Entry 5- Albe, Peter, and Diana stand still, while the Gunners prevail.

So yesterday concluded my first full day in England. It was an incredibly fun day. I got a full nights rest before, which was nice, and needed, but still woke up at 8:30, early by my standards. However, I did go to bed at 9:30 the night before, so full of rest I was. I would even go as far to say that I am more or less living 8 hours ahead of my previous life. Anyways, I wanted to get a jump on the day, so I grabbed a water and a banana, and headed of to Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. I love the way Kensington Gardens sounds when you say it... so regal. Paul Voge took me on a quick whirlwind tour the day before, but I wanted to spend some time taking photos and letting the wind take me wherever it pleased, and it was a rather blustery (pronounced rava bluss-tree) day, so I was headed a lot of places. I did stumble upon Prince Albert Memorial. Prince Albert was apparently an oversized gold man with exquisite facial hair (see fig.1). The English really like their statues, and Prince Albert is no exception... this thing is huge! Even the small statues around the big memorial are massive in size. I said my good byes to Albe and moved on, as I felt we were growing to attached to one another.

   My next adventure was to find Peter Pan. The English put up a sign whenever they can, so finding Peter was not very hard. On the way I did find the Italian Fountains, which in their heyday, I'm sure were the fountains to see, but you wouldn't exactly put them toe to toe with the Bellagio these days. Peter is pictured full size below as I figured the statue was famous enough to earn its own post on your's truly's blog. I continued my meandering near Peter and the little river-lake he gazes upon when I was engulfed by a large pack of high schoolers. I found this an excellent chance to observe a new breed of highus schoolius studantes, of the Italian-maximus species. After a few short moments however, I realized that Italian high school students fare no different than American ones; The girls take loads of pictures, and the guys get bored, try to act cool, and begin throwing rocks at the ducks.
   Thus my journey continued and I found myself at Kensington Palace, which is more like a mansion than what you would call a "palace", but royal it seemed nonetheless. Anything in London that seems larger than average screams royalty, kind of like big hats and bbq screams Texas. There is a small restaurant behind Kensington Palace called The Orangery and it serves high tea. I thought "This is it, my first change to have high tea in England...". However, after looking at the prices, I decided high tea could wait, for buying tea in Kensington Gardens is like buying a cookie at Disneyland; The price includes the location. Maybe another time. Walking back to the Voge residence and through Kensington Gardens you realize that these people really love Princess Diana. She has like five statues, three lakes, two fountains, and a host of other trinkets in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. However, not one of them bears her image or likeness in any form whatsoever, they just really love her. Also, every swan in England belongs to the Queen. Therefore, if someone catches you take or kill a swan, they send you to prison for some ridiculous amount of time for swan swiping.

  
   Paul Voge arrived home shortly after I did, and informed that Mr. Bill Voge had gotten us tickets to the Arsenal game. Now, it has been a goal of mine for quite some time now to go to a "football" game in England, as well as to go to an Arsenal game. Tickets are hard to come by as they are a top four team, and last night was their first Champions League game. Not only did Bill get us tickets, he got us amazing tickets... in the club section, with a free dinner included. The dinner happened to be a massive delicious buffet before the game, and free tea at the half. Unlike American sports, the closer you are to the field (pitch) the cheaper the tickets are. We were in the middle balcony section, right beneath the boxes, so like I said AMAZING seats. Now, I must elaborate on the game itself. Arsenal came out strong, and it was soon apparent that SC Braga was going to have a hard time keeping up with the Gunners (Arsenal's nickname, and fans are called Gooners). Arsenal won 6-0 (six nill as they would say here), and six goals is pretty unprecedented in a single game, let alone six nill. And now, the real reason I tell you all this... the fans are insane. You have men in business suits, five year old kids shouting the songs and clapping along, and the occasional woman shouting profanities at both teams. As for the songs, the stadium is always loud, everybody is shouting and talking, because somebody just did something incredible (lovely ball) or absolutely idiotic (bloody geezer). The same player can be a hero and a fool in the same minute. Then everyone starts clapping and singing. Most of the songs are pretty simple as the hammered guys need to be able to sing along as well, however there were a few I could not make out... and everybody knows the words... everybody. They put all the visiting fans in the same section for their own safety. I'm dead serious, if you were not an Arsenal fan in the Arsenal section, which happens to be the whole stadium minus the tiny visiting section, they'd kill you. Even though they were losing they still kept shouting and singing for their team. It was an electric atmosphere. The total attendance was 59,333 people, maybe 80 were there for SC Braga, so you can imaging the noise when the Gunners scored... six times.
  
   My night ended with a delightful skype session with Becca, and today I slept in a bit which felt wonderful. That is all for now, a lot I know, but I had explain the first real day in detail. I leave you with the statue of Physical Energy, made to represent man's conquering of physical world. Now I must go conquer Kensington High Street and get myself a British phone card.
Sailing true... The Pirate Crew.