jgoforth.com | we(b log)

week one, in review

so week one comes to an end. We have now been about our British adventures for 7 days. Somehow this whole, alwasy using the internet thing doesn’t quite work like i was hoping. Cameras have had problems, the internet has been unavailable, electricity converters have been missing. However, if you ignore the fact that I am not communicating with the world as well as I had hoped, everything is going splendidly.

Beyond day 1, which I have already discussed, here is our journey.

Day 2,3,4 – These were general London days. Major attractions included the Tower of London, the British Museum, a showing of “Romeo and Juliet” at the Globe theatre, the National Art Gallery, a boat ride to Greenwich, and a strange but incredible enjoyable walking tour about Jake the Ripper.

The tower of london is pretty basic stuff, you have to see it but there really isn’t much to say about it.

The British Museum is interesting in the fact that there is little that it acutally British in it. There are the dried up bodies of people from long ago, some of them mummies and some of them people who had the dump luck to die in such as place as they would be preserved, found, and placed on display for millions of tourists.

The show at the Globe was something to be seen. The acting left a little to be desired, but the experience of being a groundling is most of it anyway. I found that there really is a reason that the seats cost 5 times as much as the groundling tickets. With the sun shining brightly and the stewards not letting you be a sitting groundling, three hours becomes a bit of a long time. Next time you sit down and watch The Fellowship of the Rings, try turning the heat on full blast and not sitting down. That being said, if you come to London, you have to do it, and don’t you dare buy a seat.

I have seen a lot of art galleries, Washington DC, Madrid, etc, but the National Gallery is definitly the best I have ever seen. To give you some examples, the van Gogh paintings of the sunflowers, and the one of the chair with the pipe are both here. There are also sevearl impressionist paintings, including those of the pointelist style, I like. Also I have found my new favorite painter, and impressionist by the name of Pisarrio.

The Greenwich trip was pretty cool. For those of you who don’t know, Greenwich is the place where the East and Western Hemispheres meet. This is also the place refered to when we say that the Eastern time zone is GMT -5, GMT standing for Greenwich Mean Time. So yeah, that was cool.

This brings me to Jack the Ripper. You might think to yourself, why would you go on a walking tour about Jake the Ripper. To that question I have no answer. I just thought it might be cool, and to my surprise my sibs agreed. We went and really the fact that you were wondering around London wasn’t all that important. This all happened like 120 years ago so a lot of London has changed, but the real key to this tour is the Guide. This man was hilarious. I could try to explain but I just wouldn’t do it justice, so I won’t try. But that’s ok, cause we got just about the whole thing on video so when we get all that worked out you can see parts of it here.

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ok so that took a long time. I am going to have to wait to go into detail about the other days, but in brief form:

Day 5,6 – Dover Castle, Canterbury, international talks of politics and food (that will need explaining), Windsor, “Mousetrap”, St. Paul’s, Westminster, may some other stuff that I can’t really remember right now because I have like two seconds left before I have to get off the internet.

ok that’s it for now, tomorrow we are off to edinburgh,

sorry for the lack of grammer,

I sudden realized this sounds kind of like a telegraph, it isn’t though

also the hiaku from the other day had too many sylables, rewritten it is:

you airport lobby
I have waited here to long
Why are there no chairs?

still here

ok, so the hopes of being able to post everyday, and upload stuff all the time has not be quite so easily realized as it was to think it up. I am working on things though. More later.

still alive, barely

ok, so we are actually all still alive. My brother and I successfully met up with my sister in London and have secured our housing for the next few days. Today because of the late time at which we arrived here, we were unable able to do a lot of the things to be seen here in London as most of them were closing just as we were ready to see them. Never fear, we still found a way to use up about 9 and half hours.

We walked down to the South bank and generally took in the area without visiting much. We have crossed several of the bridges like the Milliniam bridge (picture will come later), we have seen the outside of the globe, seen a lot of the River. The major event for the night was the London Eyes. This thing is a giant ferris wheel in downtown London. You ride up in this huge pod and by the time you get to the top your are, I think, about 200 yards in the air and can see all of London and beyond. That thing was cool. More later. (I am paying by the minute here for internet.) Post ferris wheel, we decided to take a little trip to become better aquanted with the streets of London. By “decided” I mean that we did without having a choice. By “little trip” I mean 3 hours. And by “better aquainted” I mean we got lost. I have blisters to prove it. OK, I am going to bed where my sibs are already. I leave you with a poem I wrote while waiting for my sister. It’s a hiaku entitled, “Ode to the airport lobby”

OH you airport lobby
I have waited here to long
Why are there no chairs here?

19 Hours and Counting

OK, so I am 19 hours away from leaving and I am still not really packed, and I just figured out a couple of hours ago, that I need to change some of my reservations (and I need to work on my clemson schedule for this fall). So, what am I doing instead of doing all of this, I am writing an entry for my webpage. Makes a lot of sense, right? Well, I needed to test the blogger script to make sure it was still working and all, before I left the country.

Also, I changed the default theme for the page while I am gone, to use the Union Jack in the background. Those of you using Firefox can see the cool transparent thing that I have going on. IE users, you can’t cause your browser doesn’t work right.

UK2004: The Goforth’s go British

As you may or may not know. In 9 days my younger siblings and I are setting off on our European Tour, and by European I really mean the England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Things shall show up here. Stay tuned.