La Vie En Rose for 2002 July 14

Yesterday was terrible! Woke up by phone call approx 20 min before bus was supposed to leave, although it did not leave for another half hour. So, I got ready in a hurry and sat on the curb waiting for longer than it took me to get ready!

Oxford itself was very nice, charming, and everything I expected it to be except on one account. Shopping itself wan't as immpressive as it had been made out to be. I did find one place of interest: Alice (of Wonerland)'s Shop, 10 min before we had to be back on the bus. The bulk of time in Oxford was spent on a open top bus with audio tour that provided for our listening pleasure classical trance music in between the informational blips. I had it switched to french for w while, but couldn't understand much so switched back. Must visit France for a weekend in order to brush up. It took a while to get on the bus at first, but luckily we ended up on one with a slightly less grumpy driver then the one we couldn't get onto because it was too full. (He tried to hit people that were apparently standing in the way of him parking because they were waiting to get on.) However, all of the buses seemed to make this scary, loud, grinding noise when they backed up. The tour itself was somewhat interesting; we could see most of the 5 billion colleges from the bus, and the weather alternated between sunny and cold, and we keep getting hit by trees. A favourite pastime of the day was to keep score between us and various forces of nature that seemed to be out to get us, for exapmle: trees,2, us, 0 (until Kristi started fighting back). In general, I believe that England is leading by about 500. After we got off the suicidal tour/disco bus, the remainder of the day was spent wandering the streets and eating.

Return bus ride was v. interesting. Kristi and I, determined to not become sick, elbowed our way to the front. Becasue of the concert/ beach party, thw way to Brighton was "qued-up" and the was home took 3 hours. I think the real party was on the freeway, though. Our bus driver knew a shortcut, as we drove by lanes to Brighton the cars were all at a standstill and there were people sitting on, leaning out of windows and sunroofs. Must have seen 5 guys on the side of the road peeing. Bus driver rolled down his window slowed down next to some v. white, entusiastically waving, shirtless guys, and yelled "are you going to the gay festival?" Oh, the looks on their faces, it was the greatest thing! our bus driver! Kristi and | laughed so hard!

By the time we got back into town it was late and the traffic was still terrible so we took a train to Brighton, which was also very crowded. The whole town was packed with people- it reminded me of New Year's in London. Took our time eating at an Indian all you can eat buffet, which was good, and by the time we fought our way to the beach, they announced the concert was over. Can't believe it, we misses the whole thing! Gets much better. In the confusion of 100,00 people leaving the beach all at once, Michelle and Kristi got seperated from Emily, Char, and I. We spent some time looking for them next to a police van, while Kristi was looking for us from the top of a porta potty, both of which had recntly been used as dance floors. Eventually we went back to the last place we had been and waited for a few minutes before they came too. This was when the tragic decision was made to take a bus home. We waited for a 10 or 15 min to get on our bus, then spent the next 3 hours barely moving. We would literally move a few feet, then sit perfectly still for 10 min. It was unbelieveable! Amazed by the fact that we had not only missed our whole perpose for going into town, but had gotten stuck in the worst aftermath, I spent most of the ride home in a state of limbo between sleep and abject misery. We eventually got home (it took 3 hours!!! to go about 3 km! That only 1 km per hour!! Not even a mile, a km!!) and cancelled our plans for the next (same) day, and I limped to my bed where I stayed for the next 14 hours.

Weather-wise, v. nice day today. I was actually warm in pants! yay! And all of my clothes dried! Too bad bike riding didn't out.

Have removed petty comment from Friday's entry. Will try to be more objective as quest for self-improvement continues. Also: gym... soon.