Been home now for a few weeks, starting to settle into being back stateside. Haven't completety unpacked - waiting until Jason heads off to college to finish up.



Haven't had enough time to go through all the photos and sort them, but here are some to tide you over until I have the rest done. All of them are from Sweden and Norway:



http://siena.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022916&l=854e5&id=35203951

Currently in Glasgow - as we weren't able to go to Loch Ness we stayed with Rory in Edinburgh (pronounced, for some reason, "E-din-bur") for four nights before coming here (watching 7 of the 10 episodes season four of their equivalent of 24, 'Spooks'), where we're spending two nights with his parents and younger brother.

I loved Edinburgh. Smaller than Albany, it has retained more of it's old charm than any other city I've been to. It felt like it was an old castle town that simply aged into the modern world - the buildings looked old but grand, the castle dominated the views, cobblestone streets were the rule rather than the exception. Dulet tones of bagpipes floated everywhere, and anytime you were near the center of town you could hear it in the background. The Royal Mile was full of shops and museums, including the famous black cathedral that looked like it could have come right out of a fantasy epic dark lord's kingdom. Visited a fascinating museum - the camera obscura - and saw the earliest form of camera ever invented in action, giving us a full 360 view of edinburgh. Also had tons of amazing opitical tricks and illusions, including incredible kalediescopes of light and color.

It was also cheap, and small enough to walk everywhere, which helped a lot. Also interesting was the way the city just stops - from Rory's flat we could we the cliff and the end of the city, and it was nothing but nature from there to the next town over. Few cities have such defined borders.

Glasglow we aren't going to see much of, just the science museum with Rory's mom and his brother, Gaberiel. Gabe is 11, and a great kid who loves to talk about just about everything. Over dinner he asked us all about America (does America have money? does America have ice cream?), after dinner we played monopoly, his favorite game, for a few hours. Interesting the different strategies - the Americans there bought everything they could, while the Scots only bought highly expensive properties in small quantities. Gaberiel has tourette's syndrome, but it doesn't show too much - he's a completely normal kid.

We're heading into the city soon, after Sean gets up, and then we're back here for one more night. Tomorrow we fly to Dublin at 10:45am our time (5:45am yours), arrving an hour later. After a five hour layover there (giving me a chance to read Stardust - Jason, go watch the trailer for the movie, it looks like the next Princess Bride) we leave for JFK at around 5:30, and arrive two hours - or is it seven hours - later, at 7:30 EST. Sean's mom is meeting us there, and we'll be back in Loudonville by about 11. Home by 12 tomorrow, then Tuesday I pack for a short trip to New Hampshire. Don't know how much traveling I'll do the rest of the year - touring European cities has made me realize I know almost nothing about American cities, so I plan on visiting Boston and NYC a few times in the few months.

Disappointingly, I don't think we can do Loch Ness - there aren't any free rooms available there, so we're going to stay here for an extra night.

First city I've missed that I really wanted to go to, but there's not much we can do about it.

Going to Stirling in a few hours, seeing the castle and the battlefield at Bannockburn, where William Wallace defeated the British.

In Edinburgh now, will be for another day or two. Haven't seen too much of the city yet, but walked around the city university with Sean's friend last night. Going to explore more today, and see the old castle up on the hill. Tomorrow I think we're visiting Stirling; but don't know for sure.

Spent a day in Manchester, which I enjoyed. Fascinating city... if London is the UK's metropolis, Manchester is the city of urban life and culture. I doubt many cities have such dedication and pride associated with it. 20 years ago the city was all but dead, and now it's alive, vibrant and fun. Cheap, too. We saw Harry Potter 3D on the iMax screen at the Printworks - an old converted printing shop that is now an upscale mall - and visited the Urbis museum, a modern glass building that showcases urban life and art. Most interesting was their Play exhibit, which showcased various urban trends - from parkour to flash mobbing, street musicians to guerilla gardening.

Right now I'm just really, really tired. Traveling with someone else is far more exhausting than traveling alone, and last nine weeks are catching up to me. I'm sleeping longer and doing less each day; and just don't have the energy or desire to see or do much of anything. Fly home in 5 days - have two more in Edinbourgh, a day in Loch Ness and one in Glasglow.

I've noticed that I've lost a few more things in the past few weeks. I think I've lost two of my five shirts - not quite sure how I managed to lose them. One I can't remember having since Interlaken, the other I'm sure I had in Stratford two days ago. Also lost my plastic bags, although I may have used them all by now, not sure.

Spent the last three days trying to find a book or two by this author I like. His books, in English, were all over Europe - I bought one of his in Stockholm, another in Milan - but I can't find them at all now that I'm in England, his English-speaking home country.

Not sure how much news of Britain makes it back stateside, but it's been something of a disaster zone out here. After a wet, drenched summer well over six inches of rain flooded the west and southern parts of the country, flooding towns, streets, houses, covering bridges, closing roads. Sean and I are fine, although exhausted - we missed out on Stonehenge due to the weather, and the two and a half hour bus ride to Stratford turned into a nine hour nightmere that got us halfway. We spent the night in an evac/emergency ref shelter at the local hall in Cheltenham, arriving at three in the morning. Left there at 12, and managed to climb into Stratford around 1:15, walking the two miles to the hostel by 2. Another two miles back for lunch (delicious) and the new harry potter book (still reading), then two more miles back, Sean's sleeping and I'm delaying so I can sleep through the night.

It's been just crazy here. Spending the night in an evac shelter is one of the strangest experiences this trip, as was nine hours on a bus. (15 hours that day, covering roughly 50 miles...). We had to count little blessings - we got no sleep the night before due to a rather loud snorer in the room, so we were tired and groggy for the bus ride, and didn't really care to do much. We were IN the bus, not walking or driving ourselves. We had a great place to stay (out best hostel yet, at least until the mansion that we are in now); with some great people who was fun to get to know. The bus driver was incredibly nice, and, best of all, the infant in the back of the bus didn't cry once until one thirty in the morning, that that was just for two minutes. Despite several backtracks to various towns we ended up with a place to stay with warm drinks and lots of food; unlike thousands who were stranded on the major M4, M1 and M5 highways between London, Bristol and Birmingham. There is more that seems to be working out - this town is a great place to relax and recover from our trip.

I'm not sure just how I can say just how much water they have everywhere here. We saw cars driving with water up the the bumper, drove through intersections where asphalt wasn't visible. People have reported walking through water up to their waist, and one local town lost a bridge and had water up to five feet in some places. Just looking up in the sky and one or two medical helicopters are visible, and firetrucks and rescue boat sirens are constantly heard. The UK has never been hit with a flood this bad, and we were stuck traveling in it. Going to rest two nights here, then to ManU, then north to Scotland - trying to cut down on the travel time, both for our own sanity and the cost.

Try to look around for some pictures of the flooding... it's truly incredible how much water we're dealing with here.

Sean is making me mention that for the LOTR show we had front row seats, instead of top-of-the-balcony-back-row seats, simply because we went to the theater box office instead of ordering online. Day seats are great things - same price, infinitely better view.

Spamalot was as hilarious as I expected it to be. Definitely want to see it again, as I'm sure I will.

Had a fun morning, as we realized that we had to check out today from the Olympia instead of tomorrow as we planned, so we packed quickly and called about a dozen hostels in six cities before finding one free tonight. Took a bus to bristol, then a bus to here - Glastonbury, home of, well, strange people who we don't think are quite right in the head. We did walk up to Glastonbury Tor - literally, Glastonbury Hill - where, supposedly, King Arthur sleeps, waiting to awake when Brittania needs his rule again. Mostly it was just pretty and windy - but we could see for miles.

Then tried to find a place to spend friday and saturday nights - very, very difficult to do. We wanted to do Oxford, but the only place free was Stratford on Avon; so after Stonehenge and travel tomorrow I guess we're learning about Shakespear Saturday. After that Manchester, home of the famous ManU, then on to York. After that we're not quiet sure until Edinbourgh...

We met Julian Beever today...

...he was creating a new 3D artwork when my friend and I walked by. Location was across the Thames from Tate Modern over the millennium bridge, and then about a block down.

It's a drawing of this random guy falling off of Big Ben and holding onto one of the clock's hands. If you see it, I saw him draw the person.

He's quite funny in person, and has a very sarcastic sense of humor to deal with all the annoying people who walk by. Perhaps the funniest was an old lady who came by and asked him "Are you influenced at all by Dali?" To which he replied: "No, Dali was a pretentious bastard."

She then made some fuss over him, finally asking "Well, what does your drawing mean?" Voice dripping with sarcasm, he simply said "It means if you are falling off of Big Ben, hang on."

She walked away, muttering to herself.

For those of you who don't know who Beever is, you may recognize his work:
















Sean and I had fun yesterday, walking around and visiting a few museums. Hit the Tate Modern, which had a kinda cool exhibit about modern cities and their growth. One showcase we really liked was three video screens in a room with a guy running along different sidewalks with a drumstick hitting different things and recording the sounds... the combination of the three videos was cool. Mostly we just walked around making fun of pointless modern designs.

Then went to Coventy Gardens and watched several street performers for a few hours, all of varying skills. Some were amazing - trick juggling while balancing on a non-taunt rope; others were just plain funny. Most amusing were the balloon animal 'helicopter' which looked just like a poodle - given to a disappointed kid. When everyone complained to him he responded "What? Haven't you ever been to the Tate?"

Another guy juggled five balls at once - two normal ones and three stuck together as one. This guy was part of a duo and they were excellent... incredible at entertaining the crowd, making jokes up as they went. Whenever they saw someone taking pictures they'd stop what they were doing and immediately pose themselves in ridiculous positions. Perhaps the craziest thing they did, which I'm sure they made up on the spot, was drag a lady out to pose with them, deciding that they weren't good looking enough, pulling out a man from the crowd to pose with her, then deciding that something was still missing, and then stealing a stroller from the crowd to throw in front of the man and the woman for the picture. We're going back to watch more later tonight.

Then saw the Lord of the Rings musical. Not knowing what to expect I had an open mind, and I loved it. It was really cool how they set everything up, and they really did manage to capture the story and make a good show out of it. Some of the songs weren't up to par - it might have been better as a play, as for the most part the spoken scenes were the best. However, they had Galadriel in the role of a background singer for much of the show, she'd be floating in the air singing out in elvish or English, and she had a beautiful voice even if we couldn't always understand her.

The highlight, musically, was the song Sam, Frodo and Gollum sang one night while resting. Speaking of Gollum, he was definitely the best actor I've seen on stage. Seen many musicals, but he was the first actor in a musical I've seen get a standing ovation for exiting the stage without singing a note. He did things with his body that I didn't know was possible - he was almost as good, if not better than, the movie's gollum at capturing the insanity and duality between Smeagol and Gollum. The most fun scenes were the epic ones, however, when the music was loud, the lights were flashing and stage sets complex and fascinating. Weathertop, the Balrog, the orc fights - all were super cool.

I also liked how they set the story up. To tell the story properly as a musical they had to cut a lot out and change a lot, but it worked very well. For instance, they combined Gondor and Rohan into The Land of Men, and had Boromir's father be the one under Saruman's spell that Aragorn frees. The story still had much of the same power and joy, but fit perfectly into a three hour musical.

Tonight we're going to see Spamalot, which will be completely different and just as fun.