... please preview answers before allowing children to view them.

When it Snows

2007-02-16T14:38:00.000Z

Last week it snowed, and it was magnificent!

Being a Florida girl, and for the last six years a South Florida girl, snow has never been something that I have spent a lot of time around or in. Therefore, I found the two days of snow last week quite thrilling.

Now I've been to cold places before, the place I grew up in Florida has colder winters than I've generally experienced here in England, and I've been around snow when I have traveled to the Carolina's, Tennessee and California, but most of my snow experiences were a long time ago when I was a child, and while the snow was quite deep in California, it had already fallen.

On Thursday it snowed where I'm staying. Ben and I were supposed to go to Birmingham that day, but it was decided that we'd go the next day because we wouldn't have to worry about frozen roads. It wasn't a lot of snow, but it was beautiful and Ben and I built a snowman. I wore black gloves and held my hands out to catch the snow. Upon inspection I discovered that snowflakes actually look like the paper snowflakes children make!

On Friday we drove to Birmingham. It was supposed to rain all day, therefore cancellilng the chances of any snow... that's what the weathermen said... but when we were most of the way there, it started snowing. This made me very happy, but Ben sensed the impending danger and was less pleased about the weather conditions. By the time we reached the second or third stop we had to make, it was snowing at a decent rate, and while waiting in the car, I decided it would be best if I got out of the car and stood in the snow. I got a few strange looks from people hurrying from their cars to the nearby building, probably because I was just standing there getting snowed on and they all knew that as soon as I got in the car the snow would turn into extremely cold water and run from my head down my neck, back and shoulders, and Ben found it absolutely hilarious that I was just standing next to the car in the snow when he came out, but I had never been snowed on quite like that, and I found it rather amusing.
The snow that was falling in Birmingham that day was not like the delicate snowflakes that I had seen the day before; this snow was falling more in the form of large, clumsy flakes that made noise when they hit solid objects, the ground, and myself, and as the day progressed, they fell harder and harder and started causing a few problems.

Now you must understand that the following is not a personal opinion, that the pictures I am about to paint are not exaggerated and what they imply is a widely accepted fact among the English. I honestly had no idea exactly what I was in for and exactly how serious the radio DJ's were when they said something to the effect of, "America gets seven feet of snow every year, and they just clear the roads and get on with it, but we get seven inches of snow and everything just grinds to a halt. I mean, quite honestly, it's ridiculous." And he was absolutely right...

At first things didn't seem so bad; sure, traffic was going pretty slow, but certainly the roads would have been treated for the conditions, and people don't simply forget how to drive when it snows, right? Wrong. The roads were very slippery -- the few who didn't forget how to drive still had difficulties getting around and those who couldn't remember for the life of them what driving was in the first place caused all kinds of chaos... it was like they just didn't understand the conditions and the fact that they had to remain patient and take into consideration that everyone around them was going through the same thing. Those people were jerks and caused extra and unnecessary delay which had a domino effect, possibly doubling the hours of gridlocked traffic.

From what I gather, however, England simply doesn't cope well with snow and frozen conditions; it is not properly prepared for, people panic, schools close, offices close, people don't go to work, deliveries are not made, shops run out of food, traffic comes to a halt and then the people who grit the road so that it can be used safely get stuck in the traffic caused by the slippery conditions. Everything literally comes to a screeching halt and falls to pieces.

There were some interesting things to see, though... the bus slipping down the road, the Roving Bands of Able Young Men, and some other pretty sights in this winter wonderland.
I greatly enjoyed my day and evening in snowy, gridlocked Birmingham, although I don't think I'd love it so much if I were accustomed to it and got stuck in the traffic getting out of work, having my 15 minute trip home turn into a two hour crawl as many people broadcasted on the radio spoke about.

In any case, there was no denying that it was a winter wonderland, and that it was gorgeous.

Oh, and also...

Snow Kittens

2007-02-08T23:26:00.000Z

Dear Grace and Lexi,

Hello. I know I haven't written, and I hope you haven't felt too abandoned, confused or disoriented, and I hope that you both know, somehow, that I miss you and think of you every day.

I often wish I had brought you with me (although I'm pretty sure customs definately wouldn't have let me in then), because a lot of the time, dispite the rain, I think you'd like it here.

But today I built a snowman, and while I was building this snowman, playfully kicking snow about, I thought about you both. I pictured each of you taking tentative steps in that cold powdery stuff, shaking it off your feet and looking generally displeased with the state of affairs. I pictured you both, especially Lexi, shivering and looking miserably cold in that weather, not understanding what happened to the warm tropical breezes (and disgusting heat) that you both know and love.

I watched Patch, one of the resident cats, trudge around somewhat uncomfortably, unhappy about the condition of his feet after touching the white stuff, and knew that your thin Florida coats would not be able to cope with the same kind of weather as Patch's thick outdoor English coat... even he was cold today!

No, my dears, it has proven time and again to have been the proper decision to leave you in your native land where you can stay warm and safe and comfortable, because here they only allow the dog to live inside and the two of you would have certainly felt even more abandoned if I had brought you and then made you stay outside, away from food, shelter, warmth and love.

Luckly for all of our sake's you have food, shelter, warmth and love where you're at, which is a much happier thought for me than the idea frost bitten kittens. I hope you'll give me the time of day when I see you again, although I won't hold my breath (namely because it'll be a couple more months).

With Love,
Joey

P.S. I have included these pictures for you so that perhaps you can understand why you'd hate it here.
XOXO

This is Smudge (no, I don't like him nearly as much as I like you two). He's used to the cold, but doesn't like the snow on his feet.

All of the white stuff is cold and wet. It sticks to you and then melts and causes cold water to get all over you.

This is a snowman; snowmen are made out of cold stuff that gets wet as the temperature gets warmer. The fact that the snowman exists means that it's cold, and the fact that it remains standing means that it's still cold. When the snowman falls down because it's gotten too warm for him to stand up, that means that it's cold and very wet.

Ze Germans

2007-02-04T20:03:00.000Z

I have returned from my little trip to France and Germany armed with new perspective and self discovery.

Calais, France was nothing special; really just a place for the English to take advantage of the exchange rate and stock up on alcohol. It was fun, but it's not somewhere I'd be particularly interested in going again.

Germany, however, rocked my socks.
Connie, Waldemar (W's are pronounced as V's) and their three children, Robert, 19 (R's are pronounced "war"), Clemens, 16 and Mariele, 12 were our hosts, and they were fantastic.
Waldemar and the kids all spoke English rather well, Robert could read and translate Latin and Clemens is leaving in the summer to live in Mexico for a year. Connie speaks German, English, French and Italian, loves to travel and loves to show travelers everything she can during their stay. Therefore, Connie fed and watered us with local and traditional German food and drink and took us to the places the locals go, and Waldemar made sure we drank the right beer.

The family was bright, interesting and interested in other people, culture and language and had a very good general knowledge of the world. It didn't seem to me that differences between culture, language or personal preferences seemed in the least bit odd, strange or funny to them; rather, it appeared, from where I was observing, that they had at some point simply accepted the fact that all cultures and languages are different and that the people within those cultures are going to do and say things from a different perspective on the world than the perspective from within the German culture. Therefore, it seems to me, the norms of various cultures are immediately accepted as normal without question, and unless it is clear that something being explained is radically outside the norm for that culture, it is not surprising in the eyes of the Germans.

Of course my greatest exposure to the German culture was through this one family, and only for three full days, so perhaps I was just lucky enough to land in a really cool family.
But I have reasons to believe that education and the understanding of other peoples and cultures is of general national importance. One of my reasons for this is that, in the small towns that we visited, every German person that I came across was able to understand what I said and respond accordingly in English.
My main reason for believing that they have a keen interest in education, understanding and knowledge, however, is what I understand of their education system, which was a little too complex (and probably not explained as well as it could have been) for me to be able to properly repeat here in any sort of concise, coherent manner. What I can say completely clearly, though, is that it seems to be quite intense and very, very well rounded. There appears to be a big push toward study abroad, foreign exchange and language at a fairly young age, and the result is such that I hope to be able to expose my children to the same kind of things.
Basically, I learned that Germans like to learn, and that it makes them seem incredibly cool.

Other things I learned while in Germany:

- They have GREAT bread... like, omg, so delicious!
- And GREAT beer, duh.
- Also cheese.
- Germans are generally skinny people despite their consumption of lots of delicious bread, cheese and beer. I think it's because they walk a lot, and probably partly because it's cold (shivering burns calories, right?).
- German products are fantastic and very much my style: sleek, elegant, simple, functional and durable. Never have I found such a lightweight teaspoon that I couldn't bend, and never have I found a watch that was as beautifully perfect as the one I found while wandering around Gottingen -- so simple, functional and versatile, perfect for work or the Christmas ball. The jewelry is the same, simply gorgeous. My flatware, my watch and my favorite jewelry will hopefully one day come from Germany.
- Things in Germany are very, very clean and tidy, although I'm not sure that street cleaners actually exist, and trash disposal units are a very rare sight indeed.
- There are a lot of book stores, leading me to believe that books are popular.

Possibly the most important, relevant thing I discovered in my most recent short travels, however, is that it is advisable to go to the Irish Bar.

Gonna Getchya

2007-02-03T19:45:00.000Z

When I came back from my trip to France and Germany on Sunday night, the 25th of January, the customs officer stopped the car, questioned me and made us miss our train because I'm a US citizen traveling for a few months.

I'm not certain if the problem is that US citizens are fleeing to the UK by the thousands to escape the ridiculously high US taxes and money sucking governmental ploys to financially drain citizens in any way possible, if they just don't like the US so much that they want to give young adult females traveling by themselves outside of their home country as much grief as possible in hopes of making them break down in tears and repent for the sins of their fuck of a country, or if they're just ignorant of the fact that tourists contribute to their current economic superiority and are therefore trying to discourage visitors simply because they don't like strange people in their country.

Whatever the case may be, the customs officer made sure to stamp my passport with the same "Question this Bitch" stamp that the last customs officer (finally) stamped my passport with after four hours of unnecessary grief, and made sure to tell me that should I leave the country again and try to come back in, the power of the two stamps combined would not be defeated by the mere holding of a one way ticket back to my God forsaken country, and that should I have anything less than 1) proof of a job eagerly awaiting my return, 2) proof of an empty household with wilted plants in dire need of my love, attention and immediate return, and 3) a one way ticket back to my God forsaken country, I would most certainly not be allowed back into the Best Country in the Whole Wide World, never mind allowed back in without a lengthy hold up and much questioning.

Of course it didn't really help that US customs didn't stamp my passport to show that I'd re-entered the US after my ten day trip back in July, 2006, and the customs officer kept telling me that there was no proof that I'd ever gone back to the US in the first place. I tried to explain that I could give multipule phone numbers for him to call and check, but he just kept flipping the pages of my passport and saying "There's nothing in here to suggest that you ever even went back into the US..." So then I thought about saying, "Look, there is nothing that would make me want to stay in England for that long anyway... you couldn't pay me to stay in the country for that long," but decided that he woldn't take that kindly, either, and that since it's pretty clear that the UK doesn't much like the US as it is, he would just use that as a reason to lock me up for four hours or so while they ran background checks on me at laughed at my expense.

Maybe I just look like a clever, manipulative, internationally deceptive snake of a woman out to destroy rival countries.

Also, the UK has ridiculously high taxes and money sucking governmental ploys to financially drain citizens in any way possible.

2007-02-02T15:18:00.000Z

It was only cold for a couple of days, and while there was a little bit of snow in some parts of England, there was none where I'm at.

It is now actually rather warm (about 45-50 degrees F), and the sun is shining.

I think I'll go for a walk.

Global Warming: No, really, it's a thing.

2007-01-23T16:08:00.000Z

While shoveling gravel on Sunday, I came across a bright green caterpillar and noticed a lot of spring growth on trees, shrubs and vines... What month is this again?

The issue of Global Warming is a hugely popular subject of discussion in England; there is a constant buzz on the radio and television, in news papers and among the general public about it. It is an upsetting issue for people here, where Global Warming is significantly more noticeable than it is in places like Florida, and it's not something to be taken lightly; after all, it is detrimental to the world as we know it, not to mention the survival of the human race.

The Guardian did a Special Report on Global Warming on Sunday. The article is nothing short of disturbing, as this UK climate expert points out:

"'The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document - that's what makes it so scary,' said one senior UK climate expert."

Global Warming has caused longer, warmer summers and shorter, milder winters, show cased nicely by the presence of butterflies, bees and lambs in an English December/January and the confusion on the parts of bears in Russia and Spain.

There was a news report on the television the other day about Global Warming in which the reporter pointed out that the US is the #1 carbon contributor with China as a close second. The reporter then went on to discuss why these countries are so bad for the environment, pointing out the utter lack of concern on the part of the US and the horrible manner of China's sudden success; the report on China was longer and more detailed.
The US, of course, deserves all of the bad press it gets concerning the general attitude toward the environment, but as far as China's role goes, if history tells me correctly, they're simply doing exactly as the US and UK did when they hit their economic boom, rocketing them through the industrial revolution and, eventually, to more environmentally friendly methods of supplying power.

But I digress...

The push for a more "Carbon Neutral" approach toward life is a very big deal in the UK; it's something that everyone on TV, on the Radio and in everyday life talks about and, at least in theory, supports. One of their huge stores over here, Marks and Spencer, which supplies food, clothes, cosmetics, furniture, plants, etc., has recently pledged to become carbon neutral, or at least as close to neutral as possible, within the next five years. It is an ambitious and admirable goal, something that hopefully will set an example, perhaps a standard, for other super stores around the world.
Of course M&S is a quality conscious store that has something like morals and a desire to produce not only high quality products and service, but also a great working and shopping environment as well; so we probably shouldn't hold our collective breath waiting for the likes of Wal-Mart to make any remotely similar pledges.

Es wurde kalt (endlich)

2007-01-23T14:00:00.000Z

It's finally cold!!

Finally...

And by cold, I mean -4 or -5 degrees Celsius overnight ( so 24.8 to 23 degrees Fahrenheit), causing things to be frozen even in the mid day sunshine... that's right, sunshine; it is damn beautiful outside today! Blue skies and white puffy clouds as far as the eye can see! It's still not colder than the cold spells I grew up with in Homosassa, but things stay frozen longer because it doesn't warm up as much during the day here as it does in Florida. Right now it's about 1 to 1.5 degrees C outside (33.8 to 34.7 degrees F), and the little pond out back of the kitchen is still frozen, as are a good deal of puddles around the yard and around town.

And yesterday it sleeted (is that a word?)! We were driving along and it was raining lightly, and some of the rain was falling in the strangest patterns, but it was a raindrop when it hit the windshield. "That's funny rain," I said, wondering if it could possibly be sleet, although it didn't feel cold enough outside. "That's because it's snow," was the response I received. It became more snowy and less sleety at some point in an area where it was half a degree cooler, and the twirling snow drops were much more clearly snow and not funny rain.

Tomorrow it is supposed to be even colder and snow!

I find this all rather exciting, possibly because I had expected it to be colder here than winters were in my childhood/teenage years in Florida, more frozen and bright like it is now, or possibly just because it's something different that I haven't experienced for prolonged periods of time before now.

Regardless of my interest in snow and frozen landscape, however, I do hope that the weather forecast is clear and NOT snowy / icy in Germany at the end of this week / beginning of next week, because you're not allowed to drive in Germany when it's frozen unless you have snow tires (tyres ..... snow tires are studded and they do not need these in England because it just doesn't get cold enough). I'm excited about going to Germany and really don't want this frozen medium to decide that I cannot go (did I mention yet that I'm going to France early Friday morning and stopping in Holland on Sunday on the way to Germany?).

I suppose that France and Holland will be fine, though, if Germany is out of the question.

Random Flickr Fact

2007-01-20T11:41:00.000Z

The photo with the highest number of views on my Flickr page is the one labeled "Police" in the "London in July" folder at 57 views.
The second most viewed photo is the picture I use for my profile at 19 views, and thrid is the picture of me leaning against a wall at Tintern Abby at 13 views.

The Police, it seems, are quite popular.

Short Way to Go, Long Way to Drive

2007-01-20T09:41:00.000Z

One of the things I enjoy most about my daily life in England is flying through the single lane roads, meant to accomodate two way traffic, flanked by tall hedges and full of curves, bends and abrupt junctions.

Cornwall is an especially good place to find little roads like this, although all of England is full of them, and I very much enjoy the trips to Cornwall -- not only because it is beautiful, but also for the sake of zipping between fields on these narrow paths at the national speed limit (the national speed limit is 60mph, signified by a white circular sign with a black slash running diagonally through the center, usually posted on both sides of these one lane roads at the entrances).

During my most recent visit to Cornwall I remembered to bring my camera, unfortunately forgotten last time when a gleaming blanket of frost was shattered over the earth and trees, dusting everything with a mixture of soft white and diamonds; the effect was similar to a childhood story book come to life -- too quaint and lovely to actually exist.
I took a succession of pictures in hopes that I could create a visual image that would assist the imagination in creating its own version of one of these drives. In this story, we start in Seaton on a two lane road, wind through the paths snaking between fields, come out to another two lane road, and end up in the passage way to Looe.

This is Seaton:

A simple village with lovely scenery on the South coast. Mostly, it is a nice area to stop and take a picture, stretch your legs and perhaps have a drink in the pub, featured in this photo, along the way to wherever you may be headed.

This road goes on for, well, I don't really know how far it goes, because that road does not take us to where we are currently headed. However, I do know that about seven minutes after going through Seaton along this road, TomTom, the navigational device that is all the rave in England, mostly because it's difficult to get lost with TomTom as your companion, announces to the vehicle passangers, ever so politely, "In 200 yards, turn right." And always assuming that TomTom knows where we're going better than we do, we turn.

That right hand turn starts off looking like this:

A nice single lane road flanked by walls grown over with ivy. Lovely!

But after just a few short mintues we find ourselves in the narrow spaces between fields, carved out of even portions of the farmer's lands years ago, trying to give to everyone without taking too much from anyone.
In the picture below, you can see a junction coming off of another road like the one we're on. The dashes are an indication to give way to the traffic on our road. If you don't see anything coming when there is a dashed line like this one, though, you don't have to stop. Of course, that rule is more applicable when you can see if there are other vehicles nearby.

These roads can go on for a very long time, twisting round and round the edges of fields, sometimes seeming to go back on it self as much as it has gone forward.

Keep in mind that as we're travelling through these winding roads that unless we pass a gate, at rather high speeds, mind you, we are surrounded by tall hedges and banks of earth thrusting grass and small shrubs skyward, so all we can really see is sky and whatever is before the next bend. Sometimes, though, there will be a sudden 90 degree or steeper turn and a great panoramic view where whoever is in charge of boxing cars into these lanes decided to leave out the hedges, probably for safety reasons.

Always refreshing!

As we continue on our journey, it is possible that we will come across another vehicle, or sometimes a gigantic tractor. If we're're lucky, though, it won't be anything bigger than a car, otherwise there is sure to be a lot of backing up until one of the two can find an area large enough to let the other through. When this situation arises between two cars, one of the parties must pull as far over as they can into one of the strategically placed indents in the hedge so that the other car can scrape by.
We are the stopped car.

It is even possible that we might come across a couple of other cars in our tiny road travels... sometimes in the same area...

And then sometimes there are ...... traffic jams? WTF?

Maybe everyone got confused by the fact that the government was informing them that they were entering No Man's Land and stopped to make sure they were reading the sign correctly... Or maybe they were more concerned about the sign on top informing motorists that the road was about to become even smaller.

Or perhaps that blue van stopped in the middle of the road for no particular reason... oh, wait...

Anyway, so on with our journey. At least the cars in front are keeping a good speed, so we should OH MY GOD THE ROAD ENDS! GIVE WAY! GIVE WAY!

But what a nice view! All the better that this junction sprang from the mind of the narrator just as we were approaching, right? Right.
Who do you suppose that sign is for?

Our busy little lane has led us to another two lane road where we can go fast and see what's coming. Rejoice!

TomTom will allow us to go along a two lane road like this for about five to seven minutes at a stretch...

...until he brings us back to a road where we are more comfortable driving... all nice and snug.

Yes, it is meant for two way traffic, and yes, that man is taking up half the road.

Once we get down into the town there are shops and people everywhere... well, shops anyway... All of which we get the pleasure of seeing very closely.

I suppose since we came in the way we did that we have already met the requirements of fitting through here without causing serious physical harm to anyone or anything...

At some point all of these claustrophobia inducing roads dump out into a town or village, and sometimes at the end of a rainbow (the end of the rainbow is my favorite place to end up).

What a beautiful town! It was really nice to walk around for a while... even while it was raining.

Sometimes an additional splash of surprise is added upon rounding a corner of one of the seemingly desolate one lane roads and discovering that there is a village in the middle of all these fields, the tiny roads the veins connecting this part with the rest of England.

In any case, extra surprises or not, these little paved trenches always make for a fun, high speed and occasionally heart stopping journey through the internal organs of England.

But if the need for extra adventure just won't let you go, if you really want to spice it up and add a kick to your travels, try turning off TomTom.

American Car Bombs

2007-01-16T23:46:00.000Z

In England, they frown upon anything being called an Irish Car Bomb, and as far as anyone I know knows, there isn't another name for the drink. Thus, it has simply been renamed American Car Bomb for the duration of my stay.

Interactive Radio and Television

2007-01-16T20:33:00.000Z

The radio and television stations in the UK are quite different from the radio and television stations in the US. It's not just the structure that's different, though. It is, to a large extent, the relationships between radio, television and the public.

England has national radio and television stations, called Radio1 thru Radio5, and ITV1 and ITV2. There are stations with other names as well, but the most widely listened to radio stations are Radio1 and Radio2 and the most widely watched television stations are ITV1 and ITV2.

The radio stations, not just the national radio stations but also the local city stations, discuss a huge range of topics, from national debates and news to ASDA/Wal-Mart's recent $19 men's suit to things that happen in shows on television, especially ITV1; and ITV1 and ITV2 cover an equally broad range, throwing a couple of soaps and reality TV shows into the mix as well.

The biggest difference I noticed in both radio and TV when I first got here is that they are both very interactive with the public.
Radio DJs, all mixed up with the news and music, are continuously urging viewers and listeners to text, call in or e-mail, asking for the public's opinions, experiences and ideas regarding news items, what happened on particular television shows the night before, national policies up for debate and so on.
The television networks create shows specifically designed for viewer participation, shows that require a public vote to secure a winner, weather that winner is a person, a charity, or an organization, etc.

Whether or not you watch television doesn't necessarily matter, though, because you're going to know about popular shows weather you want to or not if you listen to the radio or read the papers; these mediums are knit together with the people, creating this mesh of general information flowing through the nation, inundating the public with both useful and utterly useless information. In any case, news spreads fast.
But most things never make it past the first day; they get talked about on the radio until everyone and their dogs are aware of the situation, then die and shrivel into almost nothing, like a sudden panic attack that everyone just wants to forget about. There are some things that are talked about consistently, though, some things that are on everyone's minds, things that bug them, like global warming and Iraq.

My favorite radio stations over here are Radio 2 and the Classical station, I think it's Radio5 or something. I haven't really listened to Radio3 or 4, but I have listened to 1, 2 and 5, assuming 5 is indeed the Classical station.
Radio1 is a very youth oriented, dance/pop type station that seems to be to be rather disjointed and confused with nothing much to say.
Radio2 is something that young people, people that want to be considered cool, don't want to admit they listen to... it's a station for "the old man," not for the old man's kid. The music on that station is a mixture of classic rock, 80's and music like that of Snow Patrol, Interpol, Michael Bauble and Scissor Sisters. It is, I think, a good mixture of music with radio shows and DJs that tend to be interesting as well as funny, plus they give regular traffic updates, which are quite handy.
The Classical station is, in my opinion, amazing. The music they play is a fantastic mixture of soothing, heart wrenching and uplifting pieces that usually go very well with the English countryside. It's not like NPR's classical music in South Florida at all .... I have a hard time listening to the classical music they play on that station. The Classical station they have here is, as I said before, amazing ... I wish I could take it with me wherever I go.

Miles From Where You Are

2007-01-12T23:25:00.000Z

Since before Christmas it has been raining, cold, gray and windy. On Wednesday, however, the clouds broke, the sun shined, and the grass was greener than I ever recall seeing it before.

On Wednesday, around 12:00pm UK time, the sky was blue indeed.

It was a magical sight not only because the sun had been hidden for so long, but also, if not mostly because, everything was so damned beautiful when Nature finally let the sun shine though.

It wasn't just a bright blue sky... it was a bright blue sky, like the brightest blue sky you've ever seen, with purple, dull blue, bright gray and dull pink clouds ... and then clouds (clouds that the sun took cover behind) that were Autumn colors with shimmering gold linings and that had sun-beams bursting out from behind them.
The fields weren't just green, either .... don't let green fool you; I know green is green and all, but the fields were a magnificent green that just doesn't exist in Florida landscape. I mean, I know it rains and all, but it doesn't rain this much without a certain amount of destruction, and nothing is ever this green after a tropical storm or hurricane.... There was flooding, yes, but the fields just reflected the magnificent sky all the better, and the green was simply greener than any green you've ever seen in grass before, and the whole scene was breath taking....

If I'd known that the sun would finally come out and show the landscape in all it's beauty, wonder and magnificence on Wednesday, I would have been eager to take a camera... but since every day since a few days before Christmas have been dreary, drab and depressing, I haven’t bothered to take a camera anywhere...
From now on I will count this as a serious mistake on my part and carry a camera on me always, for I am sorry not only to myself, but to anyone who loves beauty, the color green, or the sky in it's most unpredictable and beautiful states.

England is, despite all of it's nasty turns, a beautiful, beautiful country, and I am very happy -- perhaps even blessed -- to get to see so much of it so closely.

Snake Bite: That's a Wrap

2007-01-05T13:23:00.000Z

It's been a couple of weeks, I know, and I'm sorry, but please understand that it's not that I haven't thought about my poor, neglected travel blog every day, it's not that I haven't felt a sort of guilt for cheating myself out of a well documented life in a foreign country, and it's not that new, different and interesting experiences haven't been occuring, it's just that I haven't been inspired.

Why? Well, I'm not sure, really. Perhaps it's the mostly gray days that start late and end early, the constant drizzle with no pretty light show or soothing thunder, or the lack of friends, family and individual socalization .... or maybe I just miss the palm trees. In any case, inspiration has slept through the dreary days while I have just longed to.

The Christmas season here is just as commercialized and early springing as it is in the US. On the other hand, it is a lot more concentrated, in your face, talked about constantly by every radio station and TV program in the country and more heavily celebrated here in the UK than I ever recall it being in the US. There also seems to be much less celebration of religious holidays outside of the Christan Christmas (I actually do not recall seeing any celebration symbols or hearing anything on the television/radio about any other religious celebrations at all, not even in ethnic areas I've been in, but I may have just not been paying attention).
It is a traditional, expected practice to go out on Christmas Eve around 4:00pm or so, get very drunk, be somewhat hung over the next morning, and then drink yourself silly with friends and family for the rest of the day on Christmas.
The day after Christmas is called Boxing Day, and is celebrated in much the same way except with Christmas Day's left overs and fewer/different friends and family present.

For the week between Christmas and New Year, almost everything goes into a sort of shut down mode where small shops simply don't open, large stores go onto special, considerably shorter hours, and most people seem to either not be working or working much less.

On New Year's Eve in the UK, as is the tradition in many countries, people old and young alike drink until their vision is blurred, their speech is slurred, and they can barely stand up; WKD Blue, Fat Frogs and Snake Bites along with beer and shots of random liquors all across England hoist the youth onto a platform of invincibility and then drive them into the ground, leaving them to suffer in their uncertainty and pain. Less daring mixtures of alcohol leave the not as young wallowing in their pain with a slightly clearer memory.
The following day is simply New Year's day and not exactly celebrated, although many, many people are not required to work.
I somehow managed to drink gin and tonic and then Fosters from about 6:30pm till 1:30am and not get so much as a buzz. I'm not sure if it's because I only had about seven drinks for the duration of the night, because I alternated/accompanied every alcoholic beverage with water, or if it was a combination of the two, but in any case I was not envious of the individuals bounding about in a drunken stupor, nor was I disappointed when I recieved the surprise reaction from the people I came across the following day of, "My, you look fresh!"

The holiday season is over now, and the radio and television stations have switched from constant Christmas talk to constant New Year's Resolution chatter. I have a lot to say about the radio and television stations over here, but I'll save that for another post.

Exeter Cathedral

2006-12-23T21:01:00.000Z

I went to the Exeter cathedral a couple of weeks ago and it was fantastic!

It was your run of the mill cathedral built ages ago out of stone blocks that make modern backs ache just looking at them with nice, although not awe inspiring stained glass and rows of wooden benches equipped with cushions for your sit down, stand up, kneel routine... and the ceiling was very cool.

The thing that made the whole experience so awesome, however, was the gigantic, beautiful pipe organ in the back and the fact that the choir was practicing. The sound of the choir resonated through the cathedral like well tuned thunder. It was absolutely beautiful.

The Roads

2006-12-11T15:32:00.000Z

People in England drive on the wrong side of the road, and when I say “wrong side of the road,” I don’t mean on the side of the road opposite to what Americans are supposed to drive on. No, when I say “wrong side of the road,” what I mean to say is the side of the road opposite to what the English are supposed to drive on.

They drive everywhere; the correct side of the road, the wrong side of the road, off the road and sometimes half on the sidewalk (assuming there are no people using it at the time).

This is, of course, not only standard, but an absolutely necessary method of driving.

The reason for this seemingly insane method of driving is that upon construction of the vast majority of the towns, villages and cities, parking was not planned for, so people just park in the road. The town and village streets are usually crowded by vehicles parked all along them in either direction, causing one direction or the other, sometimes both, to be mostly blocked by parked cars. This causes cars to be forced into either the opposite lane of where they should be or the middle of the street and leads to the necessity of “giving way” and “being patient” (something I’ve recognized a lack of in the driving etiquette of Americans).

I have drawn this to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

As you can see, this set up would create absolute chaos and serious road rage in the US. However, here in the UK, drivers are shockingly polite, patient drivers who don’t seem to understand the rhyme or reason for road rage. They also, in general, drive small cars, not like the oversized gas guzzlers that Americans tend to drive, so that helps a lot. During rush hour, of course, the politeness wears a bit thin, but for the most part, driving etiquette is absolutely fantastic!

The streets, cars and people all mesh into this kind of rhythmic, singular existence with its own nervous system, breath and pulse, working together toward the same goal of getting to where they need to go in the easiest, most polite manner possible; Drivers are very polite: they give way, say “Thank You” in the forms of flashing their lights, waving, and alternating blinkers four or five times, they wait their turns and follow the driving guidelines set down by the collective consciousness of all drivers… it’s Searle all over, and it’s really, really cool.

Somehow they all manage to drive quite quickly along these twisty little roads and not kill each other or themselves. It's pretty impressive, actually... and sometimes a little frightening.

The roads are categorized by size, use and quality in the following order:

· Motorways: These roads are similar to the Florida Turnpike or I75 (I hesitate to equate them to I95 because the Motorways are generally of much better quality). They are numbered M1 thru > M65

· Junctions: These are more or less exits leading to roundabouts which cut off into various A roads; they are labeled J followed by one, two or three numbers.

- Roundabouts: Circular drives that have various exits on them for different roads leading in different directions; the normal method of directing traffic in England. You give way to the right.

· A Roads: A roads are roads that have a lot of use and are of very good quality and a usually large width. They are named "A" followed by three or four numbers (ex. A1234) and are often “Dual Carriageways.”

- Dual Carriageway: Dual Carriageways (usually pronounced “Jueal” or “Jool” Carriageways) are two lane roads that are not typical English roads. Dual carriageways are divided by a grass median.

· B Roads: B roads are commonly used roads of good quality and a width usually large enough to generally accommodate two vehicles .

· C Roads: C roads are well used roads of fair quality and a width usually too small to accommodate any two vehicles at the same time; one vehicle usually must pull to an intentional indent in the side of the road to give way to another vehicle.

· Lanes: Lanes are very small roads of generally poor quality often comprised of highly compacted dirt and a width lacking any trace of a dream of accommodating more than one car at a time... and sometimes barely that. Usually has intentional indents incrementally shaved on the sides to allow one car to pull over while the other cautiously scrapes through.

The paved roads are made of "Tarmac," which is similar to Asphalt, but much more porous to accommodate the large quantities of rain they are doused with all the time. They collect a lot of water and need to be salted and gritted when the temperature is expected to be below freezing; it is considerably softer than Asphalt too, causing trucks (lorrys) to leave tire marks when it is “hot” (a temperature similar to an Austin, TX 88 degrees, which is actually quite nice).

So far I haven't been killed on any of these roads or lanes or anything, although I hear that "black ice" is a very dangerous thing that I have yet to experience.
Guess I'll find out.

Off to See the Wizard

2006-12-08T02:07:00.000Z

Weather conditions were rainy and very windy all over the country a few days ago, producing a tornado in London. There were almost 100 MPH winds and it lasted about a minute, causing damage to several buildings on one street, removing one wall and injuring six people. Some people were displaced and made to stay elsewhere until the area was deemed safe enough for them to return, until someone repaired the damaged roofs and until the one family got another wall. It was all over all of the national and local radio stations, and there seemed to be a general feeling of panic and disbelief that such a tragic thing had happened. One radio reporter was in the area conveying the terrifying event to listeners, telling them about the cars that had been flipped on their sides and the bricks that were littering the street; at one point, I giggled.

It’s not that I find tornadoes funny, I don’t; they’re mean things that spring up out of no where and often pack so much deadly energy and force that entire towns are leveled and hundreds of lives shattered or lost, remnants of a previous existence scattered for miles. Who wants to live in an area called “Tornado Alley?” I sure as hell don’t! Christ… “Looks like tornado weather today… keep a lookout. I’ll pray you don’t get impaled by debris flying around at hundreds of miles per hour. Good luck!”

This is something we as Americans are generally accustomed to, though, because Americans have grown up with various types of natural disasters causing various levels of destruction, death and trauma, preparing us for the impact of hearing that New Orleans was wiped out by a Category 5 hurricane and that thousands of people were killed, or that a highly populated city in California was swallowed up by an earthquake, etc, etc. When a tornado like the one that occurred in London the other day happens somewhere in the US, it is seen as an annoyance and barely gets mentioned in the local evening news.

However, from what I could tell from the radio broadcasts the other day, if you’re not brought up living with it in your country, as something that is discussed and accepted as something that is going to happen and possibly affect you or someone you know, the concept of natural disasters is absolutely terrifying.

Apparently natural disasters are not something that the English are even remotely accustomed to dealing with. As it turns out, poisonous / dangerous animals and insects and natural disasters are not something that exist in England, and, in general, the people are not completely aware of and are afraid of those things. So, when a tornado (I learned that approximately 30-40 per year are normal, just not in populated areas) strikes and messes up some roof tops and houses and scatters some bricks around, even though no one was seriously injured or killed, people get all nervous and upset because it is highly unusual and may give the impression that the world is coming to an end.

England has no earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, sand storms, or threat from tsunamis, and tornadoes are small and far and few between; they have no frightening looking, big, scaly reptiles with teeth and the ability to swallow small children whole, nor are there deadly spiders or bugs or snakes or anything of the sort -- the most frightening critters they have lurking about here are foxes, and they’re pretty damn cute.

Thus, the English carry on, day after day, with no thought, not even in the most remote recesses of their minds, of even the possibility of an encounter at any point in time with any critter or natural occurrence that might possibly endanger their well being, leaving them with the tendency to describe a small, one minute long tornado producing 100 mile per hour winds as “something out of The Wizard of Oz.”

Xbox go Boom!

2006-12-04T21:03:00.000Z

So, electrical sockets have a higher voltage over here.

I said, "Do you speak-a my language?" He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich.

2006-12-03T18:25:00.000Z

"Ello mate! Ow'd you get on at tha club de'oder night?"
"Oh, mate, it was arrible! Absolutely arrible."
"Why-i, wat'appened?"
"Well id wen like dis..."

I had a chat enna laugh with a few birds thru tha night, an then chatted and danced the rest u'tha night with this bird I enned up goin'ome wit. I was pissed. Well pissed, caus mate, thaut bird was mingin. We got a taxi back to my place, caus I din't realise she was a minger caus I was well pissed an took'er'ome anyway.

Well we got back'a my place en we star-ed gettin off in tha lounge when I erd me mum get up.
So real quiet we snuck inna my room en star-ed gettin off again. Well I got tha bird's trousers and top off en was workin for her pants, but then she weren't doin anythin anymoor caus she'd gonna sleep! So I woek'er'up, we kep gettin off, an then we star'ed shaggin, an mate, she might'a been a minger, but she was a good shag.

Well righ'afta we got don, she fella'sleep again and I couldn get er up mate, so in tha mornin me mum wobbled in an saw us there an had a laugh an a giggle at me minger I brought home, an when the bird finnaly woke up at half two me mum asked er to stay for tea!

Well er name turned out to be Margret, Margret tha minger, an Margret jus thought it would be love-lay to stay for tea. Me mum made pastar for tea an served profit-a-rolls an cream for puddin, it was gorgeous, then tol Margret it was love-lay havin'er for tea an gave me 20 quid to take er out'tha pub!

So I take er t'tha pub on tha way back tha club t'get'er'ca, an I bring'er to tha leas populat-ed arear in there an there's Alice with some'r mates all sittin right there. They take the piss out me an have a laugh an a joke at my expense, I neck me pint an drag Margaret out there an back'tha'club ta drop er at er ca. Well on tha way t'tha club, this lorrie almos its us on tha jeul carriage way, an Margaret screams er bloddy ead off an I staa-t shakin caus she's yellin so loud mate. Then Margaret feels bad she's shaken me like'at an she starts pettin me hair an tellin me nice things, an I fall for it like a muppet.

So we staa-t gettin off and en she staa-ts noching me off an she's really good mate, an we en'up shaggin again, en by tha time I get'er back'er'ca, she's got me telly nummer en is already ringin me ta be sure it's good. En now I been shaggin'er all week an it's like I'm an addict, mate, en I can'tstop. She been oer'f'tea twice since! I donnow'what'a'do cause she's really sweet and really good and she's a great shag an I really like er, but she's a minger mate... I mean a real minger.

So das'why I came'ere.
Oh mate... les get a pint.

Inclement Landing

2006-11-30T18:28:00.000Z

When we approached London it was still very dark, and of all the sights I've seen in my life, London's lights from a plane on a clear night was one of the most exciting and uplifting things thus far.

The flight wasn't too bad; decent food, decent wine, decent entertainment, little to no motion sickness, and I even managed to sleep for about an hour! When I got off the plane I felt quite happy and excited -- I walked briskly and smiled at other tired travelers. It was 6:10am UK time, 1:10am US time, but I was still somehow very alive, awake, alert and enthusiastic.

Air traffic was rather backed up, with five planes in a line behind mine getting ready to land, and there were hundreds and hundreds of passengers pouring out of various terminals, rushing toward immigration and baggage claim, eager to get out of there and to their ultimate destinations. I had already been more or less jogging through the place toward immigration when these other planes started dumping their passengers into the corridors, and I felt rather satisfied when I got in a very short line in the "Other" category of immigration.

When it was my turn, I marched happily up to the lady, smiled, handed her my stuff and wished her a cheery good morning (I believe this may have been my first mistake).
"Good morning," I said smiling.
"Where are you coming from?" She asked without looking at me.
"The United States," I said, still smiling.
"How long are you staying?" She said, still not looking at me.
"Five or six months."
"Well you know you can't stay longer than six months?" She sounded bored, as though the responses she was producing were automated and she wasn't really paying any attention at all.
"Oh yes, of course, I'm definitely leaving by May 1st, so it will be less than six months."
"Why are you here?"
"I'm just visiting. I want to travel."
"Do you have a return ticket home?"
"No, not yet, I'm not sure of the exact date I'm going back," I responded. This, I believe, was my second mistake, because it caused the robot woman to come to life and shoot her eyes up at me in a fierce, angry way.
"Why don't you have a return ticket home?" She asked in an all too humanly serious, mean voice.
"Well I'm just not sure of the exact date I'm going back."
"Why not?"
"My sister is having a baby and she's going to pick the date of her baby shower and I'll go back two days before that."
She then wrote on, signed and stamped some piece of paper and said, "Here. Take this and go wait over there. I or another officer will be with you shortly."

So I went to the area she pointed to and stood near all of the other people who made some sort of mistake or another on their immigration entry interviews. It was an open area with a row of padded bench type chairs, a water fountain and a handicap accessible bathroom, and while the area was open and easy to leave, it was guarded by a scrawny, polite English guy with a radio. I expected, as she'd said, that someone would be with me shortly, and this first time, it didn't take too long, fifteen minutes perhaps, but I soon discovered that "shortly" or "ten minutes" meant something completely different than what the words actually implied. The first person came a long within about fifteen minutes, as I said, and asked me the same questions that the first officer asked me, and I answered them largely the same, although tried to be more precise on when I was leaving.

Apparently I was not precise enough, because I was told to wait again and someone would be right with me. This time I waited about 20 minutes before someone new came along, pulled me into a more private area, asked me the same questions again, and then sent me back to the open area right off the side of immigration to wait for someone to "be with me shortly" again.

The third time two ladies came for me and took me down to baggage claim where they found my baggage with me. They took me over to the luggage search area and proceeded to search all of my baggage. They discovered my journal, student ID, Drivers License and Honors College degree, took them all (along with all of my other identification) and told me and my baggage (a suitcase, a guitar case, and a carry on case on wheels, all of which I had to drag myself because they weren't covered to carry anything) to follow them back upstairs, up several ramps, back through the immigration areas and into the immigration offices on the other side.

Along the way, the older, meaner lady was asked by another immigration worker to assist in the questioning of someone at one of the podiums similar to the one I was originally trapped at. The lady that I continued to follow was younger and considerably nicer than the old hag that gleefully went off to cause someone else some trouble.

Once we were in the main corridor of the immigration offices, I was told to leave my bags and follow the younger woman into another room. In this room, I was photographed, told to stare into a video camera for a long time, photographed again, and had my fingerprints taken. There was large window over the fingerprint station countertop overlooking an office next door. The office housed one very large desk with two men at it and another smaller desk with one man. There were various filing cabinets and shelves, papers, lockers, and a good deal of luggage. The men in this office were searching a guy that had been in the open area guarded by the scrawny English dude when the two ladies took me away. I smiled weakly at him when he looked at me, and he returned a similarly weak yet knowing and somewhat satisfied smile that made me want to laugh. At the far side of the room there was a door with a window in the top half and a key pad on the handle. Just to the right of this door was another very large window looking into a room containing some generally unhappy looking individuals, some of which were currently watching the guy between our two rooms being searched. It was clear to me that he was going to be put into that room, which I gathered to be a detaining room, and felt bad for him even though I didn't know what he'd done.

When they were done with me, they gave me another piece of paper which they said explained why I'd been fingerprinted (upon reviewing the paper I discovered that it didn't explain anything at all, really), had me collect my stuff again and lug it back out to the open immigration area where I was told someone would be with me shortly. This shortly was probably the shortest shortly all morning, lasting only about 10 minutes.

The lady that came to get me seemed very nice. She led me and my luggage back into the immigration offices, asked me some questions on the way, smiling and then led me through the door into the same room I looked into while I was being fingerprinted. Those same men I'd spied searching that knowing, amused guy earlier had me empty my pockets and proceeded to scan me with a metal detector. The nice lady then offered me some water, which I accepted, and then locked me up in the adjoining room with my Solo style cup of water and the generally unhappy looking people. She said she'd be back with me in ten minutes.

The room was very unappealing; there were eleven red padded benches with four dirty seats each, six of them slanted diagonally in the center on the room facing the caddy-corner TV and away from the window looking into the immigration office area, two facing the immigration windows on the opposite side (just to the right of the TV), one at a ninety degree angle to the right of those between the two bathrooms and two on the right of and running parallel with the immigration windows. On the wall opposite the bathrooms were two tables bolted to the floor, four chairs chained to the floor, and one book case full of religious books bolted to the wall. There were blankets, pillows and hoodies piled randomly on the various benches, all grungy and dirty looking things that I wouldn't want to touch. On the bench nearest the chained down plastic chair I was sitting on, there was a small carpet, and when I wondered how you would figure out which way was west, I discovered that there was a compass on the floor. Also scattered around the room were newspapers written in Japanese or Chinese and tiny leather bound copies of the New Testament on the tables and bookshelf.

I brought a book in with me, Pattern Recognition, figuring I could get a little bit read, that it wouldn't be too long, that they just needed to sort something out and realize that I wasn't going to blow anything up or live in their country for longer than six months, and sat there to read. There were seven other people in the room who seemed friendly enough, and there was one guy in particular that seemed very eager to talk.
There was the guy that had been being searched when I was being fingerprinted who was light skinned and appeared perhaps eastern European and a bit gruff; he sat/slept on one of the benches parallel with the window. There was an old Japanese or Chinese man sitting very quietly on the bench nearest the bathroom facing the window who didn't talk to anyone and laid down to sleep after not too long. There was someone sleeping under a comforter on the other bench facing the immigration window who later turned out to be a very young looking Jamaican guy, perhaps 18 or 19, that had been in there since 3:00am. There was a very large black woman from Barbados who had been in there since about 4am and paced around the room for fiending for a cigarette. There was another person under a blanket on one of the benches in the center of the room who turned out to be a young Chinese/Japanese man; I never heard him speak. There was a quiet and contemplative black man in his late 20's/early 30's who seemed extremely calm, cool and collected; he read a book most of the time, the title of which I was never able to make out because he had it folded back the whole time, but when I spoke to him he told me that he was from Nicaragua, his flight had been cancelled, and he was just waiting to go home... he had been in there since the previous morning. Then there was the talkative guy who turned out to be from Israel, had been locked up for seven hours and was fiending for a cigarette. He was locked up because one flight had been cancelled and he missed the other. He asked where I was from and then proceeded to tell me about people he knew that had gone to California and asked me questions about the US in general. I didn't feel particularly talkative at first because, after all, I wasn't going to be in there for too long. Some others joined in the conversation, though, and we all sat around and chatted for a bit. It was kind of fun.

When my immigration officer came back to get me, the people I'd been talking to asked me if I was going to get out. I told them I didn't know, although I was hoping they'd decided I wasn't dangerous after all, and wished the others good luck.

My officer took me into an interviewing closet and asked me a lot of questions; she wrote down every word of every question and every answer. It seemed to be very, very upsetting to them that I had entered their country for these two reasons: I didn't have a return ticket yet, and I had my HC degree with me. I did my very best to explain both, telling her about Carrie being pregnant, telling her about Japan, telling her about interviews, telling her about just wanting to travel a bit, etc., etc. At the end of the interview, she brought me back to the room, told me she'd be back in about ten minutes, and then locked me up again.

By now there were five new additions to the room -- four Japanese/Chinese people obviously traveling together and who were either tied to or from the same area as the old guy -- the woman in this group looked very upset -- and one lighter skinned guy in a suit who left within about 15 minutes of being there.

I waited another 45 minutes. Unfortunately I was becoming far too tired and preoccupied to read, going over the same paragraph several times without knowing what I'd read. I got into more involved conversations with the other convicts and learned a little more about them, where they were from and why they were in there. The young Jamaican and Japanese/Chinese guys woke up, and while I was speaking to the Jamaican guy, he was very smiley and upbeat, as Jamaicans tend to be, despite the situation. It seemed to be a common theme that flights were missed or cancelled, resulting in being locked up. My officer poked her head in the room 35 minutes later than stated, led me back toward he interrogation room, whipped out my journal and asked me some questions. She immediately led me back into the room, left me there, came back, asked me another question from across the room, said it wouldn't be long, and left.

I didn't see her again for about an hour and a half or so, and by this time I was convinced that there were going to kick me out of the country. Honestly, I was becoming extremely restless and annoyed about being locked up and becoming increasingly impressed by the Nicaraguan man's calm, patient, satisfied disposition. I was very tired, somewhat drained, and becoming increasingly nervous. I wanted to demand my rights, see a US ambassador or something, speak to the chief immigration officer myself, show them my bank balances, give them the phone numbers of people who know me and know I'm not staying in the country past May and explain to them, once again, why the hell I was there in the first place. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do when they told me I had to leave, who I was going to call, how I was going to appeal, how long I'd have to stay in there.
The one thing that kept me from feeling panicked, though, was the amazing inner peace that the guy from Nicaragua displayed. It was a weird kind of warmth and had a very calming effect on me that kept me smiling, even tempered and unruffled.

When my officer finally came back, she wouldn't look me in the eye, and I was sure I was going to be sent back. She told me to get my things and follow her, which I did, back to one of the interrogation rooms. She told me that not having a return ticket, not having any English money on me, having my degree on me and not having a job to go back to were all terrible strikes against me, and that I was very, very lucky that she was in a good mood that day because most immigration officers would have given me three days to get out of the country and it would have put a huge, terrible scar on my immigration history. Instead, she stamped something into my passport and wrote "6 MONTHS" next to it and explained that this would necessitate me getting a return ticket before traveling anywhere else, because if any UK immigration officer saw this in my passport, they'd give me just as hard of a time and probably send me back.

I finally made it out of the airport at 11:00am UK time, exhausted, annoyed, and much, much less happy than I had been upon arrival. It was a good experience, though, I think, because it taught me a few things about dealing with such situations and people, about the way different people react to things, and about remaining calm in personally detrimental situations. I remained completely cooperative, outwardly happy and calm, pleasant, genuine and honest the entire time, and in the end, I think that helped me a lot.

However, I also learned the following: #1, do NOT wish immigration officers a good morning, because in immigration, it is NEVER a good morning. #2, don't say "no" if they ask if you have a return ticket home, say something more along the lines of, "Yes, my father is going to book a ticket online that accommodates his schedule for the first or second week of April. He will be picking me up from the airport and is waiting on confirmation for a convention that is scheduled in one of the first two weeks of April." #3, NEVER, EVER, NO MATER WHAT carry your degree with you anywhere unless you have some sort of stamped, sealed letter of necessity from someone in your native country. Foreign countries hate your college degree being within their jurisdiction.
#4, plan ahead for bad things to happen and inform others of your excuse for not having a return ticket yet, #5, avoid words such as "but," "no," "not," and anything else potentially negative. #6, being polite, following orders, cooperating fully and smiling really does help. #7, English people don't like Americans as much as our government likes to pretend.

Where am I going again?

2006-11-30T02:11:00.000Z

If you look out the window you can clearly see the beautifully sculpted model city with it's little office buildings, churches, schools and motorized vehicles. The sun is starting to go down, and the city lights are coming on; street lights, headlights, window lights... It's quaint and beautiful.

Thin pulled cotton hangs mysteriously in the air, no visible strings or attachments. It is much easier to make out features in the clouds from this angle, they look more like actual dogs with dragon heads than they do from the ground.

The landscape becomes smaller, and the thin pulled cotton becomes thicker and more dense. Eventually the model city disappears beyond the window and the ocean is largely obscured by an ever thickening landscape of deliciously comfortable looking mounds of full, round, puffy feather beds. There are miles and miles of them, and while you may find the urge to leap out onto these wonderful looking things, rolling and snuggling your life away, I have been told my various books and people that they will not support your weight. As these feather beds begin to flatten out, an absolutely alien landscape begins to form, scattered with slight hills, jutting points of white alien earth and sudden dramatic drops into numerous abysses; for some reason I expect the whiteness to shimmer. The horizon is a rainbow going from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to a very deep purple, like a widened and elongated rainbow that has lost its arch. This landscape is somehow recognizable, though, and you soon begin to realize that the shimmer is missing only because of the setting sun, and that the bears, seals and penguins are only missing because you are no longer near the coast.

As the sun drops below the horizon the rainbow thins until it is a strip of deep reds and yellows, and if you look ahead out the window, you can see the strip thin into nothing as you speed into the uncertain darkness.