The Only Thing that Went Through the Mind of the Bowl of Petunias as it Fell Was: Oh No, Not Again

So I’m sick. I’m in beautiful Edinburgh and sick. Boo.

But aside from wanting to claw out my esophagus, I have a few weeks worth of catch up still to do, not to mention our spectacular Scotland shenanigans. And as a disclaimer…I just wrote the sentence “Audra Linsenmayer is a mind ninja” for my bio in Bricolage, so anything I say in here that seems more insane than usual can be attributed to phlegm and the heady Scottish air. Just saying.

So three Thursdays ago…

Let me set our scene: we are still near the lovely Stratford in Warwickshire, but we have strayed slightly from our Shakespearean roots to the nearby Warwick Castle. And by God, what a castle.

I mean, it had everything. Holes to pour boiling oil onto adversaries. Ramparts, from which Helen and I were able to identify Sir Bartholomew Downey, our unsuspecting lover in purple (and by lover, we mean stalk-ee). Such a noble color, purple, and as such, Sir Bartholomew was worthy of our love. It had a King Henry the Eighth lookalike that yelled at a child, making her cry, to which Sarah got revenged upon by flipping him off in a photo. It had a labyrinth entirely made of wax figures that we posed next to and totally creeped on. There was a hammed up dungeon tour where one of the actors who was supposed to be a medieval barber came up to me and tried to freak me out. His breath certainly did. And, of course, there was much group bonding over Monty Python and the Holy Grail songs and large, sexy swords. And much group bonding. Like the pinnacle of said bonding.

After Warwick Castle, we trundled our way back to Stratford and had a brilliant brunch with salmon and rum pudding and baguettes (YAY) and a rather intense discussion of Antony and Cleopatra. Food, the 14th century, and Shakespeare? GUH.

Friday.

Rather uneventful as Fridays go, actually. We had Mike’s class in the afternoon and went to the Imperial War Museum to which all young British children apparently flock like sheep with accents. It was actually a lot more fascinating than I anticipated, and the Holocaust part of the museum was as disturbing and solemn as usual (though quite different than other ones I’ve seen…anyone who cares to get into a discussion on British vs. American portrayals of historical events, I’m yours).

But what we were really gearing up for on Friday was…

SATURDAY’S FOOTBALL MATCH!!!!

And I went all out.

Painted the face, bought the scarf, the works. It was basically the funniest thing I have done in a long time, just to see how worked up everyone gets about it. On the way to the match, we (namely, Katie, Jillian and I) got lost (well, I say lost. I knew we’d find it eventually if we wandered enough, but Katie does so enjoy asking for directions, silly girl) and went to a bar that had a QPR (Queen’s Park Rangers, that’s the team we’ve been supporting since birth. Or, you know, since like a week ago) friendly logo on it. I will now copy the conversation as if we were all valley girls looking for prom.

Us: “Like, OMG, where’s the stadium?”

Bald bouncer guy: “Uh, HELLO, are you QPR fans?”

Us: “Duh, of course!”

BBG: “Whatever. Like, prove it then.”

Me: “We’d show you our tattoos, but we might get arrested for public indecency.”

BBG: “OMG, that’s sooo funny! It’s, like, that way. Go QPR!” ::Does cheerleader pom-pom dance*\o/*::

It didn’t happen exactly like that, though I did say afterwards when we were walking away the stuff about the tattoo and public indecency. Shame.

Anyway, we get to the game, get our face paint on (which, by the way, the British don’t seem to know about. The art of face painting eludes the poor creatures) and start acting like rabid, carnivorous buffalo that have quite a colorful grip on language. Apparently, it is customary to yell insults at the other team that calls into question their character, their mother’s character, and the validity of their birth. In other words, it is GREAT FUN. We actually asked some locals what they were shouting (because the chants and cheers are an art form in and of themselves) and learned the glorious insult “sheep shaggers”, which we chanted exuberantly the rest of the game. And, of course, each other ever since.

Until we lost. Cue more colorful, though somewhat more self-deprecating and solemn, language.

All in all, we got to freak out our British professor, bruise our larynx, make old men in grocery stores do double takes and chant with the locals for a not-quite-Man-U-level football team. Take that as you will for how successful an event that was.

Not a lot happened after Saturday…caught some Doctor Who (LOVE), watched some Dorothy with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Graham Norton with the homestay fam, chilled. Bought another 3 quid DVD (Tenth Doctor…I couldn’t resist, I was having withdrawals)…I also forgot to mention two Sundays ago, when Jillian, Katie and I went to O’Neil’s in a church-made-pub and had the most ridiculous conversation with a drunk, drunk DRUNK local while listening to live, random Genesis and Irish folk music all night. I can’t do justice to what ‘James’ said (I remember his name because he told me it like, I don’t know, 45 times) but know that it was some of the funniest drunk person chat I’ve heard ever. Oh silly, happy, optimistic British drunks!

Well, now I’m only two weeks behind. The pub crawl, church crawl and Soap deserve their own section, so hopefully I will be able to take these several sick days I am planning on taking to make my lungs not hate me so much and catch up on this blog. And maybe do some homework.
It’s a definite maybe.