Quote of the Day: Samuel Johnson

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."

(Editors note: I didn't have much time to proofread this so please forgive me for any imperfections.)


London was the first city we stopped at on our honeymoon. We mostly just saw the historical sites that one is supposed to see over there like Buckingham Palace, The London Tower, and Westminster Abbey just to name a few which I understand some people call the geek tour.


To make it even geekier, We accidentally found the writer Samuel Johnson's house which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GoughSquare-No.17.jpg. Unfortunately, spending time in this room http://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/picture.htm did not make me a great writer like the good doctor; although on the plus side, it also didn't make me any more OCD or depressive than I already am.


We also spent one day in Stratford-Upon-Avon which is a nice quiet little English village that happens to house Shakespeare's birthplace. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shakespeare
As I wandered the town, I pondered one very important question: How tired do you think schoolchildren get of hearing about Shakespeare? I bet it sucks to have your parents always comparing you to him.


Overall, England was very nice. I really enjoyed seeing my old friend Heath as well who bought us an English breakfast for a wedding present.


There was one little incident I should make mention of for your edification. Maybe you can learn from something from the time I almost kicked off a city bus for reasons that still remain unknown to me. Although, I guess I must admit that my smart mouth had a little something to do with it towards the end.

We had been riding the bus all day so I was pretty certain I'd gotten the hang of it by my fifth ride so imagine my surprise when the bus driver started yelling at me right after I flashed my pass. "What is your problem, my friend?"
"What?" I asked very politely because I was very concerned about being perceived as your stereotypical ugly American.
"What is your problem?" he said again with a sigh of exasperation before he proceeded to glare at me like he was trying to bore a hole through my head with his eyes.
"What is your problem, my friend?" I said back because I didn't care how I looked anymore. I was mad enough to bite my thumb at him (Yes, that is a Shakespeare reference.) because one thing that really sets me off is people yelling at me. My mom can testify to all the times I yelled at authority figures back in high school. Turns out in a lot of ways I am still an angsty sixteen- year-old boy at heart.
"I need to see your pass."
"Is this good enough?" I said and stuck my pass up to the glass partition protecting the bus driver.
"You tell me?"
"Seriously, dude, what is your problem?"
"Go sit down."
I just stood there and glared at him because nobody was going to tell me what to do until Stacey came back and told me to sit down thus thoroughly disproving that theorem.

Afterwards, we figured we were safe after we decided from then on to always travel with our passports in case I got us into trouble for mouthing off in a foreign country which Stacey was determined not to let me do anyway.

So guess who we saw the next night on the very same bus? My nemesis and I pretended not to recognize each other and I was lucky this time because he only drove a couple blocks until it was time to switch drivers at which point he proceeded to become a passenger and kick an elderly Indian man off the bus. We don't really know why because we only turned around when we heard someone say, "Who the hell are you? I have a ticket?" The Bus Nazi, as we have affectionately named him, argued with the Indian man until he finally won by pointing to the door and saying, "Please exit," enough times that the man had no choice but to take his advice.

So it turns out the guy was just a jerk and had nothing personal against me or my Americanness which is actually kind of a blow to the old ego.