allmostrelevant

Today’s the women’s finals. It ended up being China’s #2 against Japan’s #1 team. Japan had a couple game points in the second game, but China’s just too good. The #3 Chinese woman beat Wang Yihan in 3 good games. It was a brutal match, but Yihan works a lot harder in her footwork, and doesn’t have as strong of a counter attack as the other girl had. Saina played for the bronze, and got it, but only because Wang Xin injured herself pretty badly. Despite being injured she still put the game away in one shot, but after the first rally of the next game she crumpled in a heap of defeat and couldn’t walk. The gym was full of Chinese, but everyone else, including a lot of Indians, were cheering for Saina. I wanted China to lose, but I hate to see it in that fashion; that just sucks. The podiums are getting more diverse now though, and it’s cool. The countires who’ve medeled are China, India, Denmark, Japan, and Russia, with Malaysia and possibly Korea with a chance to finish on the podium as well. Speaking of podiums; for the ceremony they lowered the podium from the ceiling, but not in a ‘razzle-dazzle’ sort of way. They just thought the ceiling is where it’d be most out of the way, but apparently overlooked that it takes 5 minutes to lower the thing down using their impossibly slow motor. For some reason after the first medal ceremony they hoisted the podium back up to the ceiling, and then had to bring it back down later; it’s not like it was in the way or anything. So because the podium takes forever to descend to the ground, we figured we’d skip out on hearing the Chinese national anthem again and left, only to get caught up in a crowd of 50,000 plus leaving Wembley Stadium. There were cops on horses just standing at certain places in a line. The horses really funneled the people down and slowed things up, and apparently they’re good for crowd control, but they shat all over the pavement. We eventually made it back to the USA house again where we got to eat awesome food and rub elbows with the athletes. There was a guy there with the last name Fosbury. Google it. The Brits had a good day for medals and won about 4 or 5 golds or something like that. I think the US did too. All the athletes and even the non-athletes look like models. Not much really happened though besides just eating awesome food and being absorbed in the whole Olympic experience… nbd. There was a band. The USA house was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. If you ever, ever go to the Olympics, you need to find a way into the USA house, or ever any other country’s house. It’s amazing.

Going back to the room I felt rather parched, and upon experiencing such a feeling of parchment, I stopped at ye olde Burger King for a cup of water cause it was the only thing open at that hour.

Next Day>>

The day started with the breakfast of champions again; a McDonald’s breakfast bagel and starbucks internet. We were meeting at the USA House a 10:30 to see if it was something we’d want to come back to or not. Oh… My… God. It started out slow, but man, was this place awesome. Our fearless leader of the USAB was nice enough to give us day passes. We had plans for the day to go out and see some stuff, but ended up literally staying there the entire day. I got there first at 10:40 or so and walked in. There were TV’s everywhere upstairs and downstairs with everything on, couches, American outlet to charge your American stuff (insert grunt of happiness), gourmet desserts and food, an endless bar, and a deck with an upper level—and everything was unlimited, and free. Just one little desert thing would cost about $5 at some fancy pants restaurant, and I probably ate about a $100 worth of desserts. I think I had about 7 little crème brule mini dish things. At about 11:30 the others showed up and were amazed as I was. I told them “this si definitely a place we want to come back to.” Which was the purpose of this ‘introductory’ visit. We ended up staying there until 11pm. I went souvenir shopping and grabbed a few shirts to look at them, and then folded them back and stood there thinking what I should get, but the price tags said “don’t bother.” The coolest jacked there was $450, and a t-shirt was $60. Like, just a normal t-shirt. People started asking me “do you have this in medium?” and “where’s the men’s and women’s section?” I haven’t shaved in two days and am wearing pants and a blue shirt, which apparently makes me look like I know what the hell I’m doing. Even on the walk over some guy asked me where Barclays is, and I said “it’s on this road, just two more blocks and on the right.” I would’ve been more British of me to not actually know where it was, but give him directions nonetheless, but somehow I did actually know what I was talking about… weird. I though about actually pretending to work for the souvey shop for a bit, but quickly abandoned the idea and ate some more dessert. I think there’s about a 3-5 year difference with/out facial hairage. I guess it’s just part of my “Hair-itage.” It’s a pun, get it? Am I funny yet? No? fine, then we’ll just keep slogging through this overly wordy and droll account of nothingness in the midst of something-ness. Atheletes started to trickle in, and once you get to talking with those around you, you quickly realize that about 90% of the people in the room are Olympians; it’s like a family business. “I was on the ’92 Team.” “I was ’88. Do you have any kids competing?” “Not in this one. My daughter’s a skier.” “Oh, really? Skiing? My daughter’s a rower. Well you’ll have fun in Sochi in two years.” “Yeah, I wish water skiing was an Olympic sport, then she could do that here, too.” “Yeah, it’s probably for the best they don’t allow mechanized sports.” I learned something. They played American music from iconic American artists like Johnny Cash, JayZ, and Beyonce, and various pop rubbish you hear over the waves. The walls were lined with pictures of USA athletes; rhythmic gymnastics, archery, pingpong, taekwondo and other smaller sports.

Later it turned into a big party. Some rowers walked in. Holy shit. Huge people. Rowers are huge amazon women with gigantic back muscles. Before we knew who those people from our country were with gold medals around their necks, we tried to guess their sport by the body type and build. There’s so much skill and whatnot involved in all the sports, but it ultimately comes down to who’s bigger in a lot of sports. Susan grabbed one to take a picture and told me and dad to hop in. I feel so small next to this giant woman, however I’m very motivated to train hard after seeing all of these medalists. It got crowded later where someone would sidestep by you and there medal would bump against your shoulder. This is a crazy awesome atmosphere. They had little presentations for/by the coaches from/to the athletes. Rowing first, then later the silver medal archery team. We met a shooter. It was cool to hear him talk about how he has to work to pay for practice and life in general, well, not really cool per se, but It was fun to talk with a fellow minor sport, even though shooting is about 5 times more popular in the US than badminton in terms of competition. He’s a bartender in Colorado Springs. In my mind I pictured some guy breaking in and trying to rob the place, and this guy shoots the gun out of his hand. I saw the little gymnast who got silver or bronze at Beijing; the one they always pointed the camera at. She’s super small. Our fearless leader was able to get us passes for tomorrow, too, at the expense of one of our badminton tickets.

Out fearless leader of the USAB showed up with his friend, Mike, who explained how our fearless leader had the easiest life ever. Worked for the military at the airforce base. Wanted to get an advanced degree so he didn’t have to go to war. The love advanced degrees, but it was in recreation. They still let him do it. After that his job was aide to the head of something, on US soil, escorting the top official’s 18 year old daughter to football games and getting paid with his 6 year pay salary that he had only worked 2 years for. Apparently he was on the record as having served for four extra years, so he got a bump in pay. From there he got a job as head of westpoint recreation department and got medals and shit like the guys who kill people, or maybe gave them out, I couldn’t quite hear. It’s loud. From there something bad happened, and as it was described, “he fell flat on his ass into a bed of roses called chief executive officer of usa badminton.” Mike Rolled his eyes and laughed. They’ve known each other all their lives.

I went to sleep in the night time. I know, right? Thrilling narrative.

Next Day>>

I turned off the alarm when I should’ve pressed snooze. That’s the one disadvantage with turning up the A/C and having warm blankets; you want to sleep and be warn, but you don’t want to step into the cold. I was having some dream where I was laughing, but then I snapped out of it, jumped out of bed, and ran to the nearest tube station. I barely got to the badminton by nine-ish, and the first matches had just started. At least I got a good little half mile jaunt in running from the train to the venue. I haven’t exercised all trip, and now I’m wondering how you would exercise around here because I have no idea how you fit a gym in this city. All the men’s doubles were on. First it was China v. China, which was good because China lost, and then Malaysia beat Thailand. Long story short, the doubles was absolutely amazing, even thought it was just four matches and then the session was over. They must be making a fortune on ticket sales. We estimated they’re making about $13 million in ticket sales on badminton alone. I’d like to know the real number is. We walked down Picadilly street for the first time, which has little alley way off shorts from the street which have red carpets and 4 kinds of shops; jewelry, bags, shoes, and watches. I don’t know how those places stay in business, because for one; there was no one there buying, and two; there were literally 10-15 of each type of store side by side. We wondered what the one security guard would do if we all started running down the alley after saying “I got the goods.” British popo are unarmed. We stopped for lunch/breakfast and a French looking place with awesome looking pastries in the window. The others ordered Eggs Benedict, and I ordered a ham and cheese omelet because I have yet had breakfast/we all hadn’t. The French native waitress brought out three eggs benedict, and I was confused and checked with her that I ordered a ham and cheese omelet. I said, “Iordered a ham and cheese omelet,” and she smiled and nodded, saying “yes, okay. I will change this,” or something like that, and took my plate back. I’ve noticed a pattern with the people here in that they are very stubborn; and it’s not so good. No one will ever say “I don’t know.” The British are a proud people, and that does not help them. The first instance we got was in asking directions for places about a week ago. Most people give good friendly adcive, but when they don’t know, they still smile and point and give it their best shot, which has sent us in the wrong direction a few times because they acted like they know what they were talking about. You have to ask direct questions to make sure you aren’t being pleasantly dismissed. The best run-in was when dad asked a guy, “Do you know what street this is?” “Yes, sir.” (pause) “great… could you tell me what street this is?” “I don’t know what street this is.” He replied with a smile. It was a city worker, too, where his job is to help guide and direct traffic. You think he’d at least know by now. So then the French waitress brought me back my new grilled cheese sand—“Excuse me, um, I didn’t order a grilled cheese sandwich. (it was one thin slice of cheese between bread) I had a ham and cheese omelet; ham and cheese omelet… with eggs.” She looked confused, like she had not nodded and smiled before and said “I will have that ready for you” …twice. Another guy swooped in to change out the plate and rescue the situation. I felt bad. I’m pretty sure I didn’t slur my speech or anything, but I just don’t think she was listening that hard. Anyways, it was a good omelet, and ended up being free (score!).

We checked out a museum which displayed some USA guy’s collection of 18^th-19^th century French Impressionist art, but didn’t get tickets to see the full exhibit; just the free parts. On the way out I’d finish a drink, and for about the tenth time this trip I’d had lots of trash cans around, finished the drink, and then had no trash cans around; quite frustrating. The British take a very preventative approach to keeping trash/garbage/litter/rubbish down in the city—there are no garbage cans. I mean, there’s a few, but way less than you’d want. It’s like people have learned that there are no garbage cans around, so they don’t take any waste with them onto the streets because they won’t be able to throw it away.

Buckingham Place. USA house. Expensive. Grey and orange. Downstairs cheap. Badminton. India is going to be good. Chen jin went down. Would love to see chen long get knocked out next. Peter gade’s last game. Most interesting thing of the night was lind dan’s tattoos. Cross and words. CANADA! “that’s my sister!” there will be spells of sunshine and a scashing of rain. That’s what the pessimistic weather man said before I fell asleep. Spells of sunshine… spells of shunsine. Must have said that same phrase about 10 times, like it was a technical term.

Next Day>>

It is August. I started my day with a couple McDonalds bagels and a chocolate frap at starbucks. I’m so healthy it’s sick (isn’t that the slang these days?). I met up with the crew inside Wembley Arena for badminton at 12:30. We got to see a really good mixed game where the Polish team fought off two match points from china’s second team, get a match point of their own, but then lose. Wop wop wop. They went from being up 16-12 to being down 16-18. Both teams were really nervous, but it’s amazing what you can do when you see the cliff and someone starts to push you. We got to see Lee Chong Wei play too, and he was on fire. He was playing Simon Santoso, and after the first 11 Santoso looked like he was out of ideas, and not soon after he was out of the tournament.

We walked along the sort of ‘boardwalk’ area of London along the river and took the Eye (the ferries wheel). Wow; what a view. London isn’t really a tall city, and it’s very flat, so you could see for miles and miles. It was extrodinry. You could see the Palace from there, but the most interesting building for me was the HM Treasury Building, which is big, stone and square on the outside, but has a giant circular cut-out on the inside. Hmm, something’s odd at the “HM” building, hmm?? Big Ben looks awesome across the water. We tried to take pictures where the postcards take pictures. When the eye completes a revolution (about 20-30 minutes. it looked like 1 fps linear velocity give or take) and drops you back off, it lets go a bucketful of water, or the equivalent of, back into the river. When you first step in you notice the AC is blasted and it’s quite chilly. This is probably so the claustrophobic people who got pressured into getting shoved in a glass capsule and hung 400 feet over the horizon don’t pass out. When you go through a very relaxed version of security, they ask you if you have any sharp objects, but don’t ask if you have a fear of small enclosed spaces hoisted hundreds of feet over water. We took the tube to the “edgy” part of town, as described by a local. It wasn’t any more or less nice, really, but there were a lot more black people here than before, and now I’m just thinking that person was racist. I was told the London Riots started in this part of town. We found a niche little bar that apparently was written about in the New York Times. Being hip I think is all about making being pooor look like a cool thing to do. The bar was a bookshelf with books in it, the tables were old desks, and the silverware container was a can for peppers or something; and none of this stuff was new, they were all old tables and bookshelves and cans of stuff. We wanted food but it was 7:30 and the kitchen was closed. In fact the bar and the entire block shut down at 8. I don’t know how they can make any money with those hours. In America you’d go out of business closing a bar at 8. On the tube I noticed British people all sort of have the same kind of nose that is kind of round on the end, like a ball, but this old old guy doing Sudoku had hair on his nose; like, like actual grey whiskers—more like bristles. It was so weird. I guess when you get old your hair gets bored and stops growing on your head, and instead finds other places to sprout. I had a drink at the bar and was testing my balance to compare how I felt vs. how I act after one drink. My balance is fine, but I needed to make sure I wasn’t seeing things either. My eyes are slower. We got dinner and shared 3 pitchers of some sort of fruity wine drink. I felt slow; like visually slow, but felt no change in mood or balance after 3 drinks. Whatever. I still don’t get the whole alcohol thing. Water’s better.

(discussed how people back home probably went to Europe and saw how many monuments there were and said we needed more art, and now it’s a law that you need art in public spaces or something.) (stupid)

On the tube someone said to me, “Seattle?” “yes, where are you from?” “Same.” “Nice.” I was wearing my UW shirt again. I asked him what he was here to see, and when I mentioned badminton he seemed uninterested. I figured he wasn’t looking for a conversation, but too bad buddy; it’s time to educate the public! I shared my thoughts on the 8 women’s doubles players being disqualified from the Olympics for trying to finish 2^nd in their round robins, and some other passengers were intrigued, but I had to get off, and at the end of the day, badminton is just a silly sport.

Next Day>>

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>>

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>>