Positive vibes, great shows and ample catch-phrase coining in the UK. I especially loved the general topography, the green hills, hamlets, and the endless succession of Gandalf-worthy cottages. It's an ancient, foggy, exceedingly polite culture with a contradictorily high tolerance for flat-out crass media. The tabloids are insane, even by US standards; full nudity and news-less rants fill every page ("Heather (Mucca) Mills is a back-stabbing, money-grubbing, gold-digging trollop", i.e.) of gossip. On a major network TV station, 30 Rock was immediately followed by an shockingly explicit "how-to" anal sex instructional segment.
I'm fully on board with tea-time and tea culture, but the jury is still out on the traditional English breakfast. Believe me, bacon, sausage, eggs, hash-browns, baked beans, stewed tomatoes and lard-fried bread (that can be wrung like a sponge for grease) are tasty, but somewhat of a gut bomb.
World's sweetest pub (sorry, JB's): the Temple of Convenience in Manchester. It's an old public toilet right down a flight of steps right in the middle of the street--hilariously small, social and with a super precise jukebox.
The Brits also seem much more aware of the imminent, looming worldwide environmental disaster and more willing to take action than us Yanks. Its easy to see why, though, the cities are dense and the air quality is low. There are a variety of emissions-related initiatives in the works and just a higher general consciousness about environmental consequences. That said, it is still a very consumer-driven economy with a disturbing focus on pre-packaged foods. I also read an article claiming that the import of food-stuffs in the UK is so carbon-consuming that walking or riding your bike is ultimately worse for the environment than driving, because the burned calories would force you to eat more food. Not sure if that's true, but it certainly shines a light on the cost of shipping and the consumption of imported goods.
Lots of pictures of random curiosities and the band on my
flickr. I'll be heading to Columbus for Thanksgiving--lots of projects and such developing in the meantime.
The nuclear unit and I even did a good old fashioned Zoo trip to make sure we had all the bases covered. Let's do this all again in a month or so, what do you say? My only regret was that the whole Hartley-Bergen clan couldn't be together (Washington and Nebraska, our thoughts were with you).
