Feb 5, 2000
Recently returned from London, where I did travel on the number
19 bus. But wouldn't you know it, it's days are numbered, rear
entry buses will be phased out by 2004. Try it while you can.
Some undigested observations: food tastes better (this is not
delusional and tourist-based, I think it's related to the
environment); one can have a lovely time in the UK if you just
pretend that sterling is really the dollar with another symbol
preceding the figure and not an entirely different value; the NHS
(Britain's free health care system) is a bad idea if you happen to
get ill, our profit driven health system, if you can afford it, is the
best in the world; spring is an entirely different season in those
latitudes: long, rolling, and spirit raising as opposed to vulgar and
sudden, already begun there and truly worthy of all that poetry
those people wrote about the English spring; croissants are
vastly superior there to here, while the reverse is true of the
bagel; London, like New York, is booming, with cranes dotting the
horizon (I wondered, while walking the Southern bank of the
Thames, was that anecdote a construction working student friend
told me true: that cranes are parked, at night, pointing in the
prevailing direction of the winds? He lied a lot and I liked it.)
London is all horizontal like LA; people live in their homes rather
than merely sleeping in them; there appears to be a greater
enthusiasm for books there (this could be delusional, but there is
a lot of reading and book shopping going on from what I saw).
Will tell you more.
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Recently returned from London, where I did travel on the number 19 bus. But wouldn't you know it, it's days are numbered, rear entry buses will be phased out by 2004. Try it while you can. Some undigested observations: food tastes better (this is not delusional and tourist-based, I think it's related to the environment); one can have a lovely time in the UK if you just pretend that sterling is really the dollar with another symbol preceding the figure and not an entirely different value; the NHS (Britain's free health care system) is a bad idea if you happen to get ill, our profit driven health system, if you can afford it, is the best in the world; spring is an entirely different season in those latitudes: long, rolling, and spirit raising as opposed to vulgar and sudden, already begun there and truly worthy of all that poetry those people wrote about the English spring; croissants are vastly superior there to here, while the reverse is true of the bagel; London, like New York, is booming, with cranes dotting the horizon (I wondered, while walking the Southern bank of the Thames, was that anecdote a construction working student friend told me true: that cranes are parked, at night, pointing in the prevailing direction of the winds? He lied a lot and I liked it.) London is all horizontal like LA; people live in their homes rather than merely sleeping in them; there appears to be a greater enthusiasm for books there (this could be delusional, but there is a lot of reading and book shopping going on from what I saw). Will tell you more.
- rachael 5-10-2000 4:41 pm