the other playing field

Thursday, November 3 - London

Finally made it to the grand heart of the United Kingdom, old London. The city is almost exactly what I thought it would be: fast, ancient, cosmopolitan, absolutely huge, and expensive. It is truely one of the great bustling metropolises of the world.

Finding your way around London is surprisingly easy, though the streets have big pockets of diagonal lanes and curving ways, but aside from those, which are fun to explore anyway, it's quite easy to negotiate.

I got here a few days ago, flying into Luton, and taking the ridiculously expensive commuter train into the city centre. Beware the costs of just getting to this city if you ever venture this way. It's a hidden cost that they don't advertise much. I think I found a way around the huge cost, but we'll see when I leave tomorrow.

If all goes well, I should have a great story in the next few days of where I'll be next.

Back to London. The London Bridge is actually pretty lame. It's just a big bloody bridge. Now, the Tower Bridge and Millenium Bridge are quite cool. The Tower Bridge is the one you see in all the postcards you would have recieved if I had indispensible cash, or just pop in a movie that takes place in london, and I'm sure its in the shot somewhere.

The best thing that has happened to me in London was that I was asked to join in a live Parliment session. Yep, me. I was just sort of walking around Westminster and Big Ben and I was approached by some officious looking guy who asked me if I wanted to get in. He referred me to another lady who ushered me into a sketchy area where they made me go through a whole bunch of security, and since I hadn't planned on going through any security, I had all kinds of metal on me. They eventually let me though and I was taken past the AK-47 toting guards up into a winding staircase, and through another section of metal detectors and scanners, until I was then ushered by this guy in a tuxedo with tails and a gold medallion that would make Easy-E blush, into the front row of Parliment.

It was all kind of a blur. They wouldn't let me take a camera or any writing utencils with me, but it was still intense. They were debating Englands new Terrorism Bill that day and it was awesome. Those Brit's surely know how to insult each other. They do so in such as way that they sounds like they're giving a compliment while they flay their opponent. Plus, they lounge around the Parliment floor like their at home watching a soccer game on their couch. It was hilarious.

Yet on a more serious note. It was very interesting and sobering to bear witness to world-altering decisions being formed that affect so many. They were warring on the right of free speech and the effect the new laws would have on writers, thinkers, public speakers, theorists, etc,. There is definately a playing field that exists that competes on a level that most of us don't see that can change every facet of our lives. I had an opportunity to glimpse that, albiet only for a brief few hours, and I will not forget.