Bombers Suck, Potatoes Rule

In case you haven't heard, 8 more bombs in London, four of which didnt explode. Nobody hurt, so they're hopefully going to get loads of forensic evidence and chase down some idiots now. They also just shot a 'suspected' terrorist dead in a tube station - hope he really is a terrorist, or someone'll be in some big trouble.


I found something I want to join:


Oh how I love potatoes. And purple! I love purple!

And speaking of Holy Gifts from the Lord God Above....

PURPLE POTATOES!!!!




(Note: This post was much more depressing, and about bombings, and war, and our stupid government, but why bother with such doom and gloom when I have just discovered there are purple potatoes in the world!)

Bring on the Pills

I need to figure out a way to get me out of my head.





Permanently.

Back I Am

I'm back in the UK once again, mon amis. Turkey has won the thumbs-up award from me, as it seems a very nice place - at least Istanbul is, and the food is also good. They also like tea, and hey, I'm definitely a big tea fan (even if the tea there has no milk in it.. weirdos). The people are friendly for the most part, which is a nice change from my excursions to France and French Switzerland. We stayed in a wonderful hotel called the Marmar (or something like that) right at the top of one of the main streets in Istanbul called Taksim, which is a pedestrian and tram-only street with lots of shops. We had a wonderful corner suite, meaning we had two big windows facing two different directions giving us a beautiful panoramic view of the Bosphorus (which is an amazingly busy body of water!!) The big boss my dad was going to meet with lent us his driver for the time while we were here, so we had no trouble getting around to all the sights we wanted to see. (This isn't quite as posh as it sounds, it that part of the world having a driver is not as high-class and 'rock-star' as it is in the west.) On another note, Turkish people drive like madmen, and sail the same way.

While we were there, we took a ferry across to the Asian side of Istanbul, across the Bosphorus, and travelled the furthest ever east I have ever been (Istanbul in general is by far the furthest East I've ever been), setting my foot on the Asian continent for the first time. This is a year of firsts for me, as earlier this year (spring break) I went the furthest south I'd ever been, crossing into the southern hemisphere for the first time. The world is a cool place.

In other news, I'm spending the night with my Grandmother tonight, so I wont be online (at the earliest) till tomorrow night. We go up to Aberdeen some time this week, and then the week after that (I think) we go to the Yorkshire Dales for a weeks holiday with the family. After that, back to the US of A.

Also, the London bombings suck a lot, and suicide bombers are really stupid. America is also really stupid for being all 'we are behind you and will not let this affect our daily lives' and then all 'we ban all troops and their families from London' under the stupid guise of 'we want to enable London police to get on with their investigation without the extra people'. Yea right. As some MPs over here said, the biggest, most powerful army in the world being too scared to enter London is the biggest flag of defeat you could wave to the terrorists.
Blah!
At least they repealed it!

Rawr

OK, so our flight down from Newcastle yesterday was cancelled, so we managed to sqeeeze onto the next flight, only through my dad's having a Gold Card, but still missed our flight yesterday. Luckily, also through my dad's gold card, we managed to get on the flight today, so I'm in the lounge right now, waiting for the plane to go. We've missed a day on Turkey, which is a shame, but I really feel sorry for all the people on that plane down to Heathrow which was cancelled, they won't be able to get a flight down till this afternoon, and will have missed all their connections and everything. And why did BA cancel the plane? NO STAFF. That's just not an acceptable excuse to cancel a flight.. it's completely preventable. And it's not like this is one-off thing, either, they've been doing it a lot lately (they cancelled this morning's flight from Newcastle yesterday afternoon). Oh well, what can you do, big business holds the power. Anyway, I'm off. I'll try to post when I get back.

Give Me a Scone

Only Libby will get the above joke, really, so nobody else worry about it.
Anyway, just posting to say I'm alive and headed to turkey this afternoon. Just packing now. Just spent a week at some English hospitals observing with some doctors and noting numberous differences between the systems. Spent that week staying with my grandmother at her house in Newcastle. This was not easy as she didnt seem to understand the concept of me being tired after being on my feet all day, so she wanted me to do lots of things. Also I had little distraction from anything, except the tv, which she watches all the time apparently, and it was not such a good week. Also she likes to play the martyr all the time. Anyway, I'm alive, and being back with Kenneth and the twins has cheered me up.
I'll be back Wed night, might be online then, or maybe Thursday. Will go up Aberdeen sometime after that, but will have a little dial-up to get online.

Tum. That's all.