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Published: October 31st 2006
Saint Peter's Basilica
Gretchen and I are standing in front of St. Peter's in the Vatican. I should have lightened our faces in the picture, but then you'd see that I happened to have my tongue out at the exact second when the picture was taken. Nice.Yesterday morning Gretchen and I were flipping channels to check the weather. (Speaking of which, somebody described London weather as
living inside a defrosting refrigerator—I think that’s probably as fair a description as any.) At any rate, we stumbled across the channel, The HITS, which is that VH-1 type music video channel here that we were watching when I wrote the
England’s Top Twenty blog. We stopped at that channel just in time to see the beginning of
Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. (Oddly enough, here in England the music video channels actually still play music videos.) We ended up stopping and watching the whole thing because—more than anything else I’ve seen—it perfectly illustrates what it is like walking on London’s sidewalks (Londoners use the term “pavement” instead of “sidewalks”)! Before you go any further reading this blog, you seriously need to check out that video so you get an idea of what I’m talking about. (If you’re at work, you may want to turn down your volume a bit…) I found it on YouTube, so here is the link:
Bittersweet Symphony Video Being as old of a city as it is, London has very narrow streets and often very narrow
Look, Leighton!
This is for our neice, Leighton. They named a street after you! sidewalks. In addition, there are LOTS of people in London, and consequently LOTS of people on the sidewalks at any given moment. One might assume that since Londoners
drive on the left side of the road that they would also
walk on the left side of the sidewalk. That is not the case. Unfortunately their Parliament has been so busy passing laws about everything else in this country that they have not had adequate time to pass legislation about proper sidewalk usage (but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they eventually conduct studies and pass laws about sidewalk usage). People walk on whichever side they want or right down the middle. What’s worse is that Londoners seem to have laser beams in their foreheads and when they step foot onto a sidewalk they use their laser beams to predetermine a straight line which they will follow down the sidewalk. (It’s kind of like in Top Gun when Maverick gets a bogey in front of him and you hear “missile lock on”—that’s the same basic idea.) It doesn’t matter who or what is in front of them—Londoners simply do not depart from the predetermined path to which they have locked
Successful Day
This is Gretchen after a successful shopping trip to the Portobello Road Market. on with their forehead laser beams. The problem becomes much worse when there is a group walking together because nobody in London has ever applied the concept of “single file” to walking down a sidewalk. (Which is odd because “queuing”—at the bank, at the store, or at an ATM—seems to have replaced fox hunting as the national pastime.) But you get a group of 4 or 5 friends walking in their predetermined laser beam lines down the sidewalk, and if there isn’t enough room on the sidewalk, they’ll be out in the street blocking big red buses rather than file in line! (NFL teams should send their running backs to London to walk up and down sidewalks during the off-season.) The best is when an oncoming pedestrian will look you straight in the eye, acknowledge that you are there (so you naturally anticipate that each of you will move 50% out of the way to avoid a collision), and then the person will plough straight into you!
For the first month or so in London I was very true to my upbringing. My parents brought me up to be kind, respectful, and polite. My dad taught me by example
Rome
This was the view from our hotel in Rome. Technically, it was about 30 minutes outside of Rome, but it still had a great view! to always be the one to hold doors, step aside, and let ladies go first. So here in London, for the first month or so, I was constantly dodging people. But after a couple months, after realizing that I was always the one dodging out of people’s way and playing the real-life sidewalk version of
Frogger, I’ve hardened a bit. Of course, I still step aside for women, children, the elderly, and the disabled, but other than that, I’m now a true Londoner in the sense that I will pick out my line, square my shoulders, put in my mouthpiece, and barge right on through.
Another thing about London is that there seem to be fireworks every weekend here. From our flat, which is the third story of a Victorian era house that sits on a hill slope, we have a great view of London. Our sitting room window looks out over the city and for the last month or two we’ve enjoyed fireworks shows outside our window just about every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Guy Fawkes Night is this Sunday, so we expect really good fireworks this weekend. Guy Fawkes Night commemorates the spoiled attempt by some Catholic
Fresh Olives, anyone?
Olive trees have a beautiful color--the leaves are silvery green color. While we were in Italy, Gretchen wanted to try a fresh olive. So one night we walked from our hotel (outside of Rome) down a big hill and found an olive tree. Using a small flashlight, we hand selected a handful of olives and took them back to our room. As we were rinsing them off in the sink prior to Gretchen's taste test, I noticed a small worm poking its little body out of one of the olives. When I pointed this out to Gretchen, she decided that she preferred them from a jar and threw these fresh olives out the window. conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament (while Protestant King James I was inside) in 1605. It is celebrated in England with fireworks and bonfires on which Guy Fawkes, the head conspirator, is burned in effigy.
Speaking of holidays, Halloween is not nearly as big a deal here as it is in the States. However, because Gretchen and I have hosted little “Halloween” get-togethers (even though we aren’t really Halloween fans) since we got married, we decided to continue the tradition here. So we invited a few people from my school and several people from church. Well, everybody—with the exception of one guy from school—has accepted the invitation, so this is turning into a larger party than we expected. Now we’re trying to figure out how everybody is going to fit in our flat tonight.
By the way, did you know that it is virtually impossible to get isopropyl alcohol—or rubbing alcohol—here in England?!? I’ve been trying to get some isopropyl alcohol to dissolve some candle wax that I made a mess with (trying to make wax seals), but I can’t find it anywhere. I looked at two grocery stores and then went to Boots (which is
Aqueducts
I took this picture of the aqueduct from the train window. These aqueducts are miles and miles and miles long--and were used anciently to bring in water to Rome from the mountains. Many of them are still standing. I think this was the most impressive part of Rome to me. similar to a Walgreens). The pharmacist at Boots sent me to a chemist shop (which is kind of like a pharmacy). The chemist told me that I can’t get isopropyl alcohol without a prescription. So…while apparently anyone above the age of 4 can get a bottle of Jack Daniels here, rubbing alcohol would be a bit too dangerous. Now please don’t try to mail us any—I can only imagine the international incident that might spark. My friend, David, at school, just had his birthday last week. Along with some other gifts, his parents sent him 3 packages of beef jerky for his birthday, but when he got the package, there was a note inside saying that the Customs Department had seized and destroyed his “agricultural products.” Yeah…we don’t want to risk that those British mad cows might be exposed to any cooked and dehydrated beef!
As I was looking at the photos that I need to post with this blog, I just realized that I haven’t said anything about our trip to Rome. We were there at the beginning of last week. I think it’s fair to say that while Gretchen and I saw some really neat things in
And Environmentally Friendly!
Maybe we give Europeans too much credit for being environmentally conscious. It could be that their fascination with itty bitty cars has nothing to do with preserving fuel and more to do with an inability to parallel park. Rome—St. Peter’s, the Roman aqueducts, ancient Roman temples, and the Colosseum—Rome didn’t quite compare to Venice and Cinque Terre. But I am glad we went, and we are grateful for what we were able to see there (even though the Sistine Chapel was closed while we were there!). Gretchen’s parents arrived in Rome while Gretchen and I were still in Cinque Terre, and they actually got to see the Pope. Apparently they were near St. Peter’s when he came by in a motorcade, waving to the crowds.
On Tuesday we flew back to London from Rome. Gretchen’s parents flew out on Thursday, so they only had one full day left here when we got back. Gretchen and her mom spent that last day making one last trip to Harrod’s (the world’s largest department store) and to the Portobello Road market (one of the world’s largest outdoor markets). Meanwhile, Bob and I went to the London Science Museum. The museum was really neat. As nerdy as it may sound, they had some really neat math, science, and engineering exhibits. Again, at the risk of sounding like a complete geek (not for the first time, I’m sure), their math exhibit on
Colosseum
This is the famous Colosseum in Rome. It is pretty magnificent. conic sections and integrals was pretty interesting. They also have exhibits on the genome project, cloning, mind development, energy, clocks, etc, etc, etc. It was a really big museum.
Another thing that I need to mention from last week is that Gretchen made an incredible dinner! She’s quite the improv chef—without a recipe she threw together this dinner that was as good as any meal I’ve had at a restaurant here. She baked chicken breasts with olive oil, seasonings, and maple syrup and served that with baked butternut squash. It was really good! I’m going to have to get her a really fancy kitchen so she can continue to impress me with her “sous chef” skills!
After visiting some of the most impressive places in Europe the past few weeks, Gretchen and I have been enjoying our downtime in the evenings because it’s often too cold to go out. Instead of just watching TV in the house, the other night we found a deck of cards and played Speed—if any of you remember that game. That got boring (Gretchen couldn’t keep up!), so—I don’t know how we got to this point—but we ended up somehow playing MASH (“Mansion-Apartment-Shack-Attic)—that
Michelin Man
One thing that most people don't know about the Michelin Man is that he's bilingual. Notice that there's an Argentina flag to the left in the picture. There was a lot of Italian influence in Argentina--and there was a surprising amount of Argentine influence in Italy. old elementary school game from fourth grade. (If you’re from our generation, you know exactly what I’m talking about—for those of you not from our generation, it is the game where your future is determined on a piece of paper by listing several options for a variety of categories, (eg, for
Occupation, you might select Lawyer; Doctor; Garbage man; Teacher; and Assistant to the Regional Manager. You also pick options for categories such as
Car,
Number of Kids,
Where to Live, etc. Then, using a highly sophisticated number counting system based on the number of spirals the other person draws in a given period of time, you go around the circle deleting options until you are left with one option from each category. And just that easily, your future is determined for you on paper with an astronomically high rate of accuracy! Just in case you’re wondering, I will be a journalist when I grow up; drive a Toyota 4Runner; live in an attic; have a son named Bronco; and become famous for being the first person to divide by zero. So I guess law school was a waste of time for me…
Well, the rest of the week
Interesting Blend
Rome had a very interesting blend of ancient and old. You see a lot of really ancient buildings right next to newer buildings. I’ll try to sum up with pictures. For some reason, the photos might be divided into two pages on this blog entry, so look at the bottom and see if you have to click to another page. Cheers!
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Leighton
non-member comment
LOVE YOU
Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Seth! I want you to come home safely before Christmas. Have good days in London. I love you so much. Thank you for the picture with my name. I have lots of candy from Halloween. I was a kitty cat. Thank you for my butterfly stickers and my letter. I love them! Good days!