solve the heart and cure the flu

I spent my second day in London at various orientation events for the first part of the day. We had a long seminar planned where we were lectured about safety and things to not do. For example, if you're leaving a nightclub, don't get into an unmarked taxi cab, because chances are you'll get raped. They gave us a stat of like, 1/10 people getting violently raped (women of course!) after getting into a "cab" after a night at the rave.

Besides guido cabs, there isn't much violent crime in London. It's interesting how timid people in America are about hypotheticals. If we allow gays to marry, we'll turn into a cesspool of moral degradation. If we outlaw firearms, we'll all be killed by bandits from the mountains. If we let people get abortions, gamble, and fuck, we'll all rip each other apart like craaaazy people. Well, look at London. It a murder rate almost 3 times less than New York City. I think it's more than 20 times less than DC (they love to kill people there!) They went on to say that most of the crime is petty crime, but frankly I'd rather be alive. And it's clever crime too. Like, they still use the word "thieves" here. When's the last time you heard that word in a serious context? They have "distraction" crimes that are rampant, where some kids make you look at a sign and take your coat. They have big shoplifting problem. In other words, no real problem. Hell, I was watching their version of Montel and the theme was like, the troubled teen boot camp. The worst they could offer was cutting school and drinking. I remember watching kids on Montel who were fucking strangling their parents in their sleep and setting animals on fire. And we're worried about moral degeneration? I'm sick of scare tactics through hypotheticals. End rant.

I applied for this thing called an Oyster pass, which is their version of a monthly metrocard, sort of. It's just this card that you prepay and scan to get onto any travel system in London. I like how things are all incorporated here. It's like Apple products. Well, I handed my form in to the legendary Jennie Davies (read the previous entry) and asked if it was okay. And then she broke my heart. She said it was "brill" (which, if you've noticed, I've formally adopted). Short for brilliant. And that was the first time I wrote something in a notebook with the heading "Start saying this!"

Afterwards we went on a cruise down the Thames. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is the London Eye.

The whole crew went back for "High tea", but I spotted an exhibit on robots at some museum on the other side of the Thames. And you know how much I love robots. So I called Scott (a friend from back in New Jersey) and I said, "Hey, why don't you take the tube down here and we'll chill man. And he was like, "Okay." So then we met. We talked about doing it and then we did it. That's commitment.

Museum was closed, which is a shame because it was also a Dali museum and I like pictures of things melting. Well, no, I'm a fan of Dali. I've actually been to another museum that contained just his works. I believe it was in Prague or somewhere in Germany. Speaking of Prague, I was thinking today how someone should start a prog rock band called Prague Rok. Well, consider it.

Here's Scott next to his new favorite restaurant

Everything else I'll just summarize quickly. We went to the Natural History Museum the next day, which was just a bunch of replicas that didn't really appeal to me. Like a motorized T-Rex (good luck trying to recreate the badassness of a real T-Rex). The next day I left for homestay in Southport, but that's for another time.

Cheers,
Chris