Spring 2009

New Car, March

On March 16th, this 1987 BMW 325IS, my first car purchase, joined the family. After spending months researching this model found a seller in Issaquah, and after having the car inspected, talked her down from her asking price of $2500 to my limit of $1200. The car has 230,000 miles on it, but these engines almost always run to 300,000. After a new set of tires, the car runs and drives great, and mostly needs only cosmetic improvements. Updates will come later.

England, March

Mom and I spent the week of March 28th through April 5th touring England and Scotland with a group of 40+ students and some of their parents on a trip led by EF Tours. We went to London, Windsor Castle, Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theater, Stonehenge, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, York, Hadrian's Wall/Housesteads Fort, Gretna Greene, and Edinburgh.

One of the best aspects of the trip was that several of my good friends also went (a coincidence, as the trip was not sponsored by my school). They included [left to right] Emily B. (my girlfriend), Claire S., Anita D., Alanna S., and Kevin T. My junior high band teacher, Mr. Brannman, also went [tall guy].

Here are some of my memories:

London is a big city! What I didn't realize is that London is actually a conglomeration of many small townships, each with its own distinct personality. Spending lots of time on the Underground (cool), a bus, and foot, we saw (among lots of others) the London Eye, Covent Gardens, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Berkeley Square, the Parliament Building and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, Scotland Yard, Picadilly Circus [above], Buckingham Palace, and lots of double-decker buses, red phone booths, and black cabs.

Windsor Castle was one of the best parts of the trip for Kevin and me. We both were in AP European History this year, and throughout the trip we saw lots of things that we recognized and had learned about. But of all of those, Windsor Castle was one of the most interesting. It represented more of England's history than we found anywhere else, and the best part was standing in the hall of the Order of the Garter. Those guys were bad a**!

We were fortunate to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theater one evening. I had already seen this show a couple years ago with Alanna and Claire when it came to Seattle. The three of us actually thought that the show was better at home, but it was still a lot of fun.

Our London hotel, Premier Inn at Putney Bridge, gave us an unexpected adventure. On our third night we were forced outside at 10:30 by a major flood and had to wait in the cold for an hour before we could go back inside to retrieve our things in the dark. I was fortunate enough to be dressed, whereas one of my friends had to leave the shower and run outside in a towel! Once back inside, though, we got to meet our fellow hotel mates. A group of Italian high-school kids was visiting London just like we were, and we had a great time communicating with them (albeit not very well) during the second hour we had to wait for a taxi to take us to an alternative hotel. (Our eventual bedtime that night was 3:00 AM!)

Stonehenge [above] was pretty neat. Everyone has seen the pictures, and there's not much more to the actual rocks. But what you don't get from the pictures are the surroundings: rolling, green hills broken by stubborn swaths of trees and dotted with fluffy white sheep. Looking out over the horizon, I could clearly see our ancestors, thousands of years ago, dragging those huge stones across the grasses. So if you do visit Stonehenge... turn around.

Bath is an architectural wonder. With all of the little tricks and embellishments that the Romans left behind in the baths, it's as if they intended to impress all future generations. We, in the 20th century, have built nothing (I've seen) with so much mystique.

Oxford was fairly uneventful for me culture-wise; we mostly saw a bunch of doorways to different colleges. However, I did find a pair of sweet red and black Nikes [right] that I'm wearing to this day. Also, I bought a Top-Gear magazine; we get the TV show here in the states, but the magazine doesn't make it across the pond, so it was a cool souvenir.

We visited Stratford to see The House Where Shakespeare Was Born (...). I'm sure that if I were a big Shakespeare buff, the town would have been a little more exciting. As it turned out, the most exciting event occurred when I and three others arrived back at the coach. The police were taping off the building behind the coach park and explained to us that there had been "an incident" (a woman jumped from the roof). Things got pretty hectic, so we left in the bus quickly and discretely.

York was fascinating. The York Minster was perhaps one of the best parts of the trip for me. Kevin and I explored the entire ground floor first, examining priceless artifacts and soaring, gilded architecture. Then we paid 2 pounds to go down into the Minster "basement," where a museum displayed the original(!) Roman walls that had previously stood there. Then we paid another 2 pounds to climb the 275 steps to the top of the main tower, from which we could look out at the ground far beyond the city wall. Speaking of the city wall, we were able to walk all the way around Old York on its original defense wall. And then we got lost in a construction district. But that's another story.

Hadrian's Wall [above right] was built to keep the Scots out of England; it stretches east to west all the way across the island. And on parts of it, like where we stopped, visitors are able to walk along it. Sure, I almost fell off a 150-foot cliff doing so, but imagining the Roman history was worth it. We were also able to explore the low wall remains, and thus the floor plan, of Housesteads Fort, of one of the hundreds of small forts along the wall. We could imagine Romans hundreds of years ago walking just where we stepped... Cool stuff, that.

After Hadrian's Wall we stopped at Gretna Greene to buy some food for the next couple day's breakfasts. Gretna Greene is a small town just across the Scottish border where the English have traditionally come for a quickie wedding, but we didn't see much except a kitschy shopping mall. I liked English food, by the way. It's not extravagant, not bursting with exotic flavors. It's plain. And full of peas (with every meal). But it's extremely wholesome, the kind of food that sits well in your stomach and just feels good after a long day.

The next day we toured Edinburgh, which was fascinating. We saw Edinburgh castle, and Mom got hit on by our elderly (but awesome) tour guide, Robbie Robertson. Also, I had one of the best burgers of my life. I still wonder if it was Highland cattle meat. Oh, and I had the glorious experience of eating a deep-fried Mars bar. Scoff all you want, but I know without a doubt that the scoffing ends with the first bite.

Our last night we attended a Scottish Ceilidh, where we enjoyed haggis, beets, and potatoes for dinner. Sounds nasty? Actually the haggis was quite good. But we had a tourist version, apparently containing only "FDA-approved meat," which real, hair-on-your-chest haggis certainly does not. After dinner, we were able to try some Scottish dancing [left, with Emily] and chat with the drunk Scottish partiers across the hall. The night was an overall success, and so was the trip.

For more photos, see Mom's best at PicasaWeb.com.

Birthday, April

For my birthday, the whole family (Mom, Jan, Sofia, Dad, Suzy, Brennan, Grandma Joyce, and Emily!) went to Carolina Kitchen in Redmond for southern barbeque. I, of course, had ribs.

Trudy had made me a special cake [right] that Mom brought along. Apparently she designed it in honor of my job at Target (ugh), but I'd rather think it was meant to match my car. The restaurant was very nice to provide a wickedly long knife so we could cut it.

Among my gifts were a Roughneck tub full of Plastidip, sand paper, Nu Finish, and wheel cleaner (very necessary for the car); a classic hotrod book; four movie passes; a sweatshirt; and a whole lot of cash.

Seventeen! Whoohoo! Just try to stop me!

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