Date: 6/29/98

Sunday morning, I saw Treasa off to the airport, and then went and found myself a room. While waiting for it to be ready, I wandered off towards Hyde Park, a lovely expanse of greenery. It had ducks, geese, wandering Brits, and lots of asians w/cameras, as well as people riding horses. Quite pastoral. A little less pastoral was a group of people who I asked for a light, who turned out to be hash dealers. They were lounging by a bench, and we chatted a bit, they were all arabs from places like Algeria and Yemen. We talked about the stupidity of americans who travel in huge groups. I might have felt threatened in a seedier area, but we were in the middle of hyde park, in broad daylight on a sunny afternoon, with wandering old british ladies and joggers all around us.

After getting back to my hotel and my room, I headed off towards Legoland Windsor, a childrens amusement park just west of london. It was awesome, just the place for people like me whose mouths can gape for hours, continually amused by the sight of big things built from little legos. It was a much more relaxing experience than the normal tourist hustle of museums and such. Being neither a parent burdened with children nor a child burdened with parents, I was able to zip around the park fairly quickly. I watched the "Mad Science" show, which featured Professor Pruvitt and his assistant Crash, who were young and enthusiastic. A scrolling screen defined terms like exothermic and molecule (done by reference to legos, of course!). Kids exhibited Brownian motion dancing to "Oh...Yeah...Chukachuka...", and at the end we all took the Mad Science oath - "To look at everything with wonder, to test every theory, and not to blow up my house."

While the show's designers must be pretty cool people, it turned out that the professor and his assistant were not. I talked with them briefly after the show, and they turned out to be mere actors, neither enthusiastic about science in general or this job in particular. Oh well. I also saw an "Xtreme stunt show", which featured, among other things, a guy in drag who did quite a lot of rump and fake bosom shaking, and rather more crossdressing humour than I would have expected from a family show! Those crazy Brits...

While waiting for a different show (Legoland reinterpretations of traditional fairytales, including Little Red Riding Hood with a grandma who hurts her hip due to her mad passion for disco), they played the Animaniacs "Cute" song, though I was the only one who seemed to know the words to it.

The lego models were awesome - what a way to inspire children by showing them what they can do if only they have enough patience and legos. Although my cynical side wants to add "enough patience and legos and professional landscapers and gardeners and a modelbuilding staff and all those special little legos for doing the bits that normal legos won't do..." It was great - it took their staff 25 million legos and 3 years to build. Although I normally take very few pictures while travelling, since I feel that buildings and scenery are meant to be enjoyed in person, I couldn't help myself here, and ended up taking a good 10 or 15 shots, which for me normally takes a week or two.

Obligatory cheap lech joke: And don't forget, travelers, that Legoland is the perfect place to scope out cute single moms and all those young Babes-to-be.

After Legoland, I had dinner in Windsor, across the street from the castle, and then went home. Strangely enough, my cellphone and room TV appear to interfere with each other! Absurd. Anyway, I crashed early.

This morning (Tuesday), I got up and wandered towards Council Travel, having decided it was too late to go to Wimbledon. I still want to try someday this week - I hear that if you are lucky, it is possible to stand in line for tickets. Or at least, there are stickers all over which say "I qeued for wimbledon 98", and I have heard from other sources that it is vaguely possible. It will probably be more difficult tomorrow, since we are down to (I think) the last 8 men and last 8 women, so there are less games and more reason to attend, but so what? The worse I can do is fail. The idea of showing up really early and standing in line for hours for a small chance of getting bad seats for a sport I don't know much about appeals to me, for some reason. Perhaps because its spontaneous, and I love that. Remember folks, spontaneity is fun! And the summer is a wonderful time for it, so much is happening that you can't help but run into fun, as my next story will tell...

On the way to Council Travel, as I went through a Victorian tea garden, I saw a whole gang of young people in matching pink shirts. They looked horrid, and figuring that they must have an excellent reason for dressing so badly, I investigated. It turned out that in five minutes, they were going to give a free concert. They were the Cardinal Chorale from Ohio, and chatting them up afterwards, I discovered that this was their first concert, and they were in town for 10 days to sing in london, wales, and normandy. Unfortunately it rained during the concert, so I was one of only 20 or 30 people to stay and listen (being presciently equipped with an umbrella), but they seemed to have fun.

Council turned out to be packed, so I headed off towards the British Museum and succeeded...eventually. First there was a bookstore with a moving sale and 75% off everything, and I went in. For those of you thinking "Isn't it stupid to buy books when you would have to lug them around for a month or pay lots to ship them home?", the answer is: yes! But I am weak, especially when it comes to books. I had sent home with Treasa a half dozen books that I had bought already, plus various other things I had turned out not to need, but I have no other free transportation prospects ahead of me. Oh well. The bookstore was lovely chaos, many of the shelves already cleared, others with book jumbled and piled in disorder. People were madly flipping, dipping, cruising, and perusing. I picked up 8 of the Bluffer's Guide series, some poetry, and a collection of psychedelic fiction for a mere $15, not cheap by US thrift-store standards, but keep in mind that the Bluffer's Guides are fairly new and usually cost about 8$ each, and that books tend to be quite expensive in Britain.

On my way from there to the British museum, I took a small street that turned out to be lined with antiquarian bookstores. I escaped without buying much, as books were very expensive, but it took 45 minutes to get away. Finally, with my backpack heavy but my heart light, I made it to the Museum. There I went straight to the Midieval collection, and it was excellent. I especially enjoyed the material from the Sutton Hoo hoard, and their collection of Anglo-Saxon jewelry. They also had a neat clock show. Wow those things are complicated! By the nineteenth century, they even had pocket watches with compensation for tempature-induced distortions of the mechanism.

The only pictures I took here were of an exhibit of boxes in various glass cases. The boxes looked much like modern packing cases which museums probably use to transport things, so their origin in antiquity must be positively fascinating.

Finally, I headed home. Its about 7PM here, and I have just eaten. The plan now is to go out to a musical or show of some sort.

By the way, for those of you who think that its summer, even in Britain, let me tell you that its been grey and often raining since I got here, and Friday is expected to be the only nice day in the next week, with a rainy weekend. They say that summer will start in mid July. I kid you not.

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