The Archipelago

So Anders got me a moped. I know they look lame, but dear god they are fun to ride. Me driving a moped in Sweden is Step 1 in my diabolical plan to get my parent's permission to buy one. I mean how could they say no? In the midst of an environmental crisis it would be negligent to neglect fuel efficient vehicles like mopeds. And what cheap insurance! Surely there is no question. Not to mention Gabe and I are currently sharing a car, though we lead two incongruous lives. That was Step 2 in my diabolical plan. Yesterday Betty and I went over to Therese and Anders' house to pick it up. While Therese, Betty, and Bella sat in the cafe I putted around the area getting a feel for my future mode of transportation. Then I went into the cafe got a piece of delicious cheesecake and a CocaCola. And guess what? The CocaCola was in a glass bottle. Proof once again that every country except the U.S. understands how to package a CocaCola. So I am bringing the Swedish glass bottled CocaCola home with me. Then I followed Betty back to her house on the moped, since I didn't know the way. And I must say, it went off without a hitch. Today Betty, Therese, Bella and I took a boat by the sea through the archipelago. We went to an island, got some ice cream and soda, and walked through the lanes, passing by the summer houses of rich Swedes. When we got home I rode around on the moped some more, then watched a little Scrubs. Life is good.

The First Two Days in Sweden

On Sunday I stepped foot in Sweden for the first time. coming out from the baggage claim I saw my aunt Betty smiling and waving at me. We headed back to her and Celio's house in suburban Gothenburg. After a 2 hour nap to recover from the days travels, I went downstairs and saw my cousin Therese holding a little squirming bundle. That small bundle turned out to be my new first cousin once removed Isobel or Bella if you prefer. She is 4 months old, toothless and adorable. Looking at her I thought of that movie Children of Men and it made me sad to think so many fictional people never got to see a baby. Bella has soft brown hair, and huge brown eyes that seem astonished by everything in the big bright world. The next day Bella, Therese, Anders, and I went to Liseberg, a theme park in Gothenburg. Anders, Therese's boyfriend, is extremely fun to hang out with. He kind of reminds me of a guest star on Scrubs I saw, Lucas Douglas. I googled his name. We went on a couple of the rollercoasters that were there, and came out laughing each time. Anders and I pressed Therese to go on a ride similar to Supreme Scream at Knotts Berryfarm. She didn't come out laughing. And the whole time we were going on these rides, eating at Burger King and pushing through crowds little Bella didn't cry once, which I thought was pretty impressive. We went home, and I had a hard time getting to sleep. So I finally got up, sat down at the computer, and wrote the Spider Man post.

Spider Man

"We are cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet." My cue. I head down the aisle. Whenever I tell someone I am a male flight attendant they nod their head, seguii using "so" and jerk the wheel of conversation to spare me the mortification. The reaction is understandable. People fear and despise the timelessness of the airplane. There is nowhere to go up in the air. No progress your life can make. No faults to fill in as you float suspended above the conceptual network of time. Maybe the temporary escape from so absorptive a system inítially attracted me. But as the 3rd party outsider to any human interaction aboard the plane, I found myself with power. And as Uncle Ben, the paternal figure in my favorite comic said "With great power comes great responsibility." So I swing from web to web, observing the flies bound by small slips of paper, and spin my social web as they wait to drop back into time. I continue slowly down the aisle and look to either side. Two teenagers sit next to eachother in aisle 17. They are boy and girl, and from the way they silently dance around the shared armrest I can tell they are strangers. The boy's bag intrudes on the girl's foot space and with the intrusion comes an opportunity to spin my web. I check the girl's behavior to make sure she notices the bag, and the boy appears oblivious. Perfect. "Excuse me sir." I say with a facade of politeness and contrition. "You're only allowed one space for your bag." "It's for the benefit of the passenger" I say with a pointed look at the girl. And with the finishing touch I walk to the back of the cabin to watch the flies wriggle. From my vantage point I see the boy tuck his arm in awkwardly from the armrest as a gesture of appeasement, and steal glances to his left. He knows she has a tendency to keep her displeasure under the radar. The bag was proof of that. And longer he stews in his own head the more his resentment grows. The only thing he knows about this girl is that she silently disapproves of everything he does. The plane begins to descend, and time flows back into the plane making the flies restless. The boy stuffs his carry-on bag roughly and stares out the window broodingly. I go into the bathroom and chuckle evilly to myself. If he only knew how I played him. If he only knew whose web it was that bound him.

A Day on the Heath

Like most days I woke up. This time at a healthy 11:20. As mentioned in the previous post I was riding a high from my Hey Arnold dream. James and I sat around watching T.V. for a while. Forgot to mention this in the last post, but last night James showed me this hilarious show called Mock the Week, which is a British fusion of Whose Line is it Anyways and the Colbert Report. Anyway today we rode a couple of bikes out to the Hampstead Heath which is the biggest inner city park in London. From the top of Parliament Hill we could see all of London before us. Unlike L.A. it is not sprawled out. Most of the good stuff is concentrated within walking distance, which is why we could do so much the first day I was here. After that we went to a Mark and Spencers grocery store which is a posh place with good lunch stuff. I got my favorite cranberry and brie combo, along with some chocolate mouse, and an orange juice and it only cost 4.65£. We ate it in the Heath, talking about books and stuff, then rode back to Camden Market. I bought a couple of gifts there, and then we rode back to the house. We got back at maybe half past 5, watched some T.V., went to Tesco (a supermarket, though I think it sounds like a gas station). Dinner was good. I had two veggie-burgers which for some reason taste good to me now. I can't decide if I have gotten less picky, or if the food is just better. I hope it is the former, because that would seriously open up some windows. We played Call of Duty, watched part of Saving Private Ryan, and then I came back to my room to type up a couple blog posts. Here are a couple of British phrases that I have particularly enjoyed. "I'm just takin' a piss!" I'm just messing with you. "Can I have a go?" Can I have a turn? "This candy is lush!" This candy is quite delectable.

Conquering London: Hasn't Been Done Since 1066

After a 3 hour train ride from Lyme Regis I found myself encumbered by my large blue backpack, trying to make sense of the chaotic London Waterloo station. I met Anna Thornton's 17 year old son James right past the turnstiles, and we dropped off my backpack at left luggage (costing an unfortunate 8£). Within the next 2 1/2 hours we powered through London on foot, and via the Tube, seeing some of the most renowned bits. The Houses of Parliament topped by Big Ben sat squarely across the Thames, blocked by the London Eye, an extremely tall Ferris wheel with slowly rotating white pods. Walking along the river we saw the Globe (Shakespeare), and the Gerkin, designed by an architect blatantly compensating for something. We also walked through Trafalgar Square, which is swarming with pigeons, and hosts a huge statue of Horatio Nelson at the centre (British spell check). We also saw Buckingham Palace, which is as grand and ridiculous as one would expect. It was easy talking to James, and hanging with someone my age was refreshing. We got home about 5, and I met Anna and Geoff. Anna works at King's College, and Geoff works at UCL (University College London) as a chemistry professor. Geoff, like Kevin Benfield, attended Oxford University, which is pretty incredible, so I will have to ask him about his experience. So far I have met 3 people who have went to Oxford (Sarah from Cotswold Archaeology, Kevin, and Geoff), and the first two that I met gave me a really clear idea of what Oxford would be like to attend. Apparently you have a tutor who you work with either 1 on 1, or some similar proportion so you get a very individualized education. And Kevin said that when he went people did your washing, made your bed, and cooked your food, so I am liking the sound of that. There are only two things about which I have reservations. 1 I am not positive on what I want to do later on, so their mantra of specializing early may lead me in the wrong direction. and 2 I am probably not going to get in. Neither of these things seem particularly solvable, so I suppose I will have to think on that. Anyways Geoff and Anna are very cool people and both seem extremely intelligent. For dinner we had 3 courses essentially. It started with some goat's cheese and pears which was delicious, moved on into a delicious omelet, and finished triumphantly with strawberries and cream. Afterwards James took it upon himself to educate me in the ways of British film. We watched a black comedy movie by Guy Ritchie called Locked Stocked and Two Smokin' Barrels. It was very violent, subtly funny, and frustratingly accented. Yesterday we saw two main things. Camden Market, and the Tate Modern. I bought an Oyster Card which is a brilliant invention. You buy it for 3£, then put money on it, and you get discounts whenever you go on the Tube, and the bus system. It is essentially a debit card for public transport that has the magical quality of lowering prices for you. So we took the Tube to Camden Market at around 1. We grabbed lunch, which for me was some delicious thin crust pizza marketed by an Italian guy who looked curiously like Mario, and for James was some curry. There weren't any conventional "tables" around, but there a surprisingly comfortable row of scooter seats welded to a long counter. The market had a lot of really cool vintage stuff, though a lot of it was rather expensive. I saw a miniature VW Bus decked out with the Union Jack that cost 21£, and a lot of really cool bongo drums, paintings, strange figurines, army vintage, normal vintage, leather jackets (I don't think I could pull one off, though I was tempted), and people who smelled vaguely of ganja. Then we went to the very spacious Tate Modern that sits on the Thames. Luckily it was free. James and I walked around for a while, laughing at the bullshit explanations of some of the paintings that could have been drawn by a artistically inclined 4 year old. One particularly hilarious painting was an entirely red canvas, except for a purple stripe running down the right side. To paraphrase, the little plastic sign read "The red with a vivid purple stripe reminds the viewer that they are "there". Like somehow when I look at this purple stripe I realize that I'm thinking in the future, when really, I should be living in the now. And that this painting symbolizes the struggle between ambition and reality. Suddenly, when I stare at this painting, it dawns on me that my need to prove myself stems from a deep seated desire to please my father. What a load of crap. However there were some pretty cool ones. I really liked one by Jackson Pollock, and the Andy Warhol exhibit was pretty incredible. A couple paintings were optical illusions that conveyed physical depth, or wriggled before your eyes. But one thing really blew me away. Picasso died in 1973. What?! I thought he was long gone. Like 19th century. I'm still reeling. Then we went home after stopping at King's Cross. It cost me 1.80£ but the fleeting images of Harry and Ron sprinting towards Platform 9 3/4 was worth it. So after a quick look around, we left, James pretending to read a sign while I dabbed my eyes. We got home, played a little Call of Duty, and watched Snatch, another Guy Ritchie film. I went to bed, and had a great dream about Hey Arnold coming back on the air. But I'll split this into two posts to give your eyes a rest.

The Past Couple Days in Lyme Regis

The time here has flown by. It has been two books worth of time since my last blog post. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Another Country by James Baldwin. The flow of life here reminds me of life on the Adriatic in Croatia. I eat a lot of ice cream, swim, and stroll by the beach. Sunday night Polly, Kevin, Susan, David, (A couple they know), and I went down to the beach to participate in the activities of Lifeboat week, where they appeal to the town for charitable donations. I played a game of Skittles for 50p. It is like bowling, but the balls have more in common with coconuts, and there are only 9 roughly made wooden pins. I knocked them all down. Then we got fish and chips, and I pushed the limits of my deteriorating vegetarianism. I wasn't a huge fan of the fish part, but as for the chips, I have finally begun to enjoy ketchup on them. I am beginning to see that a high proportion of the transformations since I've been in Britain have involved some form of potato. We ate it down by the water, and as the moon rose over the Channel I skipped stones across the shimmering harbor. I broke the 20+ record I achieved in the High Sierras, and have 4 witnesses to corroborate that, but after a certain number of skips it becomes impossible to count. Something I forgot. On Saturday night we went to a comedy show at the Marine Theater, which Polly is very involved with. Two comedians performed 1 hour sets so we got back to April Cottage (Polly and Kevin's home) around midnight. The first guy had a slightly hysterical laugh, but his routine had a moral to it and it was pretty funny. He despaired the fast pace of life in the modern world, though the inhabitants of Lyme Regis did not relate to it. The second guy had a routine was reminsicient of that of Zach Galifinakis on SNL or Bo Burnam on YouTube. He sang humorous songs, and then talked, doing stand-up. At one point he talked about Paul McCartney. Apparently Paul McCartney dreamed the song Yesterday. The comedian had dreamed a song of his own, and asked us how it compared to Yesterday. It went "Because a horse head is not a human head, because a horse head is not a human head!" I didn't do much yesterday, other than go deep-sea fishing. I wouldn't characterize it as an abject failure, however none of the ships that went out that day caught the "black breem" they were looking for. I caught about 4 dogfish sharks, but we had to throw two of them back, and some guy who worked for a restaurant took the other two. I read by the beach for a while, got some ice cream, headed back to the house, and found out the Benfield's had a piano, which occupied some of my time. After I took a good hour long nap, Margaret and Bernard came over for dinner. Margaret is incredibly nice, and she is very enthusiastic about Polly having a young American traveler over. Bernard is nice, but as he is 96, not very talkative. Margaret told me she worked in WWII with the air force, detecting Nazi air raids using radar. After they left Polly and I watched a T.V. show called Rev on BBC starring the guy who played Commodore Norrington in Pirates of the Caribbean. It was pretty hilarious. My inappropriate insult of choice is now "wanker" as a result. I then went upstairs to read Another Country and fell asleep around 12:30. All in all a rejuvenating and thoroughly enjoyable couple of days.

The Town by the Sea

Right now I am overlooking the English Channel from Polly's perch. Lyme Regis is nothing less than the perfect town by the sea. All hours of the day the shrieking chorus of waterfowl reminds you where you are, and the waters capture the sunlight, reminding you of some long forgotten painting. Polly and Kevin Benfield are amazing cheerful people. A pure incarnation of the happy atmosphere that charges the town. When I first arrived yesterday Polly told me she was "throwing me in the deep end" and no less then half an hour after I had arrived at the house, there was a tea party. Kevin's mom, and stepfather came from their bungalow (91 and 96 respectively), and some of Kevin's relatives from up north in Yorkshire had driven down and were visiting family. They were really nice and I didn't get asked once "Are all Americans fat?" "Do you own a gun?" or "Do you have on of those big fridges?" Afterward I settled into my bed for a long nap, and woke up just in time for dinner. Since Polly is originally from America she doesn't call it "tea". This morning Kevin woke me up at 8:30 and I showered, read some Lord of the Flies (which I finished about an hour ago), and ate breakfast. Then Polly took me with her to Dorchester. It is a nice little city. And like all cities it has a town centre which is for pedestrians only. I got a really positive vibe from it, and I don't know whether it was the sun, the rope frilled with little pennants decked over the walkway, or my own mood. We ate a small lunch at a very confusing bakery with delicious scones, and then went to the Dorset County museum. Through my recent exposure to museums I have realized that I love the Neolithic-Georgian artifacts, but anything more recent than that is boring and cheap entertainment. We then drove to the cottage of Thomas Hardy, a famous British author whose books I need to read. He lived in a perfectly placed house, that was very spare, with a thatched roof, and wonderful gardens literally buzzing with activity. They are very big on bees around there. We drove back to the house along the coast, and I was treated to some of the best views I have seen in a long time. Rolling green hills cascade down to the water, and finish in beaches of broken rock. I finished Lord of the Flies, read a couple short stories for AP Literature, and decided now would be a good time to share a town that will be perfect for my retirement in half a century.