Brook Version 3.0

Quote of the Blog:

Turns out that Poutine (the famous Quebec dish) sounds a lot like another French word that has a very different meaning.

****

Yesterday was my birthday. People have been asking me how I feel about turning 30 – and honestly, I feel great. I refer to it as the “Release of Brook Version 3.0.” A new and improved upgraded model, now available! Thirty and I are friends. This year has been great so far and I hvae no reason to think the rest will be any different. I’ve already dubbed this year the “Year of Epiphanies.” I've had so many and really do feel like a new and improved Brook Version 3.0 (not that I thought the 2.9 version of me was all that bad).

To celebrate the big 3.0 four friends, Amanda, May, Gaby, Alicia and I took a roadtrip to Montreal. It’s only a 6.5 hour drive from NYC. The drive is nice; the freeway is lined on both sides with verdant grass and trees. We would have arrived in Montreal earlier if a traveling carnival hadn’t lured us in with its lights glowing in the gloaming. I knew I was in like company when we all saw the ferris wheel and everyone yelled, "We have to go!" We went on the Ferris Wheel and the Cliff Hanger.

The Ferris Wheel was fun and not so scary. I wish I could have said the same for the flying ride:

Gaby has taken to the maxim of doing something that scares her every day. And considering the Cliff Hanger creaked like a whirling banshee - making it easy to imagine the beds detaching at any time and flying through the ether - I say mission accomplished. I held my camera on the ride and took some random snaps over my shoulder. Some of them turned out.

I felt like 30 after we were done. We walked off like an inebriated lot - all except for Alicia who danced off towards the car and jumped off a few curbs with youthful heel clicks (she still has a few years until she reaches 30).

Montreal was very fun. The city has bike pick-up/drop-off stations are every few blocks. So we rented the bikes and explored the city. For lunch we hiked to the top of Mont Royal and ate bread and cheese and fruit. Then walked down the hill to and rented bikes and rode to Old Montreal. The architecture and layout of the city is lovely. We ate at a crepe place and wandered by the river.

The next morning I woke up to everyone singing Happy Birthday around my bed by singing and presenting me with a candle-topped-cupcake. What a great way to start the day! After breakfast we went to the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History. We took a tour of the ruins under the museum - very fascinating. Ps. I was reminded again the influence that one person can have. The tour guide told us about a Native Chief (the name escapes me) whose charisma and influence helped something like 39 tribes agree to sign the Montreal Peace Treaty of 1701. After the museum we ate poutine (a Quebec dish of french fries, fresh cheese curd, and gravy) at Montreal Poutine. Then we headed back to the city.

We didn't stop at any carnivals on the way back but we did stop to eat cake. My coworker Talia surprised me on Friday with a delicious chocolate cake for the roadtrip. She said, "You have to have a cake on your birthday!" I have great friends, to be sure. The trip was a great way to kick-off Thirty. This weekend we're throwing the big b-day party. It's 70's-themed so get out your bell bottoms and platforms.

I Was a Total Skater

A few years ago after church I waited for my friend Amy who was in a meeting. The building was just about empty except for a few of us. We stood in front of the alcove where the bishop and clerk’s office are. There were five of us in the circle: Doug and Wayne (both my age-ish but members in the bishopric), Andrew, and another man we’ll call *Brandt (this isn't his real name).

Brandt had shown interest in me – I think it might have had something to with the fact that he loved to cook gourmet meals and I like food. Dunno, but for whatever reason, he had asked me out quite a few times. He usually asked just a day or two in advance and I usually had something going on.

The five of us were chatting casually. The next day was Memorial Day and I was going to borrow Doug’s bike to go to the beach with some people. So we were talking about biking and mid-sentence Brandt turned to me and said, “Do you want to bake?” I paused, had he said bike or bake?

I asked, “I’m sorry, what?”

He annunciated each word, “Would you like to bake?”

I glanced around; Doug, Wayne and Andrew seemed puzzled as well.

I smiled, a bit confused, “Bake what?”

He clarified, “I’m asking you on a date. Every time I ask you out you’re busy. So, you tell me what night works for you and I’ll take you out.”

I noticed the men shift their weight from foot to foot. Brandt kept talking and I noticed Doug take a slow step back, then another, and then he ducked into the clerk’s office. Wayne noticed Doug was gone a moment later. He gave me a supportive smile and excused himself to the clerk’s office as well. Andrew watched Wayne walk away, gave me “the eyebrows” and made a swift retreat to the clerk’s office. I think my jaw dropped a bit more as I watched each exit. I do remember a part of my brain thinking, “Remember, this will be funny later.”

As I came back to the moment I realized that Brandt had been talking during the exodus but I hadn’t been listening. I tuned back in to hear, “So, there I was, if you can imagine it, on BYU campus, with long hair, a Get Lucky shirt, shorts to here,” he gestured at his knees, “and my vans.” He puffed up his chest just a bit and said, “I was a total skater.”

Now, Brandt is not someone you would ever imagine as a skater. His posture, mannerism, and speech indicates that he is more likely to buy opera tickets than a skateboard. So when he proclaimed himself a “total skater” I was surprised.

I tilted my head to the side, curious, “Really? You were a skater?”

He nodded with a confident half-smile and said, “Mostly roller skates. And some blades.”

What! I swallowed the laugh I felt rise in my throat and thought, “this has the makings of a great SNL skit.” I nodded and listened as he talked about the Classic Skating – the rink in Orem, Utah. I knew it. It's where I had my birthday party when I turned 8.

When Amy came out of her meeting we caught a ride with Wayne and the bishop. As I sat in the back seat Wayne turned around, patted my knee and started chuckling.

That evening Doug came by with his bike for me to borrow and said, “Wow, sorry about earlier. That was really awkward for us.” I almost fell off the bike (it was too tall for me), “Awkward for you? Awkward for you??”

Mostly roller skates. And some blades. I love that memory, but it makes me wonder what other hard-core phrases might people might misuse. Similar convos might go like this:

“Hey, I’m a total boarder.”

“Awesome? You’re a boarder?”

“Yeah, and all my rooms are totally booked.”

Or

“I love rallying.”

“Really? That’s seriously hard-core.”

“Yeah, I love getting people together for a cause.”

Or someone might tell you they like sandkiting, only to find out that they go to the dunes to fly kites. If you saw my four year-old niece at the beach you might say she enjoys wavejumping. Someone might say do inline skating with their buddies and skate off in a line. The possibilities are endless.

Oh, in case you’re curious, Brandt and I had dinner that weekend. The dinner was good, but part of me really wishes we had gone to a skate park -or was that skating rink?

Attention Passengers

One New Year’s Eve, before I moved to NYC, my friend Jason and I decided to visit my brother Ty who had moved here the year before. We flew from SLC to JFK on a Boeing 757 and the flight was packed. An hour or two into the flight Jason wondered how many people were on the plane. He thought there were less than 200 passengers and I thought there were more. We decided to make a wager. We both guessed how many passengers were on the plane and the loser would buy the winner the first slice of New York pizza. Game on!

We looked around, guestimating. We wrote our guesses on a piece of paper. If I remember correctly his was in the 180’s. Mine was 231. We stopped a flight attendant to see if she could give us an exact count of how many people were on the plane. She leaned over to listened to our wager then crouched down in excitement. “Oh, this is important.” She said, “I’ll be right back!”

She came back a moment later. We had our scrap of paper and she announced the number of passengers on the plane was….drum roll…233! I was just two passengers off! She told me congratulations, smiled, and told us how she had told the other flight attendants about the wager. They had decided on a prize, “You win! Do you prefer a bottle of white wine or red?”

I was so excited! I won a bottle of wine! But wait! What would I do with a bottle of wine? I don’t drink! Ty and his roommates didn’t drink. I kind of stammered for a moment and Jason said, “Sorry, we actually don’t drink.” She paused for just a second and then said, “Let me see what I can’t find!” A moment later she came back with two GINORMOUS gourmet cookies, all wrapped up. She handed them both to me, smiled slyly towards Jason and said “You can share with him if you want.”

At the baggage claim, Jason ran into a friend of his, who, unbeknownst to us, was on our flight. She was a friendly girl, unlike her companion. She turned and introduced us to the man who had been standing rigidly next to her. He held himself with an air that conveyed both a sense of superiority and unease. His comments matched his posture. He let us know he lived in New York and was working on his PhD at Columbia. We all stood by the baggage carousel chatting. Jason and I told the story of the passenger wager and wine-winning.

When we finished, three of us were laughing. I pulled the massive cookie from my bag to show the consolation prize. I said, “…but instead they gave us these First Class Cookies.” Her friend tilted his head back and looked down at my prize. He said in the tone of a British aristocrat, “I was in first class; they didn’t serve us those cookies. They served us sundaes.” Ok, he didn’t have an accent, unless it was PhD, and I admit that for a moment I imagined giving him the economy-cabin-people’s-elbow.

If I could do it over I would have accepted the bottle of wine and found just the right passenger to give it to. The one that catches your eye at the gate and you keep your fingers crossed that you sit next to him.

The stewardess would tap him on the shoulder, lean over and present the bottle of wine. “Sir, this bottle is from the lady seated in 27B.” Who knows what might happen. When he looked over to my seat I would glance up and flash a quick smile before I continued flipping through my Skymall magazine. I would think it wouldn’t be long before he’d make his way over to meet, but to my surprise he might look at the bottle of wine and say, “I hear they have hot sundaes in first class...”

TLB

Quote of the blog:

It poured here a few days ago - the kind of rain that blows sideways and people wear wellies and water finds a way to drip into the subway stations. I walked up the subway stairs past a line of people hurrying downstairs to get out of the rain. A lady walking down the steps stopped suddenly to shake water off her umbrella- causing a human traffic jam. At least ten people were stuck in back of her -many of them still standing in the rain. Since so many of us were coming up the stairs they couldn't just walk around her. A little old lady stopped directly behind her waited a few seconds, glared at the back of the woman's head, and then the grandma jabbed her in the back with her umbrella to prod her down the stairs. I love New York.

******

If you’ve ever lived in or visited New York City you’ve seen it. It's a phenomenon that exists in every major city but I am willing to bet it’s worse in NYC than anywhere else.

I call it Tourist-Like-Behavior or TLB. It can happen to anyone, anywhere. I think you know the behavior I’m talking about. Symptoms vary and TLB can strike in a moment of weakness, confusion, or deep-thought (or perhaps the absence of thought). One can have adult onset TLB although it can also be hereditary - part of the inherited makeup of otherwise innocent kids living in the five Burroughs. Tourist-Like-Behavior is a dam in the flow of the city. NB: Most TLB sufferers are not tourists: tourists suffer from tourist-behavior - which is usually temporary instead of chronic like many cases of TLB.

Perhaps the city should launch a TLB education campaign. They could post signs and ads like they did for swine flu and cigarette smoking at the entrances to the subways and on sidewalks. Posters might read:

“Tourist-Like-Behavior is catching! Don’t spread TLB! For your safety and the safety of those around you please adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Never stand on the stairs - even when you get a phone call.
a. See quote of the blog.

2. Never stop mid-stride (anywhere).
a. People WILL run into you. Sometimes on purpose (like my friend Anne).
Also, see 1a.

3. Let people exit the train before you get on!
a. 4.5 million passengers ride the subway every day to and from the 468 stations positioned on 229 miles of route in New York City. Many people have good subway etiquette: they make room for new passengers, move to the middle of the car when needed, give up seats to the elderly or disabled, don't eat stinky food on the subway, don't blast music, etc.). Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of TLB is an insatiable need to push one's way onto a subway as soon as the doors open - making it difficult for people to exit. People become like sands of the hourglass trying to push through to the other side at the same time, such are the days of our commuter lives. Once on board TLB sufferers may stand in front of the subway doors, unwilling to move out of the way when people try to exit or board.

Just an idea - instead of a monetary fine, the MTA could brand offenders with friendly reminders of TLB etiquette. They could even let people select their tattoo fonts. An Avatar fan could get, “Let People Exit the Train first…” in Papyrus font tattooed across the shoulders or down the forearm. Or "I will never block the stairs again..." in descending letters - like shape poetry. Who knows, it might help stem the pandemic spread of TLB, but we won't know unless we try.

It could also become a new trend. What if people started getting etiquette tattoos? "Give up a seat to the elderly" tattooed around the calf, "Don't talk with your mouth full," across the chest, "Mama taught me not to smack my gum when I chew" tattooed in cursive around the neck or "Don't Litter" tattooed around their bicep. haha. Ok, I'm digressing. Back to TLB -

The MTA and the city could sell merchandise marked with the acronym TLB positioned behind a ghostbuster’s circle and slash. They could sell t-shirts, sunglasses, pens, bags. It just might work and there's a market for it. Everyone wins: you, me, stair-walkers, subway riders, sidewalk-striders, TLB sufferers, tattoo parlors…

Come again?

Quote of the blog:

One of our directors answered a call at work. We heard, “Do we serve Jews? Of course we serve Jews! Students of all religious affiliations attend our programs.” He was quiet for a moment as he listened and then exclaimed, “Oh! Juice! Yes, yes we have juice on the programs.”
****

I have a habit of tweaking words just a bit, or speaking in accents, or weird voices or whatever. [Don’t judge]. One of my occasional word-tweaks is to add “sies” on to the end of words. Time for foodsies, bedsies, whatever(sies).

My coworker Mario was in our office at one of the computers. I work in open office with four other people. Mario was lamenting to us all that he had to get blood-work done the next day and couldn’t eat for the rest of the day.

I nodded sympathetically and asked, “For testies?”

Everyone looked up, shocked and laughing.
I tried to recant, “For testing! Testing!!”
Mario couldn’t stop laughing, “Brook, you’re blushing.”
Yes, yes I was (and I rarely blush).

Another similar, ridiculous, situation happened when I had some friends over to watch Sleeping Beauty. I love Sleeping Beauty (is there a better villain that Maleficent?) I hadn’t seen it for years and when Disney rereleased SB two years ago my friend bought me a copy and we had a movie night. I noticed the styling and the music - a chorus enters many of the songs throughout the movie. When Briar Rose starts singing with the prince the chorus joins in. I said, “And enter chorus.” Everyone kind of looked at me and I looked back like, “What? What did I say?” After a few seconds Jeff said, “Did you just say ‘intercourse’?”

Two weekends ago I was at a party where one of the men admitted to getting the words Smooch and Mooch mixed up – even in his teens. I would have loved to see that in action. He would say things like, “He totally smooches off his parents.” And, “Stop being a total smooch.” I like to imagine what that looked like on the flipside when talking about a girl.

That came up because another man there said how excited he was when the zequel to some movie came out (I don’t remember which one). He noticed our faces when he said, zequel and explained that he had said zequel instead of sequel his whole life and no one had said anything to him until just a couple years ago. I think by that time he just decided to own it. I could sympathize – I never realized that I say magneNts instead of magnets until last year when my friend Jason asked me about it. That’s right. A life full of magneNts and I never realized. I know how to spell it, just (apparently) not say it!

There are so many moments of misunderstanding or misspeaking that happen. They provide endless amusement. Like my friend Carly who thought Rihanna’s song “Disturbia” was “Squirmy Love” and even had a little dance to go with it.

There was the time when I worked at UVU and my coworkers and I were commiserating about an office assistant who had keys to our offices and would go through our things when we weren’t there. One coworker said, “He moved my pictures around and left his stuff on my bookcase.” I remembered coming in one morning and he told me that he had unlocked my office and used some things he found in looking through my desk. Another coworker vented something else and I said loudly, “Yes! And he’s been in my drawers!” They stopped complaining, looked at me, and then burst out laughing. That would be another time I blushed. A lot.

One morning my coworker Justin looked at another coworker who had a heaping plate of food. Justin sniffed, “What are you eating?” Pei responded, “Gross stuff.”

Justin’s nose crinkled in disgust, “And that is why I’m going out for my breakfast sammich.” (He likes to call sandwiches sammiches).

Pei asked, “What do you have against gross stuff?”

Justin, “Really? What do I have against gross stuff? For breakfast?”

Pei turned, “I said ROAST DUCK!”

La Cucaracha

Quote of the blog:

My roommate Gaby is scared of dogs - and understandably. When she was nine she was on her bike when three dogs started to chase her – two German shepherds and one cocker spaniel (Gaby uses the term “ferocious cocker spaniel”). As they chased her and nipped at her fast-peddling feet she heard the owner call the dogs off, “Hunter! Killer! Beast! Get back here!”

I’m not afraid of dogs but I am afraid of large bugs; cockroaches specifically. Three years ago when I discovered a gargantuan cockroach in my room I called Gaby for help. She was not inclined to assist me – she is not a fan of cockroaches either. Finally, in all seriousness, I looked at her and said, “I will take a bite for you.” She looked at me, nodded, took the can of Raid from my hands and walked with me to my room.

Sometimes, when we walk by a larger dog, Gaby will still move behind me and whisper, “You owe me a bite.”

****

Last Thursday, my friend Mycah told me and my other friend Talia about a commute he’d had earlier in the week. He was on the subway to Brooklyn after a long night of traveling. He sat across from a man who fit a certain subway rider stereotype. I wish there was a name for this persona. If you’ve ridden the NYC subway, or probably the metro anywhere, you know the type: the person who carries themselves in a way that lets you know they don’t care what you think, they know they're cool. That's right foo', they wear their sunglasses on the subway. This guy slouched confidently in his seat (if you can call a slouch confident), head slightly cocked to the side, his legs spread apart with his forearms resting on his thighs (I think this posture is meant to discourage people from sitting next to him). He stared ahead with disinterest and, I like to imagine, his lips were pushed out just a bit – like some people do when they raise their chin and give an acknowledging “what’s up” head nod.

Mycah saw something move on the rider’s shirt. He looked closer and thought he saw a giant cockroach peering around the edge of the man’s jacket. The bug waved one long antennae at him. Mycah did a double-take, blinked, and when he looked again it was gone. His tired mind must have imagined it. At least, that's what he thought until the cockroach crawled out from under the man’s jacket - it was an American cockroach about 2” in length (as opposed to the 1/2" German cockroach that also dwell in NYC). It crawled up his shirt, onto the outside of his jacket and down the forearm. All of this took just a few seconds. Our cool subway rider hadn’t noticed the stowaway and maintained his aloof demeanor until he saw a movement on his sleeve. When the rider saw the cockroach he lost his cool. He jumped up and frantically shook his arm, dislodged the cockroach and sent it flying across the subway car. It landed at the feet of a woman who screamed and proceeded to stamp the roach over and over again. The subway rider adjusted his coat and resumed his nonchalant pose for the rest of the ride. The roach’s destination was never discovered.

Mycah reenacted the scene for Talia and me. We laughed and shuddered all at once. The idea of having a giant cockroach inside the clothes you’re wearing - uhhhhhhh.

The morning after Mycah told us the tale of the subway roach Talia came into the office and exclaimed, “It’s Mycah’s fault! If he hadn't told that story!...”

I was surprised, “What happened?”

The previous evening, after Mycah shared his story, Talia went home to her studio apartment on the Upper East Side. She opened the window by her oven and set about making pasta for dinner. The sauce was simmering in a pan on the stovetop when she got a phone call and walked out of the kitchen for a moment. When she returned she was horrified to see a huge cockroach and a baby cockroach on the windowsill looking down at the sauce in the pan. They reached out and grabbed each other’s foreleg, swung their legs back and forth as they squeeked out a “One! Two! Threeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Talia yelled “Nooo!” and rushed forward as BOTH cockroaches jumped into her pasta sauce. It was a double cockroachicide. I’m just glad that she saw them before she stirred them in or put the sauce in the fridge for later.

Those stories remind me of another story that I can’t tell without shuddering. It’s not specifically about cockroaches, but I feel like it’s related. One Sunday, Gaby and I sat in church two rows behind a man who attended our ward. He was an interesting sort of fellow and, well, would probably never win a gold star for hygiene. We were singing a hymn when I grabbed Gaby’s arm in alarm. A full tick/flea-like bug scurried out from his collar and down the back of his wrinkled shirt. Gaby gripped my hand in return as a medium sized spider crawled out in pursuit. A girl, the only one on the pew in front of us, calmly reached out with a tissue and killed the first bug. I don’t know what happened to the spider. That was three years ago and we still get the heebeejeebies when I think about it.

Sometimes I like to imagine that I’m brave, that I would be steady and calm if faced with an emergency; however, if you throw a giant cockroach into the mix I am neither of these things. If I were to provide an excuse I would say it’s because I lived in Panama when I was nine and ten. The cockroaches there were massive and flew through the air, the wings making a heavy bddddddddddd-ddddd sound. Sometimes their long antennae would poke through electrical sockets like live wires. One time a large roach flew around my bedroom and I threw a book at it. Alas! My aim! The book only hit air and then the wall. The cockroach changed direction and flew directly towards me in what I perceived as attack mode. I yelled and dove under my covers. I wouldn’t come out until my mom saved me (moms are good at that). I don’t deal well with large roaches. Never have, and based on the next story, probably never will.

So a few years ago I came home from work, we’d just moved into our apartment a few months before and we had left the windows open. I was in the middle of leaving a message for my sister when I screamed mid-voicemail and hung up. A Monster Cockroach scuttled from the window behind my dresser. I called Gaby in a panic. Her calm voiced reassured my pounding heart and I could tell right away she had a plan, “Ok, I’m going to be home soon.”

I sighed in relief. Reinforcements were just what I needed.

“I want you to go to the kitchen and get the can of bugspray under the sink.”

Yes, bugspray. That makes sense. “Ok, I’ve got it.”

“Ok, good,” She said, “Listen carefully. Go to my room. Spray the baseboard at my door. That way if it leaves your room it won't come in to mine.”

A half hour later, after promising to take a bite for Gaby, imagine the following scene:

Gaby and I staring at my dresser. We knew the monster roach hid behind it. If my brother were home we would have pulled the “man card” but we were on our own. Gaby had the can of Raid and I had stomping boots on. My job was to pull out the dresser and Gaby’s job was to spray the roach. We decided that it was time to take action. We stood there for another five minutes.

Finally, we counted, “One, two, three.” I pulled the dresser from the wall and Gaby looked, and looked, and then jumped and screamed. The next five minutes went something like this:

Both of us: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (gulp of air) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (Gaby sprayed Raid the entire time).

I looked at Gaby. She was spraying Raid behind the dresser, her eyes shut. Somewhere in our screams I had retreated to the doorway. I was yelling and laughing, “Don’t lose it! Watch where it goes!”

She opened one eye and then yelled back, “It crawled behind the other dresser!" She looked at me, "And you LIED about it’s size! It’s HUGE!”

To be fair, I hadn’t told her how big it was. I was afraid she might not help me if I told her I had a roach the size of a mouse in my room. I wouldn’t have helped me if I were her.

I waved fumes out of the way to see Gaby, “I’m scared.”

She couldn't see the cockroach any more and stopped spraying. We took a few moments to gather ourselves and reposition. Gaby sat on my desk, every once in a while spraying behind the dresser while we discussed tactical options. I sat on my desk chair with my legs up underneath me (you know, in case the roach ran out from under the dresser). Again, our strategic plan was to pull the second dresser away from the wall and spray the Goliath. I took a deep breath and pulled the second dresser out from the wall. We both looked behind it. We both screamed again.

There, lying on its back in a puddle of Raid, was the massive cockroach. Its long crawly legs stretched up to the ceiling. It was ginormous. Gaby sprayed it some more just to make sure it wasn’t faking death. We may have used an entire can of Raid.

We needed to dispose of the body, but I just couldn’t get close enough to it to pick it up with anything. Gaby declined my generous offer for her to throw it out. I’m embarrassed to say that I ended up taping a dustpan to the end of a broom handle. I held the bristled-end of the broom, and scooped the roach into the dustpan, and walked – the dustpan at the end of the four feet pole in front of me - to the garbage room by the elevator on our floor.

Even in death the cockroach held some power. For fifteen minutes we jumped at the slightest noise or brush of cloth on the leg thinking it was a nasty insect.

It’s kind of a catch-22 with bugs, rats, etc. Once you notice a few, you start looking for them, and the more you look for them the more you see. And sometimes you think you notice insects that aren’t there. Even now, after retelling these stories, I just jumped when my hair brushed my neck. If I can’t maintain my cool when I’m only writing about roaches who knows what I would have done on the subway if one actually crawled onto my sleeve.

Loch Ness and Pumas (famous mythical creatures)

Quote of the blog:

Watching a Planet Earth video with Gaby:

Gaby: Wait! Did they just say PUMA???

Brook: Yes, that’s a Puma.

Gaby: Pumas are real!?? I thought they were just a brand! You know, pumas, the mythical creature of the Andes!

*****

For three consecutive summers I worked for a college coordinated London Study Abroad program. Our groups spent six weeks in London and finished up with a four-day trip to Paris. The students were around 18-24 and many of the students had never traveled much, let alone been out of the country. There are too many stories to tell in just one entry – but here are a couple of my favorites:

One summer we visited the hilltop ruins of Old Sarum near Salisbury, England. On the way one a professor gave a short lecture about the 5,000-year history of the site. As we walked up the hill one of the girls asked if I had ever been there before. I replied, “Yes, but it was five years ago when I was a student on study abroad.” She slowed and asked wide-eyed, “Were they ruins when you were here?” Yes. Yes they were.

Before I get into the next story, I’d like to make an observation on human nature. From what I’ve seen, it seems that, generally speaking, when people travel as passengers they tend not to pay attention to directions, signs, etc. Most of us sit contentedly in the passenger seat and watch the scenery, change the station, chat, etc. and don’t pay too much attention to the details of the directions unless we need to. There are of course, the opposite types – we all know a friend (or maybe you are that friend) that can always identify north or drive directly to any place they’ve ever visited. This type of friend, however, seems to be the exception.

This principle proved to be especially true over and over again in Europe. Laurie and I herded our little flock of students all over London and took a trip of 24 of them to Scotland. It was our first time ever to Edinburgh – which the students knew – but as soon as we were off the plane we were asked by a group of girls where the bathrooms were. Laurie and I looked around the terminal, saw a sign for the restrooms and pointed the girls in the right direction. Those situations were frequent and, I thought, provided an interesting insight into group social dynamics.

While we were in Edinburgh (ps. Scots might be some of the nicest people on earth) we took a Haggis Bus tour which included a trip to Inverness to Loch Ness to engage in some cryptozoology. The tour guide talked about the history of Loch Ness and how Loch means lake, etc. We got dropped off for the boat tour of Loch Ness and piled onto a boat with a group of about 40 other tourists. We sat on benches in the enclosed deck and looked through the big glass windows across the expansive lake. Each pane had small stickers of dinosaur-esque monsters on them. The stickers were designed so the monster was cut horizontally in half with a space between the body and the neck. That way, if you positioned the sticker with the water just right it looked like you caught a picture of a surfacing Loch Ness monster – his back and neck and head above the waves. Very fun.

The guide on our vessel was a ginger-haired Scottish lad of about twelve. Ok, he was probably 18 but he looked like he was twelve. For twenty minutes we sat and listened to his brogue as he held up different sonar imaging of the bottom of the lake, talked about the history of the Loch Ness Monster, the first sightings, theories, legend, etc.

In the middle of a sentence one of our girls impatiently thrust her hand in the air. The kid looked surprised but called on her. In my memory she was chomping gum and twisting a strand of hair and asked her question with a disenchanted valley girl inflection –but I am not so sure that any of that is accurate. What I do know is that she asked, in a tone that somehow conveyed impatience and ignorance and a touch of boredom, “When do we get to see the castle?”

We all turned. The boy asked, “What castle?”

She insisted, “You know? The castle that’s Locked? Locked Ness Castle? The famous one?” She peered through the windows looking for the castle.The rest of the tourists stared at her in disbelief. Our group shrank in our seats.

As soon as we docked she hopped off the boat and charged to a a pay-phone. First called her mother, “Why didn’t you ever tell me about the Loch Ness monster!?” Apparently her mother was quite shocked to find out her little girl had never heard about Nessie.

We couldn’t figure it out either. Had she never watched Scooby Doo or other cartoons that at one point or another referenced Nessie? And, even if she didn't ever hear about the Loch Ness monster growing up, what did she think about the presentation on the boat? The pictures we took in front of the the massive sea creature statue by our bus? The stuffed animals, the signs, the lectures?

After calling her mother she called her fiancé in Washington (she was on a study abroad, he was not). We heard one end of the conversation but she filled us in on his answers after hanging up. She tried a different approach with him than she had with her mother:

“Honey, I’m in Scotland! What would you say Scotland is most well-known for?”

He answered, “Highlander, kilts, bagpipes, Braveheart, haggis…”

She prompted, “Right! And do you know anything about any kind of folklore or famous creatures?”

He said, “Oh, you mean the Loch Ness Monster?”

She hung up fuming, “How does everyone know about the Loch Ness Monster but me!?”

To be honest, we were wondering the same thing.