We'll start this thing with London.
Actually we'll start by saying I can't type. But this has already been established.
Maria and I flew from Chicago on Tuesday and arrived in Great Britain the day after, where we met with Mom, Daddy, and Ioan. We took the metro and eventually reached our hostel, which was recognizable thanks to the construction stuff around the entrance-y bit. We slept on the top floor, which happened to be the fifth. Thanks to the teeny-tiny elevator and the long wait required for it, we preferred the stairs. The internet was only available on the ground floor, so the stairs were used quite a bit.
We met up with our grandparents and sightsaw a bit, going to the Tower of London and seeing the Crown Jewels, Buckingham Palace (sans parents), saw the changing of the guard (yawn. Yawn yawn yawn yawn yawn. Yaaaaawn.), was rushed around the Queen's Gallery which happened to be showing a very interesting exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci (the rush was to see the yawn changing of the guard), saw Westminster Abbey which is less church and more graveyard.
No seriously. What kind of psychotic freak puts bodies in the floor? Where people step and walk? I'm serious. Bodies belong outside. The floor is not to hide bones. It is for the living, not the living dead, not the dead-dead, to utilize for their own live purposes. So long as their live purposes do not involve cadavers. Because that is sick and wrong. Do you know how hard it is not to step on graves when they're everywhere?!! In all that cemetery, I only saw one other person (an American, for those of you wondering) avoiding the graves. He nearly stepped on one and then he jumped back just in time.
"Dude, chill out," said his traveling companion (also a dude).
"It just feels weird." The first guy explained. And I nearly hugged him. But then I would've had to step on a grave. And that would have been ghastly.
I don't know why I don't step on graves. I'm blaming my mother on this, personally. I remember once I went to a graveyard when I was younger, and I was playing around and Mom said not to step on the graves. I can't remember the reason (maybe something about how it's disrespectful), or how young I was, or where I was, or really anything to support this theory as to how my little superstition came to be. But I digress.
We also went to St Paul's Cathedral, which in the catacombs also had some (but much less graves) in the floor, but that makes sense as it's the catacombs, where dead people are buried. So it's acceptable. Also there was much more space to circumnavigate said dead people. Plus most of them were buried in big raised thingies that would be pretty hard to step on accidentally, as you would need wicked long legs to get even half-way over them.
Then after London we went to Vienna where I met my second cousin Victor for the first time. He's about nine years old. We stayed in his mom Alina's apartment for the duration of our visit. We didn't get to see his dad Septimiu, but I think we will in Romania. Maybe.
On the first day we had some ice cream (yum) and walked around (uhhh) and saw some churches with Alina while Maria, Ioan, and Victor stayed back at the apartment. We also went into a few coffee shops and purchased nothing (because this is possible). Then Alina went back home and Mom, Daddy, and I went to Haus der Musik which was really interesting. It's an interactive museum about music. Pretty cool, amirite?*
*Amirite: pronounced "am I right". Means "am I right". It has been introduced to the English language by both those unable to spell or press the space bar and those who want to confuse you into saying "ah-me-ree-teh", convincing you that this is some sort of cool Spanish slang.
And basically in Vienna we mostly just stuck to churches. And a museum about Sisi and silverware and things like that. And then on the last night we went to the opera to see L'elisir d'amore, which was very nice and had sparked up an argument between us five as to whether or not we'd seen it before on DVD. Maria and I said yes and the parents said no. Ioan had no idea what we were talking about. Finally we managed to convince the adults that we'd started but never finished it. It took some talking and reminding, but we convinced them. I think.*
*My parents had a phase in which every Wednesday night we watched an act from an opera. In this manner we watched Figaro, Figaro's Wedding, Notre Dame du Paris, and half of L'elisir d'amore.
Also at one point we went to a restaurant, all seven of us, and we ate schnitzel. Lots of schnitzel.
After Vienna we went to Prague, which I had heard was really beautiful, but was actually really dirty. I mean, like, Beijing and New Delhi dirty. Which is really really dirty. And normally I like graffiti, which I can't spell without autocorrect, just not everywhere. And it was everywhere.
Anyway, yeah, you get the gist of it by now—churches. We saw churches. And an exposition-thing on Mucha, which was fantastically awesome, and I really liked. Then yesterday Daddy and I took a day trip to Kutná Hora where we saw the Sedlec Ossuary, which is a church decorated in bones (see, I don't have an issue with bones or dead bodies or things like that. Just graves. I mean, those are seriously messed up. Why do you bury them? That is insane. They just stay there. And then, what happens to the coffin? Does it decompose or does that just stay there too? Seriously. Imagine future archeologists finding a skeleton in scraps of rotten clothing in a perfectly preserved box. That's not gonna be pretty.), and there was this skull on display which had a hole in it, which reminded me of the Tartars from The Golden Compass/Northern Lights who cut holes in their heads to put a coin in, and so I looked it up when I got home and found out it's called trepanning. See? You learn something new every day. Or lots of somethings. Today I learned that if I don't write a blogpost for a while, I forget my self-imposed rule of "no exclamation marks ever!" [thank censorship I have erased them] and "do not OD on italics. Nobody cares". I blame the opera titles and the graves.
And now I realize that my parents will use this excuse to get me to write more blogposts. I think I should correct myself to say if I don't write at all. So I should write more. And improve my typing. And spelling. Because my lack of skills in both is really quite frightening and don't get me started on the deterioration of my grammar. So really, if they'd just give me the computer more often, I'd be able to further deteriorate my grammar by writing in English. On the upside, typing would improve, though spelling probably wouldn't. I have Spell Check turned off so I can pretend I know English.
Anyway, we were on skulls. There were a lot (and I mean a lot [see what I was saying on italics?]) of them, and most of them had their jaws disconnected. But we did see jawbones arranged as flowers and also holding up that phantasmagorical chandelier with at least one of each bone in the body. That was pretty awesome. It's gonna be really awkward at Armageddon though, you know, the bit where the dead rise from the graves and come back to life? Yeah, I can see it now. "Hey! Who's got my tibia?" "Sorry, Joe, I can't find mine!" "Well gimme mine back!"
Bad jokes are bad.
I'm tired.
Anyway, nothing else is really worth saying except that I do not like orange-flavored ice cream as much as strawberry. And waffle cones are delicious.
Actually we'll start by saying I can't type. But this has already been established.
Maria and I flew from Chicago on Tuesday and arrived in Great Britain the day after, where we met with Mom, Daddy, and Ioan. We took the metro and eventually reached our hostel, which was recognizable thanks to the construction stuff around the entrance-y bit. We slept on the top floor, which happened to be the fifth. Thanks to the teeny-tiny elevator and the long wait required for it, we preferred the stairs. The internet was only available on the ground floor, so the stairs were used quite a bit.
We met up with our grandparents and sightsaw a bit, going to the Tower of London and seeing the Crown Jewels, Buckingham Palace (sans parents), saw the changing of the guard (yawn. Yawn yawn yawn yawn yawn. Yaaaaawn.), was rushed around the Queen's Gallery which happened to be showing a very interesting exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci (the rush was to see the yawn changing of the guard), saw Westminster Abbey which is less church and more graveyard.
No seriously. What kind of psychotic freak puts bodies in the floor? Where people step and walk? I'm serious. Bodies belong outside. The floor is not to hide bones. It is for the living, not the living dead, not the dead-dead, to utilize for their own live purposes. So long as their live purposes do not involve cadavers. Because that is sick and wrong. Do you know how hard it is not to step on graves when they're everywhere?!! In all that cemetery, I only saw one other person (an American, for those of you wondering) avoiding the graves. He nearly stepped on one and then he jumped back just in time.
"Dude, chill out," said his traveling companion (also a dude).
"It just feels weird." The first guy explained. And I nearly hugged him. But then I would've had to step on a grave. And that would have been ghastly.
I don't know why I don't step on graves. I'm blaming my mother on this, personally. I remember once I went to a graveyard when I was younger, and I was playing around and Mom said not to step on the graves. I can't remember the reason (maybe something about how it's disrespectful), or how young I was, or where I was, or really anything to support this theory as to how my little superstition came to be. But I digress.
We also went to St Paul's Cathedral, which in the catacombs also had some (but much less graves) in the floor, but that makes sense as it's the catacombs, where dead people are buried. So it's acceptable. Also there was much more space to circumnavigate said dead people. Plus most of them were buried in big raised thingies that would be pretty hard to step on accidentally, as you would need wicked long legs to get even half-way over them.
Then after London we went to Vienna where I met my second cousin Victor for the first time. He's about nine years old. We stayed in his mom Alina's apartment for the duration of our visit. We didn't get to see his dad Septimiu, but I think we will in Romania. Maybe.
On the first day we had some ice cream (yum) and walked around (uhhh) and saw some churches with Alina while Maria, Ioan, and Victor stayed back at the apartment. We also went into a few coffee shops and purchased nothing (because this is possible). Then Alina went back home and Mom, Daddy, and I went to Haus der Musik which was really interesting. It's an interactive museum about music. Pretty cool, amirite?*
*Amirite: pronounced "am I right". Means "am I right". It has been introduced to the English language by both those unable to spell or press the space bar and those who want to confuse you into saying "ah-me-ree-teh", convincing you that this is some sort of cool Spanish slang.
And basically in Vienna we mostly just stuck to churches. And a museum about Sisi and silverware and things like that. And then on the last night we went to the opera to see L'elisir d'amore, which was very nice and had sparked up an argument between us five as to whether or not we'd seen it before on DVD. Maria and I said yes and the parents said no. Ioan had no idea what we were talking about. Finally we managed to convince the adults that we'd started but never finished it. It took some talking and reminding, but we convinced them. I think.*
*My parents had a phase in which every Wednesday night we watched an act from an opera. In this manner we watched Figaro, Figaro's Wedding, Notre Dame du Paris, and half of L'elisir d'amore.
Also at one point we went to a restaurant, all seven of us, and we ate schnitzel. Lots of schnitzel.
After Vienna we went to Prague, which I had heard was really beautiful, but was actually really dirty. I mean, like, Beijing and New Delhi dirty. Which is really really dirty. And normally I like graffiti, which I can't spell without autocorrect, just not everywhere. And it was everywhere.
Anyway, yeah, you get the gist of it by now—churches. We saw churches. And an exposition-thing on Mucha, which was fantastically awesome, and I really liked. Then yesterday Daddy and I took a day trip to Kutná Hora where we saw the Sedlec Ossuary, which is a church decorated in bones (see, I don't have an issue with bones or dead bodies or things like that. Just graves. I mean, those are seriously messed up. Why do you bury them? That is insane. They just stay there. And then, what happens to the coffin? Does it decompose or does that just stay there too? Seriously. Imagine future archeologists finding a skeleton in scraps of rotten clothing in a perfectly preserved box. That's not gonna be pretty.), and there was this skull on display which had a hole in it, which reminded me of the Tartars from The Golden Compass/Northern Lights who cut holes in their heads to put a coin in, and so I looked it up when I got home and found out it's called trepanning. See? You learn something new every day. Or lots of somethings. Today I learned that if I don't write a blogpost for a while, I forget my self-imposed rule of "no exclamation marks ever!" [thank censorship I have erased them] and "do not OD on italics. Nobody cares". I blame the opera titles and the graves.
And now I realize that my parents will use this excuse to get me to write more blogposts. I think I should correct myself to say if I don't write at all. So I should write more. And improve my typing. And spelling. Because my lack of skills in both is really quite frightening and don't get me started on the deterioration of my grammar. So really, if they'd just give me the computer more often, I'd be able to further deteriorate my grammar by writing in English. On the upside, typing would improve, though spelling probably wouldn't. I have Spell Check turned off so I can pretend I know English.
Anyway, we were on skulls. There were a lot (and I mean a lot [see what I was saying on italics?]) of them, and most of them had their jaws disconnected. But we did see jawbones arranged as flowers and also holding up that phantasmagorical chandelier with at least one of each bone in the body. That was pretty awesome. It's gonna be really awkward at Armageddon though, you know, the bit where the dead rise from the graves and come back to life? Yeah, I can see it now. "Hey! Who's got my tibia?" "Sorry, Joe, I can't find mine!" "Well gimme mine back!"
Bad jokes are bad.
I'm tired.
Anyway, nothing else is really worth saying except that I do not like orange-flavored ice cream as much as strawberry. And waffle cones are delicious.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment form message here