Now it is late at night. Bob Dean took us to Eton and Windsor today. These towns have not changed since we saw them nearly a month ago. We ate at the same nice art gallery/tea room, and shopped at the same train station. But Mom and Bubba are better shoppers than Pop-Pop and I.

After a nice dinner at a steak house in Victoria Station's neighborhood we took the underground to see Picadilly Circus. The moon was bright, over French-style buildings covered with enormous neon signs. Mom was hoping for stores with good window displays, but the area only had theatres, museums, a statue of Eros, many tourists walking around looking at other tourists walking around, street musicians, and stores without good window displays. The underground has some very deep parts; counting the effects of stairs I am not sure we would have had a more difficult walk just walking there, except for minor details like Buckingham Palace being in the way requiring quite a detour from how the crow flies.

Diary--July 20th, 1994

What a full day! It started with a visit to the tower of London, which included a Yoeman leading us around with delightful stories and crowd control, museums of the Crown Jewels and Medieval-to-Tudor weapons and armor, and seeing many of the buildings of the castle itself. Then we walked to the restaurant by our previous hotel where Pop-Pop and I hd eaten nearly a month ago, so Mom could enjoy the plethora of flower boxes. A festival of sorts is going on in the city; the restaurant's square was graced with a saxaphone quartet while we ate. On the way to the Victoria and Albert museum we picked up tickets (with vouchers) for a musical named Five Guys Name Moe, at Picadilly Circus. The V&A was mostly statuework, which was good to see, but a more integrating treat was a display of stained glass windows from various countries; It was good to see up close the trends and comparisons I had formed over my travelling. Also notable was an enormous Spanish altar-background depicting (painted) the life of St. George. In the center he fought Moors and the (his?) dragon, but around these two scenes were many smaller paintings depicting the numerous tortures he was given by a king who captured him; from being nailed and tied to table to being sawed in half, these were awful to see and must have given an unusual mood to the church the altar-screen was used in.

The evening musical was a blast, a plotless collection of jazz, blues, and calypso songs by Louis Jordan which were superbly performed and danced to. Strong audience involvement was used, and the infectious crowd-mood was hampered by being (usually) seated but a level of at least catch tunes was maintained.

Spending time with my mother and grandparents, watching how the people of different ages behaved at the musical, I am relizing with a new perspective that and how I am growing older. Looking back at this past quarter's UCSB with Brian talk about life, my brother is becoming someone I am growing older with.

But not too fast; it was not inappropriate to throw paper airplanes from our theatre balcony during intermission, which I did (and I taught a very young boy how, too.)

Diary--July 21st, 1994

What a day! I've seen everything from Shakespeare's home to Churchill's grave today. Important things happened: Mom saw sheep and thatched roofs, Bob Dean got lost again driving us around, and for dinner we stumbled upon the only reasonably priced inn/restaurant in Europe.

England is having a Most Floral Town contest, so all the populated areas we passed while driving around were colorful and cute. Be warned that thatched roofs are becoming rarer.

Stratford-on-the-Avon has its answer to the fundamental problem clearly inscribed on the clock tower in the center of town:

"Ten thousand honours and
   blessings on the bard
Who has gilded the dull realities
   of life with innocent illusions."
      -Washington Irving
      "Stratford-on-Avon"

Driving home we stopped at Branbury Cross. Would you care for music wherever you go?

At Woodstock the wattle-and-daub cottages and farmhouses switched to stone. Here was a wonderful dinner, even if British eclairs are funny.

Hedgehogs are hip.

Diary--July 23rd, 1994

Today is the last day of my European travelling, and I have many pages to write. Luckily (ha ha) the plane flight is ten hours along. I've read through this diary again and made yet more marginal comments while waiting for the plane to arrive. Now I can write about yesterday.

After a relatively late rising and breakfast we all walked to the Tate Gallery museum. Nothing saw struck me enough to warrant photographs or writing of titles, but I will praise an artist (painter) named Moore who was English but influenced by oriental paintings: he drew gardens or rooms with flowers and vases, and in each painting a woman dressed in many thin layers of clothing whose folds, wrinkles, and shake he made a study of. The Tate Gallery also had a small but nice sculpture exhibit in which I got to see attempts to create the ideam male form where were admirable but nothing near to Michaelangelo's David. At one o'clock was a lecture/slideshow about the museum's feature exhibit, by Kitaj, who drew Jewish post-holocaust paintings with stories.

Then we went to a lunch stop and to Covent Gardens for shopping. The place called Covent Gardens is a double-horseshoe shaped building of shops, one side stalls and booths and the other with a downstairs. The candle shop was a success, as was an Italian Ice Cream vendor.

After dinner at a nice steak place we had found near the hotel, where I had cajun chicken which unsurprisingly was good but not at all true cajun, I wrote my final three postcards (grand total: 63ish), and had no trouble falling asleep after an entire day on my feet.

Well, so much for writing on the plane flight. This time my neighbors were (again) two women my age, but instead of American students/graduates they were from South Wales and worked in a factory there. There were very talkative, and with conversation, a movie, and napping the ten hour flight passed quickly. Except when the Welsh old lady in front of me told neverending stories about her life and family heritage. Cerebus Junior was an impressively soft pillow which we three young'uns shared. Pop-Pop is yet more confused about my napping with strangers. But while in ten hours of acquaintance there many not be time to accumulate much in the was of common experiences or shared stories, it is easy to see when someone has a kind and graceful heart and that is most of what the affections I feel towards friends is about. Rather than growing more fond of nice people as I get to know them I tend to grow more fond of them as a specific nice person.

Pop-Pop likes turning problems into opportunities, and was playing with renaming the fundamental problem the (something) opportunity. But to me there is a desire and a need which makes the "ill-suited" more of a gaes than an opportunity; realizing what quest we are on can help but not free us.

O.K. I realized while folding laundry that I have not written anything about the other people on our tour. We were with friendly people, when I was ill I saw concerned people, but no one (especially among the few people my age) was randomly kind. And no one my age was a generator, someone creating circumstances instead of merely reacting to them. So, while I had conversations, I had no really good talks, and no one seemed worth trying to keep in touch with after the tour's end. Except Pop-Pop, of course. It is not a sad thing; I meet so many people and I learned after graduating from Thacher how few we stay with when correspondence is not convenient. Perhaps having no one my age around me for three weeks whom I felt affection for (exception of Emily's days) is what prompted so many postcards. With my today's airplane neighbors we were constantly sharing: food or conversation or Cerebus. But the tourist mindset is to take in, not to share.