It has indeed been too long since I wrote in here last. This week wasn’t too busy. I gave up my search for a coat, but didn’t leave the TK Maxx (the UK version of TJ Maxx) without a Quiksilver zip up sweatshirt. It has been nice to have another layer.
New pen. The one I was using all this time was not working properly. However, I don’t like the way this looks nearly as much as the previous pen.
I saw Stonehenge and Salisbury today. The former was more interesting to see than I thought it was going to be. The highlight of the day was Salisbury Cathedral. The spire is the tallest in England and the second tallest in all of Europe. It was most impressive. Again I found myself in awe of what humans can build. The spire stretches higher than everything else in the surrounding town. It is indeed the closest thing to Heaven for miles. The builder achieved his goal.
Being at Stonehenge made me think of how there are so many sights I have seen on this trip that blow me away. You can live your entire life in America and see famous landmarks in pictures, film, TV, and the internet. Their intense and detailed replication begins to mean less and less to the person receiving the replications. Eventually, the building, or landmark, is no more real to you than that UFO you have seen in a thousand pictures. It exists only in your mind until you come to a place like England. You stroll out of the tube station and Big Ben is looking you in the face. You drive over a hill and that 5,000 year old arrangement of rocks is right in front of you. There is such a massive movement to bring reality to people so they don’t have to go look for it themselves. You might forget what real is, until the fresh breeze of something as beautiful as the Salisbury plain on a cold winter afternoon stretches out to you in its hues of green and blue. The dose of reality strikes hard. This has certainly been an enlightening experience, coming over here I mean.
I don’t come by many enlightening experiences, especially for wanting to be a writer, but you can’t try to come by enlightening thoughts. If you go searching for them they will run away from you, but if you live your life and busy yourself with what you love and value, then those thoughts start snaking their way toward you. I would suggest just grabbing one at a time. If you tighten your grip on everything all at once your greed will get the best of you and you won’t come out anymore wiser or smarter than you were before this all went down.
Tomorrow I think I might finally get around to seeing the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Apparently it takes place at 11:30, but that sounds a bit early. I hope we catch it in time. I will end with some random, brief observations.
The British have bad teeth.
There aren’t as many fat people in Britain as there are in America.
I hear about violent acts more than I thought I would. The reporting of it is still smaller than the US, but factor in the size and it seems the same, although there are far fewer guns in the UK.
TVR, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Lotus, Ferrari, Porsche, Opel; these are all brands of cars that I see so much, everyday, that the experience has become like seeing a BMW in Longmont. It is that much of an occurrence.
Just reading that for tonight was enough for me, I hope it made some sort of sense to you. Maybe some thoughts on it tomorrow.
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