Interesting Facts Previously Not Mentioned

The following post may be considered PG-13 rated. If you are not over the age of 13, do not read this post. Ladies, if you are lying this badly about your age to believe you are 13 once again, you definitely need not read this post and seek professional medical help. Men, well, there's only a few people in my family under the age of 13, and one I know can't read yet, while the other two should beletting their parents read this first. Now then, enough with this random disclaimer/warning, and on to the blogging at hand.

Good Day men, women, and beasts alike. Your host is back with another installment of the Wandering Newfie blog. Y'know, I was doing some writing in my journal the other day, and I came across some pages I had scribbled random notes on for use later in a previous blog entry. Well, needless to say, I had not included these findings and tidbits of information into the blogs in retrospect. So here it is, the blog to bring to the forefront some of these thigs I saw, encountered, heard, touched, tasted, smelled, and otherwise interacted with on some level or another. Each paragraph is its own separate thought process, so you can read in bits and pieces at your leisure.

The first one was a street sign. You and I know that in Newfoundland, we have some odd town names, and even more surprising business names from time to time. Well, this one really took the cake. I will remind you, that this may be PG-13 rated, so parents, please remove your children from the computer screen until you have passed this piece. On the bus heading out of bath, this road sign for a hotel read, and I kid you not, 'Limpley Stroke Hotel'. Not only was this sign presented on the side of the road for all to see, but it was placed strategically around the turn we were taking in three different places, just to make sure all passers-by recieved the message implicitly that this hotel was there. I nearly jumped off the bus at that moment, though if the hotel had lived up to the connotations of its name, I would very quickly not qualify to stay at said hotel.

A pice of information I found at Stonehenge was what they referred to as Burroughs (my spelling may be off slightly, pronounced Bur-uh's). These reminded me of the Viking houses and grave sights at Lanse-aux Meadows on the Northern Penninsula...and I hope my geography is right otherwise Dad and Mom will never let me live this down. Well, Mom might because her sense of direction is sometimes worse than my own. I love you too Mom! The mounds in the ground, which look like shrunken versions of our own Norse invaders' graves, dotted the landscape around the Henge. It would have made one hell of a challenging golf course though, let me tell you. Corey, I'll see if I can make it to St. Andrews, where they invented the sport, and piss off some poor waspy old men by acting out Robin Williams. If the video is shaky, it'll be because I was running away from the golf carts. But, I have digressed. As it is, these Burroughs are the grave sites of ancient Chieftans who lived in the area surrounding Stonehenge hundreds if not thousands of years ago. But they aren't pushing up daisies, so to speak, as there wasn't a blasted flower, shrub, or plant to be seen save for the long grass and local small plants that seem to be everywhere anyways. They're certainly doing their blastedness in the afterlife not be disturbed or found. Fortunatley, out tour guide knew where they were, and he filled us in. I will say this though, if I get the chance again, I'm taking my running shoes and running over all of those Burroughs I can find, just to say I 'ran over' a historic figure, if not royalty for some I'm sure.

York is certainly an interesting place, if you're into older-style architecture and very, very quiet places to think and ponder about the myseries of the universe while being bothered by countless amounts of geese, pigeons, finches, and other fowls and feathered fiendish fauna hiding in the flora. I will explain myself in short order. Firstly, the architecture is really quite spectacular, as you can see by going to my facebook page. (Yes, I still haven't figured out a good site to dump mass amounts of pictures onto, so if you have any good ideas, let me know!) The walls around central York are the original walls and walkways and towers used to gate and guard the city in its earlier years against travellers, warring bands, and wild animals of all sorts, shapes, and sizes. It is quite interesting to walk on them, but I did that once and it didn't take me very long, so enough said about that. Oh, come on, it's a wall! It's not that impressive. Still, there are pictures in the facebook gallery. You can check it out there. Some of the buildings look old enough to belong in a movie set back in the days of Shakespeare. The roofs are bowed with age, clay-fired tiles cracked from the weather, paint fading off the walls, and people manning them that look like they've been strung out on the timeline too long. Alleyways dot the streets as you walk by, some so small you'd miss them if you blinked as you walked. My friend Jessica showed me a book she had about where all of the alleys were and where they went, and also said it's a great way during festivals and busy times of the year to get around the crowds. I looked at them and thought 'What a great place to get away in a chase!' and 'I wonder if I can climb those walls?' That was another thing, all of the drain pipes and such running down the sides of the buidlings had this 'Climb Proof' paint on it. Well, it certainly didn't feel climb-proof to me when I briefly tested that theory. Did I go to the top, nope, as the building was 3 stories high, but it did give me a really cool vantage point to look down on the alley from. It'd be a cool spot to run around for a day and see where I could get, well, minus the police and jails and all that jazz that would undoubtedly ruin my fun. Pffft. As for the quiet of York, it's too much like home in some ways. Every major shopping area save the market in Central York is set far outside the city proper. There aren't a lot of travellers either, not like London anyways, or I would suspect some of the other places I will be visiting in the near future. That's what bugs me about some of these places, great scenery, but lousy amounts of things to do and people to meet. Still, for what it is, a great place to wind down and relax for a few days, until you go completely mad! Finally though, there are the birds. Pigeons are in your face and around your feet quite literally 24-7 and they are everywhere. They even wake me up in the morning. I didn't know pigeons could be that annoying, honestly, I didn't! I guess in the bigger cities, they get drowned out by the engine and gunshot noises. But that craziest thing was the geese. I have pictures of hordes of geese, just walking, or rather waddling if you prefer, in the main pathways. They're not exactly the nicest sort either, well, the gray ones aren't anyways. There were two main types, black and gray. While the black ones stayed to the water and flights mostly, the gray ones acted like we were on their turf. One even blocked my path as I was biking towards it, raised up, and hissed at me like a bloody-snake! Needless to say, I was so shocked by the maneuver, I promptly stopped the bike and waited for it to get the hell out of my way. In retrospect, it would have interesting to see how far a goose could fly if powered by a kick moving at speeds accelerated through the use of a bicycle, or 'push-bike', as the locals like to call them.

'Bicycle Policeman With Siren Blaring Looks Ridiculous As He Weaves Through Traffic!' That definitely could have been the highlight of my blog post. The dude just threw a siren on and cars started somewhat moving out of his way. I have to give the dude some credit though, as it takes dedication to do your job all day on a bicycle wearing a bright yellow vest. However, he did look rather ridiculous, and I believe I even saw some of the locals look and laugh as he passed by. I mean, how intimidating is a guy on a bike coming up behind you in a car? You almost want to open your door abruptly and see how far he flies. But of course, I would never do that, no...not having a car throws a monkey-wrench into things now doesn't it? At least on horse-back you have to look up at the officer as they come up on you or pass you by. Imagine if the poor guy got a flat, or got into a bike chase with a theif on a really nice racing bike? He's not only be exhausted in the second situation, but also embarassed in both of them. Not my first choice for a position with lots of respect flowing my way.

I believe that's about it for today folks. I have to go dbook some more flights. Next stops, Manchester, Dublin, and then most likely somewhere in Scotland. Time to have a linguistic adventure! If you can tell me where that line is taken from, you get a shout out and I'll send you back somethinf in the mail.

Neal