Gypsies and Black People

I never got a chance to include this in my trip diary.

On the train in Rome we met Gitanas , Gypsies. Everyone had crowded away from them on train. On the Eurostar we were advised to keep away from them. "Don't trust the Gitanas. They have no fear."

I don't know if gypsies still are masters at theft. It makes me sad, though, to see this alienation of a culture, a people, because of a stereotype. It upsets me to see this discrimination.

Black people are seemingly not integrated in Venice and Florence, for the most part. The only place I ever saw them was at the side of the road selling knock-off bags.

I hate bigotry.

Coming Home

Today I was awakened by toy mice pelting onto my bed. My cousin and aunt were so generous and good while hosting us, and I’ll miss them.

We went to Heathrow with a nice taxi driver, a Kurdish man from Turkey whom has been here for 25 years. Hearing his appraisal of the political situation in Turkey, Germany, and England was interesting. He was of course affected by the general racism in Turkey when he was a child, and how even now the right wingers don’t want to give Kurdish people rights. He also stated that Turkey doesn’t want to admit to the Armenian genocide because it will then be forced to take responsibly for it and give Armenians their land back. He talked about how friendly and clean Germany is. I’ve never heard “friendly” used to describe the general mentality of the German people, though he was perhaps talking about the large Turkish population there. He talked about how much more integrated these people are, though I have heard otherwise. I don’t know. I think there are bigots everywhere, and an almost disturbing number, at that. It is true that England seems less enthusiastic about its large immigrant population than from an outsider’s point of view makes sense(and I would be considered part of them). I still love England, though, and do think they have plenty of economic activity going on in their country.

It makes me so angry to hear about us powerful nations coming in and just carving up poorer nations for our own benefit. Imagine that happening to you, your country no longer existing because somebody faraway told you so. You’/d think nobody would accept this outrage, but these same people barely seem to know you’re alive. You try to fight and are labeled terrorists. Can you imagine the helpless rage?

Our first flight was seven hours long. It only took me three hours to beat the first five or six scenarios of Starcraft, and I couldn’t read for long or get motion sick. Get vegetarian food on the plane even if you’re not one; we get served first and our food is usually better. We landed in Boston, angry and tired, ate some food and sat at the gate, waiting for four hours for our connecting flight. I fell asleep almost immediately as we boarded for the entire seven hour flight . Note: Don’t do this type of travel. It’s horrible. I dreamt, at one point, about a rock elemental possessed with a spirit who was transported to another dimension where he couldn’t fly. He kept trying to break whatever the dimension’s hold on him was by trying to fly, but eventually found the cause was a tiny city going under the earth, filled with a rich Adriatic-style culture. However, only the princess was good. The rest of the city was not so good, and they could bind together like ants into a behemoth which he had to fight. I blame this on one of the miniatures in the British museum, which was based on a Chinese story where an official wanders into a beautiful city and marries its princess. She dies and he is turned out for turning to drinking while devastated over her death. He goes back to search for the gate, only to find it was an anthill.

We then waited for the Flyaway bus and took a taxi home from Van Nuys. Everyone, exhausted, threw themselves in bed, only to find out they couldn’t sleep. The kittens were also really happy to see us, and there was purring involved. I ate some Indian food and locked Clingy inside, upon which he went a bit crazy and we let him out again.

So that is the end of what seems to have been a very pleasant dream. Last night I dreamt that I visited a large, old cathedral by my house, and was frustrated to wake up and realize that I couldn’t anymore. I’m glad to be back home with Snuggles, who keeps meowing for huggup, and the kittens, who aren’t letting us out of their sight, and my books and capability to work, though. It’s like coming back to reality, which is also a little scary. Time to get down to business.

Full Day Yesterday

I had an interesting dream last night where a friend of mine turned into a god, like Apollo, and lived as a shining, bright center of truth for some time. Then a visitor came and showed him that he and the gods were turning into mysteries of smoke and shadow. It was actually quite touching. The gods went off to find a cure, though my "awake" mind knew it was almost hopeless.

Last night I was too tired to write an entry. We went to the Tate museum and and Stonehenge yesterday. I get angry when people compare side-of-the-road and cheap artists to these people. My favorite were the English romantics,and my favorite painting was "The Deluge", the second picture on this site. This was extremely powerful in person. I could hear the waves and the people. I also saw the first picture, "The Death of Ophelia", which I have wanted to for years. It is much sadder in person, and the foliage is much more defined. There was also this awesome picture with children lighting Chinese lamps in the Victorian section. After lunch, which was good, I went back and got lost in the Pre-Raphealites, and it was actually quite painful to pull myself away.

I want to turn part of my house into a workshop. I've always wanted to do metal and glassworking and grow crystals and crap, and now I can sort of do some of that. We'll see.
I have a lot to do when I get back, including learning a lot of math and physics stuff that I want to.

We took a tour to Stonehenge, which was the most efficient(and cheapest) way of getting there. The guide was nice, though muffled. It was a two-hour drive there and we only got one hour at the site, not enough for me to go explore the barrows and pine forests, which I reallly wanted to. The first henge on that site was erected 5000BC, and the country used to be all forest. Isn't that cool? You can sort of see how the creators meant it to be and connect with people from 3000BC. It bears a strange resemblance to the colosseum, and the altar in the middle reminds me of cult horns.

I was thinking more, but no more time to write. Tommorow we fly back.

Taking a Boat, Train, and Plane: Literally

Side Note: Everyone seems to think that we were either British or Indian in Italy.

Today we went to the airport in a water taxi. Venice is beautiful, chock full of history from foundations to roofs, and I am definetly coming back there again. The buildings are so old and reused in so many ways because of necessity. Here is where the ghost of Titian is supposed to live; here Wagner gathered inspiration. Perhaps Venice's decay is a symbol of the place great art has in the world today, though in my opinion the bricks and age make the buildings even better in most cases. Venice is better taken care of than Rome and Florence, though. At least it has the glass and lace industries producing new works, whereas the other cities seem to be depending on tourism. We bought an awesome book about legends/folktales/history of Venice, which I read on the plane.

Coming back to the UK made me extremely happy, though. The systems here are so much more efficient. For example, to check in Venice airport the entire flight has to wait in one queue. It was extremely easy and cheap to go by public transportation the equivalent of two hours driving, besides a few flights of stairs which we had to haul suitcases up. Two nice men helped us at one point. I've met a lot of nice Italians, French, and British people on this trip who have made this easier on us.

My cousin took my mom, aunt, and I for a walk through the forest and cemetary in the back of her house. Seeing the momentos on the graves made me wonder if my sentimentality is already building mine, brick by brick. I don't know how to express what I mean in this case.

We came back home, talked, and are now relaxing.

I'm on a Boat anndd, it's Going Fast anndd...

Today we mostly relaxed.

We went down to the Riallto bridge, which took a few hours as we shopped in every store in Venice. Or maybe that was how it felt. Anyways, I wasn't blameless since I got a (droool, I love this)pendant, earrings, and other things. I also bought a beautiful scarf for cheap which looks as if it is of expensive Spanish make. I wanted to buy a duck for Chris but didn't have any extra money at that point, and it wasn't that great quality. Hopefully I can get some pasta for him; I know how much he would appreciate that. I saw a jazz cd but didn't know if the music was good or not.

Most of the figurines would break in the suitcase, so we are not considering them, though we got a bird.

We ate in a delicious side place run by a Chinese man who had low prices and well-prepared shrimp salad. The Italians don't serve salad dressing from what I have seen, so I mixed some balsamic vinegar, pepper, salt, and olive oil into my salad, which tasted delicious. It was very cheap, too.

The businesses here in the tourist sector seems to be mostly split into lots of small stores and the high-end designers. I like it, as most of the stores sell made-in-Italy goods at reasonable prices. Hopefully Italy does not make its people slave to produce them, but I doubt it. The goods are also higher quality. I wish that we could have businesses like that, though I haven't seen any, say, office supply stores in Venice. Today was the first time we saw a chain store, which was called coin. It obviously catered to tourists, though, since everything in there was written in English without any Italian subtitles. I really like the "clocky" which runs away, but not at 55 euros. It felt kind of depressing to go in there after all the small businesses.

I wish we had time to visit the Venice where the Venetians live.

We got dressed again after showering and relaxing away from the heat. We ate at a restaurant while it got dark and the street entertainers came out, which was nice, though I felt guilty passing one without giving him change(no hers were present at this time). We walked to the canal and watched the gorgeous water seethe. It reminded me of a beating forest. I don't think it's a coincidence that this picturesque lagoon city is connected with glass. The inspiration is so close by, shining with a light that nobody has ever been able to capture. We watched the boats, talked, and came home.

One thing that bothers me about ancient art is certain symbols such as dark skin meaning evil or slanted eyes meaning evil. We must imbibe those to appreciate what the pictures mean, and personally it doesn't affect my day to day life, but it still makes me uncomfortable. Western society really needs to move on from those.

Tommorow I go back to the UK.

Dance, Dance

Tired; too tired to write a real entry, probably.

-Had a private tour of the Murano glass factory with a guide named Frederico.
This was included in the price of the hotel. We caught a water taxi which was nice with leather seats. Apparently there are "roads" in the water. The art pieces are amazing; the silica sand is so pure that they look as if lead is in the glass. Some pieces looked like porcelain, some had fishes in them, and many were dyed amazingly. There were even cubist pieces. Many were plated with gold and hand painted. We bought a necklace and two sets of earrings from the showroom, where you can't take pictures. It sort of spoiled all the other glass pieces selling around the place, which now look like plastic. From the cheaper room I got a necklace and a pendant, but the difference was clear. I think that, many years from now, museums will feature pieces from this place. So gorgeous. Our guide/salesman was very nice and strangely honest at the same time as trying to sell us things. I liked him a lot.

-Took a boat back to St Mark's Square
My dad and I saw the Archeological Museum, Correr Museum, Historical Museum and Art Museum. The Archeological Museum had a lot of Grecian statues and Roman copies of Grecian statues. The Historical museum featured the life of the Doge and some war pieces, including intricately carved...pikes/scythe hybrids and pistols. The art and historical museums featured art from many different periods, which was nice because of how close we could get to the paintings. I kept getting lost in them.

We then went to The Church of Gold. The line was about 20 minutes long; bring an umbrella. The ceiling is covered in gold and painted with Byzantine figures. We didn't see the treasury, though, but we went behind the altar. Reallllly pretty and different.

Since everything closes at this time, I bought a quick calzone(mmm blue cheese) and headed back to the room, where I took a long nap.

-Wandering Around
We sort of wandered the streets and shopped. I bought a little octopus and crab for Afif and Ilya, just because. I also finally got a mask, which are selling everywhere.

-Getting cheated for Dinner
Again. Plus Mosquitos. I hate these types of mosquito bites, as they don't stop itching and swell up to huge sizes like the ones that made me stop going to Trinidad for four years. That should give you an indication of how bad they were. Bring a bug zapper!

Little story on that later.

Abbr. Version of the Day

Yesterday my mom, dad, and I got up early to go to the Uffizi museum. Though we arrived there at 8:30am, the line was already about 20 minutes long. Apparently they only let people in in groups. The highlight was seeing Botticello’s Rite of Spring and Birth of Aphrodite. They look so much better in person, and the women’s hair glitters with real gold. There were also Titians, Rembrandts, Giottos, a lot of Grecian and Roman statues, and other notables. The ceiling was adorned with paintings. The medieval art glittered with gold and symbolism.
We then walked down to the Ponte Vecchio, which is full of gold shops.
We wandered around a bit, then my dad and I went to Santa Maria Novella. This is one of the few churches that felt as if it had a holy presence inside. Boticello’s Adoration of the Magi and Cross were inside, as were many beautiful works of art. The walls were full of frescos, tombs(?!), and paintings. It really is a must-see if you come here.
We also checked out a Roman fort, but it was closed. Everyone then went down to the Ponte Vecchio, Neptune Fountain, and Piti Palace. We ate at a restaurant with disgusting food, then went home.

Today I got up late to go down to the Eurostar. We took to train to Venice and a water taxi to the hotel. It’s very different. Venice is a city without cars or bikes; only pedestrians and boats roam the islands. It’s also gorgeous, without graffiti and seems more organized than Florence or Rome. Our hotel is luxurious, but has no elevator. We were starving but had arrived in time for the siesta, which takes place for good reason since it is boiling hot. My family ate leftover salami sandwiches and I had to eat gellato. We were all going to go to the grocery, but a bunch of us left and went back home. I saw a gorgeous church in the Venetian style, and we returned to our room to wait until the siesta and burning ended. The grand canal is big and everything glitters with white marble and water, which doesn’t smell contrary to popular opinion. I also bought postcards for people.

It’s funny because I’ve seen a bunch of people walking around with California t-shirts who obviously are not Californians. Also, there seem to be more Americans here. Why is all the music here English when most people speak it brokenly? This is not just in the tourist spots.

We then went to San Marco’s square. The Church of Gold is covered in it and shines when the sun hits the walls, but was closed. We wandered around a bit among pillars and gondolas and columns, then had trouble deciding where to eat. We accidentally ate at an expensive place and went home.

Argh! Mosquitos!

Falling into a Mud Puddle in Pisa

Little note: They serve vinegar and oil instead of butter in Italy. Also, straws are rare.

I feel better today. We got up early and took the train to Pisa. The Italian countryside has the same fractal distrubition as Los Angeles.There are cultivated sunflowers everywhere. There are a lot of decrepid places which we passed. Italy seems to be slowly degenerating from a lack of enforced rules.
We arrived after an hour later, to discover the tower was far away. I slipped in a mud puddle and fell. Yes, I got covered in it. Thankfully, there are a lot of taps in Italy, but there was no way to take the dirt off my white skirt which covered it the entire day.
My dad, mom, and I decided to walk to the tower. Pisa is very broken down, it seems, besides a few areas. My aunts and cousin were shopping. We saw the tower and my mom decided to join them. My dad and I bought tickets and saw the inside of the cathedral and battisere, which were beautiful. The architectural style is very different from Rome; less clutured but still involving many paintings. The ceiling was filled with gold flowers. I really want more time with those paintings. When I am an old, grumpy woman I'm going to come back to every major architectural wonder and museum and gaze at each painting for at least fifteen minutes each. The Battisere was simple, though coloums were carved with great skill. The simple altar was solomn brass.
My mom wanted to know why I like the churches so much. Besides the fact that beauty is not determined by religion, this art is created by the masters of the period using the full extent of their craft to celebrate what was most important to them. Religious art is sort of a doorway into the cultural subconcious and a look into how people viewed their idols and icons, another doorway into that mysteriosness of being human. The medieval icons I saw in retrospect seems to be respective of the period; technically proficent and yet flat, though this changed in later periods.
I wonder if taking pictures instead of writing those thousand words is detrimental in some way to eloquency? Anyways.
We though we had lost mom but I found her, the bus passed us by, and we all took a taxi back to the train which was not air conditioned this time and let us roast whenever it stopped. The train goes very fast, faster than Amtrak.
We returned, ate pizza, and my mom, dad, and I saw Il Duemo. The inside is actually fairly simple, with soaring ceilings and pretty windows. The outside is, well, complicated, full of green and white and statues and gold. Gorgeous. We wondered around for a bit on the streets and then came back to the hotel.

I may not be able to post tommorow.

The Vatican

Today we took a taxi to the Vatican out of practical considerations. Our taxi driver was honest and charged us under the pre-agreed price. The line to get into the museum was long but quick. We walked through room after room of detailed ceiling, faded but intricate tapestries. and walls covered in art. It was very obvious who was a master vrses who was a painter; a painter simply painted flat scenes, but a master made them come to life, like in the Sistine chapel. I love Michelagalo's work on form and shadow, but couldn't see his faces close enough to really appreciate them. Also, we were ushered in the opposite way the church was supposed to be seen, so most of the paintings were upside down. It's frustrating to be around a work of art in its original element and not be able to appreciate it.

No talking or pictures in the Sistine Chapel.

It interests me that everywhere I go I see people with cameras doing more snapping than seeing. Maybe I'm mistaken, but it almost seems as if sometimes people forgo living in the moment for taking a picture of it. I never really thought about this before I read an essay on it. Perhaps it is related to the fact that we are rushed through all of these places without time to truly appreciate the art or carvings.

The food at the Vatican was delicious, but the toilets had no seat covers.

We then headed over to the security check for St Peter's Cathedral, after which my dad and I got seperated from the rest of the group. We thought "Oh, the Cuppola, that seems like a good place to see". Unsuspecting, we bought tickets and took an elevator up to the heart of the beautiful church where all the saints were painted on the ceiling backed in gold. Then there were steps. 320 steps, to be exact. My dad and I nearly gave up, but it was one way only and we made it to the top of the tower where I took a couple pictures. Going down involved the same amount of steps but was not nearly as hard. We exited into the Basilica, which, well, no words. Michelangalo carved many statues in there, and the walls were filled with gold and paintings. Pictures didn't come out well inside, though.

We finally made contact and went into a few shops before going home with another honest cab driver, who charged us very cheaply.

Arriving in Italy

Argh, I wrote this entry originally on Works and then lost it.

Today I got up around 5:30am to fly to Italy. Ella was doing more cute mischief and puffed up her tail and fur when she saw me this morning. She also rubbed all over dad’s suitcase. Sooo cute.
The tax ride was smooth, and we had pre-paid the proper amount so we didn’t have to worry about getting ripped off. I like Heathrow’s check-in system, at least for this terminal, better than LAX’s by a long shot.

They’re starting to speak Italian on the plane and it’s, well, Greek to me.

The check-in went smoothly and quickly, except that my bag got isolated since I had forgotten the bottle of water in it from the last flight. The guy in front of us was trying to sneak rum and cologne on board the plane, so it took a while to sort him out. The TSA guy finally just got my bag over with quickly. He was nice, and handed back my shoes and sweater before searching it.

We then went into the stores, since our gate hadn’t opened yet. Marks and Spencer is still expensive. I got a look at the new mini-VAIO. I’m jealous of its size, but the processor is only 1.33ghz and I don’t see why they made a deal with Vista instead of Ubuntu. I honestly think the latter will affect the popularity of it. But it’s great to see a prototype of the future of netbooks.
The other netbooks were basically like mine or worse, and cost its equivalent in pounds. I LOVE my Acer, as practically everyone knows.
I’m also happy to learn that Packard Bell survived in Europe. We have computers from ‘88 and ‘98 made by them, which still haven’t broken. If they still make computers of that caliber, then I am so glad they survived here. Of course, their netbook has a 1.2 Ghz AMD processor., eheheheh.

I’ve realized that the fact that I am familiar with most of the movies/television here is more a comment on how LA and the internet are hubs of information than anything else. I’m also glad to see uniquely British movies in a generic store, though not the titles “Giant Shark vrs Octopus” and “Lesbian Vampire Killers”. I wanted to buy the first season of Little Britain and may when I get back. They also had Goodnight, Lenin in the store.

I’m sad to see a dearth of the healthy snacks I observed from my first times in England, which also has an obesity problem now. There are less bookstores and less Starbucks.

My uncle gave me a sandwich without telling me it had chicken in it(he does know I’m a vegetarian). I consequentially got a stomachache.

I slept on our flight here. Customs were almost too easy. My uncle’s suitcase got lost. We then took a large Mercedes Benz taxi with a very enthusiastic cab driver, who showed us half the monuments in the city and confirmed the stereotype of people being very enthusiastic with their hands. The architecture is amazing. More on that later. There seems to be a large proliferation of tagging on the beautiful Italian housing and trains. Our cab driver then didn’t know how to get to the hotel and shouted to people on the street for directions. We eventually got here. The elevator is old-fashioned and scary. I love the trees in the boulevards, which are flourishing in their natural habitat. The rooms are very clean and nice, though the outside is not much to look at. Thankfully there appears to be unfamiliar music, though Lady Gaga followed us here.

I hope that we adapt without incident to the Italian culture without incident. It’s very different from our task and time oriented culture.

Off to Italy at 6:00am

I have to write an entry on decaying art.

Today I rebelled against long sleeves, as it has been warm and even hot here. My dad and I split off from the main group to go to the Natural History museum while my mom met up with my aunt Brenda to go to Oxford Circus, which is a street with shopping. The natural history museum here is excellent and certainly better than the ones in LA and San Diego. Even the architecture is gorgeous, though you can see through the windows into the messy research institutions. This museum was the first that taught me about the sheer scale of dinosaurs. As a kid growing up in a world full of skyscrapers I was never impressed with the fossils I saw, but the enormous T-Rex in the lobby showed me exactly why this was the king of tyrants. I don't know what they did with that skeleton and I wish I could have seen it today, but the gigantic diplodocus that took up most of the lobby will have to suffice. I never knew there were so many species of ichtyosaur, nor that they gave birth to live young. Seeing their fossilized remains right before birth was kind of sad. The usual suspects, mosasaur etc were there as well, but one of the best was seeing the only fossil identifying one of the species. I wonder why they even were in different genuses?

I then bought a mini-puzzle of the HMS Beagle for Chris in the Darwin shop. They had an "extract your own DNA" kit in the shop, which I wanted even though I could probably do it fairly easily with a little ingenuinty, but it cost too much.

The birds were too crowded at that time, so we went up the stairs. I can't remember what order we did things in. I think the next thing we saw was the gems. They have thousands of pounds worth of beautiful minerals in one of the most complete collections I have ever seen, including tons of beautiful and famous diamonds like The Star of Africa. They also had the largest gold nugget ever discovered(from Australia), worth over 500,000 pounds. One of the meteorites was on display and I touched it because I couldn't help myself. They also had several moon rocks and a metorite from Mars. The cut gemstones were also amazing. So cool!

We quickly went through an exhibit on the Evolution of Man, but most of the bones were casts. This was the first time I saw Lucy in person, though. There was a GIANT sequoia trunk over 1300 years old when it fell. We bought my mom a beautiful red amber necklace on a sterling silver chain. I got a clear rock quartz-studded chain and an unusual hematite chain. There were also a lot of different and interesting toys, also known as "I'm going to look up how to do this on the internet when I get back". The birds exhibit was sad, as they had some animals that had gone extinct because of us. The hummingbirds were gorgeous, but dead. It does make me sad that they had to die, even if it was for a good cause.

Then there were the dinosaurs, which had a line to get into. The wait was supposed to be 30 minutes but ended up being about eight. I joked in the exhibit that the warfare of the future would involve cloned dinosaurs instead of tanks. The skeletons(and claws) were huge! I have pictures, but they don't show the scale of the animals. Iguanadon was freaky. The club on the end of those dinosaur's tails was huge! Some dinos suffered from arthritis. There was also a really realistic animitroncic T-rex which was almost scary. Dinosaurs were the ultimate killing machines, and now the planet is ruled by little, soft, pink things. There is no way we could have stood up them. There was also a section questioning why dinos are so popular. Well, no crap. Humans have a thing for huge reptiles and cool things.

I also got a notebook with a cover made out of recycled circuit boards!

We went to meet the rest of my family at this point, went the wrong direction and had to take the tube another stop. Finally, we ended up in the right Marks & Spencers. We went to Boots and then went home.

It's interesting how even the vegetation in England is familiar because of how much of it is imported to the United States. I am happy to see local brands and books. I haven't seen any Innocent Smoothies so far; what happened?

Ella is doing cute and naughty things. She was in the blinds and now is in Sharon's bed. She purrs when she's about to "get" someone.

Please Mind the Gap Between the Train and the Station

Today I woke up from a series of reoccurring nightmares where I woke up too late to go to to the British Museum and had to go socializing instead to my mom handing my chocolate milk and saying "Get ready, we have to go to the Museum". We went and saw the Grecian art section. Words can't describe these artifacts. One day Grecian statues are going to just get up and walk while proclaiming that cannons and age have just given them more beautiful gravity with gracious arrogance. There is something about them that I have never seen in other statues. We also saw plenty of Myceanean and Minoan art, which was even more pleasing about reading about them, and parts of one of the former wonders of the ancient world. I was so freaking happy. I love the British Museum so much. It's the freaking Parthenon, people! Sometimes I just want to shout at everybody. "Don't you get the SIGNIFICANCE?" "Don't you see how beautiful these things are?" "Don't you get how people carved these works of art without half the tools we have today?" It seems like so many people just see these things without seeing them because they feel they should. Pictures will be added soon.

Then started the train ride to Heathrow to meet my aunts, which was an hour and a half long. On the train I realized that we had bought day passes for zone 1-4 and Heathrow was in zone 6. When we got out we nearly got fined 50pnds each. We then took the bus, which didn't give us help and dropped us off seven stops too late. We had to wait for the next bus, which we nearly had to pay for. Needless to say, everyone was very, very upset at the end. "Are you guys hungry?" my aunt asked. "And angry!" I said. Everyone laughed and the tension diffused. I don't look foward to the day when I'm too old to technically do that. We talked to my two aunts for a while, took pictures then headed home and watched The Queen, which was excellent.

UK Day Four(With Pictures)

I love how in England every two miles there is a sign saying "Slow Down", the GPS tells the car to slow down and the cars don't allow people to go over a certain speed, and yet people are still breaking the speed limit regularly.
The clothing in England reminds me of the clothing in America except for a little bit wilder and a little bit shorter, and for some reason it scares me.

Last night I didn't go to sleep until around 7:00am, literally. At 10:00am I was waken up. We went to Hyde park by the Tube and visited the Trinidadian embassy for longer than we liked. Embassy row is surrounded by fancy cars, unsurprisingly, that were mostly Mercedes. I wondered what the buildings were before they were embassies, as they were obviously older than the organizations in them.
We then got off at Leicester square and ate in a pub, then walked to Covent Gardens market. Finally, we walked to St Paul's, a monument in architecture. It took a long time. I have vivid memories of walking up the steps of that cathedral, but we couldn't do that this time since there was going to be a mass. Then we visited a couple bookstores, and I bought a bible of Buddhist literature.
There are plenty of brands in England that I don't recognize, but plenty that I do. I love the woods here.
Anyways, I'm keeping it short so that I can do a picture entry now.

Update: Photostream updated.

Trippin', UK day two

So today after I had insomnia for about four hours I was awakened and got chocolate milk. We went to Brighton, which is a long drive from where we are. The GPS took us around some funny places a couple of times. One was a bridge in which a two-way road suddenly transitioned into one way, and the one way was the opposite direction of which we were going. UK drivers are still crazy and some of the roads are too narrow for two-way traffic. Also, there are a lot of Mercedes trucks, mostly garbage trucks. I object to this homogenity of cultures. Most of the music on the radio and movies mentioned I am familiar with, though Sharon's car has a USB drive. What! I want a USB drive.

We arrived in Brighton and were immediatley greeted by parking prices we refused to pay. After finding new parking, going the wrong way in a stairwell and discovering a wonderful smell, we ate in a seafood restraunt where the food was good and fresh, though expensive. We then walked up a street containing lots and lots of restraunts and some gambling places. My mom and aunt spent some time in a shoe store, and we visited a 99 pound store, factory store, and an enormous store called Pricemark which had great prices. I bought some cheap pants and another best coat ever, which means my search for coats is over. I was sort of disturbed by the mother and high-schoo daughter shopping for sexy underwear together, though I guess it is good that they are open?

British young people seem to dress either like British punks or in a style similar to Californians.

It had started to rain while we were in the store, and we decided to leave Brighton after the stores started to close. I wrapped my scarf around my head to keep from getting wet. We then spent more than two hours on the road during pouring rain while it got dark. I slept during most of this time. Drivers were still scary.

We came home and ate dinner. I lied about the pictures today. Soon, my friends.

Insomniacalicious

I am having trouble sleeping. I'm thinking about how glibly most women I know dismiss the fact that high heels damage feet. It seems that most rationalize this with "yes, but only if you wear it all the time" or "these aren't high enough to do any damage". Every time a person wears high heels they are damaging their foot a little, and in my opinion they really are the new footbinding. There is only one pair of shoes with heels which I will wear, and even my formal shoes don't have any. Looking good is not a good enough reason for me to hurt myself.

I really like these toy robots from the 80s. They look more like robots than what is seen in the toy section today. I used to love virtual/giga/robotic pets, and still have a mess of them around the house. I'm trying to figure out how to make use of them, also. The problem with virtual pets is that they're missing two of the crucial things which makes a pet worth having: behavior to observe and unpredictability. A worm is more interesting to observe than a Giga pet.
When we develop better pet robots, though, I am getting one hands down. They combine my love of electronics with my love of animals and pets.

This morning I want to do everything. I want to check out the underground comic stores and all of the cool little places here. I'm probably not going to get to do that, but waaaaaaah.

I like this article on behavioral economics and how it is more realistic than "rational man", but dislike how it paints humans as creatures unable to help themselves.

UK Trip, Day 1

So today was very hectic. Our flight was at 7:50pm, but Primetime(an airport taxi which picks multiple people up from their houses and takes them to the airport) was going to arrive at our house at 3:40pm. As a result, we were basically in a rush to do last minute housework all day and take Snuggles to the vet. I also was trying to put an extra movie onto my computer but my mom’s compy refused to cooperate. There was a lull in activity around 3:40pm, when Primetime had called and said it was going to be at our house at 4:05pm.

Mom and I are worried about the kittens. They may not want to be picked up, but they love attention and are sweet and obedient. We hope they will be alright for the time we are gone.

Checking in took a longer time than it should have considering we were second in line. Thankfully, they took our bags instead of making us go in that annoying extra line which I hate. Everything else went smoothly and we ended up at the gate an hour and a half before departure. I dislike the fact that airports think people should pay for internet access, but I’m glad they provide free chargers. Stupid me forgot to mention getting an AC/DC converter before the flight. I love this laptop, as it helps make me productive and useful while giving me access to music.

Our seats on the plane got switched at the last moment much to mom’s chagrin, but dad was right in front of me and mom beside me.

The planets are so easy to spot from a plane.

I did bunch of work on the plane, followed by eating and falling asleep. My mom had accidentally forgotten to order a vegetarian meal for me, so I had to eat the tray. When I woke up the plane was twenty-five minutes from landing. We were early at the gate, but the gate was not ready for us and they had problems with the jet way, so we ended up getting into the airport a little late.

Airplanes really are well constructed. I don’t mean that sarcastically.

Into customs we went. Forty-five minutes later we went and picked up our suitcases, which were one of the few left. This is why my parents need to walk faster. I may not be that fast, but compared to them I am. Heathrow’s bathrooms are really, really clean.

We had a lot of fun after this, because we weren’t sure if my cousin Sharon was picking us up or sending a taxi. We tried calling her a million times, but to no avail. We were finally forced to take a taxi, which ended up charging us double the amount usually charged. I fell asleep in the cab from the warmth.

We finally reached Sharon’s house, which is a pretty brick(like most of London) residence with a park in the back, and a cemetery in back of that. I’ve been there before and it’s not bad at all, but I’m still a little freaked out by sleeping here on principle. She has a cat named Ella who seems very sweet and has converted Sharon and Rosabelle(my aunt) to cats. We went to a pub to eat dinner, where I got scampi, and then went to ASDA. ASDA is a huge grocery store that got bought out by WalMart. The store is huge, and carries a lot of of familiar and unfamiliar brands. There were no movies that I was not familiar with, which was dissapointing. The cars here are also starting to resemble American make. Many are the same model now. I'm a little upset by this, honestly. Homogenity, smogenity, I like variety in the world.

People here dress basically the same as the States, but don't have perfect complexions. Obesity is also a problem in the UK just as in the US. In one day we were nearly malled by three drivers, and I'm hoping that isn't a generalization.

Anyways, showertime. I'll see you all tomorrow, with pictures.

Memories of England

Notice: You may note a proliferation of tags in the sidebar. I am attempting to make these more specific, but stopped labeling posts on April 27th's "I in the Me" entry.

I remember going through the British Museum for the first time. I was young, still in elementary school, and I hated the place. I disliked dark and dreary England, and I hated the British Museum. My aunt Roseabelle had been kind enough to let us use her apartment for the duration of our stay, but the cramped quarters with the laundry mat a block away and little food were less than cheery. For one person the house was perfect, but for the three people staying there it was far from. I had a nightmare involving Colombo which terrified me, and my circadian rhythms had been all but destroyed by the time change.

The huge museum scared me. At first I was intrigued by the Egyptian collection, but as we passed by mummy after mummy the reality that these were actually dead bodies sunk in and made me uncomfortable. I felt as though these people and animals should be beneath the ground, not on gratuitous display. The value of the culture and artifacts present around me had not become apparent yet, and I wanted to go back to the natural history museum, which we had already visited twice. Thinking about it even now, I want to go back to that place with its towering fully grown T-Rex and other fossils in its lobby. It was that skeleton which taught me how impressive a T-Rex actually was. The only highlight was seeing the Rosetta stone, which made me quiver with excitement. I couldn't help myself and brushed my finger against it, knowing while I did that if everyone were to do that it would crumble into dust much sooner than it should. Apparently the same thought crossed the curator's mind, and the Stone is now in a glass case. I feel strangely lucky to have done what I did, though also ashamed.

The food in the museum was horrible, which still hasn't changed.

I felt a bit better in the gift shop, where everything was horribly expensive except for a small, black cat that now resides in the teen room. The gift shop is different now, as I surmised from the thirty seconds I spent in there on my last visit before it closed.

I kept throwing up on the plane long after my stomach was empty and when we got back was sick for two weeks. When I finally woke up it was in the middle of the night craving Dorritos, which my dad gave to me.

The second time I went to England I noted all the ways it was better than America; the extremely efficent public transportation throughout London, the proliferation of cheap bookshops and plays, the healthy snacks readily available as an alternative to chips, and the focus on green energy. That sentence is short and simplified in comparison to the cultural imbibation which took place. I got Jane, then several other people, hooked on these smoothies that are only available in Europe and were one of my few good memories from my first time in England. A LOT of things happened and a lot of things were done while we were there, but overall the experience was very positive. Except for that play which gave me nightmares.

The third time I went to England was right in the middle of a xenophobic scare. People were discussing "the Muslim problem". According the the journalists, the fact that the Muslim community preferred to keep themselves separate from mainstream society encouraged radical and anti-British thinking. It seems like half of London is Indian, so this reaction puzzled me. But, of course, much of LA is Latino, and there is rampant racism against them. The things which impressed me were there, but cracks in the image that had formed before showed. And, of course, if you listen to citizens and the newspaper, there is a large amount of discontent there. England always has been a country of freer speech; Mary would not have survived well even if Elizabeth had not been around. So, in part, this simply is the way of the culture, but it also was reflective of the realities in the country at the time. And England is not an intellectual haven. There are plenty of ribald and other such folks there. I also didn't particularly like the fashions at the time, which were very girly.

I still want to at least visit England for a prolonged period of time. I felt and feel more in tune with their culture than the one I grew up in. This isn't a general overview, more my writing about selected memories which are rising in my mind.

PS: This site any good?