Markus and Brian's Excellent European Adventure

Things Won Are Done; Joy's Soul Lies In The Doing

Well, well, well,

How quickly the last posting from Europe has come upon me. I could think of noone better to sum up my feelings about this trip than Shakespeare himself. The past few days have gone by in a blur and I'll try to remember everything that we did, so here goes.

We did end up seeing stomp, and if you've ever been in the car with me while my music is going, you'll know that little in life brings me more joy than hitting random objects to a beat. Seeing this show was like multiplying that joy a hundred fold and nothing could have wiped the large grin from my face afterward. The ingenuity and humour by itself was worth the 15 pound fee, let alone the skill and ability these people possessed. I was thoroughly impressed and had to fight the urge to drum on everything and anything for the next couple of days.

The next day consisted of lots of bus riding so that we could see Stonehenge. It was interesting and I enjoyed it over all, but the particularly bad weather that day made it hard to appreciate the mystery and history surrounding what is essentially some huge rocks sticking out of the ground. Once I learned that some of them were blue on the inside my interest was piqued, but since testing that theory to make my Stonehenge experience blue-rific would have resulted in further damaging this already crumbling monument (not to mention my possible death at the hands of the guards) I had to be content with looking but not touching. Other than Stonehenge we've seen a whole bunch of interesting London sights like the buckingham palace, Big Ben & Parliament, St. Pauls Cathedral, The Globe Theatre, the Westminster Abbey, the tower of London, platform 9 and 3/4 and a few other things. We've only gone inside one of these attractions, namely the Westminster Abbey, since paying the entrance fees for all those other places would have put us into more debt than the U.S.A and try as he might, Brian could not pass through the platform at King's Cross to catch the train for Hogwarts no matter how hard he tried. The Westminster abbey was packed tighter with stuff than any church I've ever seen. It had everything from bodies of famous dead people (Queen Elizabeth 1, Mary Queen of Scotts, and many more) to huge memorials honouring individuals ranging from Charles Dickens to some successful war general employed by the former powerful British East India Company. After our day of sightseeing we grabbed some food, caught a few Zzzs and prepared ourselves for the legendary Ministry of Sound.

Now some of you, particularly those of you who have never been exposed to the enthusiasm of our friends Kevin and Mike (a.k.a Wolfgang), might not know what MOS is. MOS is one of the most famed night clubs on the planet, it's reputation known throughout the world as one of the coolest places to get down with the help of funky techno beats. A club of this caliber doesn't open until late at night, doesn't close until early in the morning and has to have a large cover charge, of course. Brian and I were very much looking forward to this place, but in the end we came, we paid and we were disappointed. Now, the biggest factor to note here is that the club just happened to be undergoing a LOT of renovations while we were visiting which was probably the primary contributor to our distress. The music wasn't bad, but dancing to it was out of the question because the entire place was so packed that moving your hand to scratch an itch was an action requiring a plan consisting of 10 or more steps. In the end, we left early and decided to chalked the loss of money up to our ignorance about the renovations (which were conveniently never mentioned on the website for Ministry of Sound...).

Anyways, before I leave London I'm still going to try to see 221B Baker Street, also known as the residence of Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character Sherlock Holmes, and I have yet to try the true english version of fish and chips. Brian will be heading out tomorrow and I will be coming home on the following day. We will both be doing sum up postings in which we'll talk about the highs, the lows, the things we've learned and anything else that might come to mind. I want to thank you all for being a part of this amazing journey of ours. Your comments helped us to keep in touch with the world back home, and that enhanced our experience here in more ways than I can express.

Thank you all, see you soon and take it easy,

Markus

Posted by Markus at August 3, 2003 04:43 PM