Drunken Japanese people can be loud.

My eyelids are rather droopy today due to the fact that there were several people in the room next door last night, who would whoop at intervals just long enough for you to get almost to sleep, in between bouts of quite animated conversation in Japanese. When you are annoyed, your heart beats faster and you can hear the pounding in your ears should you have inserted earplugs.

The graduate fair today is terribly disappointing (although they do have some of the loveliest brickle cookies ever! I had to eat three just to make certain they were as good as the initial taste hints. Cookies improve one’s attitude towards the Japanese as well. The brownies can just be trashed, though.) I am v. glad that the Vice-Chancellor did not come to this event since there have been about 45 attendees in total today and no one has come to my table at all. (I need a cookie.)

Another thing that turned out concerning today is the air crash in Ghana. My boss, Wayne, is in Africa and is flying between Ghana and Nigeria at some point (although cannot find out when since the calendar option in the office is not important as it was at Centenary.). There were 5 Britons on the plane that crashed, and he was flying with his British passport (he is American). By the time I left hotel, decided that there is a good chance he was not on it as it was a Cameroon flight and I don’t think he was going there. But still -- Pray, please. Thank you.

Horror!

So, in my inbox this morning was greeted with notification that the wine bar (named Willie's -- titter, titter) in Minneapolis, where I have scheduled a $3800 reception, is closing permanently and will not be able to accommodate my event. The Event which is scheduled 20 days from now. EEEEEEdiots! It was hard enough to find this venue in the first place, as 19,000 other events are scheduled by various universities for the conference of over 7500 attendees. This gives me heartburn. Am slightly in a giddy panic.

*******

Anyhoo. The Queen is in the US to visit Jamestown, VA on the 400th anniversary of settlement. Sadly, on CNN this morning, they have a complete British stereotype prat delivering live coverage. He hops up and down; he grins toothily too close to the camera; he is just goofily trying too hard to be funny. It is tragic. But of course, everyone in the US is wetting their pants over it anyway, and a woman with a terrific ay-uck-sent (accent) on the news last night said she wants to meet the Queen today when she is in Jamestown. Bless.

Now, they are doing a news story on how to meet the Queen. How to dress and what rules to follow. All this, but no one here knows anything about Darfur or Zimbabwe... AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!

*******

Have already woken family members this morning (remember the good old days when I would call people at silly-O'Clock in the morning on Saturdays? My poor family and acquaintances. Lisa A., though, would always get up and come over for Croffee and Paul has dogs, so that was okay, too. Everyone else just hated me.). Well, I had just talked to Britain where people are at work, and so I forgot it was not 7am yet here (oops) :) And Lindsey's email said to call her! Tee hee. She was all sleepy. Yet very accommodating of her 'special' cousine :) Will phone her back later...

*******

In US news yesterday (the McPaper, aka USA Today), found out about money-making venture for my lovely friend, Vir-roo -- since she lives in Houston already. The headline is: Museum Pays Cash for Live Cockroaches. Anyone who lives in the South knows that this is a foolish financial decision. You don't need to pay for them. But 'EWWWwwwww!'

*******

Then there was the GOP (Grand Old Party, for foreign readers, = Republican) Presidential Debate last night. It was entertaining and slightly informative, but I could only keep eyes open for about half of it. Have to say, I find Giuliani the best of the 10 (the news is using that new term 'nuanced' that we all know and love -- haha), although he is kind of subdued. Even the Mormon guy is totally cosying up to ticking all the boxes trying to make sure people know how 'holy' and Right he is. With his big whitened-teeth smile. All of them but Giuliani just seemed to lack any concept of individual thought. Nuanced, indeed :)

*******

Am moving hotels today. It will be closer to alumni event for this evening and also to event for tomorrow morning. And there will perhaps not be porn on the bathroom wall. Here is picture; tell me what you see! (in the comment section below, please, so's everyone can have a laugh)

Enrique, malls and storms

Things I did after arriving at Newark:
*forgot to get power adaptor at airport
*confused self with automatic ticket machine
*reported lone piece of luggage at Airport Station
(station staff response was to mosey down to look at it after about 10 minutes and then wander around it for the next 15 talking on a walkie-talkie)
*used the term 'Circle K' to taxi driver and she didn't know what I was talking about (so that was modified to '7-Eleven or something like that')
*discussed taxi driver's boyfriend's temper
*discovered that there is free hotel shuttle to convention center!
*ditto for free shuttle to mall (initially exciting)
*went to Menlo Mall on free shuttle
*hung out outside mall with scary bus stop people waiting for shuttle to return (you British people will not understand this and will think I am being rude. But there are a definite majority of scarier than not people at bustops in the US. Although I did get change for a $1 from a nice lady from Columbia/Cartegena and we talked a blue streak then.)
*watched some rubbish t.v.
*went to sleep about 7pm
*woken by lightning at some point (hoorah for thunderstorms!)
*awake since 5.30am this morning. yay. although bed is remarkably comfortable!

When the shuttle took me to the Menlo Park mall (isn't that where Edison invented the lightbulb? Well, not at the mall, gaaaaaahhh. But yes! Although maybe it is sound... don't have time to read right now.), I BEGGED Maria from Argentina to wait for me as it would only be 5 or 10 minutes to go find power adaptor and come right back out. Perhaps due to language barrier, perhaps not, as soon as I was inside, she drove off (my Radio Shack adventure took literally less than 5 minutes).

My instruction was to call her at the hotel. I did not have any US coins (no sniggering, please), so had to get a Dasani from the machine (for the robbery price of $1.25) so's I could have change for the (icky) payphone at the charming rate of 50cents! Then was on hold for 5 minutes (all the while Maria is no doubt driving like mad back to the hotel), before they agreed that the shuttle would come back and get me. Also, I should phone back in 10 minutes just to check -- don't have any coins ma'am -- okay, it'll be there. Sat outside feeling very out of place, alarmed at the Jersey/hispanic accents all 'round, clutching my power adaptor for comfort.

After about 15 minutes with no sign of the shuttle, begged for change for $1 from nice lady, blah, blah, blah; shuttle finally showed up, driven by Rrrrufino (you have to trill the 'rrrr's, you know, or you have to say it again). Maria had obviously fled after her callous abandoning of me at the mall. Rrrrufino is the chef. He is from here (but not really so much). He is actually from the Dominican Republic and he like to talk, although am not really sure that I learnt very much from him. You leeve in England, nice! Edison, nice. Beeg house, nice! You leeve in Loosyanna, no? I think he has four daughters: one twin (or maybe that was 20), one 10, one 5 and one almost 4. Attempting to engage in various conversation was amusing.

Re: being a chef--
A: Oh, you are a chef! That sounds interesting and fun!
Rrrr: Yes!
A: What is your favourite thing to cook?
Rrrr: Yes, I cook!
A: What do you like to cook most?
Rrrr: I cook!
A: But, what you like to cook, do you like cooking anything more than other things?
Rrrr: Oh, I cook everything!

Re: vacation --
A: So, you go to the Dominican Republic to see your family. Do you travel much in the US?
Rrrr: (blank look)
A: You travel to Domincan Republic to see your family, right? And so do you travel anywhere in the United States?
Rrrr: My family, they leeve here!
A: Do you travel much in the United States? To see things?
Rrrr: (raised eyebrows)
A: Do you go anywhere on vacation?
Rrrr: Yes, I work at hotel for 2 weeks!
A: But do you get to go anywhere fun in other parts of the US... like Las Vegas or Los Angeles... (fade)
Rrrr: Ah! My brother, Enrique, he work at 2am!
A: Aaaaaahh, right!
Rrrr: He work in (unintelligible) and (unintelligible)
A: Aaaaaahhh! I see!

*******
Headline News items involved: immigration protests (illegals protesting...hmmm... for the right to be full citizens. This happened all over the nation yesterday. There was violence. Shock.); new audio tapes from Kent State (how do things like this get just stored for 33 years? Are these things real? And if these people have had this info, why have they just sat on it?); impeachment crap; Britney Spears' come-back; Iraq funding.

AeroBlog

Or maybe Luftblog sounds better.... hmmm. YES! I like it! (I flew KLM -- Dutch Royal Airlines today and heard the word Luft alot.)

.....
We are about an hour from landing, so it seems to me to be time to listen to a segment of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, read by Stephen Fry. This is different from the narrated version, although it is read by a Brit. I am not sure which one to prefer. E was very thoughtful and has provided me with this bit of vacillation and indecisiveness. Hoorah for indecisiveness!

KLM has best airline headphones encountered thus far. Or maybe it is just that their planes are more insulated… not sure. However, little suspended screens for film ‘watching’ are not fun and so I have finished reading two books – Of Cats and Kings and Girl in a Red Tunic – read the ‘fake’ Guardian (the free one they give you sometimes as you get on a plane), listened to the classical station until the loop got a bit old after the 5th time and then listened to a bit of The Beatles documentary channel. I had to stop after listening to William Shatner’s rendition of Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds. He sounds like he had a significant enema of Skittles before the reading because it is so fruity.

Morning started fairly well at 3.30 with the alarm. However, I got ready quickly and found that I could have gotten twenty more minutes of sleep just fine and been in perfectly good time for my taxi. Oh well. I was the fifth person to enter the airport this morning immediately after its opening. So, that was too early, as check-in for my 6.15 flight didn’t begin until after 5am. Oh well. Then, Norwich International Airport has one of those ridiculous Airport Improvement fees – this annoys me. Oh well, at least it was only £3 instead of the 10 euros at Knock Airport. And at least no one took my ProActiv and contact solution. Although had they been in my hand luggage they probably would have as I was randomly selected for a ‘Liquids Search’ – good GAWD, they must have sad, affection-deprived people sitting in cubicles somewhere thinking of new and idiotic ways to annoy passengers and security workers. Then the coffee shop didn’t open until 5.30 and I could not get a coffee at 5.28. Oh well. The sun rise was lovely!

Flight to Amsterdam takes less than an hour. If it has not been mentioned before, I would like to point out that waves do not move when viewed from the air. You can see the ripples, just nothing moving. This is interesting.

Amsterdam Airport is okay, but a little boring. You cannot take liquids (i.e., water) into the boarding area here, either. Even if you buy it in a shop in the airport. This is inane. Is this a US flight thing, or does this happen for every flight? I do not know.

This flight video does go into great depth to let visitors to the US know what to do. There is a little video with dark silhouettes carrying backpacks and briefcases. They approach desks manned by other dark silhouettes and mime having their fingerprints and photo taken. This is repeated at least 29 times, presumably in 29 different languages. Sometimes there are subtitles, sometimes not. I had to close my eyes before I memorised the pattern. I did not drool.

Girl with a Red Tunic is an ‘historic’ murder mystery. It is one of the silliest pieces of pumped out tat ever. One ought to have known better since it does say ‘A Hawkenlye Mystery’. Anytime (well mostly) a book has the formula ‘a/an ++’ below the title, one ought to squint suspiciously at the volume. However, my reason was temporarily clouded because a) books were 3 for £1 at the charity shoppe; b) it has a little pseudo-familie tree drawn on the third page; c) on the page facing the familie tree, there is a map entitled ‘The Weald of Kent and East Sussex, c. 1200; and d) it has an olde worlde picture-e of a laydie with a wimple on the front cover. Oh, foolish bargain hunter! WHY, OH WHY didn’t you just get the other two for 75p each and deal with it?

Perhaps should prepare computer for stowing as people do seem to be rushing busily back and forth through the cabin. Oh well. I should very much like a large glass of milk and a nap when arrive at hotel.

More Notes from Norfolk

A trampoline has been purchased for the children next door. This is an exciting development.

For them.

(I think this is a result of some parental units diagonal across the street having purchased one for their spawn and set it up in their front garden. There now exists a state of universal shrieking on Ramsey Close from about 2.30pm to approximately 8.23pm. Excellent time to be moving house, eh? Poor Sarah and Rob have lost peaceful nature of their standing at the back door for evening ciggys now.)

*******
Have thought of more things about weekend...

It should be noted that whilst I did go on about pebble beaches, there are also completely sandy beaches, which just have grey large-ish pebbles only up next to the boardwalk. The sand washes and shifts and so there are these intermittent preventative sea walls dividing the beach up into these little private beaches. There are also things called wind-breaks, which are little canvas-ey fences that people stick up around them. E says this is because British people are mad enough to go onto the beaches whenever the sun is out regardless of wind and cold. I do not think I have ever seen these before. There is also apparently a beach which has trees going right out from the forest; it was planted I think by the 1st Earl of Leicester of Holkham to combat erosion. (He also invented crop rotation, or a particular type of it maybe.)

Also, there are some really intriguing architectural things to notice in Norfolk, esp. out in rural Norfolk.

There is a technique called flint knapping that is used in combination with bricks for wall surfaces on building. The flint is from (I suppose) the vast quantities of flint stones on the beaches. Some of the knapped fronts are smoother than others. A lot of the walls in Norwich that are knapped are kind of jagged, but if you can see on this picture, the flints are pretty darn smooth. A person who knaps flint is called a flintknapper (tee hee hee -- take your hands off that flint!).

Some of the flint stones are not even split, the entire stones embedded in the mortar, creating a bumpy effect (sorry for the reflection in the window glass. You just kind of see so much of it that you are slightly overwhelmed by what to photgraph. There are entire little villages with this kind of wall on nearly every wind-ey wall and building.). I think that the flat flint kind must have been most expensive of the three, but E is not so sure.

It seems that much of this flint was collected from Grime's Graves as well... somewhere for an exploration, methinks!

Another unique feature of the landscape here is the presence of Round Tower Churches. East Anglia has the most Round Tower Churches in England. Since flint was so plentiful, it was used in church construction as well. Flint is not able to be formed into squares, so many towers (which also could have had double service as defence observation for protection) were round as one cannot really make a very good square tower out of rounded stones and jaggedey-edged rock. Many of these churches are over 1000 years old. You must click on the link above and go to the 'Why round towers?' section. However, just like our society, there had to be some sort of Christian one-up-manship; rounded towers were considered to be terribly gauche and poor. So parishes would fundraise for more expensive flat stones to be shipped in and the tatty round towers were torn down and replaced. A lot of these Round Towers are just out in the middle of fields or tiny little hamlets (that is an official residential area designation -- I want to live in a hamlet just so I can say that I have.) and signify areas that could not afford to replace them.

Another architectural character (although this is not as common as knapping) is wattling, we think. E has seen a documentary on it, but I had never seen it until a very high up section on a wall caught my eye the other day. It is kind of like shards embedded into the mortar length-wise.

*******
Have begun (sort of lazily) packing up room for move, which is inconceivably occurring in less than two weeks. Also have tidied so that Sarah can show my room and hopefully find someone to move in soon.

Tomorrow morning at 4.15 am, taxi arrives to take me to Norwich International. Will be in Newark by 3.00pm and shall probably be pooped, esp. if there are good movies on the flight. Mostly ready to go and am quite impressed with self for v. light packing abilities, although really ought to be sleeping at the moment.

*******
It is 7.10pm and it sounds as though a child is being sacrificed on the trampoline across the street. Maybe I should go and take them a torch for the pagan event.

Weekend Next the Sea

So, E surprised me with having Ciara's car for the weekend and got to Norwich Friday evening after work! Being the beneficiary of the Driving Miss Amrie show was great fun.

Yesterday's drive began (once we got to the coast -- about 30-40 minutes' drive) at Cromer and toodled along coast road to Wells-next-the-Sea, where we headed inland and back and forth until making it back to Norwich. There was no map involved in this weekend's expeditions, as a) my atlas is in Cardiff and b) E wanted to meander. At first I was slightly doubtful of this method of travel, but it was probably a good thing as there was quite enough to see without my being ooh-ey and aah-ey over something seen on the map and directing us hither and thither in a schitzophrenic manner. Just driving by following our noses, we stopped when we saw something interesting and E made several u-turns after loud shrieks from the passenger seat (most notably with signs of mills and unforded roads).

The rape fields are in full bloom and they are so very, very brilliantly dramatic yellow, patchworked amongst the different greens, windmills, sand dunes and sea. However, the payback for this loveliness is a smell something akin to a large number of dirty dogs. Perhaps dogs that have rolled in carcasses (as dogs seem to go in for that sort of activity). Rapeseed oil is used to produce animal food and vegetable cooking oil and also biodiesel; it is also known as Canola. To (r) in distance of picture is windmill; brilliant yellow is not as clear here as was cloudy.

A sudden (r) turn in, I think, Weybourn, took us to a pebble beach where people were surf fishing. From the main road, as one is driving, there is suddenly a sign that says 'FLOOD' inside a big red triangle and the road just goes off into a massive pool of water; however another road turns to the right and leads to the car park :) There was not a speck of sand to be seen on this beach. When the tide goes out on a pebble beach and another wave is coming in, it makes the eeriest sound of screeching like the world is ending. Pebbles are terrifically silky smooth and are the flint from which buildings are constructed.

Another slightly alarming thing was this little hillside of dirt on the crest of the hill of the beach. On the back side (away from the water) are hundreds of little holes. There are black buzzing things going in and out of these holes. E says they are solitary bees, but I cannot find anything about them online. They certainly look like bees. It was v. bizarre.

We drove past the Cley Marshes, which is a nature preserve. There are road warning signs with a picture of a duck. (Signs are so amusing to me! There are ones with a cow, a stag, and even one in Norwich with a frog! tee hee hee.). The numbers of twitchers are legion -- all these people walking around with large viewing or camera devices of various sorts attached to poles and wearing (UK) bum bags/(US) fanny packs -- amusing thing about both of these terms is that they sound rude to the opposite culture, although the second is slightly ruder, I suppose.... hahahaha.

Off the main road, there is one green field with a huge swan sitting in the middle of it. It has been there three times now as we passed yesterday and today and I assume it is nesting. It certainly did not select a subtle place for its nest, although perhaps this was good as it can watch for predators. Cley-next-the-Sea is a quaint village, with yet another windmill. There is a pottery studio there called, 'Made in Cley' -- smile. (sorry about the stupid power lines)

I have also learnt the difference between a Free House and Public House (pub). A Public House is an establishment that is able to serve beer and other alcoholic beverages on its premises (as opposed to an Off-License, or Offie, which is basically a shop where consumption is not allowed). A Free House means that it is an establishment solely owned by an individual, instead of a chain or a certain brewery, and therefore is able to make its own decisions about ales to serve, etc. If a free house is purchased by a chain, it can no longer call itself Free.

A sign-spotting shriek induced a u-turn and drive down a lane to Skulthorpe Mill, which is now a pub converted from an 18th century mill. As you may see if you visit the link above, this would not qualify as a Free House, as it is owned by the Green King chain. It was closed after lunch, so we just stopped and looked around a bit. The road there goes over an unforded stream, which means one would need a Rover or something. I wanted to wade in the water, but it looked rather like bovine urine had contaminated it, and it was cold.

Here, you may see my reason for suspicion of contaminated water. Fuzzy Wuzzy Was (apparently) a Cow.

As well, it might be noted that spring has sprung. My mama has inquired about this and indeed, it is just absol. gorgeous and has been steadily getting gorgeouser (hee hee) for more than a month. All the trees are blossoming, there are showers of some sort of pink petals, which look like pink snow; there are white-flowered plants with waxy leaves -- two kinds -- that smell like confederate jasmine; the daffodils are all gone, but the tulips are just insane; and I have seen a few poppies as well -- no fields of them yet, although tourist shops have poppy postcards, so I have my suspicions.

*******

Today was much sunnier than yesterday and we headed, via Cromer so's we could find it, to the steam trains. The Poppy Line runs between Sheringham and Holt. We stopped at Sheringham yesterday, but that was only our first reconnaisance mission, you see. After breakfast at The Unthank Kitchen this morning, we made it to the station at S'ham in time for some tea and a rest before the 1200 train arrived.

Once the train arrived, there was much toot-whooing and commotion. And a lot of steam! It was all very exciting and males with cameras were walking madly up and down the platform to get the best pictures. There were quite a lot of good pictures to be taken, as they remove the engines from one end of the train and toodle them down the track and around to be at the front when the train goes the other way.

Don't know if you can tell how the brasses are gleaming on the top of the 6619. That was impressive. As well, the 6619 was a Welsh train, which would have originally run on the GWR (Great Western Railway) between London and Cardiff or Swansea. It has the town Abercynon stencilled on the front in the red part.

Walsingham was the next stop. This is a pilgrimage spot and has been one since 1061, I think (will provide more accurate and detailed information when visit it properly as a destination rather than information gathering for future journeys). It is a lovely little village full of guest quarters for visiting pilgrims. The Shrine itself has an amazing garden, which also seems to serve as a place for church celebration since there is an altar in the middle of it and Stations of the Cross along the winding garden path(Station and flowers to L). When you walk through the gate into the garden, the sounds of the world outside the walls immediately disappears and you sense it is a place of contemplation. People are just sitting or walking quietly (except for two GasBags, who incensed Eamonn by their inobservance of the request for silence and apparently ruined his peacefulness). The village itself is incredibly intact for being so old.

By this point, feeling peckish as had not eaten since breakfast, so headed back to Wells-next-the-Sea. Had roll mops from the fish vendor on the harbour front (this is still an amazing concept to me -- you buy fish like you buy ice creams... but it is soooo cool! This picture was actually taken at Sheringham market yesterday. Eamonn walked on, so as not to be obviously with strange person taking photo of fish vendor's counter. You can see the little styrofoam pots of various fishy things at the other end and maybe even the menu if you look hard enough.)

Anyhoo, a rollmop is an utterly divine fresh food product and I could gorge myself on them. Although that would have ruined my dinner of fish and chips cooked properly by a sea-side fryer -- mmmmm! Rollmops are apparently of Scottish origin, and are pickled herring rolled around shredded onion and closed with a toothpick.

Is it only Wednesday?

For some stupid reason, internet at home is being massively inane and uncooperative.

This prevents my being able to inflict my brilliant thoughts and observations at the moment they strike me. And it just loses some of its spark and charm if one must put things down to post at a later time. Vexation.

Last night, got to watch Girl With a Pearl Earring in its entirety (just too pooped on Sunday and Monday nights) and get in some knitting. Overall, must say that liked visual texture of film and experience of it, BUT I really do wish Scarlett Johannson would not look interminably slack-jawed all the time. As I am not a huge fan of S.J., am not aware if this is her usual look, but it is really annoying and I should like to advise her against it. She is beautiful and certainly fits the image as Vermeer’s subject, but SHUT your mouth! Sets and costumes were wonderful and the character of Vermeer’s wife is absol. detestable, as she should be, but you do kind of pity her. And what horrible discrimination between Protestants and Catholics there was at that time! For two socially constructed groups to so vehemently hate each other in the name of the same faith baffles me. But then, humans are judgemental and would probably find something else to hate each other for, such as not making ice cream properly.

Last night also began new book, Cats and Kings, that I found in the kitchen at work in the ‘Take a Book’ holder where we make tea. It claims to be ‘Bill Bryson with whiskers’, although I find it, so far, to be kind of like Bill Bryson crossed with Bridget Jones. It is a true account of a girl who goes on a quest to Siam and Burma to find one Siamese and one Burmese to replace her cat of 20 years who had died the year before. She dumps her boyfriend at the beginning, since a) he is just not working out and there is no need to stay with someone out of boredom or desperation and b) he kind of makes fun of her quest and you instantly dislike him as a pompously successful someone who is going to make another unwitting girl’s life miserable for the next few years until he is bored. (pending rant here, not about self , so don't worry -- shall refrain for time being) It seems the book is going to describe a very oppressed part of the world that a lot of us (incl. myself) are completely clueless about if discussion should happen to progress any further than The King and I. Therefore, am looking forward to reading, despite this being, I believe, the third book going at the mo.

Relative to multiple books, last week, finished La Prisonniere – autobiographical account of Malika Oufkir. She and her family were imprisoned for twenty years by the government of Morrocco. They simply 'disappeared' after her father’s death, which was related to an attempted coup. It is a truly horrific story, and amazing tale of human strength and the will to survive. The fact that such a ‘mankind’s-inhumanity-to-man’ saga caused her to miss her life for the period of the sum of my life up to the time I started college in 1991 is quite sobering. Kneece recommended it to me, and I recommend it in turn. Writing style is not superb, there are gaps and incomplete strings of logic in the telling, but significance of story overrides this.

To complete my evening, watched a little bit of a show about the Mesolithic inhabitants of Britain. There is evidence on the sea floor, in an area called Doggerland, all around the island of Britain of human habitation on landmass that flooded after the Ice Age. It is quite fascinating! They would have been able to walk from Denmark… Wow.