Author: Pearl L

days spent in the UK: 23
hours spent on a plane getting to London Heathrow: 10.5
number of countries visited: 3. england, scotland, wales
number of cities visited: 12 (london, bath, salisbury, malvern, worcester, shropshire, cardiff, edinburgh, falkirk, glasgow, stirling, york, hampton court)
number of cathedrals toured: 5 (bath abbey, salisbury cathedral, worcester cathedral, york minster, westminster)
number of castles toured: 5 (warwick castle, cardiff castle, edinburgh castle, stirling castle, hampton court palace)
temperature of London when leaving for home: 7 degrees Celsius.
temperature of LAX upon arriving home: 81 degrees Fahrenheit.
number of hats lost during trip: 2
number of meals taken at mcdonalds or burger king: 4
… at a pub: 1
… at an iguana’s: 2
… at relatives: I don’t think we stopped eating when we were with our relatives. it should actually be
“number of days of continuous feeding while visiting relatives”: 3
amount of chocolate consumed: approximately 2 pounds.
age in months of cousin’s new son: 4
number of new immediate family relations by cousin’s marriage: 20 (oh gosh!)
hours to be spent correcting red eye effect from pictures taken of cousin’s british, blue-eyed in-laws: 2
approximate number of pictures taken during trip: 481
…of these which are of airline food: 6
number of viewings of “lord of the rings: the two towers”: 2 (once in bath, once in london, in europe’s largest cinema)
pictures taken with ali g: none. :(
hours spent in a computer lab: 10 (all during the first week or so of the trip.)
number of cups of tea or coffee or water consumed daily: 10
average number of bathroom trips per day: 6
cost of using “the loo” at a train station: 20 pence
value of a clean “loo”: priceless!
number of stairs at russell square station: 172
value of 3 weeks out of Los Angeles: beyond the measure of words.

it’s a rather severe shock coming from the sub-freezing temperatures (not to mention wind chill) of england to the ridiculously warm weather we’re having in california. Just last week I was swathed in two layers of thermals, a warm hat, a warm scarf, angora wool socks, and a gap “warmest jacket” in some rather desperate attempts to keep warm. I froze my ass off at Stonehenge, where the wind cut across the hills of northern England with nary a tree to temper it. Temperatures were similarly cold in Scotland, and we got real freezing temperatures with less of a wind chill. That was fun too. England itself was fairly warm, although we hit a nasty cold and wet spell at the end of our trip. Cities all over the countryside were flooding, but luckily we were by this time back in London and away from the rivers of Severn, Avon, and Thames were overflowing. (Thames has nice flood controls in the city of London, but not very good ones elsewhere. =/) Our flight stopped in Washington DC, where snow and poor visibility had delayed our landing a little bit. SNOW! I was so tempted to grab a handful as I walked onto the plane; a bit had collected on the end of the bridge connecting to the open plane door…

and now, it is freaking 70 degrees?? geeeesh!! california is so lucky!!

yo, i am back. lots of notes i want to make about the trip in the next week or so, wee. and lots of pictures to post up! woohoo!

kinda tired of this blogging business. I’m sort of looking back at these entries and i guess i’m disappointed with what i’ve been blogging. I think as someone growing up in the bay area, i’ve always shunned superficiality, striven (sp?) to be “deep.” I remember trying so hard to be “deep” and possess knowledge and understanding, denying anything that may have smacked of superficiality. I just wasn’t “about” that.

and of course now, I live in los angeles, which is the prime example anyone gives as a location of fake peopledom. and over the years, I guess i’ve fallen more under the spell. i’m more aware of how I dress now, become mildly distressed when a picture of me doesn’t turn out as nicely as I’d like, have an unhealthy addiction to all things sephora (even though I really don’t wear much makeup, i have a weird fascination with it), and take a little more time thinking about what I wear when I go out the door.

all of this sort of.. bothers me. I mean, none of this matters! It doesn’t matter how one looks, just what one achieves. Focusing on appearances only distracts from the substantial. Am I replacing substance with style?

… which would be really funny because I don’t think I have any style. I think i’m very critical and appreciative of when someone else has a good sense of style, but I can’t actually pull anything off myself. My current style is basically looking like a twelve year old. it’s not intentional… it just happens! i guess i’m trying to change that, and I’m having fun with changing one’s appearances and such. i’m just not very good at it!

and it’s not something I often have time to do. It just isn’t practical. I mean… it’s fun, sure.

… but then that other part flares up. “Fun??” it rails at me. “It’s silly! It’s superficial! You’re becoming shallow!”

aaah!!

this was highlighted recently when kipper came to visit. kipp and I were best friends in high school, and both of us have changed quite a bit since going off to college. he went to MIT, I went to UCLA. and our sensibilities have been shaped a lot by our environments. Los Angeles is quite different from the east coast, no question. and LA is a place to have fun. our contrasts are all the more highlighted because of where we’ve done our changing in recent years. sometimes, I feel rather fluffy next to him, and I almost feel guilty for being a little light-hearted (and occasionally, shall we say, light-headed).

aargh. but I’m having fun. am I really discarding my norcal past and becoming a los angeleno?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

three more days, and i’ll be in ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

oooh.. can’t WAIT~!!! does anyone want anything from across the pond? email me and let me know. :)