Posts by Jonah

Maybe it’s appropriate I’m watching Air Force One for the third time, especially having just seen it again this last weekend. It’s a good movie but not that good, which is why I’m journaling instead of watching Harrison Ford with full attention.

Charlotte and Helen and “Beks” are in the kitchen serving up pasta.

And good pasta it was, especially after only having a cheese and tomahto sandwich today that I got at a downtown grocery store in London for 99p. That’s 41 pence less than the salami sandwich I got at a sandwich deli yesterday. And it even came with tomahto. That would have cost an extra 30p on the salami, but as sparse a meal it was, I wolfed it down with relish. It had been a busy day.

Rebekah and I caught the 9:53 train to London that morning, dozing off during the trip. At Waterloo Station, we had to pay 10p to use the ladies room, I guess for the ambient music. Rebekah spent the next several minutes staring at maps and monitors attempting to figure out how to get to the British Museum with the tube/bus pass we bought for 3.80 Pounds.

The Museum was amazing and far too huge. We agreed to meet back at the front at 3. I took off for the Greek and Roman area and happily stared at Grecian urns for a long time. Breezing through the room of Egyptian mummies, I stumbled upon the area of artifacts from Mesopotamia.

Far too soon it was ten till three. I dragged myself away from ancient Sumeria and started heading downstairs through crowds of French students staring at a Canadian totem pole. Unfortunately, these stairs led to boarded off doorways and scowling security guards. I went back up and tried a different set of stairs, but that emptied out into an unfamiliar entrance. It didn’t matter which stairs I went up or down, none of them seemed to lead back where I started. Instead of asking a scowling guard, I went outside to try walking around to the other side, only I didn’t know which direction to go. I think I ended up going the long way, looping around a block of row houses. Finally, the stairs to the front entrance appeared with Rebeka sitting patiently on them. It was ten after three.

I could have spent a week in there, but one can only look at ancient crap for so long at one time. Rebekah showed me the Rosetta Stone. All around wt were huge, old stones from antiquity. We went into an area where extensive slabs of stone from the Assyrian temple of Tiglath-Pileser were embedded in the walls. The detail on them was incredibly fine, images of the king hunting lions and wild asses.

The next room was dedicated to the Eglin Marbles. So little of Greek sculpture has survived. The Romans made many copies, but Roman sculpture just doesn’t have the vitality of the Greeks.

It’s amusing watching this movie with a room of Brits. They’re really supportive of the American president, or maybe just that it’s Harrison Ford. They cheered when Glen Close wouldn’t sign the paper taking power away from the President, quite different from my reaction. They call Gary Oldman “the baddie.”

Leaving the museum of old crap, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches (I should have ordered a bun) and walked to the tube station. We stopped at the Trafalgar Square Stop and climbed the stairs. I looked around at Nelson’s column and the other stuff in the square then turned back to Rebekah and said okay. “You sure you don’t want to go up to it or anything.” she asked. No, I didn’t even take a picture. We walked back down the stairs and got back on the Tube.

They just showed the scene where the F-15 flies in to intercept the MiG missile. That part always gets me. As Lael pointed out when we watched it last, the British just don’t quite have the same reaction. One of the guys here just laughed.

I guess it’s sort of a party here in honor of Beks’ visit. Several of her friends are here. Charlotte and Helen and some guy named John, who I haven’t met, live here, as well as Dom and, I think, Rob, boyfriends of Charlotte and Helen, respectively. I slept in John’s room last night.

“Too bad the Queen can’t be an action hero,” Charlotte just quipped.

They’re watching Time Cop now, which isn’t a good movie and also one I’ve already seen. Three blokes just walked in to be challenged by “Charles,” “We have a rule in this house. Everyone who enters must say who’s their favorite Spice Girl, and if they get it wrong, they have to leave. Now,” she prompted, “holding up a copy of the Spice Girls very own official “book,” “who’s your favorite Spice Girl?”

“Oh, let’s see,” answered Cary, one of the blokes, “I dunno, Who can dare mention any of the Spice Girls when there’s someone with as stunning a personality as yours here.”

“Oh, fuck off,” laughed Charlotte, “You got it wrong. Now guess again.”

“Emma?”

Maybe it’s that Baby Spice is blonde like Charlotte, She split her jeans last night climbing up onto a little wall on the way back from the pub as she attempted to perform a Spice Girls dance routine to “Wannabe.” It was hilarious, though I’m sure the Becks and pint I’d had at the pub helped.

For most of the evening, after we’d stopped by Rebekah’s old nannying family’s house, I sat in a corner at the pub and listened to Bek’s friends joke around. I’m getting used to hearing conversation in only British accents. At one point, the inevitable question arose, “So what about Bill Clinton?” And I was suddenly the center of attention for about five minutes. I didn’t think I’d every say it, but thank God for Bill Clinton! I’ve got at least one thing to talk about.

The crowd here isn’t too interested until the fight scenes. The volume isn’t even up loud enough to catch dialogue. Poor Van Dam.

I’ve been giving Rebekah a hard time. She thought she’d packed light… until she saw my bag. Even so, she’s had to borrow pens and my hairbrush from my sack.. She even forgot to bring an umbrella, but I couldn’t help her there.

Uh oh, looks like Time Cop got ejected, and we’re watching something else, Ah, Contact. It’s a good thing I’ve already seen it, since I can’t hear over the discussion about whether or not to pass the bottle of vodka around. Rebekah suggested just putting some music on. “But,” said one of the blokes, “then we’d have to talk to each other.”

Looks like that’s what we’re going to do anyway. One of the guys is reading selections out of the Spice Girls’ “book,” so we’re all laughing. I’d probably have more if I had a drink, but I’ve already had half a pint and some wine today.

The half pint was at The Round House, a pub right down in the middle of London, right across from the grocery where I got my cheese and tomahto sandwich. I was quite ready to sit and rest for a while after a full day of touring the Victoria and Albert Museum. I thin I actually at least walked by every gallery in the museum. (We’re listening to Sting now. I can’t complain at all.)

Agreeing to meet at the front of the museum again at 3, we took off in separate directions. I headed straight for the Frank Loyd Wright exhibit, but got waylaid by the armour gallery. After a while, I had to force myself to stop reading every card marking each rapier from the 15th century.

The three blokes are just leaving. One of the fellows went around the room and kissed each of the girls goodbye. It’s different, all of the girls kiss each other on the cheek when they greet one another.

Charlotte is evidently the only one here who’s still in school, unless you count Kim and Dom, who teach. Almost all of them seem to smoke too, except for one or two, including Dom, who’s on his eleventh day. (At least he was on day ten yesterday.). Even so, the rule is that if you smoke you have to do so over by the window, not that this seems to make any difference, since the wind blows it straight in.

Having exhausted the armoury exhibit, I again set out for the FLW exhibit. Even with a map the people at th front gave me)I was free, being a student_, I had the dickens of a time finding it. When I finally got to the correct floor of the correct wing, thee security guards blocked my way. Thinking there might be another entrance, I tromped upstairs a floor, but that didn’t help at all. At least I got to see a room full of John Constables, including “Mill at Gillingham, Dorset,” of which the museum in Gillingham is immensely proud.

And oh, what a treat! A room of Rodin attached! One of them, “The Age of Bronze” was decried as a mold of a human being by art critics of the time, until Rodin’s colleagues assured the powers that were that the sculptor had formed an original piece.

Springs has come to England, and so have I. The sun must be shining in my honor, my host Chris suggested. He’s at the wheel of his new Toyota now, probably wishing he was driving his Camry, a big car by British standards, but he had to get rid of it because, “The price of petrol is getting too high.” 79p a litre or 5 dollars per gallon is a lot. “And Americans complain about the cost of gas!”

His wife Jan is sitting up front next to him in what should be the driver’s seat but isn’t because the Brits are backwards. It’s a lot less unnerving sitting here in the back, not having to worry about making left hand turns into the left lane with cars whizzing toward me or looking at the rearview mirror and realizing, yet again, that it isn’t aimed at me and that I’m not responsible for driving, even though it feels like I should be, sitting there where the wheel should be but isn’t.

Jan is not a naturally enthusiastic person, and as soon as I realized that, we got along great. She hates the phone perhaps more than I do. I was a little worried when I told her the flowers in front of their small, 2 story row house were lovely. “It’s spring,” she shrugged. But then I realised (British spelling) that I probably would have said the same thing, or something like it. She showed me around the area where they live, informing me of several things Chris already had, but each story is told a different way everytime someone tells it.

We’re on our way out of Kent today, traveling west along southern England. Kent is considered the garden of England because of the milder climate and the amount of agricultural goods it produces. Great Britain is largely agricultural, producing more of that than any other industry. Kent itself is littered with little round buildings topped with tall, cone-shaped roofs capped with lop-sided white, wooden cones open on one side. They used to be used to dry hopes, but most have been turned into cottages and B&B’s (Bed and Breakfasts). “All the hops growing is controlled by Belgium now,” Chris complained. The EU (European Unification) doesn’t have all Brits thrilled.

Chris took us along back roads before getting on the main highway. We drove past Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home, where he made many broadcasts during the war. It’s surrounded by a brick wall “he built for relaxation,” said Chris.

“Do you see that funny little building over there?” Jan pointed to a low brick structure beneath an old tree in somebody’s field, “Those where to fight against Hitler when he invaded.”

We just stopped at a “Welcome Break” off the highway which had restrooms, restaurants, and shops. Jan bought some chocolate marzipan, which Chris deemed “not very good” as he popped another square into his mouth. It looked like regular chocolate but had a whitish layer of marzipan in the middle and tasted okay.

The highway has several foot bridges that cross it from time to time with not much of anything to connect from either side. These are, I’m sure, for footpaths. Chris explains, “One of the things about this country is that e have very old laws. If you stay on one of these footpaths, then no one can stop you. You may walk through farmer’s fields or through private property, and as long as you stay on the footpath, no one can stop you.” Even if a farmer plows his field he must level the footpath within so many days.

The predominate speed along these roads seems to be 80 mph or 130 km–at least that’s how fast we’re going now. That’s the speed Chris went yesterday when the traffic allowed it, on our way to Oxford. He dropped me off outside Christ Church at about 10 am, agreeing to meet me back there at 4.

I started my tour of the city by asking a man, wearing a derby and holding a walkie talkie while he blocked the gate into the college, where I should go. He suggested touring Christ Church and then climbing aboard one of the tour buses circling the city. Admittance into Christ Church, which is both a school and a cathedral, cost 2 Pounds. I watched a 15 minute video on the college’s history, sitting in a cold, dark enclave then followed the brochure around the grounds. The tower over the gate, where I talked to the man in the derby, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren! I was pretty excited about that, having a read a biography of him. I’m afraid I only took one photograph… the whole day.

I also got to see Wren’s Sheldonion Theatre, which I had to pay to enter. It’s pretty ornate inside, though the “marble” and “cast iron” is all painted wood. I got to climb up to the top to the cupula, where I could look out on the spires of the different Colleges on all sides. It was nice to be up there all by myself. I needed some nose-picking time, time all by myself, not necessarily picking my nose.

To get to the top, I had to climb about four flights of winding, narrow stairs. After 3 floors, the stairway emptied into the attic. Huge beams crisscrossed and Y-ed into the pitched ceiling, all of them cut to fit into each other. I touched one of the rough-cut raters, wandering if Wren had done the same once his project was completed. I remembered reading about the King’s oaks Wren was able to secure for the construction of this building. Then Wren was no longer in the room with me but the author of the book. I laughed at him and said, “You did the same thing I did! You climbed these stairs and fingered these beams the same way I am now. I wonder, did you have to pay to get in as well?”

I forgot to wear green.

This is a new book. After removing the sticker on the front, it became devoid of all writing. It is merely paper and binding… and whatever I scribble here. I’m not sure if I’m starting at the bottom of the back or if the book is right side up. I guess it doesn’t matter; it is my book; it is what I make of it.

This is my trip; it will be what I make of it.

I’m in the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport–Again. I’ve spent more time in this airport than any except my home town ones, and soon this city will be my new home. We flew right over the University of Dallas on our approach from the south. It was cool to see the whole area from the air that I had been poring over a map of with Paul a few days before. I was so excited I actually spoke to the woman sitting next to me. “That’s where I’m going to school! I just got accepted last week,” I added. “See the bell tower sticking up?” She tried to make polite conversation, but I didn’t chat very long. I need to work on that.

My pack is working well, though it has got way too much stuff in it.

I wonder if I’ll miss the U.S.

I didn’t think I’d miss my parents as the hours till my departure approached and their “helpfulness” increased. Finally, I told Dad I would say, “Yes, okay,” to every piece of advice he gave me and then do whatever after I left. They stayed and waved to me from the window at the gate until everyone had boarded, the baggage was stowed, and the airplane taxied away. I stared out the window and tried to keep from crying.