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July 19, 2007
Solo In Europe, Baby
EDIT: Apologies my picture and linkage posted funny on Thursday, I was rushing like hell to get out the door and onto a bus and didn't have time to fix it!
So this weekend, starting today, in fact, will be the first time I try maneuvering the trains and hostels and whatnot by myself. I feel pretty confident I can do it, I know I can, or I wouldn't be trying. I've had a good example for traveling solo set by my grandmother, who went to 49 of the fifty states and all the continents many times over. I'll be heading out to the East Coast of England to stalk Charles Dickens, whose books I've grown to love this summer as I've been getting ready for a class on his work in the fall. I've booked hostels, and theater tickets for London on the way back home, and my cottage-mates have told me I'm very brave to opt out of going with everyone else to Scotland and strike out on my own. I'm beginning to think that they are right and I'm a little crazy, but crazy is where the fun is.
If you couldn't tell already, I'm writing this to get the nervous out while I eat some oatmeal (aka Scottish Porridge according to the bag). Speaking of food, to detour off the previous subject and onto another I've been thinking about mentioning here for a while, I'm really impressed with the UK's grocery stores so far. I've been shopping at a chain called Sainsbury's and I'm blown away by England's emphasis on the word/rhetoric of "health/healthy" in advertiseing and the selection/price of organic offerings. I knew Europe in general was pickier about GMOs and food treated with radition, demanding whatever food in those categories as gets through to stores be labeled like woah, but on a , this is so much different (even in more rural areas) from the BiLo at home. Toto, Kansas, you get the drift. I know where in the UK the mushrooms that went into the vegitable soup I made were grown-- I've been eating tasty Irish mushrooms. And that's pretty cool. Hopefully I can find a Sainsbury's or equivilent in walking distance of where I'll be this weekend, I need to pick up rations! PBJ sandwiches ahoy...
I'll have to board the Friday Ark a little early (I know it's only four in the morning on Thursday at home, but it's slightly less barely Thursday here). I'll be back Sunday, in the meantime enjoy these Tower of London Rooks, who hold the fate of the kingdom in their fiesty little claws. Legend has it that if they ever fly away, England will fall, the Tower will crumble, and things will generally be less pleasent in this neck of the woods. Hopefully the other critters on the ark are less trouble.
Picture after hte jump and have a good weekend!
| By Spike | 03:56 AM
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