From London to Bath

We stayed in London until Saturday.  Keith’s accordion finally reached us and we started busking.  We mostly played on the South Bank of the Themes.  The South Bank has the Eye of London, which has a big grassy area near by and a long wide walk along the river.  There were a TON of people walking in the area but there were also a TON of buskers.  Most of the acts were of the very strange variety (human statues, people in lizard costumes riding bikes, a contortionist etc.)  We tried there several times but didn’t really have any success.  The one time that we were doing well some jerk ruined our pitch.  Some hack who plays really bad guitar set up right across the walk way from us and started blasting his terrible playing at 11.  Jerk.

Our first day of busking we also tried busking at the park where the Albert Memorial is.  Unfortunately it started raining and we had to quit after just a few tunes.  When we were on our way out we met a guy named Chris.  Chris told us that he was on mushrooms and told us about the run-in with border patrol he had in southern California.  You see, he was communicating telepathically with the Mexicans that were trying to cross the border illegally.  Chris also told us that he is telepathic with bears and that he thinks that Prince Albert (the one the giant memorial is dedicated to) was Jack the Ripper.  After that interesting encounter we hid from the rain under the eves of Royal Albert hall.

I wanted to go buy a towel since the hostel we were staying at didn’t provide towels.  We asked around and found out that there was a Mark & Spencers down the street.  It was only a few stops down on the bus.  But Keith and Nahum refused to get on the bus so we walked.  It was pouring rain and we had to walk probably 2 miles.  We got to M&S, dripping and cold, just in time to be told that they were closed.  I was determined to get a towel so we got on the tube to another department store and finally got my towel.  Staying off the bus saved us precisely no money and just got us all wet.

The busking was miserable in London so depressed, we moved on to Bath.  Our first night in Bath was Saturday night and Keith and Nahum went out to busk.  I stayed behind at the YMCA (where we stayed) because I was feeling a little under the weather.  Keith and Nahum made a killing!  Finally some good busking!  Apparently, British people come to Bath on weekends to party and they met a ton of bachelor and bachelorette parties and were tipped enthusiastically by excited drunks.

Bath is absolutely beautiful and we like it much better than London.  Yesterday after some moderately successful busking we met some really cool guys.  Alex and Wally play fiddle and guitar respectively and were playing some Gypsy jazz.  Nahum started talking to them and they asked us to play with them.  We jammed on a few tunes and we started to draw a crowd.  It was a lot of fun.  My ear is developing really fast with all this playing.  I’m able to follow changes without even knowing the key!  I’m hoping that I’ll learn to sing harmony by the end of the trip.

Today we took a tour to Stonehenge!  Even though Stonehenge is touristy, it was cool to go.  It’s strange that we still know so little about it.  I learned that it probably was not associated with the Druids as in popular myth.  There were some people in weird outfits with signs saying “bring back the ancestors” standing outside of the parking lot.  I was confused thinking “the ancestors are dead…they’re not coming back.”  Keith surmised that there were probably bodies exhumed from the area by archeologists and the Pagans didn’t like that.

I’ve been trying to upload more pictures to facebook, but for some reason the upload keeps failing.  I think the internet connection here at the Y is unstable.  I will try again later.

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