Melinda Musil dot Com

Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’

Today is another busy day, like yesterday.  But no complaints- it is fun to get ready to travel, and it will be fun to travel.  First thing after I woke up, I burned a DVD for my mom of photos from while we were in England.  I had to use her computer, because the CD burner on my computer has been rather tempermental lately.

Then I left home to run a couple of errands- a stop by the dollar store to buy batteries, and then a stop at Minsky’s pizza to use up a coupon that expires this weekend.

Now I’m back home, the pizza is on the stove (blogging first, then food!), and I’ve got a load of laundry in the washer.  This afternoon, I need to pack for vacation, which is actually not bad- I’m pretty good at packing, so that will be easy.  I need to get my computer ready to travel, because I will be taking it with me so that I can work while we are “on the road”.  I’m very excited- it wil be fun to visit family, and it’s just fun to travel!

I love travel and I’m sure I always will.  This summer, my plans include visits to three other states- Colorado, Nebraska, and Massachusetts. (four if you count Kansas, which I will be driving across to reach Colorado.  five if you count Iowa, where I will just drive across the corner to reach Nebraska.)  No overseas trips this year – I’m still recovering from the money I spent on last summer’s trip to the UK!

I’m quite peculiar when I’m choosing a vacation destination.  I absolutely love to visit places with tons of history and history museums.  If a destination does not have a lot of history, I will overlook that flaw as long as they have plenty of science museums.  Though I think resorts are okay for an occassional visit, I really don’t enjoy visiting resorts (like Myrtle Beach) very much!  I don’t find things like Myrtle Beach golf vacations very relaxing- in fact, I don’t even really like to play golf.  I’d probably absolutely detest a Myrtle Beach golf package.  I need academic stimulation!

Redirected from my Facebook page, because I don’t trust them with my content anymore.  Have you heard about their new ToS?

1. My middle name is Susanne.
2. I was born and raised in Kansas City, went to college nearby, and upon graduation, I moved as far away from the US as I could.
3. Then I moved back.  It ain’t so bad here.
4. When I was a (very young) child, I created a plan that would allow me to simultaneously be a teacher, nurse, librarian, veterinarian, writer, and journalist.  This still seems somehow appropriate for me, because I love learning so much and I can so easily move from one profession to another.
5. I secretly love to watch reality shows about emergency rooms or mystery diagnoses.  Sometimes I think I should’ve been a doctor.
6. I absolutely traveling.  Besides the US, I’ve already been to (in roughly chronological order) Japan, Thailand, Laos, Burma, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Guatemala, Ghana, Burkina-Faso, Liberia, Belgium, England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.
7. I still want to visit Australia, India, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Antarctica.
8. I hate drama.
9. So I have no idea why I enjoy teaching middle school.
10. I love to sing, but I stink at it, so I limit my musical adventures to when I am in the car, alone.
11. I am a technology lover and a gadget junkie.  I try not to be materialistic but honestly I can’t imagine life without my laptop, my website, my blackberry, and my camera.
12. I would love to buy a Sony Alpha camera.  However, I have not yet been able to justify spending  over $700 on a camera.  Yet.
13. I would also love to buy a Sony Vaio notebook computer.  I probably will, whenever I sit still long enough to decide which computer to buy.
14. I love taking photos.  I almost always have a camera with me.
15. Sometimes I miss the old film photography days.  Digital is fun, and it definitely offers a lot more flexibility, but there’s something magical about watching a photo develop in the darkroom.
16. I am very weirdly paranoid about copyright.  I don’t like to publish any of my intellectual property on any websites besides my own, unless I was paid to create it and paid to sign over my copyright, which is a whole different story.
17. I used to have my nose pierced.  Sometimes I miss it but I doubt I will ever get my nose re-pierced.
18. I got my ears pierced when I was 23 years old and living in Africa.
19. I didn’t start using toothpaste until I was 18.
20. I ate the exact same thing for lunch every day from first grade through sixth grade.  My mom would make me a bologna sandwich, six Soft Batch cookies, a piece of fruit, and a pint of Kool-Aid.
21. I loved it back then, but today I can’t stand bologna.
22. I’m fascinated by weather, especially Midwest thunderstorms, although I think all kinds of weather are interesting.
23. I think I could be happy as a weather-person.
24. I was a latecomer to the blogging revolution.  If you’d asked me five years ago, I never would’ve guessed that one day I would be a webmaster or that I would know half as much as I do about HTML and scripting.
25. I love blogging, though.  It’s hard sometimes, but it’s very rewarding, and I am so proud of all the things I’ve learned along the way.

There you go… twenty five things.  If you ask nicely, maybe one day I’ll do another list for you.

Road trips are a lot of fun… as long as you remain within the US!

There’s lots of car rental and car hire services around the world, but I’ve learned enough to know that outside of the US, it’s definitely wiser to just ride the bus or get someone else to drive you.  Even in the nations that also drive on the right side of the road, the laws are different and you can still get very confused.  And many nations drive on the left side of the road – like England, for starters.  Plus England (and many other nations) have roataries instead of stop lights.  When you are confused and trying to find your way around a strange country, it’s a really bad time to be familiarizing yourself with different laws.  In fact, I think most of Europe is “left side of the road”.  It’s very worthwhile to find a car hire in portugal, or spain, or france, or england, or really any other country!

The patriotic tune, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” was actually written to the same melody as “God Save the Queen“, the national anthem of England.

There is a really cool type of stilts that allow you to jump lots higher.  They look like they would be a lot of fun.  Check it out!

I’ve decided to start adding stories from my travels to this blog.

Why?  Mostly because I can’t think of anything else to write about.

But just to clarify: Right now I am home sweet home in the US of A.

In 1999, I went to Thailand, Laos, and Burma, with a stopover in Japan.

In 2001, I went to China and Hong Kong, returned to the US for a month, then went to Guatemala.

In 2006-2007 I lived in West Africa.  During that time I visited or lived in Ghana, Liberia, and Burkina Faso.

Earlier this summer, I went to England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.

I’ve been to well over half of the states in the United States.

Stories from any of these trips are liable to wind up on this blog.

Our scheduled flights to England were fairly standard.  We boarded at American Airlines flight at around 3pm taking us from Kansas City to Chicago (O’Hare Airport).  In Chicago, we were scheduled to board a British Airways flight from O’Hare to London’s Heathrow Airport.  These are pretty typical flights for people traveling from Kansas City to London.  In fact, when I flew to Africa, these were the same flights as the first half of my journey.

When we got to the airport in Kansas City, we checked in for our flight, handed over our luggage, and then wandered around the airport for a couple of hours. (remember, for international flights they say you should check in at least two to four hours early!!)  We got a late lunch at a very strange deli.  Kansas City International Airport is not known for their food, and there’s a reason for that!  There are none of the common fast food restaurants (like McDonald’s or Burger King).  So we had lunch at the Great American Bagel Bakery.

The employees of this restaurant were definitely immigrants.  Their mastery of the English language certainly had room for improvement.  They were very polite, though.  However, we received VERY unique bagel sandwiches.  Mine was a bagel that had been cooked in cheese and tomado sauce.  It was then placed around slices of roast beef and American cheese.  Remarkably, it did not taste too bad.  That said, I would not choose to get another sandwich like that again!

Eventually, we finally boarded our flight.  We had three seats, all in a row (window, middle, aisle).  Most of the people around us were typical airplane fodder- they had brought books, laptops, or mp3 players, and happily occupied themselves and ignored us.  However, the three seats behind us were filled with three ladies whom I will call the “Sorority Girls”.

These three ladies were, I would guess, around 30 years of age.  All three wore wedding rings.  All three were perfect representatives of a stereotypical sorority girl.  Their hair was bleached blond.  Their skin had been tanned so dark that it looked fake.  Their fingernails were long, fake, and perfectly manicured.  You get the idea.

The sorority girls didn’t just look like sorority girls.  They also TALKED like sorority girls.  They were LOUD, almost yelling over the sound of the airplane’s engine.  And they NEVER STOPPED.

Around this time, the pilot came over the loudspeaker and told us that we would be delayed slightly because of a storm over Chicago.  The plane had pulled away from the gate, but this was no big deal.  I’m not one to complain about being “trapped” on an airplane- I didn’t feel trapped, and the cabin crew worked hard to ensure our comfort during this time.  The pilot eventually came over the loudspeaker multiple times.  We spent a total of about ninety minutes waiting at the end of a taxiway.

The sorority girls talked THE WHOLE TIME.  What’s worse, their conversation had no substance whatsoever.  They talked about fashion and made fun of friends and coworkers (who obviously knew nothing about fashion).  They discussed their inability to repair cars- even something as simple as changing a windshield wiper blade! – and remarked on how glad they were that they had married men who would fill their cars with gas for them.  They discussed makeup.  They discussed a friend who had an eating disorder (in disturbingly glib terms).  They discussed their inability to lift things and how glad they were that they had husbands who could open jars and change light bulbs for them.

It gets worse, unfortunately.  They began discussing their upcoming SORORITY REUNION in Chicago!  Not only did they look and talk like sorority girls, but they WERE sorority girls!

Once the flight took off, all three ladies requested Bloody Marys.  We hoped the alcohol would quiet them, but instead it seemed to open their lips all that much more!

For a ninety minute flight, it became a remarkably LONG flight.  We waited in Kansas City for ninety minutes and spent 90 minutes in the air (a total of three hours).  The Sorority Girls talked the whole time.  Sometimes we (or another passenger) would shush them, particularly when the pilot was on the loudspeaker and we wanted to hear him.  It never lasted.  Their longest silence lasted about four minutes and thirty seconds. (yes, we timed them!)  They complained about the “awful turbulence” of that flight, which I found quite strange since I thought the flight was VERY smooth.

Needless to say, we were relieved to land in Chicago.  The remainder of our journey was unremarkable.  We had missed our connecting flight, but British Airways put us on a later overnight flight to London.  We ate McDonald’s for dinner while we were at Chicago, then we boarded our flight to London.  We had another beautifully smooth flight, this time with no annoying passengers.  From London’s Heathrow airport we took the “tube” to our hotel… and you’ll hear more about that soon!

For some reason it feels like my life has become extraordinarily boring.

It hasn’t, of course, but I am just struggling to find something to write about.

I am now officially a writer.  I’ve begun an outline for a manuscript which I will publish and sell through this website.  I’m also contemplating some other things- getting a trademark and domain for my “publishing house” and several other technical stuff.

I am attempting to become a substitute teacher.  I’m supposed to fill out an application online and, naturally, it’s not working.  So I’ve called people and left messages, and now I’m just hoping that this can get worked out so I can start subbing.

Given my lack of other stuff to write about, I am going to begin chronicling my adventures overseas.  Though many of these stories will be from my recent trip to the UK, I will also include stories about my trips to China, Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Japan, Guatemala, Ghana, Liberia, and Burkina Faso.  Wish me luck- I have many photos to sort and many stories to tell.  But I think this will still be a lot of fun.

I have a friend who will be celebrating her 30th birthday later this year.  She’s planning on creating a trip to Vegas with her friends.  I’ve never been to Vegas, and I’d love to go, but Las Vegas travel can be expensive!  I hope I can go, but it all depends on how my bank account looks this year.  After paying for a trip to England, it’s kinda dwindling!

I’m finally sitting down to seriously, massively organize all the photos I took in England.  And they are many.

But I’m excited too because I have so many stories that I can tell all of you.  It’ll be tons of fun.  Tell your friends.

Thanks, Mom, for nagging me about the photos.