Hear it ev'ry Christmastime,
But hope and history won't rhyme--
--so what's it worth?
This "peace on Earth",
This "peace on Earth"...
-U2
Post contains 150% Recommended Daily Allowance of angst. Please think carefully before ingesting. Do not double the dosage.
There are times when I feel like I can save the world. I made a publicity poster this morning for APO to hang in the freshman dorms, possibly the best PR I've ever done, my parents both wholly approved, I couldn't wait for this Sunday to come so I could show it off.
I thought about Christmas presents and making people happy, about how my parents have gotten used to the idea of my working for a charity instead of being a writer, and glorying in how much my fingers, my eyes, my voice already has done, what it can do.
We felt like that, too, 'Nanda and Daf and I, with "For Pete's Sake", which became Leo Club--sent fliers to teachers, looking for one to help us change society, rock the foundations. Ms. Zicari was among the best we could have found.
But it's the same story I've told since this blog began. Aubrey came, Calypso came, we had other problems, big problems, but never clear-cut--you can't really diagnose a (para?)suicide, an eating disorder, in this information age; the more talk there is, the more people are caught, but the better smart kids hide, and the more posers (there are posers) blur the line. I've known girls to discuss suicide and not mean it, but make a good show; known people to scare others for attention, and I'm the one for whom "gullible" was always written on the ceiling. I panic over the slightest potential problem and it's never as bad as I think; I would make a horrible psychologist, especially because eventually, if it goes on for an extended time and the news never gets any happier, eventually I just burn out, avoid contact, lose all hope.
Or I do stupid things, stupid, bitter, tactless things, lose my patience and berate people for what I think is wrong with them, when usually I only know half of what there is.
I could work all my life and save one life each day, and it would never, ever be enough to fix even a fraction of what's wrong. As there are countless people experiencing all forms of joy, there are countless people in all sorts of pain. The Search for Snout implied that there are more in pain, at any given moment, than there are happy. Cynical. Is it true?
But if not me, then that's one less hand. I can do nothing else. I just can't pin my happiness on it. That's hard to do.
Which reminds me of this, which was my blog title of the moment even before tonight.
I'm sorry. This was going to be an entry about dog-sitting and bread-baking, which I did today (the former very uncharacteristic of me), and about my thoughts on whatever. But I started out the day thinking I could do so much, and have ended it realizing that I'm so powerless whenever it counts. Everyone tries to tell me it's the small things, hugging and listening and carrying. I never quite believe it. I don't know what would teach me. So far nothing has. My mind acknowledges chains, strings tying the universe together, chain reactions that brought me to Alfred, brought me Tim, small things melding. I wish I could be content with that. All the listening in the world never seems to change what's happening, only how somebody feels about it. As important as that is, it leaves everything incomplete.
Anyone know how to fix a God-complex?
-Laurel
11.26.2004
London, Part II (and about time!) - Thursday, October 14th
I got threeish hours of sleep total on the plane, in various contorted positions (no one sitting to my left, though the guy two seats over may have resented me by the end), and woke up for good to a sunrise over Ireland, which we were approaching. Not that I could see Ireland, mind, but the clouds brightened into pastel streaks and the disc of sun made me squint.
I figured I ought to sleep some more, but I started talking to Lily K., and then breakfast came around, and that ended all hope. "Three hours?" I asked her, uneasy.
"Yeah, we did that in Israel--the plane lands and you just begin the day," she said.
And that's what I did. It was about 8 AM when we came to a pretty eventual stop in Gatwick (like, we taxied for a long time). We got off the plane, got our luggage, and--whee--got in the line for customs. Anna was hyperactive already, and Dr. M pretended not to know her, but we did all get talking to a lady from--oh, goodness, Maine?--who knew all this stuff about London and was all into the idea of college students traveling. M was about ready to let her be the guide for the week and leave us.
First thing I discovered about London (besides that everybody around there has--here I will be a complete touristy girl--an incredible accent and it's a truly wonderful thing to witness and hear) is that the female bathrooms do the picture of the lady, like American ones, but some of them give her a really billowed-out skirt, like they've got colonial-era hoops under there a la Laura Ingalls Wilder or something.
(The bathrooms are clean and they flush. Score one for the First World.)
We exchanged money--I rather more than everyone else, but I was convinced that my credit card was not going to work overseas (note: I was right; thus should end my parents' insisting that Europe deals with Discover)--and bought tickets for the Gatwick Express, which was going to take us to Victoria Station, since Gatwick is, oh, a little far-flung from Paddington and the subway system. Sat with Katie and Anna and Lauren (considering their subject matter all the way over, was rather sorry I had) and got a truly horrible picture taken of my unwashed, bespectacled, speckled self (with yellow teeth), next to, I believe, Katie. Dr. M sat farther back and pretended not to know us. This actually did not become a theme of the trip; at the beginning I imagine he was rather skeptical of traveling with nine females, but by the end he would look sort of benevolently upon us as we talked about clothes or classes or life, and would ask us for stories and gossip about fellow professors (I don't know why, as he knows and tells worse stories of them than we do. I keep saying, and it's true, that I have so much liking for him, but so little respect--it's kinda bad).
We got to Victoria, which I remember practically nothing of, bought subway cards (used one of my cool ten-pound notes and got a bunch of change in coins; the pocket full of change was to be one of the recurring themes), and got on the subway for the first time, the city-wide London Underground system. This is the name of the subway as a whole; the different routes on it are known as lines. If you've never really been on a subway, and I never really had (once in NYC on a very-large-group school trip doesn't count), the Circle Line, which we took, is a good place to start. You never have to worry, I don't think, about going out of your travel zone (that's how far your subway card will take you before you have to buy a wider-ranging one), and if you get on in the wrong direction and have never navigated a subway before and are too afraid to move, all is well if you've got the time to kill while it makes a full circle (if I'm not mistaken, that is, since I never actually had to do this).
Our subway cards, the ones we bought every day all week, lasted all day (Day Travelcards, they're called, actually)--after I think 9:30 every morning, the price went down by a pound or two because it was off-peak timing (all of the weekend was off-peak as well). They were Zones One and Two, which got us everywhere we ever needed to go--it took more than just the subway to get to Greenwich, but I'll tell that story when we get there. To get on the subway, you had to stick your ticket into one of a lot of readers all in a line, blocking the way in. If it read right, the doors swung open at the end of the reader. If your ticket was all-day, like ours, it also gave you your ticket back through a slot on the reader's top; otherwise it sucked them in.
We got into Paddington and did some walking until we got to the Mitre House Hotel, which was cozy, if a bit small-seeming in comparison to, say, a Holiday Inn. We divided into room groups, refiguring based on Tori's coming later and last-minute mind changes; Sara and I ended up together instead of Katie and me, the original plan, 'cause Katie wasn't part of the class, but had come with Anna, so roomed with her. Sara and I were in the only double room. The triple held the freshmen--Juliane, Lauren, and eventually Tori. That left the self-regarded party suite, the quad room, as Lily, Lily K., Anna, and Katie. Dr. M, of course, had a room to himself.
Sara and I were the highest of the student rooms, a door or two down from M., on like the third floor up (Room 414, I think). The elevator in the lobby was old and slow and creaky, so I went into somewhat of a panic when I was told by a cleaning girl that no stairs went up that high and the elevator was the only way, but the lady at the desk (one of the owners, I think, since it's a pretty small and independent-type place) told me how to get up the stairs, which were right through a door off to the side.
This is where I owe Sara lots and lots, because much of the time, she wouldn't leave me to climb up all those stairs alone, but struggled up with me. This was harder for her than me, 'cause she was sick--something to do with sinuses or allergies--and was that way all week.
The stairs were steep and narrow, and at the first floor up, we had to go through the door and cross the hall, pushing the fire door open every time--their idea of "fire doors" are ones that you need to swing open, but there's no alarm involved--they're just weighted to swing back behind you and shut (and hold--they're relatively heavy) of their own accord. A few steps down the hall was the door to the other side of the stairs (I guess; it's sort of complicated to explain, at least for me), and from there we went all the way up to our floor.
I turned the key, opened the door, and surveyed the room. Sara said it best.
"It's a little small."
Yes. London hotel rooms, at least ones outside of the chain-hotel type, are rather snug. Immediately to the right wall, a little past the door, was a heater. At the end of the heater, about two or three steps from said door, was the first bed, a little narrow, and very tightly made (that is, getting the covers out took a stronger pull than usual), but feeling pretty good, and with nice pillows. There was about a step and a half's distance to the next bed, at the other side of which was the next wall. I realize that in a hotel room in America there isn't much space between the beds, either, but figure somewhere around a half-step less of space, maybe a little narrower even than that, such that a person trying to sleep on the floor between the beds could do it, but not easily (with the exception, for home-friends, of somebody like Shelley Wilson; school friends will please mentally substitute Kristin).
To the left of each bed was a small end-table, more deep than long or wide, with a decent-sized cabinet inside that proved to be truly invaluable. A step or two past the ends of the beds (as in, not the part with the headboards) was a dresser, decently long in length if I remember, with a closet attached and a TV on top of the dresser. To the left of all that, on a sort of diagonal towards the door, was the bathroom. Like, okay, take a square and cut the upper-left corner off. What you cut off, the corner you have in your hand, is roughly the bathroom, though it was a little less triangular. It was roughly square, but the door was at a sort of angle.
Anyway, the bathroom was also pretty small (smaller than the one in our cabin in Peru, but that was a pretty normal size), consisting of a sink just to the left of the door, a toilet farther up from that (looking in through the door and thinking of forward as "up"), and a shower to the right (looking in again).
Sara got the bed farthest from the door, which gave me the one closest. ...I think we just flopped down for a while, hoping to get to sleep for a while, but knowing we really wouldn't.
After the free time given us by Dr. M was up, we went back down to the lobby-area, which was to be the general meeting-place all week. The lobby had a sort of living-room area to the left when you came in the door--the part more to the right was the check-in desk, and to the right of that (still looking through the doorway), through a sort of archway, was the bar area, worth noting only because in an alcove off to the right side of that was a pay phone, which, as it turned out, I would spend roughly 90 minutes of one night occupying, but that's another entry.
Every time we left the hotel, we turned in our keys at the desk (is this standard procedure for hotels in America, too? I didn't do that in Oneonta, and I don't remember doing that for Ocean Bowl)--this first time, we went back to the subway, which I will hereinafter call the tube or the Underground, and got on the Bakerloo Line for Charing Cross. There is really not a whole lot important about which line we took, unless you need to know for future reference, but I like pointing it out anyway, because the Underground fascinated me. It was something actually logical enough for me to figure out within a day or two. I used to sit while riding the tube and stare at the Underground maps, looking at the different-colored lines marking, well, the different lines (that is, routes). So many, and all of them with such interesting names (well, 'cept maybe the Circle, but that one's cool just 'cause!), and going so many places with such cool names, so many I recognized from books.
I should also mention the term "mind the gap", because it's practically the theme of the Underground. In a lot of cases, the tube cars don't stop quite flush up with the platform (such as it is), so you have to watch your step a little, I guess. I can't think of how anyone would fall into this gap, unless they had small feet, but maybe they just don't want people tripping. So when the car doors opened, in a lot of places, especially Paddington, a computerized voice over the station PA system would say "mind the gap". There were different voices for this warning; only a few stations would have the same one. The Paddington one was this guy who sounded rather late-middle-aged, with a deepish voice, who kind of paused ever so briefly after "mind". Like, it was obviously pre-recorded, but what I could never figure out was whether it had once been a human, or whether it was totally a computer.
Anyway, we got off at Charing Cross. I only knew it for the hospital (yeah, Sherlock Holmes!), but as it turns out, it also holds (so to speak) Trafalgar Square, site of historical monuments, two of the world's more awesome art galleries...
...and four lion statues, which, being ourselves, we promptly climbed all over and took pictures of ourselves on, just like all the kids around. We also, like the kids, did a little pigeon-chasing. Juliane got rather good at it. ...Dr. M got attacked by one; I don't remember what night, so I'm sticking that fun fact here. He actually went off on his own at Trafalgar, telling us to meet back at five o'clock (it was something like three at the time, give or take half an hour).
So we ended up going pretty much en masse to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Oh my goodness grapefruit, they were beautiful. History just drips in these places, and the art is totally classical and lovely and understandable and well-explained.
And totally free. One thing I love most about London, of all the nearly-countless things to love, is that the great majority of museums are completely free of admission charge; they live on souvenirs--and perhaps government funding; I don't know, but with all the tourism, I doubt they'd need much of it. So there Lily, Lily K., and I were, standing in front of the portrait that's on the front of our Brit-Lit textbook (Volume I, that is :-P), talking in hushed English-nerd whispers about the parts the cover had cut out (such as, say, the fact that Queen Elizabeth is standing on top of the globe). That is seriously one of the only things I remember about that whole experience, but I was massively impressed.
I bought two postcards in the gift shop, though, 50 pence each. One was a painting, a little abstract, of David Bowie, upon which I wrote, later that night, a message to Aneya (thanks to our high school jokes, with Bethie, about Bowie's "astroplane" of weirdness, among other cracks); and one of an illustration of Roald Dahl with a bunch of his book characters, I think done by Quentin Crisp, who did a lot of the pictures for Dahl's books; this I sent to Erica from high school, who had asked for a postcard.
50p is not as cheap as the 10p postcards outside any random shop, especially when you take into account that every British pound equals two American dollars, but it buys less than two American dollars would at school (or, indeed, at home) because of prices comparable to New York City (you know, the $8 sandwiches, which were indeed about £4 in London). Still, the 50p postcards were always the cool ones, so I bought those to send out.
We also, that day, walked by a bunch of government buildings--Whitehall, Downing Street (we couldn't see Tony Blair's house, 'cause there were big gates to ward off unwanted visitors such as ourselves), Parliament Square--we saw Big Ben, the outside of Westminster Abbey...
...and a pancake stand. A small, random, fragrant pancake stand, which delighted Lily because of its sheer weird cuteness. I don't think we ever found more than one other one in all of London, and the thing is, I don't think any of us ever bought any (I know Lily and I never did), but it was nice to have around, and everyone seemed to appreciate it.
We went back to the hotel to change for dinner--I believe I took a shower at this point. Getting the water to the right temperature was a bit of a challenge, because the faucet control was a little stubborn, but it worked out in the end. Not knowing yet about whether the water was drinkable, I tried to keep it out of my mouth. If that was a question we'd covered in Petra's info-session, I'd missed the answer, and I read somewhere that you shouldn't drink any foreign country's water, though, considering especially Canada, I had my doubts about that to begin with.
We were eating with a cousin of Dr. M's and said cousin's girlfriend (wife? No, I think girlfriend). We ate at a newish place that the cousin knew about, I believe called "Quod", I believe located in Piccadilly Circus, which's pretty glitzy by night. It was very comfortable, though it took forever to get stuff (in part because the relations got there late and we were waiting on them for a while before we decided to go ahead and order). Not being very hungry, Lily and I just had bowls of pumpkin soup, which neither of us had ever had before, and which was delicious and very autumnal. And water--seeing cosmopolitan Lauren drink it, I figured I'd take my chances, even though it was very local and I was sure it wasn't treated. I spent a lot of that meal, though, struggling to keep my eyes open and not yawn at the cousin, who, having just been in my home city a few weeks before, was really very interesting, especially to me.
Got done with that and went back to the hotel--I was thirsty again by that time and had about three glasses of water, figuring I'd know soon enough whether it was flukily nondrinkable. Also ate some fruit snacks I'd brought along, if I remember, and wrote my two postcards while Sara was in the shower.
That was one thing I learned from Peru that really did come in handy in London: bring some food of your own to keep in the room. You never know when you'll need it. In Peru, I learned this the hard way, after we came back from that seemingly-eternal boat trip at almost-three-in-the-morning and the Divina staff was essentially like, food at this time of night? Are you *kidding*? Breakfast is in five or six hours; you'll eat then!, even though we none of us had eaten anything for between ten and twelve hours, and I would have shelled out double the usual price for so much as one of the little ice cream sandwiches they sold in the pool area. (Not that I am bitter. ::sigh::) ...I begged pretzels off of Tim and Tom at the time, since my antimalarial medicine (by then a good nine hours past when I was supposed to take it) had to be taken with food, or else Negative Side Effects would occur (I love the part of the label that warns you that if the medicine makes you throw up, it "may be less effective"). Still, I felt bad at how many I ended up inhaling, since they, you know, belonged to the twins.
I decided that, for London, this should not be, so I brought with me the most travel-friendly quick food I could find, sugar-filled and nutritionally-useless, for the most part. Namely, Fruit Gushers fruit snacks, in the teeny pouches, and a bag of Hershey's Nuggets (the chocolate-and-almond deals). This ended up being a very very good idea, because London did a weird thing to my eating patterns; they switched over imperfectly. They didn't stay at American times, but when we were supposed to be eating, for a good half of the trip, I didn't tend to be very hungry at all, but then, an hour or two after the meal, suddenly I'd be starving. A couple of Nuggets would usually take care of the problem until I could get near some actual food.
So after that, we switched the lights off, and I thought back five hours ('cause it turns out London's not six hours forward, but five, on Greenwich Mean Time). It was about quarter after nine PM in London, which meant...which meant...holy cow! Chris and Jenny were in lit class, writing a final essay that, had I been there, I would have been writing with them--and I was in London, ready to go to sleep!
This was to create a sort of hollow that got filled, Gusher-fruit-snack-style, with missing-Alfred-loneliness sometimes during the trip. For now, though, I looked around the room, listened to Sara's congested breathing, and calculated the hours left until 8:00 AM, when the wakeup call was. Liking the answer I got very much, I let myself sink into sleep, never waking until the call that next morning. And that was the first full London day.
-Laurel
I figured I ought to sleep some more, but I started talking to Lily K., and then breakfast came around, and that ended all hope. "Three hours?" I asked her, uneasy.
"Yeah, we did that in Israel--the plane lands and you just begin the day," she said.
And that's what I did. It was about 8 AM when we came to a pretty eventual stop in Gatwick (like, we taxied for a long time). We got off the plane, got our luggage, and--whee--got in the line for customs. Anna was hyperactive already, and Dr. M pretended not to know her, but we did all get talking to a lady from--oh, goodness, Maine?--who knew all this stuff about London and was all into the idea of college students traveling. M was about ready to let her be the guide for the week and leave us.
First thing I discovered about London (besides that everybody around there has--here I will be a complete touristy girl--an incredible accent and it's a truly wonderful thing to witness and hear) is that the female bathrooms do the picture of the lady, like American ones, but some of them give her a really billowed-out skirt, like they've got colonial-era hoops under there a la Laura Ingalls Wilder or something.
(The bathrooms are clean and they flush. Score one for the First World.)
We exchanged money--I rather more than everyone else, but I was convinced that my credit card was not going to work overseas (note: I was right; thus should end my parents' insisting that Europe deals with Discover)--and bought tickets for the Gatwick Express, which was going to take us to Victoria Station, since Gatwick is, oh, a little far-flung from Paddington and the subway system. Sat with Katie and Anna and Lauren (considering their subject matter all the way over, was rather sorry I had) and got a truly horrible picture taken of my unwashed, bespectacled, speckled self (with yellow teeth), next to, I believe, Katie. Dr. M sat farther back and pretended not to know us. This actually did not become a theme of the trip; at the beginning I imagine he was rather skeptical of traveling with nine females, but by the end he would look sort of benevolently upon us as we talked about clothes or classes or life, and would ask us for stories and gossip about fellow professors (I don't know why, as he knows and tells worse stories of them than we do. I keep saying, and it's true, that I have so much liking for him, but so little respect--it's kinda bad).
We got to Victoria, which I remember practically nothing of, bought subway cards (used one of my cool ten-pound notes and got a bunch of change in coins; the pocket full of change was to be one of the recurring themes), and got on the subway for the first time, the city-wide London Underground system. This is the name of the subway as a whole; the different routes on it are known as lines. If you've never really been on a subway, and I never really had (once in NYC on a very-large-group school trip doesn't count), the Circle Line, which we took, is a good place to start. You never have to worry, I don't think, about going out of your travel zone (that's how far your subway card will take you before you have to buy a wider-ranging one), and if you get on in the wrong direction and have never navigated a subway before and are too afraid to move, all is well if you've got the time to kill while it makes a full circle (if I'm not mistaken, that is, since I never actually had to do this).
Our subway cards, the ones we bought every day all week, lasted all day (Day Travelcards, they're called, actually)--after I think 9:30 every morning, the price went down by a pound or two because it was off-peak timing (all of the weekend was off-peak as well). They were Zones One and Two, which got us everywhere we ever needed to go--it took more than just the subway to get to Greenwich, but I'll tell that story when we get there. To get on the subway, you had to stick your ticket into one of a lot of readers all in a line, blocking the way in. If it read right, the doors swung open at the end of the reader. If your ticket was all-day, like ours, it also gave you your ticket back through a slot on the reader's top; otherwise it sucked them in.
We got into Paddington and did some walking until we got to the Mitre House Hotel, which was cozy, if a bit small-seeming in comparison to, say, a Holiday Inn. We divided into room groups, refiguring based on Tori's coming later and last-minute mind changes; Sara and I ended up together instead of Katie and me, the original plan, 'cause Katie wasn't part of the class, but had come with Anna, so roomed with her. Sara and I were in the only double room. The triple held the freshmen--Juliane, Lauren, and eventually Tori. That left the self-regarded party suite, the quad room, as Lily, Lily K., Anna, and Katie. Dr. M, of course, had a room to himself.
Sara and I were the highest of the student rooms, a door or two down from M., on like the third floor up (Room 414, I think). The elevator in the lobby was old and slow and creaky, so I went into somewhat of a panic when I was told by a cleaning girl that no stairs went up that high and the elevator was the only way, but the lady at the desk (one of the owners, I think, since it's a pretty small and independent-type place) told me how to get up the stairs, which were right through a door off to the side.
This is where I owe Sara lots and lots, because much of the time, she wouldn't leave me to climb up all those stairs alone, but struggled up with me. This was harder for her than me, 'cause she was sick--something to do with sinuses or allergies--and was that way all week.
The stairs were steep and narrow, and at the first floor up, we had to go through the door and cross the hall, pushing the fire door open every time--their idea of "fire doors" are ones that you need to swing open, but there's no alarm involved--they're just weighted to swing back behind you and shut (and hold--they're relatively heavy) of their own accord. A few steps down the hall was the door to the other side of the stairs (I guess; it's sort of complicated to explain, at least for me), and from there we went all the way up to our floor.
I turned the key, opened the door, and surveyed the room. Sara said it best.
"It's a little small."
Yes. London hotel rooms, at least ones outside of the chain-hotel type, are rather snug. Immediately to the right wall, a little past the door, was a heater. At the end of the heater, about two or three steps from said door, was the first bed, a little narrow, and very tightly made (that is, getting the covers out took a stronger pull than usual), but feeling pretty good, and with nice pillows. There was about a step and a half's distance to the next bed, at the other side of which was the next wall. I realize that in a hotel room in America there isn't much space between the beds, either, but figure somewhere around a half-step less of space, maybe a little narrower even than that, such that a person trying to sleep on the floor between the beds could do it, but not easily (with the exception, for home-friends, of somebody like Shelley Wilson; school friends will please mentally substitute Kristin).
To the left of each bed was a small end-table, more deep than long or wide, with a decent-sized cabinet inside that proved to be truly invaluable. A step or two past the ends of the beds (as in, not the part with the headboards) was a dresser, decently long in length if I remember, with a closet attached and a TV on top of the dresser. To the left of all that, on a sort of diagonal towards the door, was the bathroom. Like, okay, take a square and cut the upper-left corner off. What you cut off, the corner you have in your hand, is roughly the bathroom, though it was a little less triangular. It was roughly square, but the door was at a sort of angle.
Anyway, the bathroom was also pretty small (smaller than the one in our cabin in Peru, but that was a pretty normal size), consisting of a sink just to the left of the door, a toilet farther up from that (looking in through the door and thinking of forward as "up"), and a shower to the right (looking in again).
Sara got the bed farthest from the door, which gave me the one closest. ...I think we just flopped down for a while, hoping to get to sleep for a while, but knowing we really wouldn't.
After the free time given us by Dr. M was up, we went back down to the lobby-area, which was to be the general meeting-place all week. The lobby had a sort of living-room area to the left when you came in the door--the part more to the right was the check-in desk, and to the right of that (still looking through the doorway), through a sort of archway, was the bar area, worth noting only because in an alcove off to the right side of that was a pay phone, which, as it turned out, I would spend roughly 90 minutes of one night occupying, but that's another entry.
Every time we left the hotel, we turned in our keys at the desk (is this standard procedure for hotels in America, too? I didn't do that in Oneonta, and I don't remember doing that for Ocean Bowl)--this first time, we went back to the subway, which I will hereinafter call the tube or the Underground, and got on the Bakerloo Line for Charing Cross. There is really not a whole lot important about which line we took, unless you need to know for future reference, but I like pointing it out anyway, because the Underground fascinated me. It was something actually logical enough for me to figure out within a day or two. I used to sit while riding the tube and stare at the Underground maps, looking at the different-colored lines marking, well, the different lines (that is, routes). So many, and all of them with such interesting names (well, 'cept maybe the Circle, but that one's cool just 'cause!), and going so many places with such cool names, so many I recognized from books.
I should also mention the term "mind the gap", because it's practically the theme of the Underground. In a lot of cases, the tube cars don't stop quite flush up with the platform (such as it is), so you have to watch your step a little, I guess. I can't think of how anyone would fall into this gap, unless they had small feet, but maybe they just don't want people tripping. So when the car doors opened, in a lot of places, especially Paddington, a computerized voice over the station PA system would say "mind the gap". There were different voices for this warning; only a few stations would have the same one. The Paddington one was this guy who sounded rather late-middle-aged, with a deepish voice, who kind of paused ever so briefly after "mind". Like, it was obviously pre-recorded, but what I could never figure out was whether it had once been a human, or whether it was totally a computer.
Anyway, we got off at Charing Cross. I only knew it for the hospital (yeah, Sherlock Holmes!), but as it turns out, it also holds (so to speak) Trafalgar Square, site of historical monuments, two of the world's more awesome art galleries...
...and four lion statues, which, being ourselves, we promptly climbed all over and took pictures of ourselves on, just like all the kids around. We also, like the kids, did a little pigeon-chasing. Juliane got rather good at it. ...Dr. M got attacked by one; I don't remember what night, so I'm sticking that fun fact here. He actually went off on his own at Trafalgar, telling us to meet back at five o'clock (it was something like three at the time, give or take half an hour).
So we ended up going pretty much en masse to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Oh my goodness grapefruit, they were beautiful. History just drips in these places, and the art is totally classical and lovely and understandable and well-explained.
And totally free. One thing I love most about London, of all the nearly-countless things to love, is that the great majority of museums are completely free of admission charge; they live on souvenirs--and perhaps government funding; I don't know, but with all the tourism, I doubt they'd need much of it. So there Lily, Lily K., and I were, standing in front of the portrait that's on the front of our Brit-Lit textbook (Volume I, that is :-P), talking in hushed English-nerd whispers about the parts the cover had cut out (such as, say, the fact that Queen Elizabeth is standing on top of the globe). That is seriously one of the only things I remember about that whole experience, but I was massively impressed.
I bought two postcards in the gift shop, though, 50 pence each. One was a painting, a little abstract, of David Bowie, upon which I wrote, later that night, a message to Aneya (thanks to our high school jokes, with Bethie, about Bowie's "astroplane" of weirdness, among other cracks); and one of an illustration of Roald Dahl with a bunch of his book characters, I think done by Quentin Crisp, who did a lot of the pictures for Dahl's books; this I sent to Erica from high school, who had asked for a postcard.
50p is not as cheap as the 10p postcards outside any random shop, especially when you take into account that every British pound equals two American dollars, but it buys less than two American dollars would at school (or, indeed, at home) because of prices comparable to New York City (you know, the $8 sandwiches, which were indeed about £4 in London). Still, the 50p postcards were always the cool ones, so I bought those to send out.
We also, that day, walked by a bunch of government buildings--Whitehall, Downing Street (we couldn't see Tony Blair's house, 'cause there were big gates to ward off unwanted visitors such as ourselves), Parliament Square--we saw Big Ben, the outside of Westminster Abbey...
...and a pancake stand. A small, random, fragrant pancake stand, which delighted Lily because of its sheer weird cuteness. I don't think we ever found more than one other one in all of London, and the thing is, I don't think any of us ever bought any (I know Lily and I never did), but it was nice to have around, and everyone seemed to appreciate it.
We went back to the hotel to change for dinner--I believe I took a shower at this point. Getting the water to the right temperature was a bit of a challenge, because the faucet control was a little stubborn, but it worked out in the end. Not knowing yet about whether the water was drinkable, I tried to keep it out of my mouth. If that was a question we'd covered in Petra's info-session, I'd missed the answer, and I read somewhere that you shouldn't drink any foreign country's water, though, considering especially Canada, I had my doubts about that to begin with.
We were eating with a cousin of Dr. M's and said cousin's girlfriend (wife? No, I think girlfriend). We ate at a newish place that the cousin knew about, I believe called "Quod", I believe located in Piccadilly Circus, which's pretty glitzy by night. It was very comfortable, though it took forever to get stuff (in part because the relations got there late and we were waiting on them for a while before we decided to go ahead and order). Not being very hungry, Lily and I just had bowls of pumpkin soup, which neither of us had ever had before, and which was delicious and very autumnal. And water--seeing cosmopolitan Lauren drink it, I figured I'd take my chances, even though it was very local and I was sure it wasn't treated. I spent a lot of that meal, though, struggling to keep my eyes open and not yawn at the cousin, who, having just been in my home city a few weeks before, was really very interesting, especially to me.
Got done with that and went back to the hotel--I was thirsty again by that time and had about three glasses of water, figuring I'd know soon enough whether it was flukily nondrinkable. Also ate some fruit snacks I'd brought along, if I remember, and wrote my two postcards while Sara was in the shower.
That was one thing I learned from Peru that really did come in handy in London: bring some food of your own to keep in the room. You never know when you'll need it. In Peru, I learned this the hard way, after we came back from that seemingly-eternal boat trip at almost-three-in-the-morning and the Divina staff was essentially like, food at this time of night? Are you *kidding*? Breakfast is in five or six hours; you'll eat then!, even though we none of us had eaten anything for between ten and twelve hours, and I would have shelled out double the usual price for so much as one of the little ice cream sandwiches they sold in the pool area. (Not that I am bitter. ::sigh::) ...I begged pretzels off of Tim and Tom at the time, since my antimalarial medicine (by then a good nine hours past when I was supposed to take it) had to be taken with food, or else Negative Side Effects would occur (I love the part of the label that warns you that if the medicine makes you throw up, it "may be less effective"). Still, I felt bad at how many I ended up inhaling, since they, you know, belonged to the twins.
I decided that, for London, this should not be, so I brought with me the most travel-friendly quick food I could find, sugar-filled and nutritionally-useless, for the most part. Namely, Fruit Gushers fruit snacks, in the teeny pouches, and a bag of Hershey's Nuggets (the chocolate-and-almond deals). This ended up being a very very good idea, because London did a weird thing to my eating patterns; they switched over imperfectly. They didn't stay at American times, but when we were supposed to be eating, for a good half of the trip, I didn't tend to be very hungry at all, but then, an hour or two after the meal, suddenly I'd be starving. A couple of Nuggets would usually take care of the problem until I could get near some actual food.
So after that, we switched the lights off, and I thought back five hours ('cause it turns out London's not six hours forward, but five, on Greenwich Mean Time). It was about quarter after nine PM in London, which meant...which meant...holy cow! Chris and Jenny were in lit class, writing a final essay that, had I been there, I would have been writing with them--and I was in London, ready to go to sleep!
This was to create a sort of hollow that got filled, Gusher-fruit-snack-style, with missing-Alfred-loneliness sometimes during the trip. For now, though, I looked around the room, listened to Sara's congested breathing, and calculated the hours left until 8:00 AM, when the wakeup call was. Liking the answer I got very much, I let myself sink into sleep, never waking until the call that next morning. And that was the first full London day.
-Laurel
11.25.2004
-a thankful aside-
At some point during this break I will post another installment of London. I really mean it. If I don't, hang me upside down by my little toes from the Joel's House stairwell when I get back.
But it is Thanksgiving, and I thought I'd say thank you to everybody who's reading, since I'm thankful for all of you. I thought also that I would point out that, no, "safe travel and safe cooking" is not a traditional phrase in a Thanksgiving grace, but my feeling is, if my parents don't want me saying weird things like that, they should stop making me deliver it every year. It was only a matter of time before I forgot the Iraqi soldiers and said something bizarre, and this was the year. :-P ...Hey, d'you know how many firefighters must have to respond on Thanksgiving?
So anyoldway, I'm also sending a yay for health and happiness and AIM and e-mail and houses with stoves and ovens(!!!!) and not having much homework over the break. The local newspaper ran a story about readers' things they're thankful for, and somebody mentioned blood donors, who helped him(/her) live.
Random factoid that at least amused me: Mike, in a good mood last night over AIM, actually apologized to me for being such a "nightmare this semester for PR", APO-wise. ::laughs:: Not just him, everything has! But I do feel a little appreciated.
'kay, more on London next time. Reallyreally.
-Laurel
But it is Thanksgiving, and I thought I'd say thank you to everybody who's reading, since I'm thankful for all of you. I thought also that I would point out that, no, "safe travel and safe cooking" is not a traditional phrase in a Thanksgiving grace, but my feeling is, if my parents don't want me saying weird things like that, they should stop making me deliver it every year. It was only a matter of time before I forgot the Iraqi soldiers and said something bizarre, and this was the year. :-P ...Hey, d'you know how many firefighters must have to respond on Thanksgiving?
So anyoldway, I'm also sending a yay for health and happiness and AIM and e-mail and houses with stoves and ovens(!!!!) and not having much homework over the break. The local newspaper ran a story about readers' things they're thankful for, and somebody mentioned blood donors, who helped him(/her) live.
Random factoid that at least amused me: Mike, in a good mood last night over AIM, actually apologized to me for being such a "nightmare this semester for PR", APO-wise. ::laughs:: Not just him, everything has! But I do feel a little appreciated.
'kay, more on London next time. Reallyreally.
-Laurel
11.03.2004
-a brief political aside-
The presidential election will be what it is, and I will have no comment here upon it (or, for that matter, anywhere else).
But yaaaaaaay for super-awesome Barack Obama getting elected as Illinois senator. He's the guy who did the spectacular bipartisan-type speech at the DNC that I excerpted in the July post "Vive."
I hope he totally is as smart and sweet as he sounds. We could use a senator like that.
That's seriously all I have.
-Laurel
But yaaaaaaay for super-awesome Barack Obama getting elected as Illinois senator. He's the guy who did the spectacular bipartisan-type speech at the DNC that I excerpted in the July post "Vive."
I hope he totally is as smart and sweet as he sounds. We could use a senator like that.
That's seriously all I have.
-Laurel
11.01.2004
-an aside-
Back to London next post, but in the meantime, caught the following list off a friend's lj of books that are or have been banned (I don't know how widespread the ban, but a couple of these I remember reading about), and some of them I can at least trace the reasons, but The Giver?! Whyyyyyyyyy?!
I feel that way about some of the other ones, too. So, though some of the titles are a little blunt, in the interest of protest I'm putting up the entire list, here for your entertainment. Apologies for the lack of proper title italics.
-Bold the Ones You've Read-
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou [I remember that Megan and I felt really weird watching this in English class as a movie, but I went on to read it later, and if you're old enough to handle it, it's fine...]
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling ['kay, this's really more the past, right, since now the Pope got behind it and fewer people object? If you ban these books, you should ban Lord of the Rings for its sorcery, and you should ban The Wizard of Oz for having Glinda, and you should ban like five works of Shakespeare for having characters with magical powers. Anyone has the perfect right to object to these books, but if you do, please be consistent.]
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson [wait a goshdarn second, isn't this one a Newbery, too? ::checks:: ...Yes. Yes, it is.]
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Not for those under thirteen, it's true, but...c'mon, Alice?]
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier [I honestly cannot remember anything that would be offensive in this book. And I believe this, as well, is another Newbery.]
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry [why, why, why?]
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck [This has to be because it insults Baptists for like one sentence, right? ::sigh::]
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna [Okay, I say, anyone stupid enough to read a book by Madonna in the first place...]
20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson [huh? I thought this was a children's book. But I've never read it.]
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle [I've heard the reasons, but disagree severely with them. And if they thought this was bad, I guess they better not read her--which one is it, Troubling a Star?]
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous [I've flipped through it. C'mon, age control, people!]
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard [This's gotta be a political-correctness thing, it's just gotta.]
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George [::humongous blink:: What?]
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee [yeah, but maybe this one was only banned by the still-prejudiced, in which case we already know they're out of it.]
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton [can't remember whether I've read this book. I think maybe not.]
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein [I think I've read this, and if so, huh?]
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl [I don't remember whether I read this or only saw the movie, but oh, come on]
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume [::sighs tiredly:: oh, please. this book does not insult Christianity just because the girl doesn't fully understand it.]
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding [Well, this's a horrible book, but that's no reason to ban it. ::giggles::]
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain [Well, little-kid version only, but I get the gist.]
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford [what?!]
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene [aw, and this's a good book, too]
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman [okay, this one I can at least trace the reasons, but if they're going to do that, they should also ban Dr. Doolittle. ...Didn't they in a few places, though?]
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell [Let me guess, they had a bunch of little kids copy it and then feel a little sick. ::shakes head::]
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
...Conclusion: Just judge age, and look at your kids' books before you let them read 'em, okay? Read them yourself first--wouldn't that solve a lot?
I can't believe there're like four or five Newberys on that list. ::wails::
-Laurel
I feel that way about some of the other ones, too. So, though some of the titles are a little blunt, in the interest of protest I'm putting up the entire list, here for your entertainment. Apologies for the lack of proper title italics.
-Bold the Ones You've Read-
1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou [I remember that Megan and I felt really weird watching this in English class as a movie, but I went on to read it later, and if you're old enough to handle it, it's fine...]
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling ['kay, this's really more the past, right, since now the Pope got behind it and fewer people object? If you ban these books, you should ban Lord of the Rings for its sorcery, and you should ban The Wizard of Oz for having Glinda, and you should ban like five works of Shakespeare for having characters with magical powers. Anyone has the perfect right to object to these books, but if you do, please be consistent.]
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson [wait a goshdarn second, isn't this one a Newbery, too? ::checks:: ...Yes. Yes, it is.]
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Not for those under thirteen, it's true, but...c'mon, Alice?]
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier [I honestly cannot remember anything that would be offensive in this book. And I believe this, as well, is another Newbery.]
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry [why, why, why?]
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck [This has to be because it insults Baptists for like one sentence, right? ::sigh::]
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna [Okay, I say, anyone stupid enough to read a book by Madonna in the first place...]
20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson [huh? I thought this was a children's book. But I've never read it.]
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle [I've heard the reasons, but disagree severely with them. And if they thought this was bad, I guess they better not read her--which one is it, Troubling a Star?]
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous [I've flipped through it. C'mon, age control, people!]
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard [This's gotta be a political-correctness thing, it's just gotta.]
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George [::humongous blink:: What?]
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee [yeah, but maybe this one was only banned by the still-prejudiced, in which case we already know they're out of it.]
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton [can't remember whether I've read this book. I think maybe not.]
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein [I think I've read this, and if so, huh?]
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl [I don't remember whether I read this or only saw the movie, but oh, come on]
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume [::sighs tiredly:: oh, please. this book does not insult Christianity just because the girl doesn't fully understand it.]
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding [Well, this's a horrible book, but that's no reason to ban it. ::giggles::]
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain [Well, little-kid version only, but I get the gist.]
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford [what?!]
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene [aw, and this's a good book, too]
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman [okay, this one I can at least trace the reasons, but if they're going to do that, they should also ban Dr. Doolittle. ...Didn't they in a few places, though?]
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell [Let me guess, they had a bunch of little kids copy it and then feel a little sick. ::shakes head::]
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
...Conclusion: Just judge age, and look at your kids' books before you let them read 'em, okay? Read them yourself first--wouldn't that solve a lot?
I can't believe there're like four or five Newberys on that list. ::wails::
-Laurel