Not to be a typical American tourist talking about plumbing, but I need to tell you that since my last visit to London nine years ago I have mastered the shower-bath.

The cuisine is still kind of a mystery but I’m enjoying it more this time. On our arrival Jack took us to a Turkish place up the road where we ordered a thing called Manamen (sp?), described as scrambled eggs with tomatoes and peppers. It turns out to be more of a scrambled soup that you scoop up with bread, though I don’t know whether to attribute that to the Turkish or the British influence. Anyway it was great, though of a consistency and appearance that the 17 year old me would probably not have been brave enough to try.

We went out into London proper a bit last night and walked around Hyde Park and Covent Gardens, ate some microwaved hamburgers which I found to be charmingly authentic Brit cuisine, and saw a film. Today I might be lobbying for a tour of Parliament, but I suspect I’ll be on my own for that one.

So far no pigs, but I have great hopes for today. More later when we have pictures to post.

I’ve been idly browsing Kimmie’s bathroom products while we’re here, as I like to do in any foreign bathroom. It seems odd that we as a species have discovered so many plants that are beneficial to the hair — jojoba, the Australian tea leaf tree, papaya, etc. — but none that cure cancer.

Tonight Kim took us to Drinking Liberally as promised, but the Lad and I failed to deliver the lying goods and chose to pose as ourselves instead. Kim’s friends are all intelligent nerds like us so we were able to talk it up like we were on our home turf. Our votes were courted by a local politician, which was my first time for that and I was kind of thrilled. I promised him I’d vote for him, and if I move to Philly before the election I totally will. I spent the rest of my beer correcting typos in the pamphlet Kim is handing out for her political candidate. I like to do my part.

Kim, who once kicked a stranger at a concert because his behavior was annoying her, and who recently had the balls to ask Gloria Steinam a question during a lecture, talks baby-talk to her cat. It’s almost cuter than I can handle.

Tomorrow the Lad and I fly to London where Jack will in theory meet us at a tube station and escort us to our new temporary home. Stay tuned.

After a remarkably painless journey (car, plane, air train, subway, bus, then our feet), we arrived at Kim’s house in Philly at about 8:30 pm, Philly time. (You are allowed to call it Philly, I checked. It’s not like saying Frisco. I say Philly every chance I get now. I’m also busting out “youse” wherever possible, another popular word here.) Youse all will be glad to hear that Kim is in fine form despite her insane acquisition of a cat.

The cat was really interested in us. I counted a total of ten times last night that he jumped up on our futon bed to try and make friends. One of those times I atempted to tip him off using the fuzzy top blanket, which produced a series of exciting white sparks and a cat yowl. His near-brush with death by electrocution did not deter him from coming back to visit us again a few minutes later. Luckily the Benedril we were both on let us sleep through most of our attempts to kill Kim’s housepet.

Today we walked around Philly for a lot of the day, and Kim took us to an Italian market where we got youse’d and picked up dinner. It turns out you can buy pasta fresh, which cooks in about a minute and a half. I had always believed that drying it into cardboard consistency was an integral part of the pasta making process, but no.

Tomorrow Kim is taking us to a drinking group full of liberals (“Drinking Liberally”). The Lad and I are planning to pose as conservatives and alienate all her friends. It should be a blast.

8:00 a.m. Been up for two hours. Drinking coffee now in my sunny living room, listening to Elliot Smith tell the biggest lie on repeat. We leave on our trip tomorrow but we leave the apartment today, in just a few hours. Outside the giant rainbow flag waves goodbye.

Any of you lurkers out there who want postcards from me can contact me by clicking “About the Author” in the sidebar and clicking “Didofoot can be reached here.” Send me an address, I’ll send you a postcard. (Those who already know me can just email me addresses in the normal way.)

My next post will be from glamorous Philadelphia, I expect.

I’ve been planning this date for days and days: what will I wear? Where will we go? What will I wear? What will we eat? What will we do? What will I wear? Now at last it’s almost time to have the actual date and I am so sick of thinking about it that I don’t even want to go out with this guy anymore.

This was true for almost all my best first dates, and now it’s true for the trip as well. I have stalked Europe on the internet, talked to people who know him, tried hard to imagine what he might be like, considered carefully how to tailor my image to best suit his tastes, purchased entire outfits that he might enjoy seeing on me, and tried my best to plan every single second of our time together in spite of my avowed wish for a spontaneous evening/10 weeks.

But now I’m sick of it. No more guidebooks, pictures, hostel websites, shopping trips (except I do still need a bag and maybe some black flats) or speculations. I’m just going to show up wrassy-haired and smiling and see what Europe has to offer me. Maybe it will be a fabulous time. Maybe it will be bedbugs. But by god I am not going to worry about it anymore.