allmostrelevant

I woke up at 10:30 even thought I went to bed at mindnight. I don’t know if that means I’m getting better or worse at sleep. We went and saw Westminster Abbey. Dad and Susan were both tired and running completely on flickers of adrenaline, which was fun to watch, but I could see their crash was imminent. The train was reaching the end of the tracks, but not slowing down. The Abbey was massive and brilliant. This was another place where you weren’t allowed to take pictures, but I saw the sign just after I snapped a quick one; or at least that’s my story. You get a little audio guide and map to help you appreciate everything, from the hundreds of years of heritage buried on site, the stone work, the stories, and the fact that it’s still a church; there was a service going on while we were in there. The ceiling in one of the wings is so intricate it was declared a wonder of the world as soon as it was finished. Every king and queen of England that ever lived is buried there. There are giant granite slabs on the floor to mark where they are buried underneath, but so many feet have traversed the ancient stone that some of the engravings have been worn smooth and nameless over time. One of the tombs is of some royal baby who died as a baby, so they made a baby statue in his honor. His mother is buried adjacent, staring longingly at the son she barely had for all eternity. A bunch of famous writers, scientists, and composers are buried here as well. “I guess if you’re and English writer, this is the goal.” I said, looking down at the dozens of dead poets. “Yeah,” said dad “That’s the goal.” I glanced around. “Kinda grim though.” A few of the names I can recall as of this instant are Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Handel, Elgar, Vaughn Williams, Darwin, Newton, and a bunch of other 18^th-19^th century writers.

After the Abbey we tried to find a place to rest our feet and watch the Olympics. We ventured into a fish n chips house, but they only had my dearly behated “dressage” on, which is equestrian, which is horses, which is stupid in my opinion. Horses are not an Olympic sport. I’m sorry if you’re a horse, but you don’t belong in a human competition. I understand having to take your racket bag with you to the Olympics, but having to charter your horse around with you? Ooph. Save us all the trouble. I must be feeling a bit snide today. I’m quite hungry. In the morning for breakfast the same thing was on as well. Horses all day every day. However a kind lady asked if we wanted to watch American sport, and I said “Anything, really.” And she told us where a sports pub was, and when we walked in there was badminton on six TV’s. We got to see Kevin Cordon beat the home town Rajiv Ouseph 21-19 in the third. Probably the most intense game of the tournament so far. Huaiwen texted dad around 4 because she had an extra ticket for tonight’s matches. Long story short, everyone else was kinda pooped, so I headed over to the weightlifting place where Huaiwen was. We got to catch up more on a long tube ride. We talked about moving and starti new lives and such. It was fun. When we got off she went through the special people entrance to the arena and I walked around to the plebian entrance. The seat was in the back corner all the way back against the wall. Not great seats, but there were some great matches. China vs. Taiwan in doubles and mixed, Zweibler and Ukraine, but probably the weirdest thing was the fans booing the woman’s doubles games because both sides of the net were intentionally trying to lose. I walked in late so I didn’t really catch on too quick. They should’ve had the two strongest pairs play each other 1^st or2nd, and then this problem goes away. I didn’t even know why everyone was boing until I saw it on the news where players were trying to lose to avoid playing china first round. I have the room to myself now. I have that new song by Neontrees stuck in my head. I went to sleep.

Next Day>>