IT"S DAY THREE!!!! and a brief overview is in order. today is the first day of my experience of london rain-more to come...aparently. Day one, meet a lovely girl named Ashley who happened to also be flying united flight938, and who also happened to have a giant red suitcase, and who just happened to take mine home as i took hers. Thus i quickly learned my way about the london tube as the two of us struggled to mind the gap, giant red matching suitcases in hand. Post suitcase adventure i decided to wonder around and get to know the area, which lead to wondering around and getting very lost, seeing lots and lots of pretty buildings and unspeakable amounts of shoe stores, began to feel a bit out of my element and lonesome as a man in a cowboy hat sang "the streets of london", a horribly emotional song about isolation, BUT eventually found my way home and felt much much better. The pub is very cute, there is indeed a saint bernard on the sign with a barrel of ale around his neck, which who could argue against that being a definite friend at hand. There is a nice mix of old londoners and young, mostly male, drinkers who seem to frequent the place. I do share a room, which is unfortunetly very dorm like, but in my recolection of the dorms, my freshman year roommate left at semester, married a sailer, moved to washington and had a baby. So here's hoping! (Claire my roommate here is very nice though, i do not wish upon her a fate of early motherhood). I have aquired some very good new skills in the past couple days, such a pouring a beautiful pint...most of the time. People are generally interested in my exotic accent. One charming brit said i sounded belgin, and then quickly introduced me to his american friend from the broncs who was oh so excited to be around another american.
My second night here a lovely friend of a lovely friend took me around london, and gave me an awesome tour. It was so nice to wonder about and not worry about getting lost and seeing lots of shoe stores---and even nicer to chatter away for a couple hours after a long run of emensly short conversations with strangers. We ate some british food originated my miners, got hit on by australians, wandered all over, learned that big ben is acutally a bell not a clock, listened to street performers, meet nice greek women who took our picture--on their camera--and all in all had a very good time.
Today, through the rain, wondered to the british museum and saw many pretty old things, my favorite being a collection of little gold rings covered in phallic images worn by the ancient greeks to ward off EVIL. dont worry i took a picture, and you WILL see it! they also had a great collection of American prints and lithographs, staring my lover Edward Hopper. Besides the rings, this was deffinetly my favorite part.
Over all i think London is going to be good. There have been some lonesome moments, but meeting good people has helped , and the plethora of loving messages in-line from friends has made the world seem much smaller.
Do stay tuned for greek phallic jewlery and every other sort of odd and end.