Back in England

Back to the land of the cute and quaint. People are friendly, I can understand most of them and everything is labeled with directions. London so far has been worlds easier to navigate than Edinburgh and much warmer. I think that if I were to live somewhere on this island it would be on this English side. If I got sick of all the perfect gardens, paved footpaths and people everywhere, I'd head up to Scotland, walk some hills and soak up all the space and openness. Over crowding is certainly not an issue in the Highlands.
I am, however, unimpressed with the prices of things around here. I'm going to have to live entirely off of carrots and premade sandwiches from the grocery store since a meal is, at a minimum, $10. Oh well, at least the museums are free.
Off to do some laundry!

Isle of Skye

Scotland is pretty harsh, kinda like bagpipes when you first hear them. It's very windy, very cold and it sounds like everyone is yelling at you. But after you adjust a bit, you realize that it's GORGEOUS and the people who seem to be yelling at you are just trying to be heard over the wind. I can't believe how many pictures I've taken. I know that I'm going to be pissed at the results of them, too. The whole allure of this landscape is the great openness and hugeness of it. As soon as you put it into a frame you've lost that. Gotta go, running out of coins.

Blimey! (England Day 5)

Finally heard someone say, "BLIMEY!" and I did giggle at them as I suspected I would. Oh well, call me an American. Today I went to Knaresborough castle, admired the huge list of thedead for WWI, and bought BRIGAND beer. Brigands! was our mascot in Bravo Co, so Tom and I got a huge kick out of it. I peeled thelabel off for Tony and Tom is ssending Rob his own bottle. Yay Brigands! I, however, drank most ofhte beer that was bought and now I'm quite drunk. good night and nest time you'll hear from me, it'll be from Scotland!

England Day 4

Charge This

Scarbourough castle is pretty formidable. That cliff is huge and incredibly steep. It's not too surprising that it's been used since the Romans as an outpost and fortress

Scarborough yesterday was pretty neat and did indeed have a castle, the North Sea and really good fish n chips. Today we walked to town, but since it's Sunday nothing is really open and I couldn't find anything I needed. Oh well, I guess I can get a phone card tomorrow.

Some funny things:
- a warning on a pack of cigarettes says, "SMOKING CAN CAUSE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH."
- a lot of menus list a desert called "spotted dick." Seems to be pretty popular.
- the route on our train tickets yesterday said simply, "NOT LEEDS." No guesses as to what would happen to us if we DID end up in Leeds.
- people really do say stereotypical British phrases like, "ta," "cheers," and, "tally-ho!" Haven't heard anyone mutter, "bollocks!" yet, but when our train was cancelled someone did say, "bloody hell!" I suppose it's rude to giggle at people when they say things like this, but the grocer yesterday kept laughing at me and I hardly said anything. Although I did give her a funny look when she gave me 7 pounds in coins. Which brings me to the next point...
- there are *8* different coins. I would totally fail working at a cash register here. In fact, everytime I pay for anything I have to pick up the coin, squint at it and figure out what denomination it is before I hand it over.

England Day 3

Spent the past couple night in Harrogate, England which is northeast of Leeds in the countryside. A lot of neat things are a short train ride away. Yesterday we went to York, which was founded by the Romans. Yes, the ROMANS. So it's old. In fact, Constantine was named Caesar there in 306. That was nearly 1700 years ago. The terms 'old' and 'historic' are definitely at a new level here. York Minster, a giant cathedral, has a crypt in the basement, but it's not a typical crypt in that it's mostly old Roman Legionnaire barracks and Norman artifacts. It also had the Doomstone, which is just cool.

It feels nice to be walking all the time. I feel like I can eat and drink all I want without getting chubby. Hopefully this will get me ready to hike around Scotland next week.

I think we're going to Scarborough today which has a castle, the North Sea, and some really good fish and chips.

Off to Europe

Well folks, I'm off to a well deserved vacation to the British Isles that will take me to England, Scotland and Ireland. Fuck yeah. I leave tomorrow at some ungodly hour that starts with a 3, and I don't get there until about 18 hours later, real time. Hopefully, I'll be able to update this fairly regularly along the way. Most of the hostels seem to offer internet service, but we'll see.

Tony called from Kuwait for an update. The Sergeant Major is this a never-been-deployed MI troop who feels he needs to make up for his lack of tactical experience by having his soldiers do ridiculous, unnecessary activities to compensate. For example, even though local SOP requires soldiers to remain indoors during the middle of the day, due to the extreme heat, CSM decided that the best way for soldiers to acclimatize was to wear their gear on the bus rides to and from the ranges. Not such a bad idea, except the AC breaks... in the middle of the day. The heat and the gear caused soldiers to vomit on the bus which then caused a chain reaction of puking, which are common on airborne missions, but even then you have at least airsick bags. So instead of acclimating, now you have a bunch of heat injuries. And as we hear year after year, getting a heat injury causes one to become MORE likely to suffer from one again. So now they've regressed. Way to go, Sergeant Major. Too bad there aren't any more promotions in the enlisted branch for you.

Off to finish some last minute details. Bye everyone!!

Bittersweet

My last full day in the Army happens to be the day Tony leaves for Iraq. It was surreal watching my unit put their gear on and gather up into formation without me being a part of it. I could never imagine this moment happening without me and I certainly can't imagine what it's going to be like for a whole year without Tony and without my support group of friends. A year is a long time. Those 12 months I spent in Korea seemed like eternity and I wasn't even homesick! Hopefully we'll all stay busy enough in our new, very different lives that time will pass quickly.

All I want to do is have an air conditioned room to myself, watch tv in my underwear and get drunk. But alas, all the hotels are booked for tonight and tomorrow in Watertown, so I have to return to my sweatbox with the roomate who talks too much with nothing to sleep on. I'm thinking of spending the afternoon at the bowling alley drinking away my sorrows and then just walking home. It is a whole two blocks, afterall. No one walks on this post, though, and the place is crawling with cops who, because of their overabundance, desperately need something to do - a lone drunkard would make a perfect target.

It occurs to me that I've had nothing but oatmeal to eat today and even that was long time ago. The bowling alley it is!