Monday, June 16, 2003

Can't talk long because I've already racked up a ridiculous bill here. But I thought I'd update and say that I've been to London, Dublin and Galway Bay now. In London we got lost on the Tube because the Circle Line was down. It took us all day to get to freakin' Westminster. But it was actually quite a lot of fun, and valuable train experience. As we were eating dinner of sorts out on the street in front of Big Ben, a drunk bum ran up to us, threateningly, jeered and stated: "Nonny for you. And Poppsy you are!" It was fun.

In Dublin, I saw Trinity College, heard a concert in Christchurch, and saw a great many wonderful things like St. Patricks Cathedral. And I bought chips (read: fries, americans) from some really famous place that everybody really incredibly famous eats at. Chips are a meal unto themselves over here. And the best news on food is that they have Cadburry Eggs all year long. Yay!

Galway is like madly liberal and young, and very touristy. When we arrived, there was this hippy Save-the-Trees benefit concert thing in the main park, and we went and sat down to eat there. And this one hippie was all dressed up, looking a little like Moses. And he was thanking all these local businesses for donating food and money and things. And this snotty liberal college student type screams out: "Supporting Capitalism means supporting Corporate Oil you over the hill hippie bastard!" Moses hippy was not pleased, let me tell you. There was a lot of anti-American kind of things around there. Mostly about the war on Iraq. But they were anti-Israel too. All over the telephone poles were stickers reading: "Boycott Israeli goods! Support Palestinian Liberation!" The people are really friendly though, and they seem to like people from the US.

One thing I didn't expect was that there'd be so much racial diversity over here. Apparently all of the cities are overrun with immigrants. In London, we talked to a native Londoner and he said: "Ahh, its a real treat that you've met me, because your chances of finding someone of my skin tone who's lived here all his life is rare." But personally, I like immigrants pretty well. In Ireland there seems to be more racial squabbling. At least it's more overtly shown; there are swastikas etched into the walls. |t first I thought it was just some sort of ancient symbol I was misinterpreting, but then I found one that had an Iron Cross on it too, and scratched under it: "Learn English or Go Home!"

Anyway, running up a huge bill here, so I must go. I have a plane to catch from Rome in the morning. Will update again when I can. Joy and love to everyone.