6/16/2004 Sightseeing day around London, under a fabulously clear sky.

Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Andrews wharf, the Thames, Tate Modern, Big Ben, House of Commons, Chinatown (only one association sign visible above the restaurants and stores), watching Euro2004 (spain ties greece) at a pub and chatting with a Bangladesh MBA student, watching the white swans in Hyde Park.

I guess the highlight was the Tate Modern, and Jan Svankmajer’s video piece “Punch and Judy: The Coffin Factory” – lovely, macabre and sardonic. Puppet theater. Negotiations for the sale of a guinea pig (yup, no lie) dissolve into violence and the ultimate death of both protagonists (including a Kill Bill 2 – style ‘Texas burial’). Too damn funny. Also Yves Tanguy’s painting “Les Transparents”.

I must be allergic to London. My allergies are worse here than anywhere else in the world. My eyes are tearing up.

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6/17/2004 Thursday. I now have four different allergy medications because I’m tired of having it ruin my days. I’ve got phenylephedrine, loratadine, oxymetazoline, and that stuff that’s in benedryl. I’m ready for anything.

3:45PM The Fog of War at the Prince Charles Theater in Leicester Square (rhymes with ‘chester’ and ‘molester’). Amazing film. Surprising number of people in the theater are like me, alone. At 3 pounds, it’s a good deal. At 5:00, the Switzerland-England Euro2004 match starts, and pubs are gearing up for it. One advertises 1 pound ‘stubbies’ until England scores. ‘Stubby’ = 1/2 pint? This place is like a college town at homecoming or something. It lives and breathes on the fortunes of its team.

No pictures today. I’m tired of sightseeing. Just wandering the streets like a ghost, not a tourist. I don’t really belong here, so there’s little to actually ‘do’. But it’s not so different that I feel like snapping pictures of everything. I’m l’etranger (or simply etrange). I just draw out trite generalizations from otherwise sensitive, thoughtful people about the differences between fairly equivalent cultures. I think I’ve had the same conversation a hundred times over.

Sat down in Trafalgar Square for the live broadcast of the Royal Ballet’s performance of Onegin. Kind offunny to be appreciating that while the rest of the town is running around drunk celebrating England’s victory.