allmostrelevant

On almost every intersection, on the pavement is painted “ßLOOK LEFT” or “LOOK RIGHT à” because dad has unknowingly stepped into traffic like so many other Americans. It feels weird having to look the ‘wrong way,’ but you just have to pretend that being a bad pedestrian is the right thing to do, and then you won’t get run over. I still think it’s kind of funny to have advice written on the street. I think they should say other things too. LOOK RIGHT. TIE YOUR SHOES. FLOSS DAILY. CALL GRANDMA. It’d be good for the whole city. We tried to see Wimbledon today, but only got to see the outside of the stadium because there were no tickets available. We had lunch in the town of Wimbledon and surprisingly the tennis wasn’t on TV. Only equestrian. We tubed over to the town of Richmond, which had a big grassy park and a place to play cricket, but we basically walked around and went back to London. It was a nice area, but that was about it. It’s kind of funny how dense the population is here, and how there’s no zoning like we’re used to. You’ll be in a residential neighborhood, and then turn the corner and there’s a huge electronic billboard on the back of an apartment complex.

We went up a monument in memoriam of the great fire of London in 1666 (also a year, like this one, in which people thought the world was ending) that started in a pudding shop. It was 311 steps up or something like that, I wasn’t counting, and had a great view of London. There’s not too many tall buildings, not like a US city, but there’s a few cranes up, and they’re building vertical. We were just killing time because we were going to meet up with Huaiwen at 5. We went to get Chinese food and she laughed at us, coming all this way and eating Chinese food, but honestly I’ve had fish and chips about every other meal. I still don’t get why they call fries “chips.” What are chips then? ‘crisps’ or something? We kind of caught up and she’s doingw ell. She resigned from the Dutch team and is planning to move again, but is not set particularly on where. She gave her all-access pass to her one athelete’s husband so they could enjoy the Olympics together, which was really kind, but now she’s kind of just shuffling around the city be herself. She asked how we were enjoying London, and I hadn’t taken a step back to think about it, so I said I kind of feel like a gopher. You get in the tube and go underground and pop your head out and see something, and then go underground and pop out again; you never really get a feel for where things are. She seems really happy though.

We parted and went to go see the Buckingham Place where the beach volleyball was being played, but you can’t even get near the awesome venue without a ticket. We almost saw a lot of cool venues today; however we did stroll through Trafalgar Square (which is only called ‘square’ because it’s actually a square), Big Ben, parliament, and the outside of Westminster abbey, which we thought was St. Paul’s cathedral at the time, and the beach volleyball is actually at Hyde Park. Obviously we know what we’re doing in this city. We saw the London ‘I’ too, but I really think it looks more like an ‘O.’ They had a “lights show” on the ferris wheel while the sun was setting over the Thames, but it wasn’t much of anything, seriously. It just blinked a little. I suppose the fact that there was no crowd should have been a clue. The police lights zooming through the streets towards the other end of town were more impressive. Btw there are statues and monuments everywhere in this city, new and old.

I feel like I’ve seen everything, but seen hardly anything. There’s so much to see. At least I’m adjusted for the time zone now.

Next Day>>

Meet a 10:30, woke up at 9:45. Sleep with curtains open. Got a tourist London pass thing. Saw London Bridge, but it didn’t fall down. Rain. Crap. Bought umbrellas though completely sunny in the morning, but awful rain. Not like seattle. Seattle rains all day; here rains for 30 minutes and stops. Kept umbrellas in my backpack cup holders so my butt ended up getting really wet :( so much stuff going on in London. You forget that the population of the city is more than the population of Washington state, but when you see the building, the tube, a train cross the river, and a battleship docked outside, you’re quickly reminded. We walked across one of the bridges where we had a clear view of Londond bridge. We took a picture and someone said “Go Huskies!” Awesome. It was a family on vacation from California. The rain chased us to a pub where we got those meat pies for lunch, like in Sweeney Tod, but different ingredients like chicken and stuff… I think.

In the tube stations on the escalators theres 11½ by 17 posters as ads. Sometimes they’re random, but on one of the escalators Nike has a whole row, and the theater—excuse me—the theatre district has a whole row. Apparently Shrek and Matilda are musicals now. Walking around it’s funny because you can spot the Americans real easy, and there’s actually quite a lot here for the Olympics. They’re the ones who talk simple and have no fashion sinse. I’m no exception, except I’ve been getting better at my British accents.

With our umbrellas held high and proud, our next stop was Londond Tower. I was expecting a tower, but found an old city/fort sort of thing; you know, where they used to build a big wall and then people lived inside it. We learned all sorts of things. The British took canons back as trophies from the places they conquered. A few of the kings back in the day were only boys, so they had little baby armor *ahem* armour made for them. Quays is pronounced “keys.” (I know English has some silly spellings; but that’s just ridiculous). Whenever I see a messed up spelling I always wonder what Colonel Bologna would have to say about it. But anywayses; the crown jewels are shiny. Wow. So much sparkle. If you touch your pinky finger and thumb together, you see how your thumb muscle kind of squishes together into a big lump? Yeah, that’s how big the diamond was. We couldn’t take pictures, which sucked. I thought about sneaking a picture in, but I’m sure the guards would love to quickly usher me back outside. Those guards had huge shoes, like border line clown shoes, but it’s intimidating when they are completely serious while wearing them. Clearly humor is not the place for this mood, but we found ourselves making wise cracks about the queen and stuff about every minute. I think we’re just jealous of her job on a base level. They had one of the crowns of when the crown jewels were sacked in 1669(ish). It looked like an empty bee hive because all the jewels had been plucked off it and stolen, and all that remained were the holes. Outside we saw one of the guards with the fuzzy black hats and red coats. He didn’t move much. He was just my age though. Made you think it was the crappist job in the army to stand there and just shift your eyes around all day while people take pictures of you. I figured he’d be a good guy to test out a new standup comedy routine on. Just start your jokes, and if you can make this guy crack, then you know it’s good material. One more quick thing about the crown jewels; they also had a baquet set that was made entirely of gold. To give you an idea of the scale, you could take a bath in the punch bowl (the ladle was a conch shell on a 3 foot handle), and the cup/pitchers were about a gallon or two. It was definitiely dining ware fit for a king (or queen). When we came to London Tower it was pissing down rain, but when we left it was sunny and blue sky again, just like the morning. I don’t understand this place.

We headed out to a part of town that was supposed to be nicer; and it was. Extravagance at its best/worse/I had know idea what ‘wealthy’ meant. There’s this store call Harrods that only sell the most expensive things you can buy. An emerald necklace over 250K, watches up to 90K, and this is all in pounds, not dollars, and such things as liters of perfume, 100 inch TV’s, and personal submersive scooters. And once you buy all these expensive things and are a shining beacon of luxury and get paranoid that people will want to mug you, you can purchase a bullet proof suit or tux, All the sales people there are my age, dolled up in pretty dresses and suits, and really good at sales. All we bought was a 4 pound thing of salmon at the food place. 4 pounds as in like somewhere around $6. I hate using pounds as currency ‘cause it’s so damn confusing. When I was counting my change I wanted to say “three pounds eleven ounces.” Outside was a Mclaren showroom and a Lambourghini showroom. I don’t really understand expensive fast cars. If you buy one you end up driving slow so everyone can see it’s you behind the wheel, but if you had a crappy car you’d drive fast to save face; at least you would in this neiborhood. “You only have an ’09 Benz? Stop wasting my air.” I suppose luxury is not for me. We ate fish n’ chips at a pub again and wound down for the night.

Next Day>>

We got up at 6:30 and just got some McDonalds like good americans, and also nothing else was open. They have bagel McMuffins here. So delicious, but going straight to my hips. I’m destroying my dainty figure. The Tube was pretty much empty because it was Saturday, but everything was closed early anyway. We wondered what people here do all day. They start late and end early; how do they make their money? I guess a few European countries are going bankrupt. We tubed to Wembley stadium and arena, which is a huge looking building. The arena is where the badminton is, so that’s where we went… yup. It’s just me and dad, but we had 4 tickets so he tried to sell the other two, and did. We later learned it’s not okay to scalp tickets, but whatevs, it’s the first day. While doing that, two Estonians asked if we had tickets for the evening session so they could watch their son play, Raul Must. We exchanged numbers and would call them if we ended up having extra tickets. The venue inside was incredible, and outside you had to go through security and walk passed the smilikng men with assault rifles. I guess that makes me feel safe. If something happens, the men with assault rifles will make sure whatever happens gets turned into swiss cheese. I saw some unarmed guys moseying about in the middle of the day with jackets that said “SECURITY,” but in comparison I felt the guys with automatic rifles could do more than the guys without in terms of “SECURITY.” Back to the venue; it was lovely to watch in, and very well lit. There was a whole Japanese cheering section that cheered loud for the women, but no for the men. They sounded like a group of 5-8 year-olds, but when I turned around none of them were younger than me. It’s like they took a person and compressed them, voice and all. Little tiny voices.

Lunch. Walked around. Came back. Gym hot and sweaty. Building no A/C b/c make wind. Many bodies make hot. Rarg. Our first seats were in the mid-level with our backs against a small wall. Our second seats were all the way on the side, and all the way in the back row on the top, with our backs against the wall. Our third seats were on the floor between courts 1 and 3 with our back against the wall. The courts were numbered 2 1 3. Don’t ask why. In the last session we got to see Howard and Tony play the Koreans. They lost, but got 19 in the second. I thought they were going to pull it out. Rob and his wife Rachel, long time family friends, landed that afternoon and were able to join us for the last session so we didn’t give our tickets to the Estonian guy’s parents, but they ended up finding some so it all worked out anyways. We sat just behind the parents of the Belgian singles playres. They have two children in the Olympics; pretty sweet. Team singapore showed up for one game and left. They were loud. We were exhausted after 10+ hours of badminton going off a 5 hour night’s sleep that we went home and crashed, and screwed up all my grammers. I thought of some jokes today, like funny things and stuff, but have no capacity for memory or humor right now ‘cause I’m so wiped; just capacity for sleep.

Next Day>>

Well, technically today is tomorrow, so I’ll start a new day even though it’s really still the same long slur of consciousness. It’s now 6:43 am or something ridiculous, and that’s 10:43 back home, which equals one long day already, but we still have to stay up all day so we can take care of jet lag in one sitting. Walking through immigration and customs literally took 2 minutes. We talked to the guy about badminton and he let us into his country. There was nothing at customs; you just walk through. I’m not even exaggerating. There was a line for “nothing to declare” and “if you have stuff to declare” and they both just met at the exit with absolutely zero security people in between. Hmph.

We got on ‘the Tube,’ London’s subway system, and after about 10 minutes and 3 stops we figured we’d be there by now, but we weren’t eve out of the airport yet. dang. The airport must be as big as the downtown area of Seattle. It wasn’t much of a shock when the tube surfaced and we saw London daylight for the first time. Warm, humid, overcast, kind of like Seattle, but somehow I don’t feel the threat of rain… but that might change. The vegetation looks much the same, and it’s a pretty green city for how densely packed the building/houses are. There’s lots of brick, and chimneys. Every house seemed to have a garden, or at least on the outskirts of town, and this is all while we’re tired and making observations at subway speeds, so this all might be completely false information. I feel pretty awake though. Everyone on the tube is on their phone. You get tossed around a bit from side to side, but you can almost stand on one foot as long as you trust that when it bumps you to the right, that it’ll return you back to the left. Momentum, man. Like good faithful Seattleites, we found a Starbucks and got some internet with a side of coffee. Or vanilla bean frap in my case. I hate coffee. I’m from Seattle. Blah blah walking contradiction blah blah.

The hotel has three identical paintings when you walk into the lobby. And orange backdrop with a yellow and blue smear wiping from left to right—oh wait, there’s another—make that four. I thought I was trippin’ out, and very well might have been, cause I thought there were mirrors when there weren’t mirrors. We looked up trips to Stonehenge, but they were all booked.

Just walking around town reminds me of a little metaphor in marketing class of how the US is a “melting pot.” London is a melting pot; the US is a salad bowl—there’s different ingredients, but they stay clumped together.

I’m back in the room. It’s 1 am, and I don’t know if I’m tired anymore. Initially our room didn’t have working AC, so they took a couple hours to move us to another room. We headed out and walked around Earl’s Court, which is where Volleyball will be hled, and got some fish and chips with mushy peas. When we got back to the new room we thought to take a quick nap for an hour or two… woops. Jet lag came out of nowhere and slapped us silly. We went to sleep around 1:30 and woke up at 7. We hit the town for some dinner and took the tube down to Picadilly Circus, which I was rather let down to know what not an actual circus. Circus to the Britishish is like ‘square’ to us in the sense of “Times Square;” however there were a few characters there. When you get on the tube, every stop an automated woman says “This is Glaucester Road. Mind the gap between the station and the platform. This is a Picadilly line to Cockfosters.” The underlined parts change, but it’s the same every time.

It started raining like it does at home. We walked around with no particular aim or purpose. There were quite a few American establishments; KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, Ben and Jerry’s, M&M world, Nike store, Rain Forest Café? Statues: there were lots of statues. It’s hard to stand somewhere and not be able to see a statue. The rain chased us into an Italian restaurant (with real Italians), where we ended up watching the opening ceremonies, but skipped out once the Athletes started processing in. We watched the torch lighting in Picadilly Circus around a buncha drunk people on big TV on the side of a building. It was sponsored by Coca Cola, so every 5 minutes or so the screen would turn red with white Coke letters saying “Back soon” and then it went immediately back to showing the ceremonies. I thought it was going to cut out right at the climax, but thankfully it didn’t. We got back around 1:30. I still don’t know if I’m tired. You know that feeling where you don’t know if you’re stuffed or starving? It’s like that, but with energy. The opening ceremonies was good. It told the story of England without words. However I didn’t get the whole music thing, and Voldemort, and Mr. Bean was funny, but in the Olympics? Usually these are things you put in the closing ceremonies. Hmph, oh well. I liked how the cauldron was made of all the metal things the kids carried out with each country during the procession, and then they all came together like a flower or something. Pretty sweet.

Next Day>>

Ooooookay. Here we go… get comfortable; because this is going to be so tediously uncomfortable.

5:30 wake up, grab passport, funny money, bags, shoes, tickets, each other, self, etc. and head out by 6. From Lake Stevens it takes about an hour to get to Sea-Tac, and with traffic ‘twasabit longer, but not so bad. I didn’t put my contacts in this morning so I can sleep on the flight without having my eyes revolt against the rest of my face, but we’ll see how that goes. Right now I’m waiting to take off, sitting in the plane. Delta Airlines did their best to slow us down at the gate, but we shall not be stopped! There was a mix up with the passports. Apparently my dad used my passport and I used my dad’s. I’m a bit confused because when I went to the self check-in kiosk thing with both our passports, a lady in a vest popped out of nowhere and offered to do it for me. I can’t see anything so I couldn’t’ really check her work, and the fact that my dad had lost 30 years and I gained 30 years, so when we got to the gate they had to pull us aside to verify. “Sometimes we make these mistakes.” The ticket checker person said that like it’s no big whoop, like “we lost your bags; sometimes we make these mistakes… We canceled your flight and rerouted you to Cameron, you’ll get there next week; sometimes we make these mistakes…” Whatever, though. It’s early, and I’m on the plane—can’t be too upset. I’m just hoping I can sleep. Everytime I fly I am unfailingly near a baby. Not like “Oh, there’s a baby on the plane somewhere in the inaudible distance,” but like, I’m either literally next to one or within a row of one. I always call babies ‘it’ for some reason, like they’re some sort of genderless entity—like a squishy amalgamation of uninhibited emotion without reason… “that baby is cute.” You might find yourself doing this… Maybe we need a male and female term for babies, like baebo for male and babie for female. There’s one of those baby things two rows directly behind me, about 4 feet away, on this flight (still counts as ‘near me’). Keep the streak alive! During the safety briefing, which was an automated video, people kept beeping the call button which would trump the sound of the video and made it sound like the video lady was getting censored. Two guys in the jet way were talking about “infectious diseases” and “predetermined targets—” and those are the only phrases I caught… it’s probably nothing. It’s funny without seeing (no contacts) how you view things; you can’t make eye contact, just a blank stare is all I can provide, and you can’t see the little things anymore; you have to get those from listening. If you stare down a long hallway you don’t see depth so much as just the 2D shape of the hallway and the successive signs and markers getting smaller and smaller.

Swoop. We’re in the air. Plop. I am a sleep.

I woke up just in time for some water. Plop. A sleep. The flight felt like 1 hour when it was actually three and a half. This is starting to become a really boring paragraph so far, and I realize I should probably at least acknowledge keeping the word count down so your expectations don’t get too high before stuff actually starts happening. But I’m in the Detroit Airport, and I’m bored, so this is what you get right now. There’s a cool fountain whit “jumping” water that uses a special patented nozzle to make the water squirt and look like a statue when left on. Perfect parabolas present a propensity for perplexity… excuse me… I remember seeing these things two years ago when we came back from Amsterdam after missing our direct flight. There’s a train inside the terminal, but I wouldn’t see it if it was heading straight for me. The terminal is really long. We walked to the end and joked about something cool being there, like a prize. I said there’s probably just a really nice guy with soft hands who’ll give you a handshake and say with an amiable smile, “You made it!” With blurry vision all I see is a tiny light at the end of the terminal, I can’t tell how long it is. Gate A55 looked like the 5’s were S’s (dumb laugh here). I have to follow dad wherever ‘cause I’m hopeless – Let’s go here, there, turn left, right, spin around, do the hokey-polka, click your heels 3 times. Funny how things change when I can see.

I find myself squinting a lot. I guess it’s nice to have eyelashes so squinting is super effective. A trick that I learned in elementary school is to pinch your thumb and index finger together and then press the tips of the fingers against the pad of your index finger on your other hand so there’s a tiny hole to see through between those three fingers. If you have bad vision you can look through that miniscule hole and you can see 20/20. Diffraction; google it. Maybe that’s why I like physics.

When the plane lifted off the runway dad turned to me with boyish excitement. “It worked!” When grandpa’s on the plane right as it landed he’d say “Ha—cheated death once again!” I’d like to think we have a tradition of one liners in this family.

Next Day>>