Sunday, October 9, 1988

Life Is Easy When It’s Boring

This could easily be called the laziest of the lazy days. I woke up around 11:45 a.m., just in time to head over for lunch, as is. The meal was actually pretty good, but I went 30p over, of which I had to borrow, embarrassingly enough.

After the meal and a shower, it was back to my room for a little more resting, writing, and listening to music, specifically The Beatles’ “Abbey Road.” My solace was interrupted briefly by a trip over to St. Michaels to visit some friends there for a bit. Later, after dinner, I wrote a bit more in my journal, then headed over to St. Hildas, where a group of us sat in Kurt Dross’s room (next to J.P.’s room). During this time I introduced them to the tape of my band, Yokël. We later went into the TV room, where we watched an episode of “Bread,” a popular sitcom here.

After a few more chats, it was back to the room for some reading and a wait of a half hour for a call from my parents, which never came. It still might, since it’s only 6:45 p.m. there, so I’ll wait a bit longer. I think this day can best be summed up by what I said to Doug after he asked me if things were going OK today, and I paraphrase The Police:

“Life is easy, when it’s boring.”

So true. We all need days like this sometimes.

****

• Number One Song in Britain This Week: "Desire" - U2
• Number One Song in America This Week: "Red Red Wine" - UB40

Saturday, October 8, 1988

A Lovely Day in London Town

We woke up around 8 a.m. in preparation for our day in London. By 8:45 a.m. we had begun our brisk walk to the Longfield train station, which took us about 25 minutes. From there, Doug and I caught the 9:45 a.m. train to Victoria Station, where we arrived at around 10:10 a.m.

Not long after that I had a bit of a stroll down memory lane. It was a little over a year ago when my high school sponsored a student trip to England, a trip that was all too short and definitely sparked my interest in wanting to come back and spend more time here. Doug and I walked past the King’s Arms… a pub where my friend Justin Tappan and I had our first pint in England; The Reuben’s Hotel, located across from Buckingham Palace, where we all stayed while in London; and then Buckingham Palace itself.

Doug and I timed it perfectly and we were able to catch the changing of the guard ceremony. Quite a spectacle to witness… lots and lots of people gathered around the giant fence at the palace to see the changeover. When that concluded we walked back toward Victoria Station, where we stopped to have a good ol’ American meal at Burger King. Had another flashback to my high school trip in April 1987, when we walked past the Scotch Steak House, where Mike Straub, Molly Sherman, Pete Farrell, Debbie Jackson and I ate our first meal. We also saw the video arcade that lured Josh Weinberger and I, keeping us from going to Harrod’s with the class. Ah, memories!

With a slight drizzle falling from the sky, Doug and I returned to Victoria Station, and with our capital cards (pictured, right) in hand (£2.50, and you can ride on any train or bus in London all day, which has already saved us a bundle), we headed into Camden Town, where there was a market and smaller shops that we wanted to check out.

That’s where I found a cassette tape of Prince’s rare, bootlegged unreleased "Black Album", which my friend Scott Reed had asked me to try and find for him. I was hoping to find it on vinyl, but just in case I don’t see it again, I bought it. Scott is a big Prince fan and has been unable to find it in the States. He’ll have to hide it well since his Mom disapproves of Prince and will confiscate it if discovered (she already swiped his Prince tapes… but he found those and gave them to me for safe keeping… which isn’t a bad deal for me!) Scott’s at Liberty University right now; but unfortunately for him, I don’t think Jerry Falwell thinks any more highly of Prince.

I also found a rare bootleg Genesis LP called “A Trick of the Tail, Outtakes,” but it was £10 and I couldn’t afford it, so I had to pass. Hopefully I’ll see it again soon.

While walking around this area, we were continually approached by foolish socialist students peddling copies of the Socialist Worker newspaper. It wasn’t long before we’d had enough of that annoyance, and we hopped back on the Tube to head to Pimlico, where we went into the Tate Gallery. It was a fabulous art gallery, which featured so many different artistic styles. The highpoint of this venture came when I found Andy Warhol’s famous “Marilyn Monroe” painting, of which I have a copy back home. It was quite large, actually.

Well, after leaving the Tate Gallery (and witnessing Doug tell the gathering pigeons outside to “Get a job!”), we walked along the Thames River in search of a phone to tell Sid that we were coming back to her house at around 8 p.m. However, when we finally found a phone box, we ended up waiting 10 minutes before leaving because there was a knobhead suffering from malignant plumber’s butt calling car dealers galore.

So we left and continued to walk along the Thames until we came upon Parliament and Big Ben. We took a few pictures here (including the picture of Doug in front of Big Ben, top), then went into the Underground where we finally found a phone to call Sid. However, she wasn’t in, so we left a message that we would call back later, and continued our walk along the Thames to Trafalgar Square. Once we got there, we attempted to find Hamley’s, the world’s largest toy store, on Regents Street. However, we never quite made it. We stopped at Garfunkel’s restaurant in Piccidilly Circus for dinner, and afterward decided to skip Hamley’s, skip London, and head back to Hull tonight instead of tomorrow, as originally planned. The meal at Garfunkel’s was exquisite, and I had chicken kiev and Doug had a kabob. Doug also treated for the meal, which was very kind. Doug, I’m starting to notice, also has a way of confusing and disorienting waitresses.

Anyway, we left for King’s Cross Station, where we called Sid to tell her that over dinner (which we ate at 5 p.m., or noon Millersville time – I wonder what they had for lunch??), we decided to go back to Hull, so not to expect us. We then caught a 6 p.m. train to Doncaster. When we got to Doncaster, we fortunately had a few minutes to spare, because our train to Hull was 10 minutes late. Had the train been on time, we would’ve missed it. Thank heavens for late trains!

We arrived in Hull at 9 p.m., a three-hour trip again, and took a bus back to The Grange halls… tired, broke and happy. Doug was in very good spirits today… best I’ve seen him since we arrived. I guess a little journey to London was all he needed to break out of his funk.

However, the night was still young.

After checking the mail and unpacking, we went to Kenny’s room to talk for awhile. Kenny is a nice guy from St. Andrews, Scotland, who has one of the double rooms in St. Hilda's with a guy named Sean.

Then I returned to my room for a bit, because I wanted to listen to the “Black Album.” It was weird, funky, dirty, evil, and very black. Scott will get thrown out of college for sure! After that, I popped in “Sign O the Times,” then fell asleep until about 11:15 p.m. I walked over to the TV room in St. Hilda’s where theywere watching “Monty Python's The Meaning of Life” – on regular TV, unedited. That was on until 1:30 a.m.. Afterward I talked to a few people in the hall, including J.P., who had had “a few” and was very surprised to see that Doug and I were back.

Then I went back to my room, popped in an Andreas Vollenweider tape (or "Andre Volkswagen," as Greg Swartz calls him) to mellow out to some New Age music, closed my eyes and went to sleep. It had, indeed, been a very fine day.

Friday, October 7, 1988

The Big London Tour Thing Begins

Karin’s birthday is today. I woke up with visions of London in my head. Doug came in to my room (yes, it turns out he had a good time at the party last night) and we got ready for our trip. Again, it was windy as we walked up to the Cottingham Road site to check with Dr. David Foster and see if our food checks were in, to cover the cost of our lunches (which Millersville University room & board covers, but Humberside does not). The checks were in, so we went to the bank for some money.

With £80, some change, and the weekend ahead of us, Doug and I departed for London. At the bus stop we met Sindy Bajaria, or Sid as she is usually called, took the bus into the Hull Train Station, and then caught the noon Intercity train to London. Thanks to the BritRail Youth Pass we picked up yesterday, thee ticket was £25.75 return, as opposed to £39.00 without the pass. It’s already paid for itself!

After a changeoff in Doncaster, we arrived at King’s Cross station, about three hours after leaving Hull. From there, Sid went to her home outside London, and Doug and I headed down to the Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus.

The big purchase of the day, and one that put a smile on Doug’s face, was tickets for the Duran Duran “Big Tour Thing” concert, scheduled for December 23 at Wembley Arena. (That’s his favorite band.) Tickets were £12.50 each. I also bought the Talking Heads album “More Songs About Buildings and Food” on cassette for £2.99.

Once we left Tower Records, we began to walk wherever around London, ending up on Oxford Street. After dining at a Wimpy’s, we went into HMV Records, where I purchased both albums by The Proclaimers on cassette – their new one, “Sunshine on Leith,” and their first album, “This Is the Story,” for £5.99 and £2.99. That’s one of the bands here that I’m really starting to like a lot. From there we continued to walk blindly, where we stumbled upon a Virgin Records Megastore, where I bought a cool Genesis book for £2.50.

At about 7 p.m. we decided to head to Sid’s house on the outskirts of London, where we were staying for the weekend. At Victoria Station we caught the 7:30 p.m. train (£3.20) bound for Longfield. Sid picked us up there and drove us back to her house, where we spent the evening watching the telly, eating rice, chicken & curry. The three of us talked for awhile, and at one point Sid asked Doug and I if we minded sleeping together. We had a good laugh at her odd wording.

Not long afterward we went to bed to get a good night’s sleep for our “big day” in London tomorrow. After talking to Doug about various topics, we finally fell asleep.

Thursday, October 6, 1988

An International Gathering and a Good German Beer

Doug's birthday is today. It started out to be a relatively decent day, waking up around 10 a.m. to go into Hull. We picked up our BritRail Young Persons Railcard (pictured) to save money, and walked around for a bit. We caught the bus back in time for our 2:15 p.m. literature course, which was quite dull.

Following that we pretty much dogged around, ate dinner, then waited for Karin to show up. When she arrived at my room at 7:30 p.m., Doug, J.P., Karin and I left in Karin's car to her flat, where we met some others and took a bus into Hull so that we could go to a pub that Karin insisted "served a good German beer."

It took awhile and the walk from the bus stop to the pub was quite windy, but we finally got there. We met other friends of Karin's there, and had a table of 10 in the pub. It was quite a lot of fun, but Doug was a bit hostile at first. I assumed it was because of it being his birthday and this not being exactly how he wanted to be celebrating it. But he cooled down after awhile. Later, he and J.P. left the bar because of "prior commitments," but I opted to stay at the bar.

We remained for quite awhile, and I mainly talked to Suzanna (from Germany), Lieselots (from Denmark), and Karin (from Germany, of course.) And yes, the German beer was quite good. These are the classic moments that I'll never forget from this experience.

We left the pub after the final round, and after a walk in even more brisk weather, we caught a taxi to the Supabar Chinese Take Away, where I got sweet 'n sour chicken and ate it back at Karin's flat, along with everyone else.

When I was done eating, it was time to head back home. I entered the cold once again with Lieselots and Suzanna (Lisa and Sue) to walk them to their flat, and then continue my perilous journey (25 minutes in all) back home towards sleep.

I found out that Doug's "prior commitment" was a party that was still going on. I decided not to attend, because I was quite tired, and Doug and I were getting ready to leave on a weekend trip to London tomorrow. I hope the party was good, because Doug needed it.

Wednesday, October 5, 1988

"The Girl in the Red Dress"

Woke up much too early, as my Geography lecture was at the ungodly hour of 9:15 a.m. I took a lot of notes during the class, and afterwards just took it easy. I was originally planning on going out this evening with Karin to celebrate her birthday, but when I returned to my room there was a note on my door telling me that she was busy today, but that she was going to go out with a bunch of her friends tomorrow and that I could join them.

Oh, and she also said in the note that she's "seeing a guy named Steve."

So, with my plans totally rearranged for the evening, we started by watching the new season of "Doctor Who" in the common room in St. Hilda's, the residence hall where J.P. and Doug reside. After that we decided to go to "The Oasis," the Inglemire Site Night Club and Disco. It was slow at first, but soon it picked up (for J.P. and I, at least), as we had quite a lot of fun drinking and dancing. We left the club at about 11:30 p.m., when it closed, and we returned as a group to some girl's room, where we sat around drinking coffee for awhile, and talking.

I then left to return to my room for some sleep, but it was not to be. I ran into Kofe, who convinced me to come with him to visit some people. I certainly didn't want to be impolite, so I joined him. When we got to the room at the top of St. Michaels (the other residence in The Grange, located between St. Martins and St. Hildas... you need to walk through St. Martins to get to St. Hildas, actually), sure enough, four girls and one guy were there just hanging out. We all chatted for awhile, and as we lost people to sleep, only two of us remained, "The Girl in the Red Dress," and me. I just can't remember her name now, but we talked until well after 4 a.m. She was nice but was way into astrology (I mean, big time!), which I found to be a bit weird.

Well, eventually I was able to trek back to my room, and this time uninterrupted, so I finally opted for some sleep.

(Pictured is my Student Union identification card from Humberside College. You needed this to get into any number of college functions.)

Tuesday, October 4, 1988

Burning the Midnight Oil with the Guy Who Looks Like the Lead Singer of Midnight Oil

I woke up and went to class this morning. Not much exciting there. I spent the day just dogging around until around 6 p.m., when I went out for another run on my own to visit Karin. She wasn’t at her flat, but I left a note for her to stop in later. All-in-all, I ran five miles today, and felt pretty good afterward. Maybe I’ll be able to stick with this.

Later on, at about 9 p.m., a girl named Vicki and an friend of hers stopped by my room. I had met Vicki earlier in the day, and she told me she has no place to stay at the moment. I told her I’d talk to Karin and see if she possibly had an extra room in her flat. However, since Karin was not in when I visited, I had no news for them, so alas, they were out of luck. I offered to let them stay in my room until they found something. They then left to look at another place (located on Karin’s street.) I haven’t seen them since, so hopefully they did OK.

Well, it wasn’t 10 minutes after they left when Karin stopped into my room, and we sat and talked over coffee until about 1 a.m. After our excellent conversation, she left to return to her flat, and I went up to the community phone to attempt to call Mom and Dad again. After two attempts, I got through… but once again Dad wasn’t home. I talked to Mom for about 10 minutes, and we determined that on Sunday at 11 p.m. (GMT, or 6 p.m. EST) she would call me at the residence phone. (So don’t forget!) Hopefully the phone will be available at that time.

After our phone call, I started talking to Steve, who is the “resident assistant” for St. Martin’s Hall (the main entrance to St. Martin's is pictured above). Friendly fellow… tall, bald… he looks a lot like the lead singer of Midnight Oil. He has a habit of starting sentences and greeting you with “OK…” He’s from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, a few hours north of Hull, and though that’s not too far away, the difference in his accent verses the local accent here is staggering. I’ll admit, it was difficult to understand a lot of what he said. Still we sat in his room and talked over tea until about 3:30 a.m. He is big into history (especially war), and appropriately enough, accents. When we were finished talking, I was good and knackered, so it was off to bed.

Monday, October 3, 1988

Sack Edgar Page

I'm getting a little worried about Doug. Today we went into town where he bought himself a stereo, but that seemed to only be a temporary remedy, as he soon receded back into melancholy. He read me some of the poetry he has written while here in Hull, and it's rather depressing, and often frightening. I'm sure Doug could overcome it, but I'm not sure he wants to.

Well, anyway, this day started like any other... by waking up. Since we still didn't have any lectures to attend, we spent the day in Hull, after getting Doug squared away at Lloyd's Bank.

We then experienced a most unusual event, as we watched teachers from Hull University who were on strike, as well as other supporters, march through town, carrying signs that read, "Save Edgar Page". They were marching in protest of the recent "sacking" of a tenured philosophy professor named Edgar Page. They, of course, are worried that if this firing is allowed, then their jobs could be in jeopardy as well.

From what I was told, he is the first tenured college professor to ever be sacked in Britain. Of course, I don't know what he did to get fired, but considering he's the first ever, I figure it must be pretty bad. Personally, I think this could set a good precedent, since it would force tenured teachers with cushy jobs to make themselves an asset to the university, or risk being fired. Later, I decided to hang a "Sack Edgar Page" sign in my room.

OK, well, after the march, the three of us went into Hull to do a little shopping, and to register with the police (required of all of us questionable American students.) And that's pretty much what we did.

We found an excellent record store called Sydney Scarborough, where I bought a Genesis EP ("Throwing It All Away," "Invisible Touch (Live)" and a previously unreleased track, "I'd Rather Be You."), and a Peter Gabriel EP ("Big Time" and an unreleased track, "Curtains.") Doug broke down and went wild buying here. J.P. didn't, but only because he didn't have any money with him.

We continued to walk around (I bought batteries for my stereo to make it functional... still haven't found an adapter that will work for an American stereo) and then returned home (Home, Home on The Grange) by bus, arriving just in time for dinner. While at dinner we saw Kofe Kari Kari and another student, both of whom had studied last year at Millersville University, so we chatted with them for awhile.

When I got to my room, there was a note on my door from Karin (from Germany), which made my day, and included a phone number where I could now reach her. I tried to call the number using the community pay phone on the second floor of our residence, but I had a bit of trouble and I was never able to get through. I'll go visit her tomorrow.

At around 7 p.m. I decided to just relax and write a few letters to friends and family back home. I didn't do much else this evening other than head over to visit Doug to try and cheer him up, and then take a walk with him to the same Chinese take away restaurant I went to yesterday, Double Happiness, for some more chips and gravy. If this doesn't put a smile on Doug's face, I don't know what will. Ironically, while we were there we saw Sara and Louise stop in... guess they had the same idea!) We talked to Sara and Louise for a bit, then returned to our rooms.

I made an unsuccessful attempt to call home, but when I called, my 10-year-old sister's friend Aiden answered the phone, if you can believe it, and my sister Angie was the only member of the family that was home at the time. Since this call costs a fair bit of money, I said hello and then said that I couldn't talk now, but that I'd call back again.

I returned to the room, and with little else to do and with visions of sleep in my mind, I felt compelled to oblige.

Humorous anecdote of the day: This morning, while visiting a slightly catatonic Doug in his room, we heard what we thought was J.P. fumbling at the door. It was at that moment that Doug uttered the now immortal words, "It's open, ya boob!" A moment later we realized it was the cleaning lady. Needless to say, Doug was quite embarrassed and apologetic.