9/12/2002
Heathrow
Approx. 7:00am GMT
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We landed safely at Heathrow half an hour ago. To best absorb the culture, we're sitting in a TGI Friday's restaurant. We're absorbing the culture...unfortunately, it's the culture of Fresno.
We circled in a holding pattern for a while prior to landing, scribing lazy, wide ellipses in the sky over London. It's sounds like a cliche, but I'm struck by how green everything is here. Everything in California is brown this time of year. I can't wait to see Amsterdam, to see how much different it is.
Peter ordered a hamburger. Years from now, if it gets Creutzfeld-Jakob syndrome, we'll know to blame TGI Friday's Heathrow.
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Retrospective --
During this time in my life, I'd decided to not eat any land animals, due in no small part to a three-act dream that I'd had. The first act involved vampires. I remember nothing of the second act, but I awoke from it, sat bolt upright in bed and exclaimed. "I can't eat chicken anymore. What the Hell was I thinking?" The third act was a scene of me explaining to a Future Farmers of America group that cats aren't meant to be omnivorous. I figured that it was a sign, and that if I couldn't remember what happened in the second part of that dream, I shouldn't eat poultry. Beef and pork naturally followed. This is important to note, because any time my travel entries mention anything about food, you should read it as "and I had a stale mozzarella and tomato sandwich."
I'm a vegetarian, so I know what you mean about the stale sandwiches. Yum, tasty!
ReplyDeleteHave fun in London, and don't forget to also visit McDonald's, the Burger King downtown, and everything else that's called American. : )
Actually, I'm quite intrigued at the things that are called/advertised as American in Europe. Around here, we say things are European when we're trying to up the price. Over there, it's the opposite.