Olympic torch for class? Yeah buddy!
After the Olympic Torch went by we gathered our group together and headed to Kew Gardens. Now, I don't know if you know what Kew Gardens is or not, but it's freaking huge, and amazing!
Photos!
Spider!
Here's where the spider made his home. His web is actually about half way between me and the door. Not sure if you can see it but it should be just below the bottom right corner of the little triangle of light formed by the tree and the left side of the wall. Yeah... It's just a little white dot but in that location.
Ah! Pagoda in danger!
Kidding...
This goldfish is enormous! I've seen some pretty big goldfish, but this one takes the cake, and would probably eat it too!
Random...
So, I'm not sure how many of you have ever seen the old PC game Myst, but this is it. Right here.
See? This is an image from Myst.
Squirrel!
Black ducks!
Ninjas, aren't they?
So, I'm walking along minding my business and BAM!
At first I had no idea what it was, my brain was yelling at me that this was a potentially dangerous entity, but my eyes couldn't figure out what the heck it was! They argued for a minute, my brain and my eyes. My primal mind yelling that I should get the heck away from this massive chicken, my conscious mind saying, "What? That thing can't really be alive! It has to be a prop or something." I nearly refused to believe that a bird, nearly the size of a medium sized dog, could have gotten that far up a tree. Yeah, I know, BIRD, but still... These guys just don't look like they could actually make it off the ground... Until you see it happen.
After I took this picture, I just kind of hung out with these birds for a bit. I don't know how, but after I saw the first one in the tree and this one was pointed out to me, I realized there was another that had been in the tree as well. What a creeper! How do you miss a 15 lb. bird with a train that long in a tree? It was a really surreal encounter. Anyway, what I was going to say is, after I hung out with this one for a while, he kind of came up to me and reminded me that I had a PB&J in my pocket. So..... Facing my childhood fears (my Mama LET one of these guys kick my ass when I was a kid! Really! It nearly eviscerated me! I was going to die! Helpless! By the spurs of a bird that was as tall as I was! ... Okay, not really. I did get bit by one and have had a ... leeriness about peacocks ever since. Back to reality and my encounter. I pulled out the sandwich and tore off a little piece to see if the giant bird would like it. Yeah, he liked it. I wish I could've had someone record it but it was just me and the massive killer bird I was taming with fruit loaf slathered in peanut butter and raspberry jam... Well, I decided to face my fear and pulled off a long strip of crust, held it by one end, and the giant bird, with it's gnashing, razor sharp beak and burning black eyes came up and gently removed the bread from my fingers. All of a sudden the big bird was just that, a big, pretty, well fed, and nonaggressive bird. After I fed the oinker a good 1/3 of my sandwich I realized I had no idea about this birds diet and so I should probably not feed it too much. Besides... My sammich!
Speaking of seeing them fly:
After this magical, and surreal, experience I wound my way around, trying to find a landmark that would tell me how to get out of this park. While walking around I heard a crack followed by several clacks and a resounding thud. I decided to investigate and found this:
Which I decided was cooler than getting a souvenir, so I smuggled the little bastard out and came home!
Now, this next part was fairly irresponsible; I have two papers due soon as it's the equivalent of my finals week, and yet, after a shower, 4 enchiladas, and a can of soup (turns out 30˚ is pretty freaking hot and that kind of heat, all day, burns you out and makes you hungry), I went out to Cricketers
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with some of my local friends, David and Tom, as well as some of the Americans, Jess, Rachel, Doug, Tiffany, Michael and...her... whose name is..... Aaaand we ended up shutting down the pub. Not so bad considering it closed at 11. Unfortunately that was followed by The King's Tun, though nobody here actually calls it that. It's just The Tun.
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After we closed down that bar it was definitely my bedtime. Came home and immediately passed out. Honestly, it's exhausting getting that much sun...
Ciao for now!
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