Part 1: London and Brighton

Hello friends and famly, I hope school, work nd the n year is treating you all well.

I'm feeling radical.
Jan 9, I flew from Edmonton to Chicago and it was delayed, but that was fine because I had a long layover that I spent studying spannish. We landed in Chicago and it was nukeing, the windy city lived up to it's name. From Chicago to London I mostly watched the videos. If you get a chance you should definitely watch The Last King of Scotland. Its a powerful Drama about Ugandan politics and the horror that can come from naive careless development attempts.

I found my bag alright despight Monty Python's warnings "I'm so woried about the baggage retrival system they've got at Hethrow. *snif*"

The first thing that I did (arriving at 6am) was to take long train into downtown London. 'People watching' on the train was a blast. There were a few school boy and girls dressed up in their school uniforms and gossiping and just about everyone was reading something. Another thing that I noticed about Londoners is that they walk really fast. Now I'm a pretty fast walker but these guys just cruise. Granted I was weighed down by an obscenely large backpack, but I was still impresses with their drive. I wandered around some touristy central parts of London: Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben etc. I have a timed photo of mself in front of Buckinghm with my eyes closed, but it'll give you an idea of what I must have looked like.

I made my was accros the Thames and found a wicked art gallery that I couldn't resist: Salvador Dalhi and Picasso. I took my time and absobed almost every one of the 500 pieces of modern are. I have a lot more respect for Salvador Dalhi, what an intense craz guy.

I hadn't slept more than about 4 hours in the last 3 days and with very little before that, so i was pretty zonked. I sat down on a park bench and dozed a bit listening to a busker, watching the passers by and staring at the river. I eventually got up and made my way over to Tate Modern which is a really cool, admission by donation, coat check by donation, modern art gallery with a bunch of really interesting pieces. There were 2 or 3 multi story potato sack whirly slides. One room had a set of super intense red, black maroon and grey simplistic paintings about 12 by 15 feet painted with a massive scraggly brush. The lighting was dim and there was a big flat couch in the middle for you to sit or lounge on and absorb the heavy emotional intensity of the room, but it was too much for my I was mostly asleep. I found another cool dark room and actually did fall asleep. So I stopped myslf and left the exibit because I didn't want to take advantage of this awesome public place by using it as a bed. I sat down on one of the benches outside and passed out again. But I wasn't day dreaming or exhausted or anything, I was in and out of serious deep slumber. Each time I would jerk myself awake I would be seriously disoriented and confused with a a masive weight inside my brain pushing my conciousness and eyelids down relentlessly. I forced myself awake because this was no place for REM sleep but I had a bizzare feeling of pannic. I felt a sudden urgency to leave this place so I got my checked coat and backpack and headed ou walking again and didn't check out any other of the awesome exhibits or the twirly slides, which I later regretted.

On my way walking I went past the globe theatre and Tower Bridge and then found a good bench to eat the tuna, grapefruit juice and peanut butter and bread that I had bought at a corner store. Only once I took a couple of introspecive moments did I realise that I had missed a free show at the national art building (thats probably not what its called but something like that). Oh well, the next stage was to subway back to a central place to look for somewhere to sleep as it was now dark out. It was no evening rush hour and I got the full on London subway expeience. Its not just that there were a lot of people, because I have been to concerts and house parties with more concentrated people density. I think that the thing that made it so mannic was that there were people of all shapes and sizes and ages walking as fast as they possibly could and often breaking into a run wether they were 65 years old or in buisness suits or wearing high heels and a stylin' purse. And I couldn't get out of people's way because they were all moving faster than me with my great lug of a backpack, but it wasn't a problem, I was a bit like a rock in a river with the flow of people anticipating and accelerating around me. I went to go and chill out at Admiral Nelson's column and I met this middle aged scottish guy.

Unlike anyone else that I had met today, he wasn't asking for money and said he was just waiting for someone to pick him up. He was from Scotland and sold sports and theatre tickets for a living. (or so he said) Eventually it worked its way into a con where lost £3.60 and followed him arround for a while. But I totally saw the con coming and he was really skilled to get the money from me because I was being ultra skeptical and cauious, but I fell for it just because I was a bit lonely and wanted a friend t chill with for a bit. Even after it was done and finnished with I'm not 100% sure that it was a con. But it totally was. After this little escapade I sat and chilled out in front og the statue of Eros and took a picture yo'll see of Eros shilouetted against a massive grose advertising biboard. To me it symbolized the artificial groseness and comercialization of tavelling. I was on a bit of a down and a goofy guy offering me "weed or pussy" seemed down to earth becase he kept talking to me even after I had turned him down.. Following this I had another little adventure where I got pooy mud on my boots, but I'll tell you guys about that individually.

The next charactor that I met was the next morning. He was a cool midle aged man from Poland. I had decided to take the megbuss because it seemed to cost about the same amount to bus to Brighton as to buss far enough out of London to start Hitchhiking. Both me and the Polish dude were waiting for the buss station to open and we had a little broken conversation. I also met a Slovakian guy who didn't speak any English at all and we exchanged a couple of confused friendly words. I killed some time weaving a hemp necklace and then met the coolest guy so far. He was an Ozzy about the same age as me, maybe a couple of years younger who had been traveling around Europe for six months. He went down to Morocco crewing on a sailoat for a bit and stayed in the desert. His stories about that were breathaking. He said that he made a whole bunch of friends and connections staying in hostels along the way and by the end of his trip he was stying almost exclusively on the couches of friends that he had made.

I got into Brighton and showed up on my sister's doorstep and surprised her because I hadn't been able to figure out my calling card well enough to contact her propperly.

Now I have figured it out though: If you want to leave me a voice message phone the following series fo numbers:
1-866-626-9724, press * then enter my account nmber: 2105525734. Its free or you but it costs me a fair amount so please keep messages consice.

But it might be easier for me to check my email, and definitly easier for me to reply: If I get a chance to do one thing online now and then it will be checking ian.e360@gmail.com so thats a good way to go.

So the last couple of days I have just been relaxing with my sister. There was some BIG wind when I got into brighton 30knots, no exageration. The gusts would actually knock me off balance. Hopefully I can add my video clip of Brighton beach in a gale to this blog.

Other than that there as been a lot of coffee and tea drinking, Kyran toddler watching and scrable playin. And I got to meet Brigh, Kyran's father!

A couple of other things that I wanter to throw in are that my sister uses a cooperative bank here in Brighton which makes a point of saying NO to unetical investements like big military and polluters and opprssive regimes and emphasizes investing in progressive things like reneble energy. It would be awesome if we could create nough of a demand for something like hat t spring up in Alberta.

Also I was having a heavy conversation with a few of you about to what extent a person should be expected to be ethical in the area of modifying their behaviour to save the planet for some of our future generations, reduce carbon emissions to reduce future natural disters associaed with global warming and climate change and buying fair trade goods to help working conditions etc.

The thought that came from a conversation with my sister (and I could well be putting words in Kirsten's mouth) is that it is fair to expect everyone to always push their comfort level with everyday ethical things. So we might not all be making equal contribuions to an equitable green present and future, but if we are all trying pretty hard then we would be on our way. Like if you are comforable in your day to day life, why not take 15 extra minutes out of your day and wright a version of a prepared letter to your MP about Canada meeting it's milenium development commitments, or taking 5 minutes separating out reusable things from the recycling bin, or buy fruit grown closer to home or chose to eat meat from the farmers market instead of cows on steroids that have been shipped around the province in squalor, or to learn to cook a sweet vegan dish and eat it instead of a meat dish you had been planning. Sorry, I'm getting carried away, but what I am saying is that we mustn't judge each other too harshly for the contributions that we are or aren't making so that we can keep open comunication and undersanding with each regardless of offences. And I believe that there is a fundamental importance of everyone having the right to make their own decison wether or not it ruins the world. But having said all of that, I think that it is fair to expect everyone to spend enough time and effort trying to make the world a better place so that they are a touch beyone what they were comfortable doing. If someone has become comfortable with making a little difference, they should then to push themselves to make a little more of a difference, or if someone is comfortale causing a huge problem they should be expected to make a bit less of a problem, but not so much that it becomes an impossinle task. In this way we would always be making progress and never be satisfid with the status quo. If it isn't enough then maybe the world is doomed, but trying to make unrealistic changes often ends up beng depressing, alienating, polarizing and counterporductive. All we can do is a litle bit more than we are cmforable doing -always. It could be as simple as asking your bank about which regimes their investments support or with a bit of capital it could mean saving on monthly heating bills by converting your home to geothermal heating. Or it could mean the next governer general not being satisfied with his brilliant speech and taking a little more time out of his schedule to personally inspire a child who wanted to meet him. I don't know if I articulated that very well, but nevertheless what are your thouhts about it?

Thanks for listening. The next insallment will probably be written from Eastern Europe as Kirsten, Kyran and I will be off to chill (probably not ski) in Slovenia, and then I will set out northward from there to meet up with Kaisa in Turku, Finland by late Febrewary, head back over to the UK and spend time with relatives and then grab a ride with my sister's band back down to Switzerland by early March and then I'll try to make it to Cortona Italy by the end of Nicole's school term.

I love you all!

Ian

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Videos from "Part 1: London and Brighton":

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