UPDATE July 31, 2012

I was in graduate school and quite surprised the first time I saw someone do it. I thought it was a mistake or I hadn’t seen the person clearly. Perhaps the person was only blowing his nose in the stall next to me or just changing clothes. Still it’s hard to mistake that uncontrolled straining (hopefully he doesn’t have hemorrhoids or piles); he must have been doing #2. But how is it possible that someone leaves a stall and walks straight out without even a thought to wash his hands.

It happened again last week, but thankfully this man at least rinsed his hands. But I was still shocked that he would bypass all of the soap machines. Perhaps he thought he had to pay? But if he asked to borrow a coin (which would not be true since we would never see each other again) I would have given him a coin so he could try to kill the fecal bacteria on this hand. I just couldn’t believe he was going to rinse and go eat food. My stomach hurts thinking about it. Actually, hold that thought. I have a few quiz questions for you. I’ll try to make most of them easy meaning 50-50%. Good luck!

QUIZ

11.       In the UK, we have automated urinals that circle around a cylinder shaft that is below ground and raises above the ground on Friday and Saturday nights. It allows men who are overly drunk to pee in the middle of the street.

TRUE

FALSE

22.       In Britain, you can purchase a smoked joint at the neighbourhood store.

TRUE

FALSE

33.       In the UK, on average you get about 4 weeks a year off, to start.

TRUE

FALSE

44.       There are usually no outlets in bathrooms in Britain.

TRUE

FALSE

55.       In Britain, you can purchase an unsmoked joint at the neighbourhood store.

TRUE

FALSE

66.       Two-way residential and rural streets can be from 1 to 1.5 car widths wide.

TRUE

FALSE

77.       I can find no air conditioning here but all homes have central heating.

TRUE

FALSE

88.       Cars here only park facing one direction on the same side of the street, and cars park on the sidewalks in the UK.

TRUE

FALSE

99.       If you miss a turn while driving on the highway here, you must generally drive a long distance before the next exit or turnaround.

TRUE

FALSE

110.   Arrange each of the following in increasing order of land area and define what it includes.

British Isles, Great Britain, England, and the United Kingdom.

111.   The top 40s in the UK are dominated by techno-style music.

TRUE

FALSE

112.   Group the following terms together (for terms that describe the same genre) and describe the sound or dance that each term or group of terms represents:

Dance

Drum & Bass

Rave

Trance  (or Tranz)

House

Techno

UPDATE July 31, 2012

I always hate writing these updates, and no one believes me. The strange thing is that when I write one, I always remember why I write them. I get the most wonderful responses back. And they are all different, unique, personalized. Most people delete the updates. A small minority skim it. A smaller number read certain parts, and a handful read every word. But what happens is that the responses all pick up on different things. One person last time wrote to me about the Arab world. Another wrote to me about the story of Cain’s Arcade. Another wrote about London (after almost a year, people still don’t realise where I live—ha!). And the list goes on. People tend to reply to what is relevant to them, and I really enjoy it. Some use it as a starting point to just start emailing me personal and I really enjoy that as well. So here I am again. Please excuse the delay, I went out of town the past two weeks on a tour of Italy, and I met up with Bianca there. It was a really heavenly time. I’ve heard it said that Rome and Barcelona are the two best cities in Europe. You’ll find no argument from me, and it give me an incentive to go visit Barcelona.

I flew to Italy on my birthday two weeks ago. I honestly would have forgot except that my mother-in-waiting sent me a CD of a black comedian who she said reminded her of me. At first I didn’t get how—well I thought I knew how. But I read her note further and she said that we had similar wit and timing. Now some of you are reading this and saying to yourself, “What? He’s not funny!” Others are thinking, “What! He’s not tall!” Some of you are saying “What? He’s black?” I can assure you, I am tall.

It was a sweet gift and I enjoyed listening to a black male stand-up comedian who is as “funny” as me (don’t ask me). My mom sent me a new backpack, cinnamon apple herbal tea (a Udoewa house favourite), chin-chin (a Nigerian hard cookie snack), gardening gloves, respirator-filter masks (this is not for SARS but for gardening since I am allergic to most grasses, weeds, trees, flowers, and plants), basil seeds, carrot seeds, parsley seeds, a hand shovel, a hand rake, two reusable gardening plastic bags, and a shirt that says “Really REALLY Ridiculously Good Looking.” I know, I know, what you’re thinking. The shirt should have had a third “really.” Bianca got me a small batik cloth, a handmade leather key ring in the shape of Africa, a handmade leather-wood pen-holder, a book on “Christianity after Religion,” 2 cards (I helped her with a grant application so I think one is a thank-you card), and a hand-tailored shirt from Niger. It’s very nice. So I felt appreciated and loved, most especially by all the emails that came in. If you sent Facebook messages, I’m not ignoring you, I just don’t know if you’re supposed to respond to wall messages. If you didn’t message me on Facebook because I haven’t accepted your friend request, who are you? No, I’m just kidding. . . .No, really.  . .WHO are you? . . . No, I will accept your request soon. I just don’t go on Facebook much and have a lot of requests to go through. J

You’re probably wondering why I was given so much gardening paraphernalia from my mother. I run a small garden allotment on a rooftop garden. I’m growing corn (about 6 stalks), habanera peppers, and one strawberry plant. I’m doing this in a raised bed of soil that stands about 4 feet up from the ground in an open wooden container. It’s pretty crazy and nice and fun. I enjoy it. The only problem is that I don’t get to that building every day and the peppers need water every day. Plus I’ve been gone for 2 weeks and my team doesn’t always water it for me (even though we all share it). So I need to go check on it. I have pictures of it from 2 weeks ago though, so I’ll share those with you.

It’s strange walking around London. The other day I saw a man with big lump in his back.  I then said “Oooh, a hunchback.” Then I realized the humpback was muscle. “OH, he’s an Olympian.” And so the madness begins though it never really started. Some people were going to work from home the entire time because it was supposed to be soo ridiculously crowded. It was crowded and coming home from an Olympic event could take a while, but London did such an excellent job with coordination and planning that it went quite smoothly. Due to my Italy trip I missed more than half of the Olympics but before leaving, I caught 3 football matches at Wembley Stadium. I also went to the Olympic Park and saw all of the cool buildings (Aquatic Centre, Velodrome, Olympic Stadium, etc.) that were built for this Olympics. It is an amazing park, and I’m keen to see what will become of it after the Paralympics. I actually wish I had looked for tickets earlier. Watching the Opening and Closing Ceremonies on TV, I realized I would have loved to be there even more than a specific match. A medal-winning match would have been good, too, but I was just thankful to go and see a few games with good friends and enjoy myself.

It's quite amazing, the spirit, the atmosphere, the frivolity. It kinda makes me want to go back in time and do athletics/sports. I just don't like the punishment (unnatural in some sports) that some athletes put their body through so that they have really messed up bodies by mid-life. Still, the Olympics are pretty grand. It's quite an amazing, global event and there are people here from everywhere. It has a feeling of friendship and humanitarianism (except for the kids saying “USA is the best in the world” at the men’s basketball gold medal match between Spain and the U.S.; this irked my Liverpool workmate as he thought “What country goes around claiming to be the best in the world?”).