and now, the moment you've all been waiting for...
yeah, so here's my notes from my trip. enjoy.

05/20/03
i've been showing cindy around omaha -- it's odd how different a place seems when you're showing a visitor around. we did the old market bar scene, stage right (the coffee shop where everyone i know hangs out now), walked around the central park mall and the heartland of america park, and i showed her north high and even remembered how to get to miller park (though i got lost trying to find the old makeout spot where larisa and i used to go).
...and now i'm stuck at o'hare with my dad and sister for a 6-hour layover waiting for our flight to london. we would go into the city (45 min on the el each way), but meagan was out partying last night and is passed out. i just speed-read the entire london section of my rough-guide and am waiting for the information to soak into my brain.

22 may 03, 21.15 bst (british summer time), london
we've just sent meagan off to the newsstand to find a copy of time out, the weekly magazine of what's happening in london. i called alan in belfast to see if he knew what was happening in london on wednesday and thursday nights, and he said probably not much, but i might be able to find something in time out. last night was an exercise in jet lag - i passed out after dinner around 7 pm, then slept fitfully around 4-6 am, and didn't awake until 1 pm. as usual for sleeping late, i was all pissed off for sleeping in (dad and meagan did too), but after a shower, muffin, and coffee, i was doing better. there's a friendly little breakfast shop just down the street. we took the tube (4 pounds 10 for an all-day off-peak pass, but you can buy them on credit) to london bridge, got some snapshots of tower bridge (the cool-looking one), and then followed the thames path past the clink to the tate modern gallery. they had some incredible art there, including some video exhibitions (one memorable, if not so incredible piece was of artist paul mccarthy wearing nothing but boxing gloves and a mask, alternately beating himself and whacking off) and one of a packed-full barn that was blown up by the british army and then hung in a mid-explosion freeze, lit only by a single lightbulb in the center. i picked up a lichtenstein print for my house and a book called "how to get rich" for cindy. then it was farther down the thames path to westminster abbey and big ben (past the millenium eye) for the obligatory big ben shot. after that was taken care of, we took the tube to victoria station for some reason (i guess dad wanted to see the train station, but we didn't go in), and then looked about for a bite to eat. we had great curry and popadoms at an indian place near victoria station, then went back to the hotel to change shoes and have a pint.
which is where i am now. meagan and dad are back upstairs (the newsstand was closed). i think we'll check out a place called the cross, just down the road or one tube station away. the london underground is pretty impressive - it seems like just a short walk to a station from just about anywhere. i do think i'm definitely getting the tourist's view of london, unfortunately. not too sure what to do about that; perhaps clubbing tonight will at least somewhat remedy that. it's interesting to redefine my view of roads here. not just driving on the left and not stopping for left turns - even the widths of roads are different. what would be an alley in the states is a good-sized avenue here.

23 may 03 10.08 bst nottingham
after wandering about for a half hour in search of the cross (and searching with an irishman who'd lost his mobile phone there), we found that it was closed. so we popped into an internet cafe to check my email and see what else was happening. we ended up at "the end" for their disco-house night. the music was really good, but the drinks were weak. i pretty much just kept an eye on meagan while she was dancing with some ibiza boy. not too much dancing, though. i had to drag meagan out of there at 2 am so we could get some sleep for the drive to nottingham. which began around 10 am in a renault kangoo with me driving the exciting streets of london. once we hit the m1 motorway to nottingham, we ran into the bank holiday traffic, and often times didn't get out of first gear for up to thirty minutes. navigating in nottingham was no cake-walk, either. i finally gave up and parked at a shopping mall. curvy streets that change names every few blocks don't jive with me. we wandered about a bit down to old market square, where i managed to find the alley cafe tucked back in an alley, where they do indeed have great vegetarian food, as katie said. i was still rather dazed from the drive and lack of sleep, and all i could do was enjoy the food and think that it was definitely a katie type of place (thanks, katie!). we found a room at the holiday inn, and meagan and dad went off to explore while i took a nap - after first waiting for the girl from housekeeping to make up the sofa bed. it was her fifth day on the job, and she'd never done a sofa bed before, so she ended up taking about a half hour. then i slept until 11 pm, briefly considered either eating dinner or going clubbing, and then just went back to sleep until 9.30.

25 may 03 03.00ish edinburgh
after a quick glance around nottingham (a lovely town when the sun's out; i wish we'd stayed longer), it was back on the road. we stuck to the m1 and slightly smaller a1 until just past newcastle, then it was the much smaller backroad a696 into edinburgh. meagan's navigating skills notwithstanding, we found our holiday inn by the zoo where dad had already made a reservation. it was a drink while waiting for the restaurant to open, then excellent chinese at the hotel (though meagan thought the sweet & sour sauce was a little flat, but this is probably due to the over-developed american sweet tooth). dad booked us a room at the holiday inn in liverpool for tomorrow, thus alleviating any traveling hurries, then it was naptime to see if some sleep could calm my aching back - today i drove all day again. i awoke to dad watching the eurovision pop music contest, which was just dreadful, although the snide bbc commentary was amusing. i had called katie's friend rachel, who i'd met previously in corvallis (oregon), and who was now living in edinburgh and was having a party for one of her flatmates, joy. meagan and i missed the bus, so i decided that we should walk the few miles to rachel's flat. it took about an hour, but we got to see edinburgh at sunset, which was quite lovely. there's an enormous castle in the middle of town that's quite amazing to see at dusk, all lit up from without. we found rachel's flat without too much difficulty, where the smallish party was watching the results of the pop contest (turkey won, and the uk lost with zero points). most of the folks there had known katie from the few times she'd been here (she used to live in rachel's flat), and we chatted and drank and so forth. Some sort of consensus was reached to go to "the egg," and so we took a people-mover taxi-van to this club inside the edinburgh art school. it was very small, with people dressed in anything from 80s to mod to suits, and they played a bunch of indie-ish music very loud. it was lots of fun, and good to go with people instead of just meagan and i. joy was rather intoxicated, and another chap named cammy or something was stupid drunk (he kept asking the cabbie if he could drink in the cab - of course not) and curled up atop a subwoofer. we left around 1.30 am for bed.

26 may 2003 22.01 bst llangollen
sunday morning, we checked out the edinburgh castle. we didn't really feel like standing in line for the tour, or going in the scotch distillery, but took a bunch of photos of the outside. very impressive. we then tried to find parking downtown for meagan to do some shopping, but no luck. so, on to liverpool through the lovely scottish countryside. after many wrong turns, we managed to find the holiday inn where we'd made reservations. we had some pizza at the far-too-upscale-for-a-pizza-place "pizzaexpress" nearby, then i went to bed while meagan went to her room to read and dad watched tv. i awoke around 9 pm, and rang the concierge to see if the legendary cream was having a night. cream is apparently gone, but plenty of other places were open, but i was feeling lazy and so i tried to go back to sleep. which i had no luck at until far into the night. dad and i both overslept until awoken at 12.30 by the concierge ringing to see when we were checking out. once we got that taken care of, we went down to the city centre so meagan could do some bank holiday sale shopping. then it was on to llangollen via the walled city of conwy and the lovely welsh countryside. we've got a b&b room here, walked around (found a william lloyd headstone in the graveyard), had some good welsh dinner, and now it's time for bed.

27 may 2003 19.20 bst london
after a fine welsh b&b breakfast, we looked about llangollen. we checked in the visitor centre to see if they knew where the lotus museum was (near the east coast - sorry travis, you'll have to go yourself). the train station, supposedly the one used in harry potter, was closed, and we didn't feel like going to the dr. who museum, but i got some welsh fudge for mom. then it was off toward cardiff through the lush green welsh countryside. when we stopped for lunch, though, meagan took over navigating and me driving, so meagan decided we should head toward london and see how far we'd get, maybe to bristol. we eventually found ourselves on the m4 toward london at 3ish, with about 150 miles to go. doing 90-100 with the faster parts of traffic got us to london in a reasonable amount of time, and after a bit of london-street confusedness, we found the jurys inn again, where dad booked us for an extra night. i parked the car and picked up some dime bars for kari (which i'd almost given up on finding), an f1 racer magazine for travis, and a british maxim for drew on my way back to the hotel. i also got a time out to see what's happening, but it doesn't cover tonight. it does say that grandmaster flash is playing tomorrow; i'll see if i can get tickets. (i nearly forgot - the pub where we stopped for lunch had excellent toffee bread pudding).

28 may 2003 21.24 bst london
can't leave the uk without a proper gin & tonic, so here we are... a trip down to the internet cafe revealed that grandmaster flash was sold out, but then we just figured out that our flight leaves at 9 am, so i guess that's alright. i had to assure meagan that after 22 or 23, staying up all night before doing something like flying just isn't as appealing as at 18. we watched some russian kids playing the new matrix video game at the internet cafe; it looks pretty cool. i gave cindy a ring in hawaii, then read some more of watership down and went to bed. i think i dreamt that i was in the parking lot of north high, talking to bean & tony & darren, and possibly erik, and tony said something about not taking any more crap, so we all decided to go watch tony lose his shit. very odd indeed. this morning, meagan went off to do some shopping (on the last of her graduation gift money, i think), and dad and i went to the tate britain museum. the turner exhibit was really interesting; amazing to see what was considered rebellious and anti-establishment art at the time. his darker works were really cool. we checked out the rest of the museum, then went on to the victoria & albert museum by way of a huge aerial photography exhibit outside the museum of natural history. we then spent about an hour waiting for meagan, just people-watching. then into the v&a for their amazing art deco exhibit. almost made me want to decorate my house entirely in art deco (if it weren't so expensive and the furniture weren't so uncomfortable). they also had a little frank lloyd wright exhibit, including an entire office rebuilt from one created by wright for the guy he built fallingwater for. i thought about doing some shopping - they have some really cool shoes here - but it was too late by the time we got back to the hotel, and i haven't any money either - we returned the car this morning, and they charged me an extra 100ish pounds for the mileage. whoops.

well, i guess that's about it. lots of construction in these cities, and lots of sports cars (plenty of lotus, including an exige) in london. and odd fashions among the londoners, and not just the young folk, either. british news is actually covering the lack of weapons of mass destruction in iraq (front page news) and debating the roadworthiness of suv's for london streets. but i think that the cctv cameras everywhere are starting to get to me. time for bed now. long day of travel tomorrow.