August 2007 Archives

63 years ago today Anne Frank wrote the last entry in her now famous diary. Three days later, on August 4th, 1944, the Gestapo discovered the ‘Secret Annexe’ where Anne’s family and friends hid for over two years. She was imprisoned in a concentration camp and less than one year later Anne died from typhus in the Bergen-Belsen camp. She was only 15 years old.

A little over a month ago, Kara and I decided to read Anne Frank’s diary to prepare for our visit to The Netherlands. The ‘Secret Annexe’ where Anne hid out in the early 40’s is still standing and we wanted to walk through it while in Amsterdam. I had never read the diary before, so I figured it would be an interesting historical record of this reprehensible period in human history. What I found was a fiercely intelligent girl with a voracious appetite for learning and an impressive ability to write. While reading through her intimate writings, I couldn’t help but become enamored with this girl. She was so smart, so talented and creative and energetic and catty. Anne had incredible potential.

Sadly, she was never allowed to fully explore that potential. Instead, she was closed up in a world of hiding, fear, anxiety, hunger, conflict, and boredom. Her spirit and ultimately her life were crushed by the disgusting hatred of racism. That thought both infuriates and depresses me; that man can be so evil as to destroy the lives of innocent, loving, exuberant children.

I have been profoundly touched by this book. Anytime I think about it emotions well up inside of me. I fear that I’ll be an emotional wreck when I walk through the ‘Secret Annexe’ and see the walls that imprisoned and oppressed Anne. What really shocks me is that if Anne were still alive today, she’d be 78 years old. This didn’t happen all that long ago! And though it may happen on a smaller scale today, it’s sadly no surprise that crimes against innocent children still occur. I don’t know how yet, but I am determined to do something about it. I can’t go back and save Anne, but maybe I can save other children in her name. Anne Frank, you have inspired me to make a difference.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
- Anne Frank

Two weeks from today I'll be boarding a plane as a homeless man. Assuming everything goes as planned, I won't actually have a home address until sometime in January! I suppose that means I should say something about my soon to be previous home of Maui...

It was great while it lasted, and I'm grateful that I'm leaving on my own terms! I've seen a lot of people leave Maui in the last year or so of living here, and none of them were happy to leave. The reasons they left were varied (school project ending, couldn't cut it financially, too far from family, etc) but the feeling was always the same... sad to be leaving paradise.

I, however, cannot bring myself to feel sad even while leaving this beautiful island behind. It has truly been a tropical paradise, but the upcoming year and a half is so exciting that it keeps me from looking back!

To be completely honest, there were enough not-so-paradisiacal aspects of Maui that got me looking elsewhere for my future. However, I knew I had to plan something big and exciting to overcome the seemingly inevitable sadness of leaving Maui. And judging from my current feelings, I apparently succeeded!

But what were Maui’s shortcomings that prompted me to continue my journey westward across the Pacific? There’s probably some rule about not dissing your girlfriend right after you dump her… but here goes anyway!

House prices – As you might expect, house prices are absolutely insane here. Before we decided to leave, we looked into the possibility of buying a house and were shocked to find that junk houses cost $600k and upward!

Small town shopping – This one drove me crazy the most! Maui is basically the countryside in disguise as a tropical paradise. There’s no Fred Meyer 10 minutes down the street for your one-stop-shopping needs. My closest bet was a 30 minute drive to the Kahului WalMart! And when it came to computer/electronics stuff, if WalMart or Office Max didn’t have it, then I’d have to order it online. This lack of convenience/instant gratification was a HUGE killer for me…

Nothing to do – There’s actually plenty to do on Maui: hike, bike, snorkel, play at the beach, etc, etc. But sometimes you just feel like doing something not outside… and in that case your two options are see a movie or walk around the mall. There aren’t many concerts/shows, museums, variety of restaurants, etc. It’s basically the small town issue again, but when it comes to entertainment.

Miniscule job market – There are probably 25 or so programming jobs on Maui. If you don’t like your current job, there isn’t much else out there to look at! And imagine you buy a house and settle down here and then lose your job… In a big city you have a wealth of employment options, here you could get royally screwed (small town problem #3).

Racism/sovereignty – I was never knowingly a victim of blatant racism, but there’s an ever-present undercurrent of it. I never lost sleep about it or anything, but it kind of sucks feeling unwelcome in your own town. The other side of that coin is the push for Hawaii to become a sovereign nation separate from America. Admittedly the U.S. acquired Hawaii through some pretty shady dealings (American business owners overthrew and imprisoned the Hawaiian queen) so maybe reestablishing sovereignty should be considered. However, that doesn’t make me feel comfortable as an American, living in a place where some people want to break away from America!

Well, there is a nice little handful of reasons why Maui wasn’t right for me. But don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely wonderful living here for the past year or so. With every weekend being a Hawaiian vacation, it’s easy to overlook the negatives. Looking back, I am very glad that I moved here. It sated my feverish desire to live in Hawaii; the good parts were better than I expected and the not-so-good parts weren’t terrible. It lowered the mental barrier for making the exciting leap to Australia! It taught me plenty about myself (I’m a city boy, who knew?) And it left me with some of the best memories of my life.

Plus, there’s always Oahu... I hear they have a big city!

It's official, I'm addicted to reading. Last night around 11pm I finished Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut (which I had only started reading one night earlier) and within minutes I was having withdrawals. I had no book on deck but I desperately wanted, nay, needed to keep reading!

After looking around the house a bit, I found Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. Kara bought the book a while back, I think on Michelle's recommendation. I only vaguely know who Sedaris is (I'm more familiar with his charmingly demented sister, Amy) but this was no time to be picky!

I'm about 100 pages into it now and I'm not impressed. The book is a collection of autobiographical stories that I guess are supposed to be uproariously hilarious. I find most of the stories to be only slightly interesting... I don't find the stories boring, but they aren't compelling either… they are beige.

I suppose I’ll finish the remaining 170 or so pages just because… but don’t think I’m liking it (or hating it). It’s just a stopgap to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay.

I sense a library stop in my near future; there’s another Vonnegut novel sitting on the shelf waiting for me!

Today was my last day at O and it went very well. I had some final tasks that kept me busy enough that I didn't feel useless, but also left me enough free time to go around and say goodbye to everyone. For lunch, more than 20 of us went out to Cafe O'Lei and I had a great time! Everyone got me a book of Maui landscape photography and they all wrote nice farewell messages on the inside covers. It's the best gift I've gotten in a long time, a very special memento of all the fun times I had with my friends at O.

This week I reminisce about our last weekend on Maui, we fly home to Portland, visit with friends and family, buy supplies for our trip, and see Freezepop live.

Photos:
Hana

Wed. 08-22-07 -- Over Pacific Ocean

My first entry in what will be my journal of my European adventure. However, I don't actually fly to London for one more week... Anyway, I'm on a plane right now flying back to Portland where I'll be for the next week. The last two days have been insanely busy trying to get ready for moving away from Maui. We spent Monday and Tuesday (our first two weekdays of our jobless lives) packing everything up so we could ship it all back to Portland. Today we had to get up before 7 am so that we could finish all of the final tasks before our flight at 3pm. We worked non-stop for those 8+ hours... I could imagine better last days on Maui! But we ended up getting everything finished with absolutely perfect timing.

A quick rundown of all we accomplished: rode my bike over to Luke's to drop it off, packed up the last few boxes, took those boxes to the post office, got lunch at Subway, cleaned the entire apartment, weighed our luggage and shifted contents until all bags were under the weight, -- I was interrupted mid list by our airplane dinner. It was ravioli which tasted all right, but wasn't enough food. I'm still hungry! Ok, back to the list... -- drove to the airport to check our bags, drove to the pier to drop our Jeep off to be shipped, took a cab back to the airport, got through security with all of our carry-on bags (2 convertible suitcases/backpacks that we're taking to Europe, my old backpack, our new laptop bag, and our winter coats). Whew! We got to the gate right as they started boarding. Once we were on the airplane, I finally could relax for the first time in the last 3 days! Now we're 3 hours into the flight (we watched 4 episodes of Arrested Development on the laptop) and I figured it was time to break in this journal!

That just about sums up the last 3 days of work, but our last weekend on Maui (before most of the work) was GREAT! A bunch of us (Kara, me, James, Maria, Brooke, Russell, Ish, & Kelsey) went camping out at Kipahulu (out on the Hana side of the island). We set up our tents in a killer spot right next to the sea cliffs, under a tree, far away from anyone else in the campground. It was perfect, we could be as loud as we wanted and there was no one around to complain! In the mornings, we'd get up and sit on the cliffs and watch the waves crash against the rocks.

Driving out to Hana on Friday was a lot of fun too. We stopped at a waterfall, hit Keanae point to watch the big waves, and went off road a bit for some 4x4ing. We took this very muddy path down to a secluded beach where we got out and played with some kids. Then we decided to brave it and ford the river (no oxen died, and no one died of dysentery). We got to the camp around 5pm or so and set up camp.

That night we had steaks and sautéed mushrooms for dinner (yum!) and played celebrities with some pencils & index cards we bought on the way out. We used Russell's cell phone as a timer which worked perfectly. The first game Maria & I won by a landslide. The second game Maria & Russell crushed everyone else. Go Maria! Halfway through the first game, it started pouring down rain so we ran into our tent and continued playing there. 10 or 20 minutes later it had stopped raining so we moved back outside and sat in wet chairs. While we were playing a large centipede ran into our camp. We all freaked (Jake: "Centipede, feet up, feet up!" Maria stands up on her chair. Brooke: "Don't stand up, you'll fall!" Everyone: "Kill it James, kill it!") James grabbed his Swiss Army knife and sliced it into centipieces and Maria came down from her chair. Eventually we went to sleep but it was kind of a restless night. The rain & wind on our tent made lots of noise!!

On Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast (bagels & leftover steak). Ish & Kelsey were going to drive out from Kihei and meet us, so we decided to go on a hike while we waited for them to arrive. We hiked up to Waimoku Falls which Kara & I had never done before. The hike had lots to see along the way, lots of smaller falls, a cool overgrown water cavern, a couple of bridges over some of the falls, and a boardwalk through a bamboo forest. But the final waterfall was definitely the best of all the sights, it was absolutely incredible! The water ran straight down a rock wall for hundreds and hundreds of feet, it was literally breathtaking.

Right when we got back to camp, Ish & Kelsey showed up. Perfect timing!! They set up their tent and we all hung out for a while. Then we decided to go out to Hamoa Beach for a while and do some boogie boarding. Ish & Kelsey wanted to stop by Charles Lindberg's grave first though, so we stopped to check it out. The waves at Homoa were big as usual. Kara ended up getting hurt, but the rest of us escaped unscathed!

That night we had brats for dinner and then just hung out & chatted late into the night. At one point, we went for a little walk away from the campground so that we could look at the stars. We were able to see so many stars, it was really awesome!

Next morning we tore down camp and headed out to Venus Pool. This is one of Kara's and my favorite places on the island! We jumped off rocks and swam in the water for a while and we took some pictures (we had never taken our camera down there before). Our final stop before the long drive home was Waianapanapa Park. We walked down to the fresh water caves & then looked down on the black sand beach. We got a cool group photo by putting the camera on the Jeep and setting the timer. After the photo, we piled back into our cars and drove home. Russell & I were driving and we drove kind of fast and crazy all the way back, it was fun! We got home around 4:30 or so and I was so tired that I laid down for a "nap." I ended up pretty much sleeping through the night! Best last weekend on Maui EVER!

Thu. 08-23-07 -- Portland, Oregon

Our first day in Portland, and it was nice. The weather was very pleasant; I wore jeans for the first time in months! This morning we got up and headed down to DMV to get new tags for my Ford Tempo. Unfortunately they wouldn't give them to me because I couldn't prove that I'm an Oregon resident. We were going to meet Dave & Micah for lunch, but we had some time to kill, so we went over to the Mall 205 Target. Ahhh... it was so nice to be in a Target again!! At noon we drove over to the 205 McMenamin's and had a yummy lunch with Dave & Micah. I was happy to get my hands on some Hammerhead again!

After lunch Kara & I headed over to Cindy's to hang out. Tiffany, Miya, & Caleb came over and we played around for a few hours. Eventually we ended up at Monica's house after a short detour at Billy's place. Kara & Monica headed over to Michelle's house, and I went back to Billy's to hang out with Billy & Kalin. Playing with B & K was just like old times. We hit the Grocery Outlet for some snacks, then played games & joked around.

Fri. 08-24-07 -- Portland, Oregon

Today Kara & I went shopping for supplies for our big trip. We bought tons of stuff: toiletries, watches, coats, packing cubes, a bag lock, camping cutlery, etc, etc, etc. The grand total came to (EEK!) over $400!!! The item I'm most happy about buying is my very first Swiss Army Knife! We had to go to three different G.I. Joe's to track down the right one, but it was worth it! I always wanted one when I was a kid, and now I finally have one!!

We went out to dinner with Kara's family at Sweet Tomatoes. Afterward we went to T.J. & Michelle's for a while to play with the new baby. Then back to my parents' house for the night where we chatted. A low key day, but shopping made the quickly approaching trip feel real for the first time!

Sat. 08-25-07 -- Portland, Oregon

Today we visited our old church, had Indian Food for lunch, took a nap, hung out at Dave's with him, Micah & Kayle, went out to dinner at Gustav's, and finally saw Freezepop at Ground Kontrol! It's 2:24am, so I'm not going to go into it now, but this evening deserves a full recap. Until tomorrow morning!

This week we see Freezepop live, celebrate Kara's 30th birthday, frantically make final preparations for our trip, fly to Europe, tour London for 3 days, and ride a train through the chunnel to Paris.

Photos:
London
Paris

Sun. 08-26-07 -- Portland, Oregon

Well now it's late the next night and I have a whole other day to recap! But first last night's concert... We got to Ground Kontrol last night at 9pm when the concert was supposed to start. The venue is actually a vintage arcade so we were able to play some games while we waited for Freezepop to start playing. It was a lot of fun being in an arcade again with my old school friends, playing games together. But after two hours had past & Freezepop still wasn't on stage, we started getting weary. We asked the doorman when they were expected to start and he said midnight which was about an hour away! We headed outside to discuss a plan of action to kill an hour. We eventually decided on McMenamin's so we walked back to the car and drove to Boar Head. After devouring a basket of fries, we headed back to Ground Kontrol.

As we were waiting in front of the stage, we noticed Liz Enthusiasm standing in the crowd so Kara & I went over to talk to her. We mentioned that we were her fans from Hawaii but she didn't seem to remember us. Shortly after, the concert started; they opened with "Boys on Film." The concert was a lot of fun, they played a bunch of cool songs and their stage presence was very playful. It'll be fun to listen to their CDs now and remember seeing them sing their songs live.

One thought I kept thinking throughout the night was "America is so great." I mean here are some regular people from Boston that made some songs, got one in a video game, and now have fans around the country! How great is it that now they get to tour around the country and play in different cities to strangers that have heard & enjoy their music? You can't even buy their CDs in stores, but they have enough fans to justify a tour! Their final song of their encore was a cover of The Final Countdown (GOB's theme song) which we were encouraged to "Duh-Duh-Duh" along with!

Today we went over to Cindy's house at noon to visit with Kara's grandparents that were in town. After a couple of hours of chatting over pizza, we headed over to Ryan & Heidi's for a BBQ. A lot of people came (the old gang) and it was fun seeing everyone again. R & H were ridiculously generous as usual and served BBQ ribs & grilled asparagus. Then we started up the fire pit and smoked cigars that Ryan provided. Kara & I were the last to leave, finally departing at 11:30pm. Now it's almost 1 am and it's time for bed!

Mon. 08-27-07 -- Portland, Oregon

Today was Kara's 30th birthday! Today was also our last day in Portland to prepare for our European adventure. We did so much today, it was absolutely exhausting! This morning we got up and started doing last minute trip planning and preparation. We booked rental cars in Normandy & Germany. We purchased emergency medical insurance, we made photocopies of all our important documents, printed our plane itinerary, picked out what stuff to pack, packed our bags, and on & on & on...

At 2pm we drove out to AAA in Clackamas so I could get an international driving permit. While we waited, we browsed their store & found the last few items on our shopping list.

This evening we had dinner with my whole family at Roadhouse. It was nice hanging out with the whole fam, but it felt too short. The waitresses sang Happy Birthday for Kara!

Once we got back to the house, Kara and I put our trip prep in high gear. We cleaned up the mess we made downstairs, and got everything finally packed and ready to go for tomorrow. It's been a little stressful trying to get everything in order (shutting off our cell phone service, pre-paying our bills, getting everything ready to go) but I think we are finally there. I'm definitely excited to be leaving tomorrow, but I'm also a little nervous. But I think all of our preparation & planning will let us really relax & enjoy our time.

Here we go!!

this is a test... does scheduled posting work?

this is a second scheduled post, this time for 12:30am. a cronjob is set up now so this should show up automatically at the right time... keep your fingers crossed!!

Alright, so here’s the scoop… Today at 12:45pm PST our flight to London leaves PDX. I wasn’t really planning to do much blogging while in Europe, but many people begged that I do it. I didn’t want to let my adoring fans down, so I’m going to try my best.

I’m bringing a journal with me that I plan to write in every single day. Every few days I’ll try to make it to internet cafes where I’ll transcribe my journal to Less Than Me. I’ve set up scheduled postings so I’ll write up multiple entries at once and then each day new entries will show up automatically on my site. I’ve never done this before, so bear with me if things go wrong.

Also, I’m not going to spend time polishing the entries. What I post will be an exact copy of what I wrote in my journal. Typing this stuff up will take long enough and I don’t want to spend more time editing, creating links to pictures, etc. It might be a little rough, but it’s better than nothing!! I will attempt to post pictures in my gallery though, so keep an eye out there for new stuff too!

Finally, I’ve been journaling this past week in Portland, so for the next few days you’ll be getting those Portland entries. This should be a good example of what to expect in the next 2 months. Enjoy, and leave lots of comments!!! :)

P.S. The first journal entry is crazy long, I wouldn’t expect future entries to be as long.

P.P.S. I planned on getting my hair cut before the trip, but everyone here in Portland liked it so much and told me I must not do it! So, expect the continuance of shaggy Jake in pictures to come!

Kara and I have written up a rough itinerary of our trip. This gives us a basic idea of what we want to hit, but most of it is open for complete reworking... Anyway, here it is.

Tue. 08-28-07 -- Over Atlantic Ocean
Originally published on 08-31-07

Not much to report today since all we've been doing is flying on planes! Our flight left Portland around 12:45pm and arrived in Chicago around 7pm. Once we landed, we had to hurry over to a different terminal to catch our next flight. That required us to leave the security area, catch a shuttle, get new boarding passes at the ticket counter, and then go back through security. We made it to the gate in time, but we were a little worried that we might not make it.

Now we're about 1 hr into our flight to London with about 5.5 hrs to go. I just put my ear plugs in and took a sleeping pill so hopefully I can get some sleep on the plane. Next stop, London!

Wed. 08-29-07 -- London, England
Originally published on 09-01-07

Well London is EXPENSIVE!!! Things are mostly priced as you'd expect, if pounds were dollars... but pounds are TWO dollars (roughly). We're attempting to run on a $200 a day budget (that includes hotel, food, transportation, admissions to attractions, EVERYTHING) and I'm glad to say that even with high London prices, we were still just under the daily limit on our first day.

So what can you do on $200 in London? Here's what we did: Once we got through customs, we bought tickets for the tube (£3 each) to get us to Earl's Court where we are staying. The tube ride took about 50 minutes (we had the option of a 15 minute express train, but that cost £6.90 per person). Once at Earl's Court we walked to the hostel and checked in (£43/night). Well, actually we were 2 hrs too early for check in so we just filled out paperwork, paid, and left our bags in the storage area. With two hours to kill and our loads dramatically lightened, we decided to walk to the Victoria & Albert museum (admission: free). But first we needed to find some lunch, so we found a "cheap" place that sold sandwiches (£2 each).

If you hang out with a Brit in the U.S. for longer than a week, you're sure to hear them pine for their oh so much better version of bacon. I've heard the same homesick whine from both Ritchie & Maria, so of course I ordered the bacon sandwich! Bacon over here is definitely different than it is in the U.S. This bacon is mostly meat instead of our mostly fat. But, I didn't come to the conclusion that one bacon is better than the other. The difference wasn't that pronounced to me... but I could see how our bacon doesn't satisfy the craving for U.K. bacon.

ANYWAY! We bought our sandwiches and walked over to the Victoria & Albert museum. We ate them outside and then went inside for a look around. We saw some pretty cool stuff like a HUGE persian rug from like the 1500's. We also saw some pretty awesome marble statues, and these really big 'cartoons' that Raphael did for some tapestries made in the 1500s. We looked at probably only 1/5 of all the stuff they had before it was time to head back to check in. Once back we got to our room and fought the very strong temptation to just go to sleep. Neither of us slept well on the plane, and it's an 8 hr time zone difference from Portland, so we were VERY tired. But we had to stay awake so we could adjust to this time zone, so we forced ourselves to leave!

We decided to go out to Westminster to see some of the famous sites. We walked back to the Earl's Court Station and were a bit surprised/dismayed to find that one round trip ticket cost £5.10. That's roughly $10 each for a fairly short ride on the subway!! But what else were we going to do? So we paid it and got on. When we arrived, we emerged at the Westminster Pier exit and we were right on the Thames. Up some stairs and there was Big Ben right across the street. I got chills! I was surprised to see that Big Ben was kind of a sandstone color instead of gray. Also there are lots of gold accents around the clock face. It looked awesome seeing it in person! We walked halfway across the Westminster Bridge so that we could get a good view of the Houses of Parliament towering over the Thames. Then we crossed the rest of the way to see how long the line was to ride the London Eye (that giant ferris wheel).

The line wasn't bad, but it cost (gulp) £15 per person. But I figured when will be my next time to ride it? So we paid and got in line. The ride was nice, you get in a capsule with 25 people and then it slowly rotates to a 450 foot vantage point over the city. You look down on Big Ben, and down the Thames in both directions. After The Eye, we went for a walk through Westminster. We walked by Westminster Abbey, #10 Downing Street, through the horse guards field (and saw some stationary soldiers), through a bit of St. James's Park, Trafalgar Square, and finally ended up in Piccadilly Circus. We stopped by a grocery store to get food for dinner. We got: a baguette, a ball of mozzarella cheese, a container of pasta salad, and a 4 pack of Stellas for £6.05.

Back on the tube (very crowded this time) and a short ride back home. We ate dinner in the shared kitchen area (our room is crazy small! It has a bunkbed and a tiny sink, and that's it!) and then we came back to our room to read/write and go to sleep around 8pm.

Thu. 08-30-07 -- London, England
Originally published on 09-02-07

I slept alright last night in the bottom bunk. I kept waking up and checking my clock, but then I'd fall back to sleep. Not bad for my first night in a timezone 8 hours off from Portland and 11 hours off from Maui!

This morning we bought bread & jam for breakfast then ford the tube to Westminster. We claimed a spot across the street from the Houses of Parliament and ate breakfast with a close view of Big Ben! After breakfast we crossed the street and toured Westminster Abbey (£10/person... ouch!) We also sprung for one audioguide headset for another £4 which mostly I listened to. Overall I guess I was underwhelmed by the Abbey. I mean it was kind of cool to see the burial spots of so many famous people (Newton, Darwin, Edward Longshanks, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, etc) but just kind of... The building was impressive, but I guess the whole thing just didn't live up to the price of admission.

After the Abbey, we walked along the edge of St. James's Park until we reached the Cabinet War Rooms & Churchill Museum. This place was very cool! This was the secret underground bunker where Churchill & his cabinet planned and ran their part of WWII. A few of the rooms were left exactly the same ever since the war ended (the place was mostly used for storage afterwards). There was even sugar cubes found in the desk drawer of one of the officers (a valuable commodity due to wartime rationing). There was also a new high tech museum about Winston Churchill, but we didn't spend a lot of time there. It was alright, but I wanted to spend more time in the war rooms.

After we made it through, we were ready for lunch. We started walking toward Trafalgar Square while looking for a grocery store. We ended up not finding one until we made it all the way to the Square, but that was fine because it allowed us to eat on some stairs next to a fountain.

Once we finished eating, we were very close to the National Gallery so we popped in to look at some paintings. We saw paintings by Monet, Raphael, DaVinci, Michelangelo, Picasso, Van Gogh, and plenty more. The most recognized painting we saw was Sunflowers by Van Gogh.

Back on the tube this time to the British Museum. Here we saw plenty of amazing objects from history. We even saw Cleopatra's mummy!!! There were lots of cool Egyptian things like the Rosetta Stone, giant statues, and lots of mummies and sarcophagi.

After a full day of walking around, we were really worn out. We rode the tube back to our neighborhood and bought meat and cheese (that's mature Scottish cheddar to you!) to make sandwiches for dinner. We ate dinner outside in the courtyard behind our hostel, and now we're reading and writing in an inside lounge. This hostel is really nice, the shared areas are very clean and comfortable (which is good since our room is so small!)

Fri. 08-31-07 -- London, England
Originally published on: 09-03-07

We didn't sleep well last night so we decided to sleep through our 9am alarm clock. That meant by the time we finally got up, we had to rush to make it out to Buckingham Palace by 11:30 to catch the changing of the guard. We made it JUST at 11:30, and the festivities hadn't yet started. As we were waiting in the crowd, we soon realized that we apparently weren't waiting for the guards, but were waiting to get a glimpse of the queen as she left the Palace. After a short while, her motorcade passed by and we saw her (and Kara snapped a pic)!

After that we walked back to the tube station and rode to Waterloo to buy our train tickets to Paris. We got the tickets easy enough (£200 for both of us round trip), but as we were walking away we realized that we had accidentally bought return tickets from Paris when we needed tickets from Brussels! I kind of freaked out since they had sid the tickets were non-refundable, but then I played it cool and told them that we discovered a mistake that we needed to fix. We had to wait in line again, but we got it changed with no hassle. Shew!

After finishing our travel business, we hopped the tube to Westminster Pier and bought boat tickets to Tower Hill. The next boat left in about 7 minutes, so we got in line and boarded the ship. By now it was 1:30pm and we still hadn't had enough time to eat lunch, but lucky for us, there were tables on the inside of the boat. so, as we're cruising down the Thames, we made sandwiches from supplies we bought the day before. We ate our ham & cheese sandwiches, shared a strawberry yogurt, and snacked on some pretzel & cheese Combos that we bought in Chicago. After we finished lunch, we went to the top deck and enjoyed the rest of the cruise.

Once at Tower Hill, we bought our tickets and went to the Tower of London. A tour was starting less than 10 minutes after we got there so we waited at the entrance for it to start. The tour was lead by a Yeoman Warder (a Beefeater) and it was very enjoyable. The guide was pretty funny and there was a lot of interesting history. For example, hundreds of years ago there was a prophesy made that when the local ravens left the grounds, the white tower would fall and there would no longer be a king or queen. To make sure that doesn't happen, they actually keep ravens there and clip their wings so they can't fly away!

After the tour, we walked around the tower grounds for a while, and then got back on the tube to Lambeth North. From there we walked to the Imperial War Museum which we planned to t our through for about an hour (we got there at 5pm, it closed at 6pm). The entryway of the museum is VERY impressive! There is a huge covered area chockfull of war machines (tanks, boats, planes, bombs, rockets). We wanted to see the Holocaust Exhibit, so we went to it first. It turned out that we spent the whole hour walking through the sobering two floor exhibit.

Once the museum closed, we hopped the tube back home, had dinner, took showers, and now we're writing in our journals in the shared lounge. Tomorrow we hop the train to Paris!