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I visited Occupy London on an unseasonably warm and sunny day in late October. In a paradox that is no doubt indicative of who I am, I stopped off at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the Occupy protesters were gathered, before heading off to Spitalfields (the famed shopping district).
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There are some arguments that will consume you. They will take over your entire mind and body, so that you find yourself shaking with rage, unable to think of anything else. Your hands clench into fists, your teeth gnash together, and you are filled with anger and the conviction that DEAR GOD YOU ARE RIGHT AND THEY ARE SO, SO WRONG.
This is a story about one such argument.
I don’t remember how it began. Few great battles in history have marked beginnings. We say it was the assassination of Ferdinand, we suggest that it may have been the killing of Crispus Attucks and four others on a chilly night in Boston, but we are only guessing – trying to add sense and order to a situation where there likely isn’t one. Where there is only chaos and conflict.
I have something very important to tell you with regards to travel. It has absolutely nothing to do with what you should pack or where you should go. I have no insightful revelations about which airline seat to pick in order to avoid sitting next to a guy who obviously has TB. I always end up in that seat. Perhaps that’s an area where you might be able to advise me.
No, the bit of advice that I have to offer is far less complicated than all of that. It’s simply this: that in the end, it does not matter where you go. You can climb Kilimanjaro. You can stay in a yurt and do whatever it is people do when they’re inside one of those things. You can take lots of photos, perhaps expertly, or, if you are like me, as though you have handed your camera to a drunken baboon. Do whatever you like, because really, it won’t make a lick of difference. In the end, the thing that matters is not where you go, but who is with you.
There are no two people who have taught me this lesson more than Jon and Lisa.
We were in Oslo, on a sunny day in October, and couldn't figure out how to get off a roof.
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Whenever we meet up with the two of them, which is most often in the U.K., but occasionally in countries with slightly worse climates, things go awry. And yet I’ve never really noticed that our trips together are stunning examples of mediocrity, because, damn it, we have so much fun.
At the Kennedy Museum near Boston, MA.
It’s the Fourth of July, and while I had told myself I would be taking the day off to get drunk and eat hot dogs, because that’s what our founding fathers would have wanted, I instead find myself thinking about what it means to be an American. How centuries ago we split from the British and formed our own little country (well, not we, exactly. My family was happily toiling away and drinking in Europe. They wouldn’t get to the states for another 204 years), with its own cultures and tendencies that are so radically different from the English. Even the Canadians, who are so damn close to us, are strange and exotic in my mind, largely because they are subjects of the queen. As an American, queens are relegated to fairy tales, decks of cards, and pride parades. They are not heads of state.
Sign on the wall inside at the Churchill War Museum.
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The strangest thing happened to me that last time I was in London: I went to a museum dedicated to Britain’s role in WWII. And I liked it.
I know – you’re thinking that you can’t have read that correctly. “She must have meant cupcakes,” you think. “Or possibly Jeff Goldblum. She just got the names woefully confused.”
Which is a fair assumption, because were there museums dedicated to cupcakes or the equally-delicious Mr. Goldblum, I would be a lifetime member. But no, that is no typo – I went to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms (known collectively as the Churchill War Rooms), and I truly enjoyed the experience.
I cannot tell you when my friendship with Deanna began. It can probably be traced back to a single tweet, sent long ago, but I couldn’t say for sure. The details are lost to time – I can only say that at some point we started talking, and one day I told my husband that I had made a friend through the internet.
He looked at me warily, and reminded me that the girl I had been talking to, the one so full of moxie and so quick with the clever retorts, might have been an elaborate work of fiction. I kept this in mind when I found out she and her family were stopping through Seattle, and wanted to meet up for lunch.
“She might be a balding man named Herb,” I told myself. “He might think that Kate Hudson is a talented actress, and he might enjoy Stephen Colbert unironically. ” It might be an awkward, unmitigated disaster.
It was not. She was exactly who she claimed to be, and more.
By the end of the afternoon (one largely spent quoting Anchorman) I realized that I could no longer refer to her as “a girl I’ve been talking to online”, but simply started calling her “my friend Deanna.”
She’s recently moved across the planet from me. Though I’ve only met her once, though it really shouldn’t make a difference, this saddens me. I’d love to sit down, have a slice of cake with her, and laugh about how Weinergate is quiet possibly the best name for a sex scandal, ever. But since I can’t do that, I asked her to blog for me, and lovely girl that she is, she said yes. So enjoy today’s post. It was written by my friend, Deanna.
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I love playing the part of the Ugly American.
The way I figure it, if people are going to judge and hate me without knowing me, the least I can do is have a little fun at their expense. The best part is the look on their faces when they realize I’ve been messing with them.
“Wait, wait, wait … you voted for Obama? Then why did you say America needs to blast all non-Aryan people off the planet? Oh, god … were you being facetious the whole time?”
Deeeelightful, I tell you. And so, in that spirit, let me tell you why the shops at Covent Garden are totally like the Pike Place Market, and how they obviously copied the idea from us here in the States.
Now, those of you who like to toss around facts when attempting to prove a point will note that Covent Garden was around a few centuries before the Pike Place Market, to which I will cleverly respond, “U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!” And to that display of awesomeness, there is no response.
I wandered through the market on a rainy Friday morning, trying to kill time until the London Transport Museum opened (which, ruthlessly, was not until 11am. In my jet-lagged state, I had been up FOR 7 HOURS by then). It was pouring, despite the forecast predicting only intermittent showers. Seriously, we in Seattle invented that.
Also, notice the colors on the British flag. They totally got those from us, I bet.
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