Cool People - #1: Douglas Adams

HAPPY TOWEL DAY ALL YOU HOOPY FROODS!!!

     Every year, on May 25th, sci-fi geeks the world over don their towels in honor of the late, great Douglas Adams and the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom that he so generously gave to us, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Why towels you ask? The guide has this to say on the subject of towels:
     "A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santranginus V, inhaling the beady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the Ravenouse Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you--daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough." I myself have found my towel to make a lovely little scarf against the wind today!
    
     I've had this post started for absolutely ages but what better day than today to kick it out into the cold void of space... I mean the internet? Appropriate too, as Adams himself seemed to have trouble getting anything written in a timely fashion famously saying, "I love deadlines. I like the wooshing noise they make as they go by."
    
     Thus, I give unto you, in celebration of this most festive of days, the first installment of a series of people who I find extremely brilliant, talented, and straight up cool.

#1 Douglas Adams
     I have a large leather bound book with gold edged pages and a ribbon page marker. It is well worn and always lives where ever I am living. I have read it many times, some parts of it more than others. Guess what book it is? Did you guess the Bible? Well you'd be wrong. Mostly. It's kind of my own personal bible. Not in a blaspheming way, just in that I think it provides important insights and valuable lessons, though, at times, they are hard to discern. Sounds bibley right? You can turn to the bible and ask the meaning of life, the universe, and everything and find that, "The meaning of the Christian life is in the living of it" (Bible and Ethics in the Christian Life, by Bruce C. Birch, Larry L. Rasmussen). Interesting... if a bit ambiguous, certainly valid in many ways. However, there are times when I prefer my own book's answer to the ultimate question simply for its clarity and brevity. The answer is 42. Apparently it is the question that needs sorting. This deep and enigmatic book that I turn to for guidance in life (really, I do, please don't judge me) is none other than The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams which contains within it all five books of the series (and a bonus short story, oh yeah!).

     Adams is as close to a genius as I care to imagine at present. He was not just a master of his genre; he created a whole new genre! Comedic science fiction, who does that?! Douglas Adams did it... expertly.

Also, uh, hello... Martin Freeman and Mos Def!

     The idea for the guide came to him while he was lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck looking up at the stars thinking how helpful it would be to have a general sort of guide to all of it. From that point on it has seen countless incarnations in radio, television, film, video games, theater, and books. My first experience with the Guide was in the form of the 2005 movie remake which I immediately loved. This set me off in search of the books which are undoubtedly the cause of my subsequent sci-fi habit. There are so many things that I love about his books but the best thing has to be the story itself, well stories. They're fun, they're unprecedented, they're exciting, suspenseful, dramatic, sci-fi, romance, off the wall, out of the box, all around weirdness. Sure there are about 50 bazillion subplots, none of which with any semblance of an actual ending, and probably a third of the actual content of the books have nothing to do with any of the stories' plots. Still they're all little golden nuggets of imagery and detail of the wonderfully weird universe only he could imagine.
    
     I'm not going to tell you about the stories for two reasons: 1) I wouldn't want to ruin it should you take this post to heart and go read them for yourself, and 2) they are basically impossible to sum up, as it were, "due to the fundamental interconnectedness of all things" (bonus points to you if you recognize that quote). Instead I am going to tell you about a few of the other things that make these books so dear to me.

1) The clever writing      Adams is as descriptive as he is funny. Take this line from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where he describes enormous alien spaceships, "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't". I mean come on, how great is that? You can totally picture it! Plus, I love the way his imagery will have you following along, thinking you know where it's going up until the last minute when he finally draws the comparison to something completely out of context. It's exactly that sudden shift into lunacy that keeps me chuckling through the series every time I read it. Here’s one more little witty gem of imagery from Life, the Universe and Everything for the road, "Stones, then rocks, then boulders pranced past him like clumsy puppies." 

2) The hidden philosophy lessons     In my first year of college I took a foundations of philosophy class that I absolutely loved. Over the quarter we went through some of the questions that have been making Homo Sapien scratch his big ol' brain cavity ever since he realized that sticks make for good scratching devices. Well... maybe not that long ago but certainly for many centuries. With each new question we addressed I couldn't help but be struck by how some part of the Guide resembled it, only, of course, with more comedic aliens. Adams had some really fascinating takes on many of the fundamental principles of philosophy though they are often hidden in dizzying story lines and rapid fire wit. My favorite example has to do with a philosophical principle commonly associated with Locke which, essentially, deals with reality as being dependent on the perception of the individual (History of Philosophy by Alfred Weber). It is this question that stoned teenagers broach when they ponder whether the blue that they see is really the red that their friends see. Adams tackles the question in his usual manner of comedy so aloof you may not even catch it in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe when a crazy man who lives in a hut on the beach with a cat nonchalantly asks a man who has been questioning him, "How can you tell there's anything out there? The door's closed." The old man seems like just a crazy old recluse but he is constantly making poignant observations. Much like in the real world, you can't always tell if someone's theories are just far out conjecture or verging on some fundamental untold truth. Hell, people thought Galileo was insane to have said that the Earth revolves around the sun and look how that theory turned out. Galileo, old man in a shack on the beach with a cat, who's keeping track? Brilliant. I must share one other little tidbit of philosophical humor found in Life, the Universe, and Everything, "He hoped and he prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife." A passing comment in an action scene as our main character tumbles toward what he is sure will be his demise, I just love its overly casual approach to and subsequent dismissal of the enormous question of religion's role in the eternal existence of the soul (if there even is one). Again I say, brilliant. 

3) Pure creative genius     In 815 pages Adams introduces us to more alien races, distant planets, and fictional technologies than I ever want to attempt to tally. Over the five books there are four important main characters who are all so well developed you feel like they are old friends of yours and a slew of supporting characters who all have distinct personalities of their own. More than that, there are characters who appear only once, and briefly even then, whose stories are so detailed you have the feeling of being some sort of all knowing outside observer. Which, I guess, you are in the context of most reading experiences. For example there is a character in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy called Mr. Prosser who is only around to demolish Arthur’s house in a silly allusion to foreshadowing who we know is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan with a penchant for fuzzy hats. Did we need to know this for the purposes of the plot? No. Does it make even the most inconsequential of characters more interesting? Yes!
     Beyond his imaginative characters are the wonderful people they meet and places and situations they find themselves in. A restaurant that the end of the universe where there are cow like animals that have been bred to want to be eaten. A rock star who is spending a year dead for tax reasons. And, of course, a queer fellow called Slartibartfast who travels the universe in an Italian restaurant that is actually a cutting edge, five-dimensional ship powered by the bistromathic drive. Not only does Slartibartfast build custom ordered, designer planets (he won an award for Norway) and lead the campaign for real-time in an effort to sort out the convulsions of space-time, he also helps our gang of main characters save the universe from the evil ways of the Krikkit army who sought to destroy the stars. What I’ve described here is literally a fraction of the books and I could never in my wildest dreams come up with such interesting, new, and inventive ways to look at the universe!

Three bonus cool points for Adams:
1) He was clearly a Beatles fan, trust me, I can tell.
2) He worked on Doctor Who in its early days!
3) He was often touted as an honorary scientist even by the famed biologist Richard Dawkins, who spoke very kindly of him and his humble yet deeply rooted love for science that seem to exude from his work in this lovely eulogy.

     We humans know so very little in the grand scheme of things (a point the Guide makes several times) and I love how Adams is not afraid to go barreling into our great unknowns full steam ahead.
     He said it best himself in a speech at Cambridge when he said,
     “There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions.”      In his customary style it is an eloquent and clever take on human perspective, the scientific pursuit of truth, and the ever unanswered questions of life, the universe, and everything. If you know me at all, you will see in this alone why I admire Adams and his work so much. In closing I would like simply to say Thank You to Mr. Adams; you, your wit, and your talent will never be forgotten here on Earth! Here’s to the hoopiest frood of them all!

   

*** Since having drafted this entry I have had the enormous pleasure of living for several months in Islington, London. If youknow your stuff you will recall that Islington is where Arthur once attended a fancy dress party and met some very important characters. I'm not going to lie and tell you that this did not occur to me while I was choosing my study abroad program or that it was not the first thing I told my fellow fans about. While I was there I came to learn that Adams actually lived in Islington! It made perfect sense reading back through the Guide and some of his other books to find them riddled with references to places that I had come to know well! So, in closing (for real this time), I will leave you with this little nugget of Hitchhiker's joy which struck me my very first weekend in London. I know that my fellow fans will recognize it straight away and for those of you who don't get the reference, aren't you just dying to know? I guess you'll have to start reading! Enjoy!

19 Awesome Things To Do on a Snow Day

Today's post was going to be about working really hard for midterms. But it's a snow day! And as we all know, it is against the law to be productive on snow days. This includes writing a proper blog post. Thus I present to you...

19 Awesome Things To Do on a Snow Day

a photo editorial by Cailey, Emily, and Jen



1) Sleep in (duh.)

2) Enjoy Breakfast.

3) Sleep on every surface in the apartment.

4) Stare at Steve the Volcano. When Steve stops working, stare at the wall.

5) Laugh at tour group.

I am positive that none of these people will apply to DU.

6) Attempt to play board games. Forget the rules. Turn to Google.

7) Become professional play-doh sculptors.


"Flower" by Jen. "Alien Fish" by Cailey. "Snowman" and "Tucker" by Emily.



8) Eat lunch.

9) Wear scarves.

10) Play in the snow.

11) Tea Who.

"Tea Who" is a tradition Gill and I made up in London.
As the name suggests, it involves Doctor Who and
 a lot of tea and biscuits.

12) Stare at snow through window for extended periods.

13) Watch Disney movies.

14) Chat over tea/hot chocolate.

15) Bake cookies.

16) Eat Dinner.

17) Read for pleasure.

18) Enjoy sports and cider (if you're over 21).

Fun despite a pathetic game.

19) Don't get dressed all day.

New Plan!

Is it just me or does it seem like I change the purpose, format, content, and style of this blog every other week? Right, maybe that's an exaggeration. But it has changed tons of times before. Well, several. Well, a few. Well... once. But it was a big once, it allowed for study abroad adventures. Can you blame me? Besides, you know you liked it *wink wink, nudge nudge*

Anyhow. Moving right along. Yes! I am back now so that means I don't have a travel theme to keep to anymore (though there are still a few stories I might tell, they're on reserve). Oh the possibilities! The freedom! I can write about anything! Oh god... what do I write about?!

New plan! Fridays. I think a lot of things during the typical week and often (well, occasionally), just one or two of these thoughts seem to be worthy of sharing with the world. So, starting this Friday, my new goal is to blog about one or another of these things at the end of the week. That would be Friday... depending on who you ask.

As per usual, there will be no rhyme nor reason to the following lunacy. Just thoughts that I hope will be interesting, or at least amusing, or maybe just dumb enough for you to laugh at. Yep, any of those will work.

Coming?

Cheers, London!

Gill and I at our last pub

     I left London on December 18th, a Sunday. The last weekend I was there was full of nostalgia, friends, and lots of good food and drink (savoring all the things we don't have in America)! The day before that final weekend, the real and true end of the trip, Gill, her friend Andrea, and I went to a cool little piercing shop conveniently located right down the street from our school.We each got piercings, a little something that will always remind us of our adventure in London. I won't tell you about how big of a baby I was in that basement, it'll detract from the nostalgic nature of this story to have you all laughing at my completely unjustified terror.



    



The aforementioned super cool piercing shop

     Yesterday was the 6 week mark of that piercing, the day you are officially allowed to change the earring without the threat of your ear falling off or something equally terrible. I can hardly believe that I've been home for six weeks already. At the same, time it does feel like ages ago that I wandered the streets of Islington. I have been thinking a lot during this time about what I would say in this post, my final study abroad post. Truth is I still don't really know what to say but it's now or never.





The tube! Ok, it's still sort of exciting.



     I can't even begin to recount all of the wonderful experiences I had in the UK. I lived in my favorite author's neighborhood, I walked in the footsteps of my favorite band, and I studied amongst years and years of history. I made new friends, saw new places, an tried new things. Yet, in the midst of all the new, there was time enough to get comfortable. Even though new experiences big and small seem to come every day when you're abroad, three months is enough time to settle in and shed that initial feeling of being the outsider. I'll never forget the first time that a tourist asked me for directions.Apparently I looked the part of a local (though I surely never sounded the part)! What made the moment so memorable though, was the fact that I, normally quite directionally challenged, knew the area well enough to actually give the man directions! It is exciting whn riding the Tube stops being exciting and you start to know all the bus routes and stops by name and number. When you know the good, the bad, and the hilarious places to eat as well as all the pubs in your neighborhood (and when they are open). When there is practically a worn down track through the local Sainsbury's because you have your usual shopping list (and your friend's) down pat. When you consult the list of top attractions in the travel book and realize you've seen them all but your list of places to go and things to do still stretches on. When you watch an episode of Doctor Who ("Aliens in London" to be precise) and you have been to every location. When you ride Piccadilly line all the way out to Heathrow and you know what's above every station you stop at in central London. It is so thrilling to know a city as amazing as London on that level! 

     My flight back home was uneventful, a welcome relief after the horror show that was my flight out, but long. So LONG. A ten hour direct flight to San Fransisco and then 2 more hours home. Between airport time, time zones, and layovers I was up for a solid 24 hours with 12 of them actually in flight. I had no idea what day it was when I finally got to DIA! I must say, I think this trip has cured me of my air travel anxiety (mostly). I feel like there is nothing left that an airline can throw at me that I haven't seen before. Bring it on air travel!... *Except not really, I would like to keep the travel Gods on my side for any future travels. I didn't mean what I said just then. Please, bring it off!* 

     Coming home to my parents and my puppies was so great. It was like I had never left even though things had changed. How good it is to return to your home! There are so many things that I missed while I was away and I feel extra lucky to have around again! Lots and lots of things I miss now too. I never, never ever thought that I would love any place as much as I love Denver. I guess that's why I was taken so off guard when I began to feel more and more at home in Islington. Three months is the perfect amount of time to get to know a place and the perfect amount of time to be away on your own for the first time. Honestly though, it's barely enough to scratch the surface of all that London has to offer!

     There is so much more I could say about those amazing three months but I don't want to ramble any more than I already have. It was a time of many firsts for me; first solo plane ride, first time out of the America, first time living on my own. I honestly had no idea what to expect. Yet, somehow, it exceeded every expectation that I didn't seem to have. 

Damn, this one isn't the
TARDIS either!

     As Gill and I cleaned out our flats at Liberty Hall into the early hours of December 18th "Hello, Goodbye" by my dear Beatles came on. How perfect! I don't know why I had to say goodbye to London when I could be saying hello to all of the wonderful times it showed me, the memories created there, and hopefully a return trip. After searching all this time for the right words I guess I only needed one. This one: fantastic! Every last bit of it was just fantastic and I cannot believe how lucky I am to have had this experience.

    
    As for that earring, I didn't change it. Not just yet. For now I like knowing that I have a tiny bit of London on me at all times. Even if it is just a little post.

*One last fantastic thing: this is Gill's final study abroad post which is far better executed than mine and makes me cry every time I read it. I highly recommend it. Also, note her expert use of British spelling.... britalyzations? And this is a wee little bit from Emily's post of the same nature that uses her English major ways to make a point that I can't seem to. "It’s always strange to have an adventure come to an end . . . it really is like the end of a chapter   in a book. Even a section in a book (i.e. Part 1, Part 2 . . .), if it’s epic enough. It feels like there should be some kind of cliffhanger ending, some realization, some type of epic closure. But there rarely is. Things just careen right along without seeming to care that you want to pause for a minute and mull over the chapter before continuing on."



A fantastic impromptu photo of a

construction crew outside City U!

  

  



How to Succeed in The British Education System Without Really Trying

What a terrible blogger I am. It is certainly not for lack of wondrous amazing experiences and adventures and funny British-isms that I haven't posted lately. It is for lack of time! I am writing this to you from the library at City University on what is quite likely the last day I will ever spend on this campus. I just finished with my psychology exam which was unfortunately difficult and has left me with what may be a permanent claw in the place of my hand. It's a testament to my commitment to you, my loyal readers, that I am typing this at all.

No. That's not true. I'm really just killing time before meeting up with a friend to go to a pub. But the bit about the really hard psych test was true... and my hand does still hurt. Here's the thing about this test. As an international student who is leaving in just a few days (yikes!) I got the pleasure of sitting said exam today, 3 days after the final class where as my peers won't be taking theirs until January 12th. So I got significantly less time to study which is not comforting when you are faced with some pretty tricky essay prompts. On top of that though, is the fact that British people, or at least those at City University, are total nutters about staging exams!

*Note: this is all 3 days old, I write it then forgot to post it but I feel that if I were to change the afore mentioned times now the post would lose some of its impact... also, I don't wanna change it all.*

You know you are in for a long two hours when you can't even figure out how to fill out the front of the exam booklet! Should you ever find yourself sitting a British exam here as some tips; ten minutes of reading time before the test begins does not mean you can review your notes, in that reading time all you are allowed to do is read the questions... for ten minutes. Also, during these ten minutes you are not allowed to make notes on the prompt, just stare at it. This was my first and only formal exam (thankfully) so these ten minutes were really baffling to me. After that initial confusion I set off on a whirlwind essay writing spree on a subject that, aside from the past 9 lectures, I have absolutely no background information on. It was exciting! The rest of those two hours is a blur of hand cramps and really wishing I had used the loo before the exam after all that tea. I literally wrote scrawled my last words the moment the administers called time. Whew! Glad that is done with! 

Here's the thing about the British education system, it's very different from America's system. I am not saying that either one is better or worse than the other. They are just different. I personally have been using the American system for the past 14 years so, naturally, attempting to operate in the British system straight away for just one term is a bit of a shock. I am used to going to any given class between 2 and 4 times a week and doing a bit of homework or a small assignment after each one. Here there is one class a week (usually for a grueling 3 hour lecture), one piece of course work (usually a short essay or presentation), and a final project (a longer essay or an exam). That's it, that's all your grade is based on. So yeah, there is a lot of pressure on those few assignments, not something I particularly enjoy.

So my friends, here is the answer to succeeding in the British education system without really trying; you don't. If you don't put in the effort you are going to crash and burn. But on the plus side, when you see a 70 mark on your paper, do not fret that you have barely even pulled a C. 70 is equivalent to an A here, it's a first level grade. The system does go all the way to 100 but some how marks higher than 70 are reserved for publish worthy, gilded, or magical documents. At least that's how I understand the system to work.

London's Position in the Spacetime Continuum

I am writing here to announce to the world some shocking scientific news. There is a very powerful space-time anomaly which is effecting the entire city of London.

Frankly, I am shocked that physicists haven't evacuated the whole city to conduct further testing. I don't know how long this has been going on but I can only surmise that it has been quite some time based upon the reactions, or lack thereof, from the native Londoners.

As evidentiary support for this claim, which, I realize, must seem fantastic, I lay out for you these three events which I have experienced first hand and whose validity I fully attest to.

Exhibit A: Waterloo Train Station

     A few weeks back Sarah and I went to a wine and cheese festival in Southbank (think London Eye and Across the river from parliament). After feasting on cheese and, well, not wine, I decided to take a bus rather than the Tube back to my place because it's cheaper and more scenic if not faster. Waterloo is a big station and is serviced by several bus stops. After a quick consultation with the map I found a bus going to Islington Angel which stopped at Waterloo Road which appeared to be just around the corner from where I was standing. So I set off and 10 minutes later found myself wrapping back around the enormous train station with Waterloo road no where to be found. So I turned around to look once more at the map.
On my way back around the station I start to notice signs saying things like "lift to Waterloo road" and pointing back into the station. So I went into the train station from the outside world at ground level, turned immediately right 180 degrees and went down an escalator. At the foot of the escalator I found my bus stop right outside. Now if you were following along, you, like me, would have been confused as to how I could have gone down from the ground floor and not actually gone underground. By all reason it seems that the street I had previously walked on in search of Waterloo Road should have been right above me but, alas, blur sky. Clearly the laws of space do not apply here.

Exhibit B: The Infinite Church Bells

     Obviously, London is a very old city. There seems to be a historic church on every corner. Many of these churches were built in a time before clock towers and certainly before watches and came equipped with a full set of bells which would ring to mark every quarter hour. Though some of these bells have been removed or no longer ring for any number of other reasons the sound of tolling bells is still very much common place   throughout London.
     As the intelligent readers that you are I am sure you are familiar with how church bells work. Every 15 minutes they toll out a short melody comprised mainly of perfect fifths and every hour on the hour one of the larger bells is stuck repeatedly to mark the hour of the day. Thus, the most strokes of a large bell you should ever expect to hear at once is 12, at noon and midnight. How then am I to explain the day Emily and I passed a church in Chelsea and heard its large bell struck at regular intervals for at least 2 full minutes? The only reason for a the bells to chime for that long is that they were marking a million o'clock, time works differently here.

Exhibit C: December You Say?

     My stay here in London is allotted to last for 3 months, from September 19th to December 18th. By my recollection I arrived here last week and have just begun to settle into my new home. But then, this very morning, I have a look at the calender (who am I kidding, no one has calenders anymore, it was my phone) and what do I see glaring back at me other than the date "Thursday, December 1". Ha! Another of London's impossible time tricks I say! Surely two and a half months have not gone by already. I will be the first to admit that time does, in fact, fly when you're having fun and I have been seeing and doing some pretty incredible things since I've been here to be sure. But, by all logic, it surely cannot be December first if time has been moving in the way that I am accustomed to, that is to say 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours to a day, and so on. Indeed, were time functioning in this way I would still have plenty of time left before I return to the U.S. to explore this fascinating city and the rest of the UK, but with less than three weeks left this is simply not the case.

With this evidence taken well to heart I am completely confident in my conclusion that some thing is deeply amiss within the very fabric of spacetime here in London, England. There is obviously nothing that I, nor anyone else, can do about this strange phenomenon so my only logical option is to go along for the ride. That's why, from this moment on, all I can do is enjoy to the fullest every last minute, however long that is, that I have in this wonderful place, where ever this is. 

What the UK Thinks of Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving my friends!!!

It is strange indeed to be away from my family and friends this year but, surprisingly, I'm not actually a complete sniveling wreck like I had expected to be! Why? Three reasons:

1) I am too busy with school work and having awesome UK adventures to get too hung up on being away from home. I have class, a meeting, a voice lesson, and a choir rehearsal on the day that pretty much everyone in America has off. If I were just sitting around my room bored I'm sure this would be a completely different story. Already this morning I have attended a special lecture with a middle eastern musician who taught us all to improvise in modal music, it was actually really fascinating, and now I'm off to a voice lesson and choir rehearsal. What's that saying about busy hands being happy hands?
2) I have alternative plans with my fellow American-in-London, Sarah. Come Saturday we are going to take her kitchen by storm and hobble together a makeshift feast like every other American study abroad student in the world! We could go to one on London's fancier restaurants and spend £50 each on a glamorous, gourmet version of the traditional spread but I like our way much better! I'm calling it Two-Day-Late-British-Thanksgiving... Sarah doesn't know that yet. I have complete faith in our combined abilities to cook a meal (well, I have realistic confidence...) and I'm just hoping that somewhere, in the vastness of the interwebs, I can find streaming video of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. I have, however, decided to hold off on watching Elf until I can quote the whole thing with my mom. I seriously can't wait!
3) Thanksgiving simply does not exist here in the UK. And why would it? Heck, a pretty big part of what those early pilgrims were thankful for was not being in England, right? Nope, here in London, as well as all of the other cities I've seen in the past few weeks, it is well into the Christmas season. The lights on Oxford street were on the day after Halloween. Without Thanksgiving there to act as a speed bump, the "holiday season" is just a big, scary snowball hurtling down a steep hill from Halloween to Christmas. In a weird way, the fact that Thanksgiving just isn't an issue here is really helpful, it would be pretty terrible to see all of the locals gearing up for feasts with their families and have to eat deli meat in your dorm.

Now, as I said, Thanksgiving is a very American thing. We Americans take the holiday for granted, we've been making hand turkeys and construction paper pilgrim hats since we were old enough to use scissors. As such we are fooled into thinking that Thanksgiving is common knowledge. Well guess what, to the rest of the world, especially the UK and Europe, Thanksgiving is a pretty baffling concept, the Brits don't even know how to wish someone a happy holiday. "Merry Thanksgiving!...?" Here are just a few of the hilarious Turkey Day misconceptions I've heard in the past few weeks:

-Thanksgiving is the ultimate American holiday and is more popular than Christmas
     A few weeks ago I was in Ireland (that post is still in the works, sorry) and my friends and I went out to a bar to see some Irish music. It was crowded and the only places there were to sit were at the bar itself. Long story short, we all ended up getting chatted up by Irishmen (don't worry, Mike). The guy I was talking with was a nice guy who was clearly just trying to make small talk and at some point our conversation turned to holidays. He pointed out that Americans are known to celebrate even the most minor holidays (which, sadly, includes Halloween in their book) whereas, in these parts, Christmas is really the only major holiday. It took me a bit by surprise when he asked whether Christmas or Thanksgiving was a bigger deal in the states. I explained that Christmas is still basically the biggest, most commercial holiday but that Thanksgiving is a close second and that in some families it may be considered a bigger deal. He looked doubtful. That's when I realized that to Europeans and basically any non-Americans, Thanksgiving is a mysterious and glamorous, all out American extravaganza. Who knew?

-And the pilgrims were...?
     This morning I was asking the people at the front desk of my residence hall a few questions with Gill, another student from DU, and in between some how being signed up to organize some sort of holiday music extravaganza in the lobby, the subject of Thanksgiving came up once again. Gill and I decided to share some of the lovely holiday stickers that my mom sent me to give the front desk (and its staff) a touch of festivity. They played along, probably because they felt bad for us, but it was amusing to see two grown adults wearing Snoopy stickers on their shirts. The guy (whose name I have never known) went for the sticker that shows Snoopy and Woodstock sitting together wearing, what he called, "funny 17th century outfits." I pointed out that they were pilgrim hats. Blank stares, no response to this at all. It is becoming clear to me that most people outside of America, if they even realize Thanksgiving exists, have basically no idea what it's all about. I am beginning to find all this mystery a bit hilarious.

-So by celebrate you mean drink right?
     This one is probably my favorite. Yesterday, Gill and I came back from class and stopped at the desk for some reason or another. The lady working asked if we were going out later that night, implying going out to party. We were both a bit confused for a second until she then pointed out that it was the night before Thanksgiving. Then we were really confused. Apparently when the rest of the world hears that it's a big celebration they assume it's the kind of celebration that involves loud music and copious amounts of booze. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a good bit of wine and such passed around at Thanksgiving and certainly there are relatives all over the country who end their meal (maybe even begin it) in a less than sober state. But when she asked if we were hitting the bars in honor of Thanksgiving I just couldn't help but giggle. She was so earnest about it and all I could think of was her imagining our whole country going out to bars for ridiculous themed holiday drinks and some weird appropriation of turkey.

I guess the reason I find all of this so funny is because we take it all so much for granted that it is just amusing to take a step back from all of the givens and see what it must look like from the outside. At the same time though, it is really great to know that Thanksgiving is way better than the rest of the world apparently thinks it is. Sure, if any media does make it over here regarding the holiday, it's probably about the guy who set his house on fire deep frying his frozen turkey or the lady who ran down an elderly person with a shopping cart at 3:00 in the morning in the toaster aisle at Walmart, we aren't exactly giving them the best image of the holiday. But what we know, that they don't get to see, is that it really is the storybook holiday that it sounds like. People really do think about what they're thankful for and spend the day with their families making wonderful feasts. It truly is an awesome holiday! The rest of the world doesn't know what they're missing out on!

In keeping with the spirit of Thanksgiving, here are just a few of the things that I am thankful for today:
-The past 2 months and the next few weeks. My time in London thus far has been an amazing experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a whole truck load of cranberry sauce
-My super awesome parents who let me go on this trip and put up with my incessant messages when I'm in random crisis mode. They even pretend to miss me!     
-My fellow Americans in London for keeping me sane
-All of my wonderful friends at home who send me lovely messages and make me feel loved

Now go forth, my fellow Americans, and eat your turkies, watch your football, and fall asleep on your relatives' couches! And do it proudly! Because you are all part of the cool club who celebrates Thanksgiving!

Very Much Love To You All!!!

P.S. If you're going out for a wild Black Friday shopping spree, for God's sake, don't trample anyone or get trampled!