Ramblings now...

Okay... a decent hour to be typing... although I should be studying for my Political Communication and Mass Media final. I'm sure one of the questions will be on the internet as a form of mass communication. Cool. I'll put this down for research. How many people can I communicate with on a mass level? Well, little me is probably not going to change the world with my rambles... but I can try?

My eyes have just trained themselves on the last Hershey Kiss sitting by my computer. I won't be able to eat another one of those until July 4th when I get home. Maybe I should save it as a symbol of home. One little Hershey Kiss, sitting there, waiting for home. We'll see how long it lasts.

What I really miss is Taco Bell. Sometimes I think I miss Taco Bell more than my dog. That's a scary thought.

You know... I've reached a conclusion in my life... which may shock my mother, but I've got to say it. I don't want to be a fiction writer. And God forbid, Danielle Steel. My Mom has her hopes on me becoming the next Danielle Steel. Now if she had real ambition it would be the next Toni Morrison or Margaret Atwood, or Neil Simon... not Paul Simon who I'm currently listening to (I love Graceland!). Okay... so I don't want to write novels... I think I want to stick with plays and poetry. I've discovered that I'm much better with dialog and plot than descriptions. I go to fast... I can't sit there and plot out everything for the reader without getting bored. With a play, you set the scene and then the actor and director carry the rest. That doesn't make it easier... there are other things to worry about but anyway... that's enough of that. And goodness... I've gotten back into my elipse phase...

That's enough wonder of wonder life conclusions. You know I think one of my favorite Paul Simon lines is "he ducked back down the alley way with a rolly polly little bat faced girl" It's just fun to say. That's why Paul is such a wonderful lyricist. Every once in a while I'll spit that line out and my friends will give me a funny look. They give me funny looks a lot... but they are getting used to me.

Today I had my last exam. It's a wonderful feeling to be done with all the school work. Now all I have to worry about is my trips! Walking out of the sports centre where they hold the exams I encountered one of my profesors. My brain was still a little wacked after spending three hours expounding on the merits of learning a second language. He had the nerve to ask me how the exam went. For one second I went into overdrive and thought of headlines "Teacher strangled by distraught college student." But then I got a hold of myself. I smiled and lied. "It wasn't that hard. I did okay." Well, maybe it wasn't too much of a lie, because it was probably one of the hardest British exams I've had to take. I've had worse American high school tests. I'm actually getting good at cranking out 3 essays in 3 hours.

You know, I think I do my best thinking in the shower... which is not always convenient... rather hard to drag a keyboard or pen and paper in there. Rather wet. There's nothing really else to do but ponder the uneveness of my fingernails, scrub myself silly and think. I can sit for hours in the shower... at least here in the dorm there's no threat of running out of hot water.

You know, it's a very satisfying feeling to bite the head off a Smurf. Of course it's a Smurf Gummy so it's not as sadistic as it sounds… maybe.

Today was the "First Official Day of Our Summer Vacation." Melissa and I finally went to Dover. We live about a half hour bus ride away, but everything always seems to thwart our plans to go. The first time we decided to go, the Nazis were having a protest and of course there was an Anti-Nazi protest which involved people being arrested all around. We were glad we didn't go. What was the worst thing they could do to us? Deport us? That would be very bad. So we picked another weekend to go… and guess what… another Nazi protest. Sigh. The third time we tried to go, we got bogged down with papers. But today we finally made it! Yeah! We got to the bus station 15 minutes before the bus left and we waited. And waited. Sigh. It was an hour late because of some big traffic accident somewhere between Canterbury and London. Yes... another dreaded Dover Incident.

We got to Dover around lunch time and saw a Chinese restaurant and decided to stop to eat before heading up to the castle. The waitress lady was really funny and she asked us all sorts of questions of where we were from and all the usual questions we get as soon as we open our mouths and an American accent pops out. (Speaking of accents, Melissa and I have horrible British accents. Our Russian accents are better. We've never been to Russia… we've lived in England for 8 months now.) When we were served our lunch, (I got chicken chow mein and Mel got Hot and Sour soup and fried rice) it came in a huge portion… which is absolutely amazing in Britain. They usually have huge prices for small portion. This was reasonably priced good food. We were delighted. The waitress came back and asked us how we liked it. I told her honestly it was the best Chinese food I'd had in Britain.

"Compliment to the chef," she said. She went back into the kitchen and we hear her shouting "Best in Britain! Compliment to the chef!" It was cute. She came out bearing a plate full of those little Chinese rice cake thingies on the house. Cool. Free food.

After lunch we caught a bus up up up to the castle. It was a typical British June day for weather. Yes it was raining. But not hard… more of a spit for most of the day. We think as we were walking back to the bus station that it might have been hailing, or maybe we were a little cold and were imagining things.

Eating another Smurf… this time I was humane… I started nibbling on his toes first. Now I'm chewing on his head. Now where was I? Dover Castle. Our first stop (after a short detour to climb on some of the battlements) was the Secret Wartime tunnels. There are about 3 ½ miles of tunnels under the castle dug into the chalk cliffs of Dover - some were made during the Napoleonic wars and during World War II, they were used to house troops, civilians, a hospital, communication centers, and headquarters. I love places like this where the history just jumps out at you. We learned all about the evacuation of troops from Dunkerk. They basically rounded up all the boats they could get ahold of… fishing, sailing, yachts, you name it, and they sailed to France and rescued 300,000 men in a few days time. The guy in charge was Bertram Ramsey. Melissa bought a teddy bear dressed as a knight in the gift store and named it Bertram. She has one just like it dressed as a monk that she bought when we went to St. Augustine's Abbey. His name is… gasp, Augustine. (uh-gust-in not aw-gu-steen)

After the war tunnels we took to "train" (a jeep with a few camouflaged tram cars attatched) to the Medieval Keep (the actual castle part of the castle.) We explored in there and saw the king's apartments and the great hall. When no one was looking we sat down at the children's activity center and did some of the brass rubbings of soldiers and servants. It was cool.

Next we went to see the underground Medieval Tunnels… which were basically just trap doors in the cliff and places to hide cannons and archers. We thought we were alone and started joking about William Shatner of all people. Then Melissa did her bad William Shatner imitation and I did my bad Sean Connery imitation, and then she started singing Beatles songs in a William Shatner imitation, and I started singing "Yesterday." Now the whole while we're climbing ramps and up stairs… and a personality trait of mine… I don't usually sing softly, but at least I sing well… when I'm not huffing and puffing my way up a medieval ramp. I loved the acoustics in the tunnels though. We got to the top and climbed the last stair case and there were a bunch of people sitting up there talking. They complimented me on my singing. "We were hoping for an encore." We smiled and walked quickly away. Hehehe… wonderful to embarrass yourself in front of total strangers. At least we only ran into one bunch of annoying French children today.

The first thing I thought when I woke up was DAMN, it's not Tuesday morning. You see, the British seem to be fanatical about testing their fire alarms. My dorm gets tested every Tuesday morning at 8:15. (Why 8:15??? Why not 9:15 or sometime decent when we don't have to shattered out of sleep by the damn alarm.) It freaks Clare out when she sleeps through the alarm (she's hard of hearing) but trusty friends have pledged to bang on her door if she doesn't wake up during a real fire alarm. Anyway, yesterday the alarm went off at 2:00 am. After cursing the damn person who'd probably fell asleep drunk with a cigarette in their mouth and set their dustbin (British word for trashcan) on fire, I put some clothes on in record time and grabbed my quilt because Melissa had borrowed my jacket that day. I wrapped myself up and promptly exited the building. Oh, how fire alarms brings us all together. There was some people who must have had some sort of Good Morning Vietnam fixation. One guy ran to the end of the walkway and screamed "Good Morning" something or other… I think maybe Kent but I'm not sure. Then he ran back to the group which proceeded chanted "Oh ee oo ho chee min." Paul, the red headed guy, brought out his guitar and started strumming. He also tried to steal my quilt from me. Then the Mumbling Star Trek Guy, as Melissa calls him, informed me that there really was some sort of fire. "A minor thing, but it's still important to evacuate." I couldn't tell if he was trying to be important or whether he was trying to start a conversation. I'm not very talkative at 2:00 in the morning.

After about half an hour they let us back in and I promptly went back to sleep. At 9:00 however, the damn fire alarm went off again! I scurry dressed, and grabbed my breakfast card. I wasn't so much worried about getting out of the building, as getting out to breakfast before all those people decided that getting breakfast was better than standing around. Of course, they decided to close one of the other dining halls as well, so there were about twice as many people in there getting breakfast than there should have been.

Yesterday, however, we went bowling... now there's a quick switch for you. I'm not even sure whether this entry should be June 14 or 13, because I'm writing about both and I don't plan on writing a 14th. sigh. I'm giving my computer over to Clare so she can babysit it while I'm gone on holiday. She's also babysitting Harry, my plant. I hope it's not raining at 6 when I lug all this stuff over to Rutherford for dinner. I'm going to look rather silly, with a towel, a plant, and a computer case. Oh yes, Melissa and I are doing a switch... one of her small towels for my big towel. Easier to pack. We're going to try and go light on this trip. We'll see how it goes.

I bought a notebook today so I can write my little journal entries and travel stuff down so I can highly amuse my relatives (Hi Relatives!) When I get to Paris, I think I'm going to try and do the same thing that I did in Whitstable at the Poetry workshop that I went to, and write a poem while sitting in the art gallery. While, everyone draws sketches, I'll be writing! Hopefully the overcrowded warnings I'm getting won't effect the musuems to a horrid degree. Not so many footie fans in the museums as in the clubs...

And while I'm yacking about my holiday I haven't even told you about going bowling. Well, there were 6 of us: 3 Greek from the Athens area, 2 American and 1 Brit. Someone mistook Clare for an American... she was not amused. We took the bus to Whitstable and then went for a short walk on the rather windy beach. Then we headed over to the bowling alley. As it goes with most outings like this, the person who'd never bowled before in his life got the highest score. My score was somewhere in the middle. I hadn't bowled for over a year. It was fun, and I got some good pictures I hope.

Afterwards we headed towards a pub and had a late lunch. It took a looong time and we (except Melissa) had all ordered jacket potatoes (baked potatoes). We started making those cute jokes about them having to go out and dig up the potatoes and kill the pig for bacon. sigh. It was good food when it finally arrived. After lunch Melissa dragged us all into a small shoe shop with some very friendly salespeople where she finally managed to find a pair of black sandles. British people are strange... they have larger clothes sizes but smaller shoe sizes. It's wonderful when you're buying clothes... Ridiculous when buying shoes... I've got big feet. (US size 10)

The Greeks wanted us to go to a pub in Canterbury later in the evening but we begged off after it started raining really hard... I'd already spent too much money... gotta count those pennies until I leave...

For those of you that really care... I'll be back at my computer for ooh, a day... on the 24th before leaving for Paris until the 29th... so plan on BIG UPDATE on June 30. So ta-ta... Until we meet again...