I'll get you my pretty...and your little dog too!

After ages and ages spent trying to get tickets to see Wicked on Broadway in NYC, by hook or by crook, including waiting on line, or having friends wait on line in various attempts to win lottery tickets for the front row (available two hours before every show on Broadway, unfortunately not something they are doing here yet in the West End)....I finally saw the show last night, at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in central London last night. The actor playing the role of the Wicked Witch of the West, or Elphaba, was Idina Menzel, who originated the role on Broadway. The resident hottie of the show was none other than Adam Garcia (of Coyote Ugly fame), and wisely the director of the show did not ask him to change his I-could-just-eat-you-up Australian accent. Other names you may or may not have heard of included Miriam Margoyles as Madame Morrible (most recently of Professor Sprout fame in the Harry Potter movies), and Nigel Planer as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

For those of you who have not heard of the musical, first of all, where have you been?!!! Moving on, it's based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, where he takes the original story of the Wizard of Oz, and tries a new perspective on the Wicked Witch of the West...what if....what if, she wasn't evil, just misunderstood? A victim of slanderous propaganda? The old argument of nature versus nurture raises its tired head-- and in the musical it's pretty obvious she's been shaped by her environment, by people using and abusing her, by things beyond her control. Although, the nature versus nurture thing is a bit of cheat, considering she isn't evil, per se, in the musical.

I don't want to spoil it all, and I don't think I will by going on to say the musical follows Elphaba through her school years, where for a time she is friends with Glinda (the Good), through the events found in the original Wizard of Oz, up to and including the melting scene. (Though Dorothy does not make an appearance, this is the Wicked Witch of the West's story after all.) I think that it's an absolutely gorgeous love story-- and I don't mean with Mr. Australia, I could get lost in your eyes. It is Elphaba's and Glinda's story, the meaning of true friendship and love, even when circumstances pit them against each other, that brings tears to your eyes.

It's an amazing show, from the music to the set to the story. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for, GO SEE IT! Several colleagues are now planning to see it because I had a container of Malteasers for a treat during the show...and barely touched it (I may have eaten four) I was so engrossed in the show. (I brought in the rest for them to share today.) They figure that's heavy praise ;)

"I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you"

To follow on my theme from Thanksgiving. It's funny how sometimes you feel like some of the lyrics to a song, or certain passages in a book, have been stolen directly from your head...or heart, as it were. I remember saying something like this to an English professor at uni, and she said, "It's as if the book is reading you..."

If you'd like to see the rest of the lyrics to this beautiful song from Wicked, click here.

From the Strange But True Files

It doesn't seem like much, but all that is needed for it to be declared a "white Christmas" in London, is for a single snowflake to fall on the roof of the London Weather Centre.

The integration of knowledge and clinical practice (finally)

There's a fairly regular neuro teaching/training group that happens on Mondays, and was previously physios only until I gate-crashed when I started on the stroke unit. And today I brought Cecilia's OT student with me as well. Today's topic was assessment of dyspraxia, and we met a patient that one of the group's members is currently treating (she's an outpatient physio) and who had agreed to perform some functional tasks for the group. First of all, the sad news...this guy could really have benefitted from a stint on a specialised rehab stroke unit but unfortunately slipped through the cracks. He went from an acute admission to hospital (where he was indeed diagnosed with CVA) to being denied admission to our stroke unit (I have no idea what the neurologist who made that decision was thinking) to going to a generalised rehab unit where the staff was temporary and his treatment was inconsistent to being discharged home with his wife. Thankfully a referral was made to outpatient physio and she realised this was an urgent case and picked him up right away. The good news...we generated a lot of new ideas today as a result of our group session, which in the end was really more of a brainstorming session than a teaching on the assessment of dyspraxia. There are no formal assessments for dyspraxia, I think at least in part because it's so hard to tease it out... you must first eliminate any other possibilites including muscle weakness, motor problems, decreased sensation, etc. And after watching this guy stand up, sit down, walk, talk, and have wild resting tremors with his left hand, we were able to pick up on several things that the physio (through no fault of her own) had missed- she doesn't work on a stroke unit after all, and it's hard to keep your eye on everything when you're working solo with a patient. We decided that the dyspraxia he's experiencing now may very well be the manifestation of other problems rather than be a true dyspraxia. He will be getting a referral to an orthoptist because we suspect possible vision problems. He also seemed to be exhibiting a fair amount of inattention to his left side. I was able to suggest graded bilateral functional activities for both arms, with facilitation from the therapist to make sure the activity is successful (for example, washing hands with hand-over-hand from the therapist to control the tremors) because I suspected he's given up on that hand since it doesn't do what he wants it to do most of the time, and he never had intense input from a stroke rehab team to work on that hand. For the first time in a while, it felt like a synthesis of what I've soaked up since arriving on the stroke unit, with things that I learned at Tufts, such as the importance of a "Just Right Challenge" balanced with making sure the patient experiences success. And boy did it feel good to contribute!!! :)

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending your tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans. It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division . . .

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean?

a. Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.

b. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

c. Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D.C. ... HELLO!!! ... Are all your calculators broken??

This is too true to be very funny (Courtesy Don Heilala)

Turkey Day

Well, I was going to post a picture of Stonehenge from Carla's visit to meditate on while you all think about blessings and what you're thankful for today, but I'm currently unable to post pictures (what's new).

I have had a brilliant, if very unorthodox, Thanksgiving. Today was the first day of the first module of my Bobath: Normal Movement course. I was fascinated the entire day-- the lecturer is very good, very down-to-earth, very easy to follow. And during the practical sessions, I learned a fair bit about my own body...mainly, that I don't have "normal" posture. When I sit, I have an anterior pelvic tilt, so when asked to sit up straight, I over-exert my hip flexors and fix with my shoulders, which basically means I lean forward. When I stand, again my pelvis is tilted anteriorly, and I fix with my shoulder girdles to maintain my standing balance. Therefore, when the lecturer tried to lift my arm up, my entire body moved with it. When she moved my pelvis into a more posterior tilt, and then lifted my arm up, just my arm moved. There was also some very interesting stuff in supine (lying on my back on a gym bed), where I have a ridiculously extended neck (the top of my head pushes back into the bed, bringing my chin up) among other things...but the really cool thing was, I now have a new party trick!! I know how to "talk" to people's feet, so I can get you to bend your knee and lift your leg with my hand while you are lying on your back. Without any effort on your part. Cool, eh? Believe it or not, this does have practical application in OT, but I'm not going to go into that here-- but I'm very excited about putting this to use with my patients!

So then I came home, popped the turkey breast joint into the oven, and hot-footed it over the gym, where I had a really good workout today! It was one of those days where I just felt great, I could have run forever, did some good stretching, and work with the weights, and was singing all the way home. And I arrived just in time to take out the turkey, help with the veg, and pop open the Asti! We had mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, corn, broccoli, and gravy of course. De-licious! Although this isn't the big celebration-- Saturday is the big big turkey feast and house party, with quite the crowd expected. And tomorrow's a big night on the town...well, what can I say, the holidays are finally here, and 'tis the season to be merry! I think I've got parties and nights out for every weekend from here til Christmas.

But for now, it's time for bed, with Black Friday visions dancing in my head. I am truly envious of those of you who will partake, but I will do a little bit of my own Black Friday shopping online, early tomorrow morning before work. Hey, can't break tradition! And then whoopee, our course finishes at 2:30pm tomorrow afternoon, what on earth will I do with all that extra time?!

My love to all, I miss you all, I hope you are all healthy and happy and with your families and friends today.

I cannot do anywhere near as good of a turkey as my dad can do, and wouldn't know how to post the sound clip on here anyway, so Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I do believe that mostly everyone who passes through here is family or friend, so let me take a small moment of your time to say thanks for being you, and thanks for being a part of my life-- it is that much richer because of you. I am blessed with a warm and loving family (this includes you Heilalas, Burks, and Aveyards) and I am blessed with caring, loyal friends. I think in this life you should count your lucky stars if you manage to find just one true friend...I must have done something right in a past life, because I have several who would do anything for me as they know I would do for them (you know who you are). I would be lost without you, in both good times and hard times. You all are the reason that my life is meaningful. I will be thinking of everyone today...my housemates and I are celebrating with a small turkey dinner tonight as Nicole and I decided we had to do something for the actual day. But the big feast with lots of friends and acquaintances is on Saturday. So I'll be thinking of you all then, too :) From the bottom of my heart, Happy Turkey Day. Love, Allison.

Happy Birthday to Jenn!!!

To Drink or Not to Drink

Hee hee, I've got a little Mumble stuffed animal (main penguin in Happy Feet) that came in a box of Persil laundry detergent. It turns inside out-- it can either be an egg, or turn it inside out and it becomes Mumble!!

So, there's been a lot of talk lately about the binge drinking culture among teenagers and young adults in this country. There's been a lot of newspaper coverage, and it has become a political topic, in terms of how best to discourage/combat the binge drinking culture. There's a TV commercial that states on a "good" night out, young adults drink in the neighborhood of 40 units of alcohol, which is 5,000 calories, which equals 5 Christmas dinners. Yikes! Unfortunately, it is true over here that pretty much everything social revolves around alcohol. Whether it's happy hour, a BBQ, getting together to play cards, even going to the theatre (you pre-order drinks at the bar for intermission), everything involves drinking. It's just not a social event unless there is alcohol available. It's almost an equation, alcohol=fun. And it's cultural. Back to what I started with, the binge-drinking culture...on the front page of the free daily newspaper on Monday was a picture of Kimberley Stewart, Rod Stewart's daughter. She is 27 and she's currently in hospital, being treated for liver disease due to her heavy boozing. And there's a quote from daddy dearest: he is quoted as stating that she said to him, but Dad we're Scottish, I thought I could drink, and he told her, no, darling, it doesn't work like that.

News

The sad news today was that the tube was completely incapacitated, on top of which there was also a bus strike, and the stroke unit was therefore in complete disarray. I was there on time since I had walked, and an OT student who drives in every day was also there. But everyone else was at least an hour late. Although, I'm just now getting to the sad part of it...the central line had been shut down because there was not one, but two jumpers today. And we come back around to the topic of perspective, because I can't imagine where people must be in their lives to do such a thing-- and I also can't imagine being someone on the platform seeing this happen, or god forbid, the driver of the train.

On a much less dramatic note(perspective), but still emotionally draining and life-changing for this particular family, we had a case conference today for one of my patients. When asked what his current big goal, or number one goal, might be, he replied in this meeting he wanted to get back to work. (He's only 57, and was a self-employed painter/decorator.) We asked him to try again, and to try to think realistically, given the fact that he still has no movement or sensation on the left side of his body. He came up with walking, with a stick, or perhaps a frame at first. And it broke my heart, but we had to tell him we didn't see him being able to walk by the time he goes home, and that going back to work might very well not be on the cards for him. We asked him when he thought he might be ready to go home, and he named June of next year, but we had to tell him it would be early January at the latest. And we had to tell him that doing a good transfer with assistance, and standing well, would be the goals we'll try to accomplish before he leaves. His family is having to re-locate to wheelchair accessible housing, and he'll be getting a powered wheelchair eventually. His family is very "switched on" as they say, and none of this was a big shock to his wife, but I think he was pretty surprised by the news. His insight has definitely been affected by the stroke, and while he will say straight away he is making slow progress in therapy, and has good days and bad days, he's very unrealistic about the big picture. I think that's the hardest part of therapy some days-- being brutally honest with our patients about what we think they'll achieve before they go home. And even harder is dealing with patients who have no insight into their capabilities and limitations, and don't believe you no matter what you say. The one I'm talking about from today, he's not as bad as that. We've currently got two patients who think that they could walk with a stick if we'd just let them, even though they need 2-3 people just to help them stand in therapy.

Ok, so enough of the sad talk...my happy stuff today: Let's see, going to the gym (always feels even better than usual after an emotional day at work), I'm all booked for a yoga and hiking weekend in the Brecons in Wales in February (yay!!), and I got my first Christmas gift!! I got the shock of my life this morning when I picked up a parcel from my Mom on my way to work, which I thought contained some items I'd asked her to get from the drugstore. But it was bigger than I expected, yet still lightweight, so I couldn't guess what else might be in there. Turns out it was a pair of black Crocs (clogs) that was on my Christmas list, which she'd sent over early, thinking I could use them in hospital now. They are the coolest! And so comfy too... thanks Mom!!!

A little penguin luv

This is my advent calendar for 2006...HAPPY FEET!! Yes, it has chocolates inside, but even better, there are paper penguin puppets (finger) on the back! (Like the alliteration?) Jo was in town, and we did a little Christmas shopping together on Saturday. Unfortunately, though I know the movie opened on Friday night for most of you, we won't have it here until 8 December. And that's the night of one of the Christmas parties I'm going to, so I guess I'll have to bide my time...

Boy, I've been lazy about a number of things lately, blogging definitely being one of them, but I promise to try and be better about it. I think at least a little bit, part of the problem has been this stupid cold that has now gone on for more than four weeks. I suppose being out/partying for the past 5 weekends or so hasn't helped, but a cold for four weeks?!?! Seriously?! (Shades of Grey's Anatomy-- which, by the bye, why is it that I cry for every episode of that show??) My theory is I caught one cold on top of another, my coworkers think it was viral. Regardless, I do believe (touch wood, as they say here, slight variation I'm sure you'll notice) the cold is on its way out, finally, finally, as in it should be gone in 2-3 days. About time.

Looking up at a popular modern piece of the London skyline...it is rather affectionately known as the "erect gherkin" or "gherkin" for short, or the personal favorite of our London Walks guide, "the crystalline phallus." Inspite of its popularity, our guide told us the building's owners are actually losing money on it, as approximately 2/3 of its office space sits empty. I think the solution is simple-- currently it is only open to the public one weekend a year, during what they call "Open House" where all kinds of properties not normally accessible to the public open their doors. I think the Gherkin should be open to the public year round for a small admission fee.

Looking across the river at the London Eye. The building to its right with the searchlight beaming into the night is the London Aquarium.

Getting onto the British Airways London Eye...flights scheduled every half hour ;) I am not a big fan of heights, but I had no problem with this, and it was pretty cool to see the city all lit up at night.

Looking out over the Thames from our London Eye capsule...you can just see the capsule in front of us on the left half of the picture.

I don't know if you'll all agree, but I like this shot Carla took of Parliament and the clock tower...a big red double decker bus happened to be whizzing by at the time!

A little summary

Carla left yesterday, after a whirlwind long weekend taking in the sights of London...and beyond. In London, we saw the Changing of the Guard, Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, took a London Walks guided tour, did the London Eye, went through Kensington Palace, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Covent Garden, and had afternoon tea at Harrods. We also took a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath on Friday....whew. No wonder I'm so tired! And I didn't have to make the transatlantic flight!!

Thursday was funny-- the new James Bond movie is opening in theatres all over the country this week. At the Changing of the Guard ceremony on Thursday morning, the Queen's Band played the theme song for just about every Bond movie that exists. And then at Harrods, later on that afternoon, the new Bond girl was posing in one of their Bond-themed windows, each of which had a TV with clips from the movie. And during afternoon tea, the piano player decided to entertain us with, you guessed it, Bond theme songs. It's a little 007-crazy over here at the moment. At the Changing of the Guards, several young American guys were standing behind me, commenting on the multitude of 007 songs. They apparently didn't realize that the movie was about to be released, and in some rather vulgar language were proclaiming how ridiculous it was that all the songs were Bond songs. And then one of them exclaimed, "What the ----! This is an American movie!!" I couldn't take it anymore and was about to turn around to put him straight, but one of his friends who knew a little bit more what he was talking about told him to shut up, Bond is a British agent. Oiy...Americans!

Dave, Nicole, Kris and me at Porterhouse on Saturday night

Boogien' with Tim at Walkabout on Saturday night

I still got it! Once a field hocky goalie, always flexible!

Woops, we weren't ready...

There it is! Happy girls at Sugar Reef, a popular club...

Leeanne is the unhappy blonde next to Nicole...yup, the crazy third roommate I occasionally mention does exist.

Showin' off our leg power... "get down, get down"...

Physios: OTs in disguise?

Well, blogger is doing its thing again...I posted a few photos early this morning, but have thus far been unable to post the rest tonight.

I am exhausted, but no rest for the weary! I've been cleaning house, because Carla arrives tomorrow morning for her UK-blink-and-you'll-miss-it adventure... we're going to cram as much in as possible, including a day trip to Bath and Stonehenge on Friday so that she gets to see more than just London. Unfortunately, I have to be on the tube at 7am tomorrow to meet her at the airport, so no sleeping in for me. Guess I'll just have to indulge in a nap on Sunday.

Gripe of the day...what's with the physical therapists moving in on our turf?! It used to be that physios were the joint and muscle experts, very straightforward stuff. And OTs, well, we were able to claim that what made us unique was our focus on purposeful, meaningful activity, or functional activities if you prefer. And yet these days, physios are pretty much across the board incorporating functional activity goals in their treatment plans. Professional niche stealers! Get back on your side! We were here first!!

From Friday night, with Nicole's friends Tim and Kris from Philly. The Ice Bar was the kick off for the night...more pics to come later on tonight, but for now I'm off to work!!

A little proof for Tim and Kris (both are on the right side of this pic) that this is London!

You can see the ice glass pretty clearly in my hand. The edge of it melted to the shape of your mouth as you drank! And the only things they had to drink were various kinds of vodka cocktails, very martini-like in strength!

An emotional drain of a day

Ooh, I just love it when Blogger won't cooperate with uploading photos. Love it, love it, love it.

I've had a crazy day today where everything went wrong with my patients I've actually currently got, plus two patients who had already gone home. "M" was badly handled by a nurse yesterday morning apparently, and now fears retribution from the nurses if he complains-- I heard about it from his wife, and I am now obligated to speak to the matron (essentially Head Nurse)-- unfortunately what happens on the ward with nursing staff has a huge impact on progress in therapy. "F" is scheduled to go home tomorrow, and though I specifically said to the nurse at our multi-discliplinary meeting last week that she would be going home that day and an ambulance needed to be arranged to take her home, today we were told that the nursing staff had no idea "F" was going home, and no ambulance had been booked. "G" is a story of his own, which I will get into when I have the energy for it-- in a nutshell, he's a 52 (or 62, we're not sure which, he's got two different birth dates, I'll explain another time) year old man who's had a stroke, past medical history of heavy smoking and drinking for 30 years (read alcoholic), who still thinks after 12 weeks of rehab that he can go home and be fine on his own. Meanwhile he can't walk, but tries to get up every day and falls, is incontinent, and has absolutely no problem-solving skills, no safety awareness or judgement, and no insight as to capabilities and limitations. But he's very good at covering things up, so the psych has assessed him to have the capacity to make informed decisions. Wheeee. It's a long story, I'll tell it another day. Meanwhile, the son of a patient who was recently discharged was calling me up on the phone, telling me his father is impulsive, aggressive, shouts at everybody, and does things he knows he is not safe to do, now that he is at home. And he wanted me to tell him that eventually his father will be back to normal, and told me he thinks the sleeping pills his father is on are causing the aggressiveness and impulsiveness. The son apparently wasn't listening while his father was a patient, when we talked about the behavioral side effects of having had a stroke, and I don't think he really took it on board when I explained this to him again today. In addition, though our discharge plan specifically called for this patient to be set up for living on the ground floor, and the family agreed, the son told me on the phone today that his father has gotten up at least three times during the night and tried to go downstairs. What?!!! I said to the son, we agreed that your father would be living downstairs, he is not safe on the stairs, we had everything delivered that you needed to have him downstairs. And the son said yes, but we're currently having a toilet and walk-in shower installed downstairs, it's too messy for his bed. And all I could say was please, please, clear a space for him to sleep and for his commode, he cannot be upstairs, his behavior is not going to change, he will do things he knows he is not supposed to do, and all we can do is keep him as safe as possible bykeeping him on the ground floor! For the icing on the cake, though the family insisted on having this man back home, and stated that as long as there were carers to help with personal care, his spouse would always be home with him, and everything would be fine, the son was now saying today he wanted 24-hour supervision for his father. And I had to say I'm sorry, but you either have to pay for that yourself, or if you want social services (i.e. the government) to pay for it, he will have to go to a residential home.

Geez, it was like the hits just kept coming today. That's not everything, but that's enough for now.

Phrase of the Day

KEEPING YOUR POWDER DRY: To take care of yourself; to be prepared.

This phrase was uttered by Oliver Cromwell in 1642, when his regiment was about to attack the enemy at the battle of Edgehill. "Put your trust in God," he told his troops, "but keep your powder dry." Wet gunpowder was very difficult to ignite, and with it a soldier would in effect be unarmed. (Courtesy of my cousin Andy)

I was too tired to blog about it at the time, and then forgot, but I went to see Guys and Dolls in the West End on Halloween. The big draw here has been Patrick Swayze headlining as Nathan Detroit. It was very very well done, especially since the female lead had been replaced (housemate Nicole saw it at least a month before me and said the original lead was awful). Although I must say, good ole Patrick is not the heartthrob he once was. He was never my type to begin with, I never swooned over him in Dirty Dancing, and now he definitely looks middle-age, and shorter than I expected him to be. However, he did a great job, and the show was fantastic! The actor who played Sky Masterson (no idea who he was), now there was a man to drool over.... ;)

Pics from this weekend still coming, just need to get ahold of Nicole's memory card tomorrow.

The Fun Never Stops

Boy, have I been busy, and the fun never stops...I still have some stories from last weekend (Halloween weekend) which I hope to get to today, and this weekend I have been partying with housemate Nicole and some friends of hers who are here visiting from the States. On Friday night, we went to the Ice Bar, where literally everything is made of ice-- the tables, the seats, the bar, the glasses you drink from, the walls. You get a heavy parka sort of thing thrown over your head as you go in, and you only get to stay for about 45 minutes-- which I think has less to do with the owners being worried about people getting too cold, and more to do with wanting to get as many people in and out to make as much money as possible! We then went on to a club called Tiger Tiger for a little bit, which is where Nicole and her boyfriend Dave first met, a little over a year ago. And finally, we had reservations at Sugar Reef, a club you often see pictured in the papers with celebrities like Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) falling out of its doors in the wee hours. We had a fantastic time, and as soon as I get ahold of Nicole's memory card, I'll post some really funny pics on here.

Last night, I joined up with them again at a bar called Porterhouse in Covent Garden. I think it's my new favorite bar. It kind of looks like a brewery inside-- they do have their own draughts and everything-- three different levels, and tons of good-looking men. As a matter of fact, I was sitting at a table chatting to Nicole's friends, when I hear Nicole behind me yelling, "Allison, I found you a cute Irish guy!" Imagine what shade of red I was as I stood up to meet him, or them, as it turned out to be two guys. Very friendly, very funny, both from Belfast originally, and one had spent an exchange year at Beaver College (now known as Arcadia) in PA. Wish I had gotten their numbers, because they were a lot of fun to hang out with, but we somehow lost them in transit to our next and last stop of the night, the Walkabout on Shaftesbury Ave. However, it was probably all for the best, because I had a great time being chatted up (this counts as a "pull"), but they live all the way over on the west side of London. It doesn't take very long living over here to learn that you almost might as well be talking about East Coast versus West Coast when you live on the east side of London and you meet someone from the west side. The tube stops running at about midnight, the night buses can be hard to figure out (even for someone who's sober), and a cab is really expensive. So everyone is usually very reluctant to go for a big night out on the other side of town unless they've got a place to crash. Anywho, we left Porterhouse, and took rickshaws (so fun! think I've got a pic of that too) to the Walkabout, and I think all of us ended up wishing we stayed at the first place. The music they were playing last night at the Walkabout left a lot to be desired, very much on the cheesy side.

So I've got a few days of work now, but then Carla arrives for a quick visit on Thursday morning!! She's taking advantage of Teacher's Conference Weekend in NJ, and will be here from Thursday to Sunday, so I need to get my tourguide act together!

5th of November

Remember, Remember
The Fifth of November
Gunpowder Treason and Plot.
We see no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot!

Today is Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night, whichever you prefer. It refers to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605...a small group of Catholics had thought that when James I took over as King, he would be more tolerant of Catholicism (having a Catholic mother himself). As it turned out, he was not, and a group of 13 men decided they would blow up Parliament, specifically the House of Lords, at a time when the King was present. They managed to put 36 barrels of gunpowder into the cellar below the House of Lords, but some members of the group had second thoughts when they realized innocent people could be hurt, and someone sent an anonymous letter of warning. Long story short, Guy Fawkes was the only man in the cellar when the King's men came looking for the conspirators. He was tortured and executed. To this day, the English mark the 5th of November with fireworks and bonfires, where they burn effigies of Guy Fawkes. It can be a bit of a gray area, though, as to whether they are celebrating Guy Fawkes' capture and execution, or are honoring him for his attempt to do away with the monarch/government! For a bit more information on the holiday, click here.