I drew the Eiffel Tower

Well, I'm not quite as good without SketchUp. ;-)

I make a new start

I have some pictures from Paris. I'm planning on coming back to see everything I want to see. I wasn't ready this first time. The cities of Dublin, Edinburgh, and London were a soft and easy introduction to traveling and I was not prepared for how vunerable I would be in the non-English speaking countries.

I'm still a target for thieves, with or without my gadgets. Yesterday, I walked a block to a laundromat from my hostel. There were some American girls doing laundry in there at the time I started mine. They finished though and then it was just me. I was seated at a table reading, and a man walked in and just looked at me. He didn't say anything, he clearly wasn't there to do laundry. And I was merely a lone, lorn traveler. I "looked at my watch" and then put my book in my backpack and put my backpack on and stood by the dryer. He remained there just looking at me for a moment and then decided to go.

After that, I put EVERYTHING in a locker in the hostel except for my camera to go out sight-seeing. I'm going to try to carry as little as possible with me from now on any chance I get. Anyway, I've learned a lot. The first part of the trip through the UK feels like a totally different part of the trip. So I'm just saying I'm starting again.

Well it happened

I know I'm a very optimistic person. I know I'm very trusting of people. I thought my stuff was safe when it was with me and if I was in public view. But today I got my laptop stolen right out of my hands in the middle of the day and in a very public place. I had just opened it to look at some directions I had on it. I closed it and was putting it in my bag. Someone ran up to me, grabbed it and shoved me, I tried grabbing it back and I got shoved to the ground. He ran out the door and I chased him. I abandoned my bag which also wasn't very smart, but I really wanted my laptop back. I ran after him as best I could yelling stop and help and everyone just watched as if it were a game we were playing. I knew they probably didn't understand what I was saying but certainly they knew what was going on. I chased him to the street where a white car was approaching. The door opened and he got in. I was right behind him and I tried to grab it again. Again I got pushed and I fell backwards into a puddle. This time when I tried to get up and run the car was speeding away and my legs gave out. I got back to my bag and it was untouched.

Well, I'm hoping it goes better from here!

I'm in my hostel now on their internet. EVERYONE has laptops here it seems. It is sooo frustrating to know I just had mine and I've replayed the scene of getting it stolen so many times, wishing it wouldn't have happened. If I was Jason Bourne I totally could've dropped that guy. But alas, I am Joshua Houston and I was very helpless.

London - Days 042, 043, 044, & 045

Forgive me for not going into detail on all four of these days, I am about to head to Paris and therefore I will be brief on the last leg of my London trip.  

The highlight of the last few days was going to the British Museum.  They had a lot of cool stuff there.  They have the largest Egyptian collection outside of Egypt.  They had the Rosetta stone, which was a key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics because written on it was the same decree but written in 3 languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic (the modern language of Egypt in that time), and classical Greek.  I knew the picture of the Rosetta stone wasn't going to be very good when I took it because of the reflective glass, but I thought I'd show it since I talked about it.

There were real mummies.  They had a picture of the CAT scan that reinforced the fact there was a very old body inside that little halloween costume thing.

There were loads of Roman statues.  I took many photographs.  And there was a vase called the Portland Vase.