We walked out of Bath Abbey and there was this guy in all silver, his face painted silver, all silver colored shining cloth wrapped around him.. a silver turban looking hat with a red flashing light on the top... when I post a picture, I'll let you know.. but anyway - we walked out and he was standing as still as a statue... then when someone dropped a coin in his bucket, he moved into a different position and then stayed there just like a statue. He kept moving into different positions each time you dropped money into his bucket. Well, we stood and watched him for awhile and it was kinda creepy that he was standing so still... so I decided to drop a 20p coin in his bucket... 20pence is about 40 american cents... so nothing huge.. but it was all the change I had with me at the time. He moved and we watched for a bit more and people were dropping change....All of the sudden the "silver man" got down off his box, picked up the bucket of change, picked out all the since pence coins.. which are like London's version of the penny... picked out all the pence coins, and threw them on the ground. He started yelling about cheap French people and he only wanted silver coins, and bills.... So as he is dropping all these pennies on the ground, a 16-18 year old boy picked a few up and dropped them back in his bucket... the silver man picked the bucket back up and slinged the pennies at the back of the boy's head... I couldn't believe it... here this guy is begging for change just like any other beggar who plays a keyboard or flute or something on the subway for change and he is being mean about what kind of change he was getting. I couldn't believe it! So we walked away. Later we had to return to the same spot (right outside the Abbey to enter the Roman Bath exhibit.) He was still there but he was playing guitar and yelling at people that he didn't want pence, he wanted silver coins, and paper money. Our entire Ball State group were sitting and standing around 2 groups of benches watching him and the group of us that saw his first burst of rage were telling everyone else about it. He stuck his tongue out at us and made a horrible face and so one of the guys in our group made the same face back, and so the silver man flipped us all off. He then proceeded to walk over to our group and ask if we were from France b/c the French apparently all make the same confused faces as we were all making and he told us our faces were all wrinkled and confused looking because we had to fart so much. WHAT??!!?? It was so funny - he was rude and kept making fun of us... it was like nothing I had ever seen before in my life... I'll have to tell you the story in person and make all the faces, but it was definately something you don't see in Muncie everyday.
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