When the Zombies Come

Well, when the zombies come we're probably all doomed actually. I am sure there are a few people who appropriately prepared to battle the swarms of undead, but I am not among them. And I spend a fair amount of time in graveyards and other such places that would be dangerous to be caught if the zombie apocalypse began.  I live on the edge - what can I say?

I spent a lot of my childhood in graveyards. It was not an easy adjustment for a kid deeply enthralled in the world of superstition. While not a true believer, I resented being dragged to various cemeteries across the state of Connecticut by my aunt and mother. The dissatisfaction was rooted in boredom that came with tracking down the headstones of long dead relatives more than an investment in the idea that if I didn't hold my breath while passing (or walking through) a cemetery, ghosts would come after me and devour my soul. But since then, I have developed a fondness for cemeteries. And not in a creepy Ed Gein (almost serial killer, actual gravedigger, and skilled craftsman in the medium of human flesh) way. No, most of my current affection for cemeteries probably comes from visiting my best friend, Maeve, and her family in West Bumfuck, New York, where visiting the graveyard is one of the few things to do. That and the playground, but I already had an affection for those.

I know I've already mentioned (if briefly) my adventure to the big ass cemetery in France that's name is eluding me at the moment. But this weekend, our professor took the very few of us who were interested to Highgate Cemetery. It was opened (if you can call it that - I've never seen a "Grand Opening!" banner above the gate to a graveyard) in 1839 because they had run out of room to bury people within the heart of London. Highgate became quite the fashionable place to be buried. If there's one thing I strive for in death, it's to be fashionable.

It has become quite overgrown. Oh, what the fancy Victorians would think if they saw their graves now! They probably would be pleased to know that visitors must pay to enter the cemetery, though. In the West Cemetery, visitors must be on a tour. There is no wandering. I was also informed by my professor that I could not be weird in the cemetery. Of special note, she told me I should not make sheep noises. I am pleased to report that I succeeded rather admirably at keeping my animal impressions to a minimum.

After a tour of the West Cemetery, we went down to the East Cemetery. Go figure. It had a separate entrance fee. Because why wouldn't it? We were still in London after all. This interesting bit of capitalism makes knowing that Karl Marx is buried in the East Cemetery all the more special. Apparently his grave didn't used to be super impressive, but a few years ago the North Koreans paid to have a crazy ass monument put up.

Now, I don't want to be buried when I die because a) I don't want to become a zombie and b) I don't want to be made into a lampshade by someone like the aforementioned Ed Gein. But if I did want to be buried, I really don't think I would be happy with anything less than a giant bust of my own face on the top of it.

This weekend, I also tried to go to the Oxford/Cambridge goat race. Yes, I meant to write goat. Boat races of fancy-pants rich boys do not interest me as much as speedy goats, but by the time my friend and I had conquered the partial line closures and delays on the Tube, the goat race was over. I did get to see the goats, make friends with a cat, and snap a great picture of a cock.

Then, if I hadn't put myself in zombie danger enough this week, on Wednesday we got a super special tour of St. Paul's because one of the higher-ups there apparently used to teach for the London Colgate study groups. Our stickers even said "supertour," so we were pretty fancy. Our supertour didn't include that many extra stops, but we got to see Christopher Wren's model of St. Paul's, the mathematical staircase, and a small trampoline that they keep hidden upstairs.  I don't know why. We also climbed to the top of the dome, where I managed to take a few pictures before my camera battery died.

Then we descended to the crypt, so I could again tempt fate. Fun fact: Lord Nelson is not a zombie. Yet.

Winston Churchill's Silk Pyjamas

Today we're time traveling, dear reader. Given that we've been traveling already, I hope this isn't too much of a shock, but if you need to rest for a few minutes or put on a pot of tea to calm your nerves, I completely understand. I'll just be here waiting for you to stop being such a pussy little bitch.

We're not time traveling to the 1940s, however, as I suspect you may have guessed given the title of this post.

We needn't go nearly that far. No, just set your DeLorean for early 2010 and we'll be off.

I was a freshman at Colgate, and I'd signed up for a course called War and the Holocaust in Europe. Most of the history classes I'd taken in high school were U.S. history and ambitiously claimed that we'd make it close to present day after beginning with colonial underpinnings. The farthest we ever seemed to get was the Civil War. Maybe Reconstruction, if we were lucky. So I signed up for different history.

Snatches of information from the class have remained with me, though the dates I was forced to memorize have not. I have kept one fact in my memory quite clearly. It was probably the most trivial fact that I could have stored away from all the information presented to me in lectures and readings, but I delight in quirky information.

Winston Churchill liked to wear silk pajamas.

His love of cigars is well documented and his habit of eating well has been recorded widely by historians and witnessed in his girth. But silk pajamas? It's the kind of fact I would make up. I have been known to spread rumors about friends of mine dating former press secretaries, dining with literary giants, and being involved in the assassinations of heads of state. But this is a fact that was printed in a nonfiction book that I had to read for War and the Holocaust in Europe.

John Lukacs, a historian with a professed fondness for Winston Churchill, taught me of Churchill's love of silk pajamas. Apparently Churchill was wearing silk pajamas on the morning of May 10th as Hitler began his invasions of Holland and Belgium.

I was incredulous when I first read about Churchill's pajama habits. Not because I didn't believe Winston would wear silk pajamas. I had never really thought about his bedtime attire before. I don't often think about what world leaders wear to bed. Perhaps I ought to. But I digress. I was incredulous because I was not sure how Lukacs had happened upon the information of what Churchill was wearing on the morning of May 10th, 1940 when he sat down to breakfast. Somehow that seemed like the kind of thing that wouldn't be recorded as war broke out in earnest across Europe.

But I have seen Winston's silk pajamas.

Perhaps it is now fitting for us to come out of time travel mode. This week, my history class visited the Churchill War Rooms and the attached Churchill Museum. Wandering among the artifacts of Churchill's life I stumbled upon his nap time togs. I was delighted and disappointed by my find.

I was standing in front of the pajamas that I had long regarded as a historical myth comparable to Columbus being the first to spin the idea of the world being round - if slightly less widespread. I had found the abominable snowman. But I still felt cheated. Winston's silk pajamas were, as you can see, white, plain, and conservative. In all the time I had imagined Churchill in his pajamas, which is probably more often than I should admit, I had not pictured his silk pajamas looking so boring. I wanted them to be red, shiny, and a little bit sexy.

But as the placard explained, the folded white shirt in front of me had been Churchill's nightshirt. I take some solace in the fact that even if Winston did not dress nightly in shiny, red silk, he at least could feel the breeze flowing in through the bottom of his nightshirt.

And Then There Were Sheep

I don't know if you've noticed, but I've become more sporadic with tales of my adventures. I wish I could say it's because I have been fighting pirates, flying planes around the world, and fitting hippos with tuxedos, but I have not been not. No, I have been distracted by much less exciting things: homework and course selection for next year. But I return to the interblogs with a vaguely complete account of the pirateless, planeless, and hippoless exploring I've done.

This weekend, my entire study group was carted off to the Lake District and Scotland via bus piloted by the slightly odd and slightly annoying Terry. I variously chose to call him Terrence and TerrBear, though he was not particularly aware of his nicknames just as he was not particularly aware that most of his commentary on the VAT refund and highway naming habits was unnecessary.

We set out Thursday and arrived in Grasmere. As it was late and I had eaten half a chunk of fish that had been all but injected with oil, exploring beyond the walls of the hotel was not on my agenda.

The next day we were off to Dove Cottage to see if we could be as inspired by daffodils as William Wordsworth. Wordsworth has never been my favorite romantic poet. I'm more of a fan of Percy Bysshe Shelley, mostly because he was such a fan of the ladies. But I will take this opportunity to instruct any of you that have not seen MC Nutz rapping "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" to youtube that shit. I hope it doesn't spoil any of the mystery when I tell you that MC Nutz is a rapping squirrel.

Some friends and I headed into the village of Grasmere after Dove Cottage and stopped by Wordsworth's grave. Funnily enough, his is not the fancy one with the sheep carving. That's his daughter Dorothy's grave. She was, by all accounts, his favorite child. At least try and hide it a little, Will. Come on.

We had lunch in Grasmere and then got on the bus to head towards Helvellyn for a bit of a hike. Helvellyn has been made vaguely famous by various writers and painters (including Wordsworth) but we didn't have enough time to climb it, so we settled for climbing up to Red Tarn where we could get a view of the peak. On the way up, I spotted a lone sheep wandering the mountainside. I desperately wanted it to be my friend. She had other ideas and kept running away. I did get to see her stop and take a piss though, so I like to believe that makes us pretty close to friends. It's not love until you've seen someone pee, I always say.

Red Tarn offered us the opportunity to cool off our feet, though most of my classmates thought the water was too cold. As a native of the New Hampshire seacoast, I begged to differ and gratefully waded into the tarn before joining a few classmates who had enough energy to hike up one more ridge. It was definitely worth the extra climb for the staggering views.

We descended the mountain to meet an impatient Terry and climbed back on the bus for Edinburgh.

Saturday was spent wandering around Edinburgh. We began the day together on a bus tour, but soon got off to visit Edinburgh Castle. From the castle, I set out with my friend Amy to wander around Edinburgh. We found an awesome toy store and a market to have lunch in. In the afternoon we hopped back on the bus tour for a while until we came to the Museum of Childhood. The museum isn't huge but did manage to gather together the world's largest collection of creepy dolls.

This doll haunts my dreams.

Amy and I hiked up Calton Hill later in the afternoon to visit some of the monuments. After meeting a couple who asked to take a picture of them for Vogue, puzzling over a group of people dressed in red that appeared to be doing some sort of adventure yoga, and sharing an orange, Amy and I went to the Royal Botanical Gardens and then headed back to the hotel to meet our friends for dinner. I am proud to say that I did try a spot of haggis. It's not terrible but not terribly delicious either.

Sunday was mostly spent on a bus, trying to ignore Terry breathing into his microphone while I was trying to read, but we made it back to London in time to attend trivia. I am proud to state that though my team came in last as usual, I was able to earn us a point by knowing that the act of putting jewels and glitter on one's vagina is called Vajazzling. Because every once in a while my awkward knowledge just has to pay off.

Hello, London

I have been riding the struggle bus all day on how to start an assignment for my travel writing class, so I have decided to write this instead. Dear reader, you are a procrastination tool. I'm just using you. I know it hurts right now, but you'll heal in time. I hope. Either that or I'll be leaving a trail of broken hearts in my wake. Oh, well.

This weekend, I re-explored London. I set myself a goal after spring break to go to some more of the places in London that I hadn't been yet, but with a cold and a voice that cracked so viciously it would have felt at home in a puberty video, I didn't get too much wandering done during the week. My knock-off NyQuil and I did spend a lot of quality time together, though. This weekend, however, I sounded almost normal and my dear friend from school, Casey, was visiting, so we struck out on the streets of London.

We began with an egg hunt. It's the Diamond Jubilee in London, you see, and there are giant eggs scattered throughout a few different parts of London. I like to imagine the queen, disguised as the Easter bunny, hopping throughout the city at night with a basket full of eggs half her size. I am sure that is not how the eggs are hidden, but don't ruin the mysticism of Easter for the children.

In any case, we started out at Covent Garden, which, despite its proximity to my flat, I had never visited. There were about twenty eggs hidden there, according to the egg map I had printed off, but as we wandered in and out of the Piazza, we only located about a dozen. But we managed to find the most important egg: the dinosaur one.

They even put a ceratopsian dinosaur on it. Because that is the coolest kind. Ever.

We continued our egg hunt in Trafalgar Square, where we found two eggs before seeing Big Ben's clock tower in the distance. I led Casey there to take in more of the conventional attractions of London. After a bit of a tour of that area, we made our way back to my flat, stopping to check out a few more eggs on the way.

Saturday I had yet another optional field trip to Cambridge. Oh, the pomp! Oh, the silly rules about grass! Sure, they've churned out more nobel prize winners than any other institution as I was reminded of at least three times on my visit, but when will they figure out that grass is meant to be walked on? By everyone. Not just the fancy people with fur lined degree robes.

I am sure I am not the first person to say such things. Or surreptitiously step on the grass. I know, it's not as bad ass as peeing on a McCain Palin campaign sign, but it's just as irresistible. When people tell me not to touch things, it makes me want to touch them even more. Which brings us a bit ahead in chronology to the British Museum.

It was my third visit to the British Museum because it's monstrous. I still haven't seen everything in it. But they just have ancient relics hanging around with nothing to stop me from touching them except signs that say I shouldn't. There I have resisted because the British Museum has more legitimate reasons for me not touching their old, pilfered possessions. Half the statues are already missing penises. The museum is protecting the few phalluses they have left from dicks like me.

All penises and grass prohibitions aside, Cambridge was beautiful - mostly because of the weather, which actually hung around all weekend. I was able to give Casey tours of London on foot Friday and Sunday without a coat. Sunday we went to Harrods to marvel at the ridiculous shit rich people waste their money on, stopped by Buckingham Palace, which I had not been to yet, and made our way the aforementioned British Museum before Casey had to catch her bus back to Wales.

I came out of this weekend with my sense of London geography reaffirmed and a pair of sneakers that have finally been broken down by all the walking. I take comfort in the fact that one of their final adventures before being lost to the ravages of travel was stepping on the grass at Cambridge: one last taste of victory.

The Fatherland

I occasionally find the smell of cow shit welcoming. Now, if I had a choice between manure and pies or cow excrement and dryer sheets, I would choose the latter in both cases. I'm not entirely deranged. Maybe it has to do with some of my favorite people living in places that are often rife with the odor of methane, but as I rode through Switzerland with my family and the faint whiff of farming feces would drift by, I found myself, though I wouldn't say filling my lungs with the pungent smell, at least letting the scent tickle through me.

I began my adventures in the fatherland, very early Wednesday morning without any traces of cow smell in the air. My night bus pulled into Zurich at five in the morning. I was somewhat alert despite being kept awake for the last hour of the ride by two passengers behind me who thought it was a good time to have a conversation in Slovak. I disagreed. After an hour of passive aggressively moaning at the people behind me, I got off the bus in an empty Zurich.

Early morning confirmation that I was, in fact, in Switzerland

After wandering around for a few hours waiting for things to open, I stumbled into a Starbucks for the free wifi and an extremely expensive hot chocolate. Normally, my visiting such a place would not be of note. Certainly there are things to be said about my half successful attempts at Swiss German. I shall not say them. Instead I will focus on the fact that when I told them my name was Jes so they could write it on my cup, I was later handed a hot chocolate with a Jes with only one s. I gave them no indication of how I spell my name. The Swiss just get me, man.

The rest of the day included a visit to the Landesmuseum, which is the Swiss National Museum, and a bit of a tour of the city from my cousin, the filmmaking monk. At the end of day, he took me to the train station so I could make my way to Ruswil, where I was staying with my aunt and uncle. Armed with mental images of the maps my uncle had sent me, I arrived in Ruswil without much difficulty. With a belly full of raclette, I gratefully fell into bed to catch up on sleep after my night bus adventures.

The next day, I went to Luzern with my aunt and uncle. We wandered around the old city, went to an old church, and had a snack on a cafe/boat called with Wilhelm Tell. We also went to see the Lion of Luzern, which I distinctly remember being very excited to see when I went Switzerland when I was twelve.

As almost anything one reads about the lion will tell you, Mark Twain described my dear lion friend as "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world." Unfortunately, Twain wrote that in A Tramp Abroad and not in Innocents Abroad, which I have to read for one of my classes. This sad fact means I likely can't use the lion to sidetrack us from discussion. Pshaw!

My final day in Switzerland, we went to Bern. I had a visit with some more of my family that spoke English, with the exception of my cousin's ten month old son, who could not speak. I am not usually a fan of the midgets, what with their crying and pooping and generally not being as in control of themselves as cats while still being less cute, but I will concede that my cousin's kid was actually pretty cute. Not like my cat, or anything, but okay.

After a lunch of Alpen Macaroni, which is one of my all time favorites, I went into Bern with my aunt and uncle. We went to the parliament building and then went to hang out with the bears. By which I mean we watched them romp in their hillside enclosure. Stephen Colbert has taught me of the dangers of bears, no matter what my mother thinks about how cute they are.

Saturday morning I flew back to London from Switzerland with probably more chocolate than I should have. Fun fact: the Swiss eat more chocolate per capita than any other peoples. So really, the lumps of chocolate I just consumed while writing this was just me doing my part for the fatherland.

What a Difference a "K" Makes

My brain is currently thinking mostly in nonsense words. Most of the time when I imagine myself speaking in a different language and I run out of words, my mind switches into Spanish and fills out my thoughts that way. But now, on this overnight bus from Bratislava to Zurich, my mind can't even manage that. Perhaps it the overload of hearing Slovak while mentally practicing my Swiss German, but I have begun formulating nonsensical syllables instead of real thoughts.

But yes, that mythical time known spring break has begun. In fact, at this point it's nearly half over. Rather than head to Ibiza or some other popular beach destination where I could flash my tits at foreigners, last Friday at around three in the morning I began my journey to Slovakia. I almost ended up at the wrong airport in London (Stansted instead of Luton) and almost ended up at the wrong town in Slovakia (Stiavnicka instead of Stiavnica) but by some fucked up happenstance, four buses and one plane later I met my friend Andy at the bus stop in Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia.

Now, as I fill myself on food and drink of indeterminable ingredients and awkwardly apologize to the passenger behind me for not being able to speak Slovak as he tries to engage me in conversation, I have found the time to at least begin updating my blog without the aid of internet. I have also found the time to write incredibly long sentences.

Stiavnica is beautiful in an odd sort of way. Perhaps the flatness of London and the overwhelming wash of gray there has colored my perception of other places, but the hillsides and jumbles of pastel houses along with the glorious woods that occasionally lined the roadside seemed incredible. From different places in Stiavnica you can see both New Castle (built in the late Middle Ages to protect the town from Turkish raids) on the hillside and the skewed cement housing build by the Soviets. Rather than attempt a complete account of my adventures there, I've selected a few (hopefully) more interesting moments to capture my time there.

New Castle

Saturday, Andy and I were in a neighboring town at a cafe with Andy's friend Norbert Sr., who has very strong if not altogether clear political beliefs that apparently include high opinions of both Glenn Beck and the United States in the late nineties. Go figure. While sipping away at my green tea, I learned that the day before there had been a rash of political violence in Bratislava. I was suddenly glad that I had at least found the right buses from the airport to the bus station and hadn't ended up near parliament the day before. I continued to drift in and out of focus on the conversation, and I was especially jarred out of it when the strains of “Sexy and I Know It” started washing out of the speakers over the restaurant.

Sunday, Andy gave me a more complete tour of Stiavnica than he had managed to give me Friday night after I arrived. There are a lot of clock towers that look strikingly similar in the center of Stiavnica, but Andy pointed out one in particular.

“It's quarter to three. What's wrong with that clock?” Andy asked as we looked up at it.

“Uh, well the hands are kind of shaped like penises,” I replied, true to form. “But I wouldn't say that's something that's wrong with it necessarily...”

12:27 beneath the cock clock.

Andy smiled and said he'd noticed that first too but led me away to continue our tour. I'd apparently get a better view of the clock once we were by Old Castle.

“Okay, it's ten after three now,” Andy said. “What's wrong with it?”

I couldn't figure it out. The hands were pointing at the Roman numeral three and the Roman numeral two. I shrugged and gave up. The minute hand and the hour hand are apparently switched, with the short arm for minutes and the long hours. The story goes that the master clock maker had been drunk when it was time to assemble the clock, so his slightly less drunk apprentice was put in charge and messed it up.

Monday morning, as Andy had to teach, I was unleashed on the streets alone with only my stupefied smile as a means of communication. After a vaguely awkward encounter with a supermarket clerk when trying to buy a nutella filled croissant, I made my way up to New Castle. After several windy minutes up by the old structure, I headed back down into town and wandered around the campus of the Mining and Forestry Academy, which was the first technical university and is now wonderfully overgrown.

After Andy got out of school, he began cooking a Czech goulash for dinner, and we headed out to a tea house. The tea house has 150 kinds of tea (we counted) and also offers hookah for those who are so inclined. Andy and I each settled for some tea and drank our respective pots of it as some boys at a table nearby struggled with their water pipe. Something may have been wrong with it, but, and I think this is far more likely given their giggly nature, something may have also been wrong with them.

That about brings us up to today, especially given how long this entry has already become in my word document. With this update at least vaguely taken care of, I can turn my attention to trying to practice a bit more Swiss German. Or – and this is more likely – I can doze off while trying to ignore what appears to be a dubbed movie about snakes, warriors, and Angelina Jolie.

Lovespoons!

Yn llawen a wnaf kydymdeithon ohonawch.

I don't remember many Welsh words from the class I took last year. We weren't learning it to speak it, and I have had little occasion to use it. Rarely do I find myself in social situations when it would be appropriate or useful to yell "pack of dogs" or "table" in Middle Welsh. But the above phrase, while it merely looks like a deranged string of typos, essentially means "I make companions of you in gladness." It's not much more useful than the other words I have retained, but does provide for a nicer opening than a random Welsh phrase related to stag hunting or conquest.

In any case, my class went on yet another optional but paid for day trip on Friday, this time to Cardiff, Wales, hence the rather lengthy discussion of Welsh vocabulary that preceded this. When we got off the train, I heard one of my classmates say, "Okay, this definitely isn't English," as she looked around at the signs. Of course, the signs all had English translations on them, so the vaguely harried tone I sensed in her voice was probably an overreaction.

We began our day at Cardiff Castle, which is the product of several different time periods and peoples. To the original Roman fort, the Normans and the Earl of Bute added a keep and a Victorian mansion respectively.

The normal keep part. For any Brice watchers out there, you can just make out my professor climbing the steps.

In World War II, part of the outer wall of the castle was used as a public air raid shelter. It's now eerily dark and filled with cobwebs along with a few reconstructed scenes from life in the tunnel. Apparently posters of carrots were very popular in air raid shelters because there were several posters featuring this lovely fellow, who was desperate to dance and be eaten.

After the castle, we wandered out into Cardiff to markets and stalls near the castle. And I discovered lovespoons.

I love spoons. I have several dear friends that are wooden spoons. Felipe, my first wooden spoon friend, spent many years slung through a loop on the shoulder strap of my backpack helping me collect strange looks. I also love spooning. Hell, I invented a game called the spoon olympics, which is three events of pure spooning fun. How could I not love lovespoons?

Lovespoonery has only been traced back to the seventeenth century, but was believed to begin before that. Men would carve spoons with designs to give to women they sought to woo. The designs the suitor chose to carve were meant to symbolize different things. As one might expect hearts symbolize love. Bells are for marriage. And, perhaps most appropriately, links of a chain are meant to show how many children a couple has together. Womp.

The lovespoons weren't only meant to show love and whatnot through the symbols, but were also a way suitors could show the fathers of eligible young women that he was a skilled craftsman and could provide for a family. Now, I don't need anyone to prove their craftsmenship to me through spoon carving, but I do firmly believe that spoons are the surest way to a woman's heart.

They're also useful for eating soup.