Lincoln Etc.

NOTICE- MORE PHOTOS FROM LINCOLN ON THE PHOTO SITE




Hey everybody. My mom has informed me that the blog has quite the readership back home. Thanks for checking it out. Today's topic of regalement is Saturday's daytrip to Lincoln, which is a smaller town about an hour to the northeast of Nottingham. The main reason for heading to Lincoln is the incredible cathedral (see above). We had an hour tour given my a madman (madwoman?) of a tour guide. Although she was successful in showing us everything we wanted to see in an hour, she talked so damn fast, I really didn't catch a whole lot of what she said. Just sort of got a quick once over on everything, which sort of sucked. The cathedral was cool. It was sort of a weird mish mash of architectual styles, in that the front was Norman (c. 1092 C.E.), the rest of it Gothic (c. 1200 C.E.), and the stained glass was mostly Victorian (19th century). It's hard when you've visited so many cathedrals and churches to try and appreciate each one for what it is, and not always compare. But let's just suppose we were to compare, here's what my ranking would be so far.

1. Durham
2. York
3. Wells

I still haven't gotten to either St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey in London, so I'll add those in later. Speaking of Westminster Abbey, Lincoln is famous for being the Westminster stand in for THE DA VINCI CODE. Particularly the scene in the chapter house where Langdon throws the codex thing up into the air. There was a big display on it in the Lincoln chapter house, complete with all these fake wall paintings and tombs from Westminster. Pretty cool.

Other than the cathedral, Lincoln was a fun day out. It was only the guys (myself, Ryan, Brandon, Kevin) and Anna. This was due to the constraints of the car, and the fact that Hilary is in Wales with her dad, Kate is in France with her friend, and Emily was still in London with her parents. The 5 of us had a good time. We looked around the city and such, went into shops. Brandon tried out a pair of velvet pants at an Oxfam (Goodwill-esque store), which was quite funny. I continued the tradition and bought a British edition of a Star Wars novel. I now own French, German, Japanese, and British Star wars books. In a bonus, it was £2 off, and it's written by the best SW author. Continuing on, we also hit up a pub, which charged way too much. So, good day out. At night, I lost the will to travel a half hour in the rain to my baseball social, so we sat around the flat and watched Ireland destroy England in rugby. Then we hit up Arrested Development, which was a lot of fun.

On Sunday, I decided to travel with Mary to St. Mary's in Nottingham for church. The uninitiated would most likely call St. Mary's a cathedral because of it's size. In reality, it's not. It doesn't contain a bishop's chair, so it's not a cathedral. It is a very pretty church, in it's own way. Unlike some of the huge, awe-inspiring churches we've seen, St. Mary's seems very "lived in." Brandon sings in the choir there. I hadn't ever been there for a morning service, so I thought it'd be fun. Yeah, fun if you want to go to church in ANTARCTICA. The heating had gone out, and it was frigid in the church. Colder inside than it was outside. But church was fine. Ah, the Church of England, what a crazy institution, that's all I have to say. The pastor is very kindly, but his sermons make no sense whatsoever. Anyways, after that fun, the three of us hit up a Starbucks, where I was sort of let down by the cinnamon dolce latte. We had a good discussion about study abroad and deciding to go to Nottingham and stuff. After that, I headed over to the train station to surprise the lady, just arriving from London. Mission accomplished. The rest of the day was rather uneventful. I read a bunch of Barchester Towers, the latest British Novel funfest from Mark and Carol, practiced trombone, made coffee, and tried to figure out if I want to hit up a Turkish beach after Istanbul. Following all that, Emily and I watched Spider-Man 2. So yeah, a fairly productive day.



I forgot about this. Sunday night, I made scrambled eggs with cheese and crushed up meatballs in it. On a whim, I added salsa. It changed my life. For those of you in doubt, salsa and eggs is the greatest combination since George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Try it.

British Culture 101- The Pub

I'm really quite bored. Very bored. After an invigorating discussion of Charles Dickens in British Novel this morning, nothing particularly productive has been accomplished. I did clean my trombone slide. And I did go downtown to purchase some coffee (Starbucks fair trade Café Estima blend), because the stuff Mark bought at Sainsbury's is disgusting. Other than that, nothing very productive. Last night, Brandon, Ryan, and I hit up The Lion, and it got me thinking. Well, it got me thinking today, that maybe I could use this particular medium to enlighten those minds willing to be opened on the topic of British Culture. So anyways, here's my interpretation of that most Englishy of all English institutions: the pub.


The Lion


Mom and I enjoying a pint inside


Quite simply, the pub is important. Very important. British folks like the pub a lot, and frequent it a lot, typically sticking to a "regular" one. The adopted regular pub of the Luther crew is The Lion (pictured above). We sort of got into it because our neighbor David Juggins (the most English man you'll ever meet) told us it was good, and that every other pub around us sucked. We believed him. It's housed in an old brewery/millhouse building, and the interior is best described as the illegitimate child of a traditional pub and an Ivy League coffeehouse. The emphasis in any pub, is of course on drinking. However, not quite the binge drink/throw up in the street type you normally associate in the US. Drinking in Britain is a social activity, not a contest to see who can finish a 30 pack first. The beverage of choice among REAL ENGLISH PEOPLE is REAL ALE. It's definitely got a different taste than American beer (not that I would know, since I'm not 21 yet). For one, it's not carbonated. It's much more flavorful, a lot more sort of malty. As an officially transplanted Englishman, I have to say I've gained a taste for it. Like I said, Brando, Ryan, and I hit up The Lion last night and all of us commented on how we were looking forward to real ale, as opposed to some of the normal stuff we had when the whole lot of us went out to a different pub on Sunday. One cool thing about the Lion is that it features rotating local ales on what seems like a weekly basis. So it always has real British ale, not the homogenized commericialized stuff many pubs serve. Real cool. It's definitely an experience better exploited in small groups, we've found. The best conversations I've had in England have either come in Starbucks, medieval castle walls, or pubs. So in short, if you come to England, you should go to a pub. And if you don't, lame.

Right, that's that. Tomorrow we're taking a little day trip over to Lincoln to check out the cathedral. At night we're having a baseball social. So we might watch my Minnesota Twins World Series DVD, which would be cool. We're going to watch some baseball, I know that for a fact. I just got the call that I'm not needed for orchestra until March 10th, so that opens up my Sunday. Emily comes back sometime on Sunday, which will be really nice. It's been strange, it's been like a week of absentee dating. Like spring training, when only the pitchers and catchers have reported, but not the whole team. Bad analogy, I know. But speaking of spring training, I hope everyone is keeping up with the Twins. I know I have. I'm calling the rotation as follows.

1. Johan Santana (duh)
2. Carlos Silva
3. Boof Bonser
4. Sidney Ponson
5. Ramon Ortiz or Matt Garza

I'll probably be wrong, but no shame in speculating. I'm currently listening to a contemporary British jazz trombonist named Dennis Rollins. I downloaded one of his albums online because I'm going to go hear him on my birthday. I'm really digging it, he plays a lot of funk, sort of soul jazz. It's getting me quite excited. I better run, dinner's almost ready. Later.

The Week

Mark nicely pointed out to us today that it is a little over a month until the epic adventure that is SPRING BREAK IN EUROPE. Seeing that no one has accomplished practically anything in terms of planning yet, many were understandably frightened, myself included. For those of you who want to know, I'm planning on hitting Paris, Southern France, Italy, possibly Greece, and Istanbul. No timeline or anything, I just want to for sure get to those 5 places. I have 4 weeks. I can do that, right? Of course.

Flat life is going well. We had a flat meeting last night, about some issues a couple of our female inhabitants were having regarding living arrangements. Although awkward at times, we all seemed to pull through. Overall, relationships in the flat have been fairly harmonious, so this was probably the first big issue that's come up yet. Good sign. I didn't have a trombone lesson today, so I came back to the flat and did some history reading. Have to head back for band in a few hours. The week ahead looks to be pretty ho hum in general. Emily is leaving tomorrow with her parents for London, she'll be gone until Sunday. Been dating for 3 days or whatever and she's already running off. I guess I can find other ways to amuse myself. A bunch of folks have been itching to visit the Lion (local pub), which has been sorely neglected the past few weeks, so we'll probably hit that up. Of course there's the usual issue of class and the necessary homework. I have to give a 7 minute presentation on Thursday about the New Deal for American History, plus Charles Dickens still calls for the British Novel course. Whatever, stuff is going on. I can eagerly await the arrival of my birthday boxes from my parents. This post hasn't exactly had a point, but whatever. I need to get stuff done before band. Out.

X-Men, Phoenixes, Coffee, Repeat

So, the weekend, once again. In some respects, it's been pretty uneventful. Kevin's
grandparents arrived in Nottingham on Friday, and they quickly whisked him away to London for the weekend. Emily's parents also have arrived. With part of the flat gone, it's been fairly quiet. Additionally, the internet has been quite dodgy lately, so that has hindered a lot of people's entertainment. With that in mind, the 7 of us left decided to (shudder) spend quality time together and watch X-Men II on Friday night. Anna made a ridiculously good cake/baked thing, we opened up some wine, and hit it up. Saturday proved to be equally boring. Charles Dickens' Hard Times is next on the British Novel reading list, and I inefficiently battled my way through 50 pages throughout the day. I skipped out on baseball in an attempt to curtail the cold that stubbornly refuses to completely leave. Anyways, it was a lazy day. Hilary didn't change out of her pajamas until 7:00 at night. Ryan and I finished up the final riveting episodes of season 1 of 24. On to the next! After that, Emily reappeared, and the whole lot of us (minus Kevin) hit up the much inferior sequel, X-Men III. I'd recommend the second.



Before leaving for England, many people told me about how appealing the British accent was to the opposite gender. Check the last post to see my rant about the British accent, and how it lost its appeal to me. Either because of that fact, a certain affinity towards "ginger" hair as they call it here, or most likely good old mutual attraction, me and the flame haired phoenix pictured above (not the X-Men Phoenix also pictured above) are now dating. Emily's her name, she's 5'1, likes art, is quite gorgeous, lives in Decorah, and enjoys long walks on the beach. Many church readers will most likely be interested in the following fact, which is a pretty good general indicator as well. She knows of, and has a toleration of the "Star Wars issue" (which in reality, has stayed quite contained this year. Sign?). It's a good situation all around I feel, and I'm looking forward to more fully experiencing the study abroad experience with her, no doubt. So from a personal standpoint, it's been quite the weekend. Feel free to e-mail with any queries, comments, yada, yada, yada.

So, that's life right now. Today saw the momentous fulfillment of a long desired goal in England. I've visited all 3 major chain coffeeshops (not in one day, that's the next challenge).


1. Starbucks- This is my usual haunt. I even have a regular table at the one I frequent most on Clumber Street. It's sort of become a Friday afternoon ritual for me and the lady to hit it up.






2. Costa Coffee- A few weeks ago after researching for my Paideia paper on evangelicalism, I hit it up.






3. Caffé Nero- Today, me and Ryan hit it after taking a tour of the Galleries of Justice (a Nottingham museum to prison history)







Check out that wild photo/blog formatting. Good times in England, nuff' said.

English Revelations

PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEKEND'S TRIP ARE NOW UP ON THE PHOTO PAGE

Sorry for the lack of blogging this week. I just feel nothing really blogworthy has happened, plus I was sort of busy with this and that. The book of the week for our British Novel class was Wuthering Heights, so I polished that off. We also put Paideia capstone to rest with our final paper presentations. My presentation got a titch long winded, but whatever. Happy belated Valentine's Day to all of my online followers! Mine was rather low key. A bunch of us watched Grey's Anatomy for a bit. A majority of the Luther crew has grown addicted to the show, so I humored them and watched a few episodes. I also went to baseball. I can add a nearly broken hand to my growing list of injuries sustained. I was attempting to slide into second base when my right hand got stepped on by the second baseman's football boots (soccer cleats). Thankfully, only my pinky got nicked by the cleats, so I was spared greater injury. Although theoretically, had it been broken, I could have gotten it fixed free, thanks to the NHS. Being here over 6 months, I fall under its protection. Near major injuries aside, I did make some nice plays in the outfield, though I'm still in search of my natural throwing motion. Brandon pulled a grade A Valentine's event on Mary (for those of you not in the know, Brando and Mary are the flat's resident couple currently). He bought 6 bouquets of flowers, and hid them around the flat with cards and poems. Good idea.

A revelation happened this week in my existence here in England. I think I have officially completed the personal DE-MYSTIFICATION of England. Spurred on by a highly insightful comment by Mr. Kevin Kooienga regarding the British accent(check his blog for his take), I began to think about my place in English society. I've concluded that I've officially left the tourist/fish out of water student mode. I am, as far as I can be, English. The British accent no longer seems foreign. I use words like "knackered", "dodgy", and "cheers." Going downtown is no longer a momentous event, it's simply going downtown. I even feel comfortable hitting up The Lion (local pub). It's a good feeling, overall. But with such comfort comes increasing cultural criticism. For those of you not in England, this country is not populated by Hugh Grant and Keira Knightley clones. In fact, there are quite a bit of unsavory people about. See the Chav culture, as one example. I don't know, I just all of a sudden feel acclimated, as much as I can be, to this culture. And I think that's good, for that's what I was searching for in a study abroad experience. I don't have the opportunity to see zebras or giraffes, or be immersed in a foreign tongue, but I do have the chance to become someone foreign. To an extent of course. But it's cool. Anyways, that's what's going on right now. A bunch of us are going to watch X-Men 2. It'll be a good time. Tomorrow, Emily's parents arrive in Nottingham, the latest in a string of familial visits. Kevin's grandparent's showed up today. The next month will also see Hilary's dad, Anna's grandparents, and my own father, direct from Minnesota. So, it will be good. Quick before I go, I have to mention this. I was riding on the tram today, and saw a guy that looked exactly like Twins LHP Francisco Liriano. Besides the ghetto fabulous White Sox hat he was sporting, he looked just like him. Odd.

Yorkshire

NOTICE- PHOTOS WILL BE POSTED FROM THIS WEEKEND'S TRIP IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS

So, we took a two day trip up to Yorkshire. Starting off on Saturday, we hit up the National Coal Mining Museum. It seemed like it would be really lame. In actuality, it was really cool. We went down 450 feet in a real coal mine, and a old miner gave us a tour. It was rather difficult to understand him, as he spoke with the thickest blue collar Yorkshire accent you can imagine, but I think I got the jist of everything. It was really wild, just being down there, and imagining what it must have been like back in the day. Anyways, the rest of the weekend was mostly spent in Haworth, a small town outside of Leeds that is prominent for being the home of the Brontes. For those of you who aren't up on your 19th century British novelists, Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Eyre, and Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights (which we're now reading for class). Important books, masterpieces, yada, yada, yada. We checked out their house, and sort of milled about town for a while. Stopped in a semi-ghetto coffee place. The thing was, it was quite cold out, and it had snowed. Since snow removal is nowhere near as efficient (or existant) over here, we had the good fortune of snow, rain, ice, slush, cold wind, you get the picture. Most uncomfortable. We ate dinner in the hostel, which was pretty sweet. It was housed in a huge Victorian mansion, the home of a former mill owner. No one wanted to leave again, so we just sort of hung out there for the night. Brandon and I played some foosball, and after some uncharacteristic slacking, I regained some skill and defeated him. After that, we just sort of hung out in the room.

Anyways, today, got up, ate breakfast, played another game of foosball, then headed out. The object was to go hiking on the moors made famous in Wuthering Heights. This term always confused me, especially when reading Wuthering Heights. What the hell is a moor? Simple answer, a moor is a large undulating hill. Moorland, as it were, is a landscape made up of large undulating hills. The beautiful conditions (snow, damp ground, water, etc) managed to even penetrate my Gore-Tex trail hikers, so I (along with everyone else) got to chill out in wet socks all afternoon. The hike was good though. I enjoy being outdoors, and even with the crappy weather, it was nice. It actually cleared up as we made our way back. Anyways, after removing socks, we headed out for a quick stop at Saltaire. Saltaire is a 19th century mill town, famous because the owner of the mill, Titus Salt, did a bunch of cool stuff for the workers. The old mill was transformed into an artsy gallery sort of thing celebrating a local artist, David Hockney (he's famous now). Anyways, hit it, then left, now back here.

There is a bit of incredibly awful news coming out of this trip however, besides my missed orchestra concert. That would be the fact that I'm fairly certain my iPod is in its death throes. It has served faithfully for 2 or 3 years, but the control wheel is becoming nonresponsive, and the battery life sucks down fast. I'll have to find a solution to this hearbreaking event sometime before spring break. I was quite happy to hear about the new 4 year contract that Joe Mauer signed today. Good move Mr. Ryan, I'm in agreement. It's important to lock up some of these players, make sure everyone knows we're serious. Now, we need to start thinking about Morneau, not to mention Santana. In other Twins news, I've been very distressed at the issues surrounding the land acquisition for the new stadium. It appears the current owners are renigging on their original prices, and screwing everything up for the timetable. Anyways, as the preeminent Twins fan in the United Kingdom, I'm going to officially declare my adopted country's dismay at your business practices. Might have to send some redcoats after them. Anyways, I'm out. Wuthering Heights to read, 24 to watch, trombone to practice, other crap to distract from said activities. Later.

Snow

It's currently snowing here. By that, I mean flurries. But to the English, a bit of snow automatically translates to SOCIETY HALTING BLIZZARD. I had a fairly good day today. Polished off Jane Austen's Persuasion for Mark and Carol's British novel class. Now, on to Wuthering Heights for mroe historical British fun. The big final Paideia paper was due today. Mine was on British evangelicalism. In researching for it, I visited a couple evangelical congregations here in Nottingham. It was wild. One place was housed in this huge renovated warehouse decorated like a giant religious Chipotle. It even had a full bar (yeah, that kind of bar) in the back of the church. Wild. The whole point of the sermon was how God was ready to give people in Nottingham the power to literally heal people on the street.

The second semester is in full swing now. I'm really liking American History. I took Progressivism to school in the seminar this week, asking really intelligent questions that no one could answer about whether or not the African-American progressive movement accomplished anything. Baseball is off to a good start. Although, I'm currently in search of my NATURAL THROWING MOTION, to try and stave off the feeling of nuclear explosion that rips through my right elbow after every practice. Trombone is going well too. I've sort of lost the will to type anything more tonight. We've just finished Pulp Fiction, we're leaving tomorrow for a two day trip, there's more movies to watch tonight. I'm out, check for update on Sunday or Monday. Later

Decidedly un-American American Football

Sunday night, the nine of us traveled across Nottingham to seize our birthright as Americans: the right to drink cold fizzy beer, eat extremely unhealthy food, yell loudly at TV's, and watch the Super Bowl. The Nottingham Hooters will never be the same. Let's list off the accomplishments of the evening.

1- We watched the entire game, from roughly 11:35 to around 3:00 AM or something. But considering we showed up somewhere around 10:00, we were there for nearly 5 hours. I was pleased that the Colts won, but in reality, would it really have mattered?

2- In true American fashion, we gorged ourselves on approximately 100 chicken wings, and a few orders of curly fries. Additionally, some of the ladies had some desserty type things.

3- In a salute to both Dr. Michael K. Smith and the premier advertiser of the Super Bowl commercials as well as our own proud heritage, we drank (censor) pitchers of Coors Light and Budweiser. Don't worry, I was fine.

4- We experienced a quintessential American phenomenon in a quite un-quintessential way. As Kevin so eloquently stated on his rival blog, the British would be more likely to "pour scalding tea into their knickers than watch a match of American football." True to that form, Hooters was filled with Americans, wannabe Americans in random NFL jerseys, and those who had no idea what was going on. There was one guy in an Arizona jersey who, although seemingly British, could easily have passed for American with his diet of probably 20 or so chicken wings, God knows how much beer, and a whole rack of ribs. There also was one dude who lamely wore a Cleveland Indians jersey. The game was carried on Sky Sports, and featured the commentating talents of Curtis Manning (former running back) and Don Johnson, of Miami Vice fame. After marvelling at the LSD induced pregame show, we all had a moment of awkwardness when Billy Joel came on to sing the national anthem. Strangely enough, the din of the restaurant actually lowered when the Piano Man started to sing. Aside from a smattering of boos when they showed footage of troops stationed in Iraq, it passed without incident. As kickoff approached, testosterone levels rised accordingly with random yelling directed towards the starting lineups. And the rest is history, so they say. A great moment of misunderstanding came in the first half, when Peyton Manning threw a touchdown pass to some receiver who had broken through the two cornerbacks guarding him. Some ignorant British guy started yelling "HE CAN'T DO THAT, HE'S OFFSIDES." For the uninitiated, it's a soccer rule that the Colts were seemingly breaking. Wrong football dude.

Anyways, the Super Bowl is over. Back to reality, being class, band, and this lame Paideia paper due on Friday. But more importantly, it signals that spring training is right around the corner.

On Deck

It's the weekend. What am I going to do? The weather today was uncharacteristically beautiful, even by normal Minnesotan standards. When you consider that I'm in England, the warmth and cloudless sky was unheard of. I got up, hit up Starbucks with Emily and wandered around the city for awhile. Later on, I took the tram out to the suburbs and checked out a wildlife park by a lake. In reality, it was a waterfowl park. I maybe saw a rabbit, otherwise it was exclusively populated by ducks and geese. So, that was fun. Tonight, I went and saw the Moscow State Symphony at the Royal Centre downtown. They were very good. The program was Glazunov Concert Waltz No. 1, Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 3, Sibelius Finalandia, and Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition. Good stuff, a lot of brass (Great Gate of Kiev, anyone?). But, it was incredibly programmed towards a dumbed down audience, I feel. Way too flashy. Additionally, they did like 3 encores. Isn't that sort of tacky for an orchestra? I thought so.

Anyways, tomorrow features baseball practice at 2, and that's about it. I don't know what else I'll do. I need to get cracking on my Paideia final paper that's due on Friday, I might get on that. Sunday, I'm checking out another evangelical church for said paper, this time an African one. Listening to some jazz at a pub afterwards.

Of course, back in the good ol' USA, this Sunday is a special one, being SUPER BOWL SUNDAY. Our small little expatriate island fretted for a long while about how we would be able to partcipate in this annual cultural pilgrammage, lacking the necessary cable. A search of the NFL UK site yielded little results, except from learning that more toilets are flushed during the Super Bowl halftime than any other time during the year. Thankfully, a glance in today's local paper proved to offer us saving grace. Yes, we will be attending a true SUPER BOWL PARTY this Sunday night, at none other than the bastion of wholesome Americana known as HOOTERS. 6 hour time difference be damned, we'll join our distant countrymen and raise our Budweiser and chicken wings high. I think it's going to be really fun, people in the flat are psyched. Although I have pretty much renounced professional football, you have to watch the Super Bowl. As idiotic as I think the NFL is, the Super Bowl is a definite cultural experience. Add in ignorant Brits, busty women, a blatant American restaurant, and ridiculous British football commentators, and you can't go wrong.

A New Beginning

It's true, second semester has officially started. Although, due to a strange British phenomenon known as "skiing week," my war and ideology class doesn't begin until next week. However, American history is up and running. I always feel as if I should be some sort of celebrity in that class. Hasn't panned out yet though. Baseball and band have also started up. We're actually playing some cool stuff in band, some of it fairly challenging. A Philip Sparke piece called "Year of the Dragon," an Eric Whitacre, a Lord of the Rings montage thing, and a really lame student composition. Baseball had a scary moment today, as our student coach Adam got hit in the face with a comebacker to the mound, which subsequently dropped him to the ground as well as breaking his nose. Needless to say, practice was cut short to get him to a hospital. He's alright though. The flat is fairly busy, as we have quite a few random visitors either from Luther or the States in general. So, it's nice to have some fresh faces around. The bag of coffee sent by my mom in early December is finally on its last legs, so I might have to bite the bullet and buy a new bag sometime this week. Exciting week, eh?

I don't know when it exactly happened, but we have passed the halfway point for our year abroad here in England. I thought it would be a good chance to talk on that for a bit before I watch the latest episode of 24. Things are going well here, no doubt. But especially since Christmas break, there definitely is a feeling that we (the collective Luther group) are careening towards June 5th (the departure date for many of us back to the US). It seemed like in the fall that we were here forever, now it seems as if we barely have any time left. The epic month long adventure in Europe is looming ahead once again, with the appropriate amount of planning and such. It's wild, in less than two months, I'll be back on the road. And once I return from break, it will be only a little over a month until I'm back home. Wild. A feeling of finality is confronting us I feel. It's confronting me, for sure. What do I need to do to make the next 4 months or whatever the fullest they can be, without breaking the bank (my dad's generous loanage) in the process? Tough question. I am fortunate enough this semester to not have class on either Friday or Monday, which allows me ample opportunity for small trips. I would like to make at least one, possibly hiking in the Scottish highlands or maybe a jaunt to a city such as Liverpool or Manchester. I want to more fully embrace the local music scene, starting with going to see the Moscow Symphony on Friday. I just want to make sure I can look back in 30 years and say "Yes, I LIVED in England," rather than just simply existing, waiting to leave. Although, the prospect of late night trips to Taco Bell, Twins season tickets, the driving of one's own car, and sunshine do comprise a homecoming to remember. Speaking of season tickets to my beloved Minnesota Twins, I might as well put up a public service announcement. I am indeed going to be purchasing an upper deck general admission season ticket. Seeing that I'll miss the first couple months of the season, I will most likely be selling my ticket at a discounted rate to anyone who wants to go see God's team play. My friend Scott will be the executor of my ticket, so if you want to help ease the financial burden of seeing the national pastime, that'll be an option. Anyway, 24 awaits. Later.