Magna Carta Story, Stand-up Comedy, and Punting!

Hey Everyone!

A lot has been going on since my last email! My family came and visited for a
few hectic days last week... I tried to help them tour London, but I still had
classes and homework, so it was a challenge. I forced them into a modern art
gallery and taught my sisters the difference between a Euro and a Pound. The
highlight of the week was Mary Poppins, the best play I've seen in London (way
better than I expected), where we actually ran into another family from
Winston Salem. We met the family outside the theater after the play and saw
gay men frolicking around in the streets and holding hands because apparently
Mary Poppins is directly beside a gay bar. Other than the fact that the
couples of men were walking around, we knew it was a gay bar because the bar
was called "G-A-Y Bar."

One day we went and saw one of the original copies of the Magna Carta while
visiting Salisbury. There were signs everywhere saying not to take pictures
and the tour guide told us literally about 10 times during the tour not to
take pictures. So naturally, when we reached the precious document, Stockton
and I asked the tour guide if she would take our picture of us posing in front
of the Magna Carta. We thought it would be funny, but she absolutely exploded
on us. So I guess it was still pretty funny.

In a day trip to Oxford, our professor got us some exclusive tour with the
president of Magdalen College of Oxford... really important... blah blah
blah. The real fun was after the prestigious encounter - we went punting.
Punting is basically rowing around in a flat, wobbly canoe. It looks very
similar to the gondolas in Venice. Basically, we ran into every prickly bush
on the river and Stockton fell off. I'll send pictures of it next time (I
don't have them with me now).

So I did some stand-up comedy on Monday. There is a show called King Gong
where people can sign up to tell jokes and if you don't get booed off stage
in 5 minutes, then you win and the audience votes on which winner they like
most. Basically, I was the first act after the intermission and the host
introduced me as "a dead man walking" because he said the audience was being
too boisterous and eager to boo people off. People were booing before I got
to the stage and after about two minutes of half booing, half laughing I
heard a crashing GONG. I literally had my two minutes of fame.

I also nearly got arrested in Kew Gardens - APARENTLY it's illegal to go
behind doors with padlocks on them that have messages about not entering.
Stockton and I saw such a door, but we also noticed that behind this door
were steps that led up to the top of a greenhouse, which was a view of more
unblooming bushes and trees. We hopped over and checked out the view
(although I was shaking because we were scarily high up in the air) until a
security guard waved us down and told us we were being kicked out. Stockton
and I talked to him for a while and asked stupid questions like, "So what's
your rarest plant?" and "How long does it take you to get to work?" and
eventually he just let us go. There's a lesson in there somewhere.


Other great news:
* I found a pair of shoes WAY up in a tree and I climbed up and got them.
Pretty nice shoes and ironically my size.
* Went to an "oxygen bar." They literally sold canisters of oxygen which we
bought and breathed and found thoroughly disappointing.
* Volunteered to help little kids make puppets - cute kids, but harder than it
sounds.
* I ate a spog. Don't worry; it's just candy.
* Saw a beggar singing in a traffic cone with a sign that read, "Nik the
beggar and his musical traffic cones." I didn't give him any money.

Wow, the stories are getting worse... next week are my finals and then I'm off
to Italy and who knows where after that!

Cheers everyone,
CC