Terra Incognita

visitors, vistors everywhere
The past two weeks has been full of friends and family. The Manhattanites returned home safely last Wednesday. As it is five days later and a school day, hopefully they have each gotten over their jet lag by now.
On Thursday, I met up with Tarin, her brother Casey and Lisa, friends from high school who were visiting London with the K-State finance department. It was great to catch up on the MHS gossip while eating dinner at a restaurant in China Town. Afterwards, we went to the Long Island Ice Tea Shop and watched the late-Twenties-somethings shake their groove thing on the dance floor.
Friday was simply brilliant. My aunt Sally's friend Vallarie lives in London and she invited me over for dinner and (free!) laundry at her place. I ate a fabulous three course meal with Vallarie and her husband Jim while my clothes tumbled around in the dryer. They live in a mews house (a mews is like an alley where people kept their horses and other such animals) that once housed the horses and falcons of the Duke of Wellington. I came back to the flat to find that an impromptu, non-alcoholic party was swinging in our living room. (They like us, they really like us!) It was fun to have a whole bunch of people just sitting around, chilling, looking at photos and swaping funny stories.
Saturday, I met Emily at Victoria Train Station where Sarah and Felicity were to arrive. As soon as they got there, Sarah's video camera came out and the filming of our own European Vacation began.

what you would see in the footage
The black fence outside Emily's dorm. Why? Felicity thought is was very British.
A Frenchman making our crepes on Portobello Road (We avoided the massive war protest which we figured might get a little wild by heading to Notting Hill)
Very thick paint on the road outlining parking spots. Why? Felicity thought it was very British.
The travel bookshop where Hugh Grant worked in the movie Notting Hill.
Emily's dorm kitchen and us eating dinner, devising our scedule for the week.
The toilets (read: bathroom) across the hall from Em's room. Why? Feliciy thought they were . . . yup . . . very British.
Us getting ready to go on a Beatles walking tour with the famed Richard, the Beatles Brain of Britain who gives two different Beatles tours about five times a week. 'The only thing on both tours is Abbey Road.' He was everything you said he'd be, Luke. ;)
The group of us holding up traffic as we tried (for 15 minutes) to recreate the album cover of Abbey Road. The battery died just as we started to cross. We'll have to wait for the still shots to be developed. The line up for the famed shot: Emily as George, me as Paul (complete without my shoes, incomplete without the cigarette), Felicity as Ringo and Sarah and Sarah (Hood, then Protzman in the various pictures we took) as John.

and more visitors
Ellen's Steve came over during Mizzou's spring break and Megan's friend Lynn got in yesterday as well. Tonight, I'm hopefully meeting up with Cassie who is visiting family outside of London. Next weekend, flatmate Sarah's friend Jennie (?) comes to visit, as well as Careth's friend Shauna.

eire-bound
Protz and I are off to Dublin on Thursday. We're taking an over night coach/ferry and plan on seeing much of the cotswold counrtyside before we (hopefully) fall asleep. We don't really know what there is to do in Dublin, but we think we'll figure something out.

favorite beatles story from the tour
In an interview, John commented about the trend of the number of young people going to church getting less and less whilst the number attending concerts of groups like the Beatles grew and grew. His quote was, 'We're more popular than Jesus now.' That got the right-wing fanatics in the U.S. angry and one Texas radio station, owned by the KKK, called for a Beatles album burning. That same night, their station was struck by lightning. Ha! Read about it here.