Cheers England!

FROZEN FAIR

         Monday, Emma and I wandered around Hyde Park. It was a gorgeous day and it’s a beautiful space. They were setting up a temporary amusement park for a Christmas Carnival there. I thought this was silly and then when I got back to Paris, they have pretty much the same thing set up on the Champs-Elysées. To me, ferris wheels have nothing to do with Christmas. This is probably because I grew up in Minnesota and trying to have an outdoor Ferris Wheel for x-mas there would not only cause a lot of frostbite, it would surely be too cold for the rides to even operate.

AMERICAN GRIFFIN 

         We all know that America’s mascot is a bald eagle. It turns out that England has some animal representatives as well. They are a lion and …a unicorn. I didn’t realize that mythical creatures were in play and, considering this new information, I think that America should get a redo. At the very least we should be able to upgrade to a griffin.

         While I envy their choice of animals, I do not envy their choice of facial expression. The American Eagle is usually looking very proud or like it’s about to snag some prey. This seems about right for our country. England’s Lion and Unicorn look like they just tasted something terrible and are about to vomit.

For example, on the gates of Buckingham Palace:

CHEERS ENGLAND

         For our final outing, we went to the British Museum. There are not many British things in the British museum, mostly there are things from other places that British people have collected. I suppose this is probably true of most museums. Emma and I explored the impressive Egypt section for a while, then we went directly to the America section. There we learned that Minnesota is in the West. This was news to us. I guess some Americans might make the same mistake. West, Midwest, it’s all fly-over land anyways, right?

         Emma and I said “see you later” and made some plans for going to Belgium when she comes to visit in January. I recently realized that Belgium is the source of numerous things that I greatly appreciate. Among them are: French fries, waffles and good beer. Belgium seems to get generally overlooked and I want to go see what they’re up to. Emma was entirely on board with this. To top it off, on the train back to Paris, the conductor came on the overhead speakers to wish us a good trip and he sounded exactly like Hercule Poirot (the Belgian detective from Agatha Christie novels)! I took this as a sign.

CRUNCH BAN

         You should not be able to have crunchy foods on trains or planes or other modes of public transportation. They should put a picture of a bag of chips on that sign they post outside of the security check at airports. I’m thinking something like this:

Minus the salt. I have no issues with salt outside of its association with chips and other crunchy foods. Seriously, being forced to listen to people chew that stuff could easily lead to violence just as much as any safety razor can.

BLARING BAD MUSIC BAN

         After that, they should outlaw playing music so loud that your headphones are basically crappy speakers and everyone around you can hear the tinny treble of that hypnotic electro dance-pop you’re listening to. The people listening to loud music on public transit are always listening to crap. On the 6am train down to the suburbs, a dizzying dance beat pulses in my neighbors earbuds at top volume. On the afternoon bus back to the train station, the 15-year-old in the backseat is blaring generic hiphop that I can make out as a string of jaw-dropping swears. I’m always a little tempted to turn around and say “do you know what those words mean, young man?!” But I bite my tongue and suppress my inner grandma.

         I can deal with the coughs, I can deal with the sniffs and I can deal with the phlegmy bodily sounds that show up regularly. As much as it makes my skin crawl, I’m sure their colds annoy them as much (or even more) than they annoy me. But the crunching and the headphones, that I can’t let go.

No dogs, No smoking, No boxcutters, no liquids over 3 oz, no crunchy snack foods, no blaring headphones.

Let’s work together people.