h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Jane

Yes, I guess the weekend was still fairly far away. It didn't seem so far away to me though as I left for Copenhagen on Thurs night. I hope you enjoyed your weekend, anyway. My friends and I had great fun in Copenhagen; it's a very beautiful city.

As to whether getting attacked in your dorm in likely...erm, in the UK it depends on where you live. Since the University of Leeds is *right* in the center of the city, the chances of getting attacked, in or out of your dorm, are unfortunately quite likely. The chances are not so high at Universities that are in smaller cities or which are situated outside the city center. Incidentally, being put on the second floor in dorms last year didn't stop me from being the victim of an attempted break-in - fortunately my family were up visiting me and so they were in the room with me at the time, otherwise it could have been a lot worse. However, once the guy had poked his head thru the window and seen the room was full of people, including two guys, he and his accomplice decided to scarper. Suffice to say, it wasn't a very nice experience. The security team for the dorms were very nice and helpful though, and did their best. Unfortunately the police were less so - in spite of the criminals having left forensic evidence behind, the cops didn't even bother to turn up! I must stress it's not nearly as bad as all that in most of the UK, though. I just happen to have the good fortune of living in a very bad area.

You could always go back to St Paul's just on the whim that you like the place. I do that quite a bit, actually - even if I just like the sound of a place but haven't visited it before, then when I have the time and money I go and check it out. That's one of the advantages of living in a small country, I suppose - it doesn't take very long to get anywhere!

Hope your week is going fine and that you're feeling better. I read some of your diary entries now and again and sometimes you sound like you're a bit lonely and I start to worry if you're OK. That's partly why I sent you my 'h2g2' e-mail address. I realize I'm only a cyber-friend and that you must have loads of other buddies, cyber or otherwise, but if you ever need to let off steam or just have a friendly chat, then I'm here!

Oh, and when did you go skinny-dipping? I've always wanted to try skinny-dipping but I've never had the opportunity (or the nerve, to be honest! ). How did you hurt yourself doing it?

Take care!
ttyl, Lizzy

yeah i'm lonely but i've been so for ages... it's part of my identity really. i'm not really that unhappy, at this point anyway, things are going well. i do miss my old friends a lot at times.
the school i go to is an expensive school for rich kids and is located in 'the garden district,' 'uptown,' etc... a very nice area. new orleans is a dangerous city, high murder rate etc. etc. but campus is pretty safe. i've never had any bad shocks though i was kind of paranoid when i first got here. and i'm still cautious. a student did get killed last year... i think it was last year. i think someone was trying to rob him on carrollton st and just ended up killing him. it was nobody i knew but it was still kind of like, i don't know, closer to home. there is a lot of real grimness in this city, but campus life is so insular and sheltered, or at least we tend to think it is... i guess i'm lucky that i can walk around campus at night if i have to and not feel afraid. i guess this city has a particular interest in protecting the people with money, you know? ugh.
i went skinnydipping last summer, with a girl friend of mine who does happen to be bi, but not like predatory or anything. it was a little tricky because the 'beach,' if you could call it that, as it was basically mud, was down below this overhanging bank which we had to climb down. all that happened was i managed to scrape/gouge my ankle on a stick that was protruding. it wasn't all that painful and it didn't bleed much but you can still see sort of a scar. i kind of like it. souvenir. i was kind of proud of myself, normally i don't have the nerve to do stuff like that but it was a good experience, really peaceful. i guess you need someone you're really comfortable with to talk you into it. and preferably a body of water that's easier to get into... there's my advice.

Hi Jane

Hope you're having a nice weekend. I'm busy nursing a hangover from the party I went to last night. It was the birthday party of this Spanish friend of Graham's and I had a *little* bit too much to drink. I ended up having to go home to bed and everything...silly me. And now I'm paying for it. Still, I'm not feeling too bad...I've had worse. He and Silke want to go downtown to do some shopping and I think I'm feeling up to going with them now.

Graham's in the kitchen at the moment making French toast for breakfast, yum yum. I'm off to a friend's house tonight for dinner...we're cooking Mexican. I love cooking Mexican food. It's one of my favorite cuisines but when I go to a Mexican restaurant I find they make the food too hot for me, so I prefer to make it myself. Do you like Cajun? I *love* Cajun chicken: it's one of my favorites. What other food is typically Cajun? (Or does it just become Cajun when you put Cajun seasoning on it?!).

Just wanted to get in touch again - take care!
ttyl, Lizzy

i love mexican food too... cajun food's a little hard for a vegetarian(like me) to eat, it's all meat pretty much. and seafood. gumbo's a staple cajun dish, it's a big stew of seafood, beans, sausage, okra etc., with rice... they throw whole crabs in there. hmm... can't think of anything else but it's all over the place down here, as you'd expect.
glad you're bouncing back. i've never had a hangover myself since i've never been drunk, but mostly i've never tried. i have kind of a fear of losing control, for some reason. it's something i plan to do eventually, when the time is right. though i came home one night after drinking a hurricane(traditional new orleans tourist rum punch drink) with my aunt, and my roommate insisted i was drunk. nah. she also used to insist i was a raging caffeine addict just because i like to drink coke and coffee.
have fun shopping... i'm probably not going anywhere today. i'll probably go to a screening of Punch Drunk Love on campus tonight, unless somebody comes up with a better idea.

Hi Jane

What's 'Punch Drunk Love'...a play or a movie or something? If you went to go see it, I hope you had a good time. We had a great time at the Mexican Night. I thought it was just going to be a small gathering but Graham's friend invited fifteen people! We had tacos and wraps with all the traditional Mexican trimmings (which Graham said were surprisingly authentic), followed by Creole muffins and banana pudding. Then we all had Tequila Sunrises - well, except for me...I just had a 'Sunrise' because I don't like Tequila! Creole muffins come from Louisiana, apparently. I don't know if you know them: they're a kind of savory cheese muffins with bell pepper and spices in them. A friend brought them - they were very nice. Later on we watched 'A Knight's Tale' (in English and everything ). Have you seen it? It's pretty frothy but quite entertaining, although in some places the mixture of medieval and contemporary doesn't quite gel, I thought. A classic example is the princess' clothes...

Our shopping trip was short and sweet, since we didn't get into town until 3pm and the shops shut at 4...and when I say shut, I mean they kick you out! But Silke managed to get her sound-card and we went to a cafe for a drink afterwards, so it was OK.

I'm stuck in doing work today. I have to give a presentation on Wed on German-American relations. It's part of one of my German for Foreigners classes, so I'm going to have to give it in German too, though I've given presentations in German before, at Leeds. The reason I'm doing it is because I want to be able to stick it on my CV as an example of using teaching skills. Therefore I'm going to have to make it very inter-active...and to be honest, I'm quite worried that I might fall on my a*s with it.

Funnily enough, I'm kinda similar when it comes to not wanting to lose control thru alcohol. I tend to get to a certain point of drunkenness and then stop. I think I got sick at the bd party on Friday because I've got out of practise (God, that makes me sound awful! ). Plus the glasses were very small so I was pouring myself large 'Bacardi's with not very much 'Coke'.

Take care, ttyl, Lizzy

punch drunk love is a movie, starring adam sandler and the wonderful emily watson... thing is, it's quite far from being a typical adam sandler movie. it's quite indie and weird and i loved it. i'll probably even get it on dvd sometime.
i could go for a mexican night... sometimes it's like i can't stop talking about mexican food. but i get a lot of it at home and not so much here so i miss it. i think in louisiana we call those muffins Muffulettas or something...i've never had one. but your description matches the idea i have in my mind of what one is like. sounds like a wonderful time.
i also hung out with friends last night and watched California Suite which my friend who claims to have a crush on maggie smith just purchased on dvd, sight unseen... it was pretty good. good cast, richard pryor, bill cosby, jane fonda, alan alda, walter matthau, michael caine and of course maggie smith. it was from back in the 70's i guess. i was sleepy when i got back.
i'll probably be doing homework today myself. just what is necessary for tomorrow anyway. i'm going to have a presentation for american lit in march but it's quite minor compared to what you're doing. a couple people in that class have already done theirs and they're a bit pointless, they just read down this timeline in nervous girly voices.. i *intend* to put in a bit more effort. my topic is The Midwest, appropriately enough, as it is where i come from..
i'm looking forward to turning 21 because i enjoy buying cocktails... i don't really plan on going on any massive debauches. actually most of my friends are turning 21 this year. yikes . or have already in fact..

'Punch Drunk' sounds like a cool movie; I'll keep a look-out for it myself. I have to admit I do like Adam Sandler. Admittedly he's made quite a few bad movies but his redemption is 'The Wedding Singer', which is one of my favorites. Plus he's very cute. I think he looks a bit like Dustin Hoffman did when he was young, though obviously his talent is nowhere near Hoffman's. 'The Graduate' is also one of my favorite movies - incidentally, the 'Simpsons' episode which stars DH called 'The Substitute Teacher', or sth like that, is one of my favorite 'Simpsons' episodes! Do you like the 'The Simpsons'? I think it's fantastic; it has a HUUUGE following in the UK. I like 'Futurama', too...Matt Groening is a genious! Other actors I like: Robert DeNero and Matthew Modine. I think the latter is one of Hollywood's most underrated actors. I always watch a movie if he's in it. (If you don't know who he is, he played the Captain in 'Memphis Belle' and the cocky soldier in 'Full Metal Jacket'). Oh, and Elijah Wood...though I've only seen him in 'LOTR'. Do you have any favorite actors? Or even actresses?

I don't know, my presentation wasn't as heavy as all that. Since I had to make it quite inter-active I didn't have to do too much writing for it. I was a bit worried at first because right at the beginning I asked of those who weren't Americans which of them had been to America and they were like, 'uuh? What?' But fortunately the teacher in that class is really good and helped me out when the class weren't so responsive. Plus as it went on I began to develop more confidence and so was able to 'lead' the class a bit better. Have you done your presentation on the Midwest yet?

I *ALWAYS* forget that in America you can't drink until you're 21, since everywhere else I've been it's 18! (Duh! ). I always said I'd never go to the US until I'd turned 21 because I wanted to be able to drink and I think it's such a stupid law, seeing as you can vote/ get called up/ buy a firearm, etc, etc, when you're 18. However when I go over there in March I'll still be under 21 (though only by a couple of months! ). When's your birthday? Mine's May 4.

Take care, ttyl, Lizzy

i'm a huge movie buff, i've seen virtually every film and know of virtually every actor... well, not this Memphis Belle you speak of but i do know matthew modine. he was quite good in full metal jacket, which was a great movie. i liked vincent d'onofrio iin that too, i'd say he's one of my favorites. he was the one who said the immortal line 'i AM in a world of sh*t.' but i first noticed him in Men in Black of course. there's a man who gets the interesting roles, he has this amazing capacity to look kind of sweet and also really, really, REALLY evil. i like adam sandler just because i like comedians basically, and he is quite charming and cute. i wanted to see 8 crazy nights but didn't get to. the wedding singer was pretty good, he showed a lot of promise in it.
i have a lot of favorite actors... ewan mcgregor used to be my very favorite but let's face it, since star wars he's just not the man he was. in my eyes anyway. trainspotting was his peak. i started to get suspicious when the tagline for his movie about james joyce had something to do with 'history's sexiest novelist....' before i was seduced by ewan mcgregor's heroin-chic beauty i was precociously impressed with gary oldman, just because he's such a brilliant actor. i am more appreciative of complex, villainous types i guess. he played dracula in that wonderfully campy Bram Stoker's Dracula with keanu reeves and winona ryder and anthony hopkins... but i forget where i first noticed him, besides maybe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead which i remember watching when pretty young, my parents must have rented it. that's still one of my favorite movies/plays, i've never seen it performed live though.
you see i can sustain a monologue about movies for a long, long, long time so i'll just stop there.
glad your presentation went well. i haven't started working on mine yet since i don't have to do it til march and it's not a big deal. i personally would have a hard time designing an interactive presentation, just a basic stand up and read something off presentation is stressful enough for me. though letting the audience do some of the work would seem to take the pressure off.
the drinking age thing has some minimal sense behind it considering statistically that this is the age bracket that has the most car accidents, next to, i don't remember, 65+. can you really buy a gun at 18? i didn't even know that. i know that the only reason we can vote at 18 is because some kids protested getting drafted (i don't know if it was wwII or vietnam, isn't that pathetic?) before they could even vote so rather than not drafting them they gave us suffrage... which is all well and good... i know i'm not going to be drafted since i'm a girl but the idea of one of my friends going is just as bad or worse. so whenever i hear that word on the news i automatically get upset, it's sort of irrational but i can't help it. i've seen too many war movies i guess.
i myself turn 20 march 2nd. same birthday as lou reed! also jon bon jovi, mikhail gorbachev, john irving... i swear i note that every time i tell someone my birthday, which is pretty sad.. oh well

Wow...so (if I haven't asked you before) what's your favorite film, then? Or films? It's kind of hard to choose one. Usually I go on which films are my favorites by how many times I saw them in a row when I first saw them, or if someone says let's watch this movie and I say, 'yes, let's, it's one of my favorites.' Graham and I watched 'The Breakfast Club' the other night - have you seen it? It's totally far-fetched but very entertaining. But look out for the dramatized 'Memphis Belle', it's an excellent movie. Apparently so is the documentary movie, though I haven't seen it. There's still *tons* of movies I haven't seen yet that could become potential favorites, but that's the same for everyone, I suppose. I'll keep a look-out for 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' - I haven't seen that yet. I'll also keep my eye out for '8 Crazy Nights'.

I'm not sure, I think Ewan's still a pretty cool actor. Maybe it's just that since 'Star Wars' he's made more main-stream movies or that directors like to use him in their movies more as a 'star' now than as an actor, if you get what I mean. Gary Oldman is a very cool actor, too. I first heard about him thru the movie 'Sid and Nancy', though I didn't see the movie until ages afterwards and actually saw him in 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' first. That's quite a good film, though I have to admit my favorite thing about it is probably Keanu Reeves' English accent. No disrespect intended here, as it's completely perfect, it's just that it's so 'jolly' cut-glass that it makes us Brits fall about when we hear it. Another actor who surprisingly can be either heart-meltingly good or chillingly evil is Brad Pitt. I think once you get past the prejudice that he's a pin-up, he's actually an amazingly talented actor.

Yes, presentations are stressful, there's no doubt about it. When I asked Graham afterwards for some constructive criticism of my presentation, he said that maybe the lecture part sounded a bit too much like I was reading off a script and that I should just have noted the key words and talked around them. I replied there is *NO WAY* I could have done that - I would have been so nervous, I wouldn't have been able to string two words together. I think reading from detailed notes also has the advantage that to a certain extent you can hide behind the script. This is a great help I think if people aren't paying attention, as I find nothing's more off-putting than finding someone in the front row sending SMS-messages to their friend on their cell phone...

One of the American girls had told me before that the reason you can't buy alcohol in the US until you're 21 is to prevent drink-driving. I thought this was a very valid point too until all the American guys dismissed it. Still, I think it's a bit strong that you can go out and die for your country but not be allowed to drink! I'm pretty sure you can buy a gun in the US aged 18, though I guess it depends on what type of gun and it varies from state to state. Incidentally, while it's still possible for British lads to be called up, they don't have to fill in a draft card or anything like that when they turn 18. I think the main reason for this is that the British army hates conscripts because they're so badly motivated and difficult to discipline. Professional armies always do a much better job. I can't imagine the US sending conscripts to Iraq for the same reason.

Did you do anything much this wkend? I went with some of my American pals to Bremen, a big city in the north of Germany. We wandered around the city and went to see the 'Beck's' brewery, where we got two free beers after the tour! I swear it was stronger than normal though, as we were all quite tipsy afterwards. It provided some interesting photos of us riding bronze pigs, though (part of a statue in one of the town squares).

Take care, ttyl, Lizzy

haha, that sounds like fun. the name Bremen rings a bell, i'm sure there's some children's story about it having to do with a bunch of animals who are in a band or something...
ewan is a good actor, and brad pitt definitely is too, he was also one of my favorites when i was younger and swoonier, though he has redeemed himself many times over with Fight Club. i was attracted to the talent! he was really excellent in meet joe black, though the premise that anyone would want to sleep with a guy that acted like that was pretty misguided to me. though my favorite part of that movie is the cakes...
i thought keanu reeves's accent was pretty silly too... he is quite a bad actor, i think, but i still really like him for some reason. perhaps sentimental memories of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. i get the impression that he's pretty smart and well-respected in real life, and he does take some pretty daring roles... i need to find My Own Private Idaho on dvd, he wasn't half-bad in that as i recall.
movies like The Breakfast Club bother me... they make me feel really sentimental and also really annoyed because my highschool experience was nothing like that and they're trying to pass it off as some kind of universal memory i'm supposed to identify with... pretty much all teen comedy-dramas are like that, so i can't stand them.
my favorite movie is Trainspotting, i've probably gone into the reasons before... it changed the whole course of my intellectual, cultural and artistic development. so ewan mcgregor is never going to win with me again. i love a lot of his movies, moulin rouge and velvet goldmine are a couple of my favorites, and of course he's still beautiful although less so the more clean cut his roles become. kind of twisted that i love him more as an emaceated heroin junkie than when he's singing love songs and dancing with nicole kidman... i should probably rent that james joyce movie. my friend was talking about wanting to see The Pillow Book so maybe we'll have a 'ewan the sexy writer' night..
yes, i've found that i'm useless with presentations if i don't know exactly what i'm going to say. i was laid back about preparing for one last year and i pretty much botched it consequently. so i'm not worried about looking cool and relaxed anymore, i just want to have all my points scripted out in front of me and i'll read them as mechanically as i like, thank you. it's the best way.

oh yeah, i actually did get out this weekend! wow. a couple friends and i went to a fundraising event our college radio station, which i dj for, had put on at this really cool club in the warehouse district.. it was all local electronic music and it was pretty fun. i think i got a bit tipsy too, i only had one black russian but it was on an empty stomach and after dancing for awhile i realized i felt a bit weird and not sure i could predict where my foot was going to go next as we were leaving and going to get food afterwards... i held it together, it was just kind of a vague sensation. i enjoyed myself.

Just saying 'hi'...will talk more soon.

Hi Jane

Sorry I've been away for a while. You're right by the way about the children's story - 'The Bremen Town Musician' by the Brothers Grimm. There's a statue in Bremen to commemorate the story, copies of which can be found on just about every piece of touristy merchandise sold in the city.

I haven't seen 'Meet Joe Black', though I think you can forgive anyone for falling for somebody who looks like Brad Pitt, no matter *how* strange he is. I think Keanu gets a lot of bad press about his acting...OK so he's never going to be up to playing 'Hamlet', but he's very good in the right part (is that simply a cop out?! ). He was good in 'Dracula' in spite of the silly accent and of course he's astounding in 'The Matrix'. I'd like to see 'My Own Private Idaho' too, as well as 'Little Buddha'. Apparently Keanu starved himself so much for the ascetic bit that he gave himself kidney damage - now that's what I call commitment to a role. Don't worry, I think Ewan was at his most attractive in 'Trainspotting' too (though he probably wouldn't appreciate that! ). The hairstyle he has in that movie really suits him...OK, and so do the druggie eyes and the scrawny body. One movie of his that I would definitely recommend if you haven't seen it is 'Brassed Off', about a colliery band in the north of England. I haven't seen 'The Pillow Book' but I think it's probably worth a look, if only because apparently Ewan's naked during most of it...

I must say I do like the movie 'The Breakfast Club', in spite of it being so incredibly far-fetched. I think as long as you see such movies as terribly escapist and nothing more then they are OK. Maybe I find that easier to do though because I didn't go to an American High School; I don't think I'd be very pleased if I saw such a movie set in a British Comprehensive (a state-run High School that takes everyone, which is the kind I went to). Not that I can think of any, actually...I think it's kind of taken for granted that all state (public) secondary (High) schools are nasty and all private secondary schools are rather forbidding places.

Sounds like you had a cool weekend last week. Done anything much else in the meantime? I've been to quite a few parties, including an end of term party for the international students, which was fun. Tonight I'm going out to a social at a Chinese restaurant that's been organized for all the students who took German as a Foreign Lang this term. Graham's friend arrives on Friday from Helsinki (she's American, doing a year abroad there) so I'll probably be doing a fair bit of traveling around Germany next week.

Take care!
ttyl, Lizzy

yeah, brassed off was pretty good. when i latch onto a particular actor or director or whatever, i pretty much make it my mission to see every single thing they've made, and i went through quite a phase with ewan, despite the fact that i still haven't seen that james joyce movie. i think it's called Nora.. anyway. the pillow book is conceivably the most unabashed movie you will ever see, in about any imaginable aspect, be it artsiness or eroticism. it's quite over the top. and i can appreciate that. the director has this crazy fetish for literature and writing which is interesting. i think i've seen 2 of his other movies, one of which was actually kind of funny, called The Cook, The Theif, His Wife and Her Lover. that was more about food and sex than books and sex. though he still tied in a bookstore scene..fascinating. i'd say that film benefitted from being less grandiose than the pillow book.
it's been a fairly uneventful couple of weeks, except i did have my mom in town last week which was nice. we didn't do anything too exciting, just hung out, wandered around, shopped, ate. it was nice. i kind of like reverting to childhood, having her pay for everything and drive me around... and she's just generally pleasant to be with, so i'm quite lucky there.
mmm... chinese food. have fun! eat some vegetable fried rice for me...
right now, classes are out for the day and i now have to choose between sleeping and eating. tough one.

Hi Jane

I'm currently traveling Germany with Graham and his friend, Ella. Went to Hamburg at the wkend and spent today in Aachen. On Thursday Graham and I are departing for a four-day trip to Prague. Consequently I probably won't be around in h2g2 very much until some time next week.

Hope you're fine. I'm enjoying my travels but unfortunately I've picked up a cold from somewhere, so I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself at the mo'.

Take care - talk to you again soon!
Lizzy

yay! have a good time.
i have nothing to say for myself tonight... i just watched the finale of joe millionaire, consequently i feel really confused and am wondering where the past 2 hours went... i guess i know where they went and i just don't want to accept it. oh well! time to start gradually rebuilding my intellect.

Hi Jane

Spent Tues at home trying to rest up in order to give my body the chance to fight off the cold. Graham and Ella went to Cologne though and had lots of fun climbing the five hundred steps to the top of the cathedral and visiting the nearby chocolate factory. Unfortunately Graham also has a cold and is now suffering from the fact that he didn't take a day off. So today we're going to have to take it pretty easy.

I'm off to Prague this evening! Unfortunately I'm going by bus, which means that it's going to take nine hours. Still, I'm looking forward to visiting what many consider the most beautiful city in Europe.

What's 'Joe Millionaire', by the way?

Take care, ttyl,
Lizzy

joe millionaire, a reality series which europe is lucky enough not to know about... is not really worth explaining in much detail. construction worker gets to pose as millionaire for a bunch of women blah blah... and in the finale he chooses between 2 finalists and has to tell her he's poor and see if she stays with him. she did and they got $1 million as a surprise reward. aww.
sorry you missed cologne... or maybe you'd been before. you know, if i travelled 9 hours i'd only be in texas or tennessee. there's no escaping this country! but have fun in prague. i've never been there but a friend of mine lived in that area for awhile and has a lot of memories.
when i was in spain i climbed to the top of some castle, i wish i could remember the name of the town, it was a beautiful little town with an aqueduct. and a casle. i don't remember how many steps it was but i felt pretty damn proud of myself that i made it to the top without having a heart attack or a psychotic episode from going up and up and up this narrow, tight spiral stone staircase.. great view. i suspect it was pretty far short of 500 steps but they still posted a warning at the bottom saying how many. but i have no idea anymore. tsk.
getting geared up for some upcoming concerts.. seeing Spoonfed Tribe this saturday, they're some band from texas my friend likes and they seem interesting. but wednesday i get to see Interpol which i'm quite excited about... and then i get to go home for a week! yay. this week, however, has been a bit dull and i'm glad it's almost over.

Actually, now you've explained it, I think we did hear about 'Joe Millionaire' in the UK media though it never reached our TV screens (at least not on terrestrial, anyway - I dare say satellite will have bought it if it was very popular in the US).

I'd been to Cologne several times before actually, as I did three High School exchanges to Bonn, which is close by. I've scaled the cathedral a couple of times, once as a sprightly ten-year-old, and later as a teenager - the second time almost killed me, so I don't think I'll be doing it again! I've never been to the chocolate factory there though, so I was sorry about not being able to visit that, though I've promised myself that one day soon I'll go to 'Cadbury World' in Bourneville, nr Birmingham, UK. I LOVE 'Cadbury's' chocolate and it would be very interesting to find out about the background of the company, since it was set up by Quakers and was a major step forward in improving workers' conditions at the time (19th century, I think). It's so popular though that you have to reserve tickets just to get in!

Prague was amazing - it's enough to make even the most hardened architecture philistine melt. I also got to see my friend Teri again which was cool - she showed me her home town of Kladno (20 km or so from Prague) and we went to her apartment for dinner. I'm off on my travels again this Sat morning, when Graham and I are flying to the UK.

Have fun at the concerts! What type of music is 'Interpol'? I think I have vaguely heard of them, though I must admit I don't know anything about them.

Hope next week's more interesting for you!
ttyl, Lizzy

hiya
prague does sound cool. when (if ever...) i start my career as world traveller...or rather, restart... i'll have to pay it a visit.
not too much time at the moment, i should in fact be studying for my latin american history midterm in half an hour..as if i could really do myself any good at this point in time but at least i could make myself feel less like a slacker. after all, i did go to a concert last night instead of studying so hell, i deserve what i get, right?
Interpol was pretty good. they're from new york i think..though for some reason i assumed they were british, perhaps it was the mod look. how embarrassing. anyway. they have this kind of simple, repetitive, dark, lush, strummy sound. sort of verging on goth. odd lyrics. vocals are *intense* is the only way i can think of describing them. i think the closest thing they had to a hit was called PDA. they're pretty damn good in my opinion. the show was ok though they had a few instrument problems or well..maybe it was on purpose? sounded out of tune at first is all.
cool, i didn't know that much about Cadbury. i love their creme eggs though.
oh hell, i'd better go. i should not have gotten on at all but, well... can't help myself!