A Tale of Two Tourists

Today me and Rachel pretended to be tourists.

It was SO funny.

We got cameras and went downtown to the Visitors' Bureau and I went up to the desk. "Excuse me," I said to the dude, speaking in a very proper british accent. "Excuse me but we're trying to photograph the river and it's so hard to take a picture with all those telephone poles and wires and things in the way of the view, where can we go to take a picture like we see on the postcards?"

The guy asked if I knew where Main Street was, and when I said no he proceeded to start telling me all about Memphis and its fabulous attractions. All we wanted was a telephone pole free shot of the Mississippi. "Thank you for your time," I said, chickening out too much at the end to add "gov'ner."

Rachel tapped me on the shoulder and gave me this really dumb look like a cow so I "translated" for her all that the visitors' bureau guy had just told me--in what I hoped sounded like Chinese. Rachel beamed at the guy and gave him a peace sign.

So it looked so pretty outside we really did want to photograph the river, and we kind of thought it would be neat to ride the riverboat too, so we walked across the dangerously uneven cobblestones to the riverboat. Two ladies were walking off the boat as we got there and I said, once again in my very proper british accent, "excuse me, can you tell me how much it is for a ride?" and the lady smiled and helf out the brochure, pointing to the cost that said $18. "That's 18 of THESE," she said, waving a dollar bill. I opened my mouth to say a very proper "I'll pass then, thanks" but Rachel got the brilliant idea of saying "oh my!" in what she obviously thought was a british accent, which EMBARRASSED me to no end because THEN the two ladies realized we weren't really from England at all. Imagine, a british asian who can't even speak with a proper accent.

We gave up on the river and walked up toward all the buildings, and we went in the Cotton Museum. We looked around in the gift shop and I asked Rachel in my british accent why there was a collection of cotton on display for people to look at. I supposed it was because we hadn't SEEN any cotton growing since we got to America and so it must be really rare.

I decided to conduct a small experiment to test the extent to which a vendor will lie to a tourist.

I picked up an Elvis CD and took it to the counter. "Excuse me," I said to the guy in my little british accent. "I was just looking for some music and I was wondering if this is what normal American girls listen to. Is this popular with regular American girls?" And the guy said "Oh yes, we can barely keep those in stock, girls love that stuff."

I was very polite and I thanked him but after we left, Rachel and I were disgusted that he would say that. Neither of us has ever met a girl close to our age who likes Elvis. That guy was just trying to sell us his overpriced CD. What a scandal.

We went in Peabody Place and took pictures of a bunch of stuff. I asked the girl in Starbucks if American girls listened to Elvis and she LAUGHED and said no. I said I had heard girls loved Elvis in America and where could we find Graceland? The Starbucks girl didn't know.

Lesson #1: People really do lie to tourists to sell their crap.
Lesson #2: People who work in tourist-infested locations have no idea where anything is.

A woman stopped beside us at a stoplight heard us talking and asked us if we had been to see such-and-such a museum yet, and we said no, but we were wondering why cars drove on the wrong side of the road, and why steering wheels were on the wrong side of the cars? She said she had no idea, but that she was so happy we had come to town to see the place where Elvis was born and raised. I almost disrupted our experimentation to tell her in my plain old Memphis accent that Elvis was not born and raised in Memphis, but had merely started his career there, and that he had actually been born in Tupelo, Mississippi.

I DID ask her if Memphis was famous for anything but Elvis, and she said, "yes, the shopping!"

Obviously regular Memphians don't think so much about BB King, BBQ, or anything else that starts with BB. Not that I can think of anything. But forget about all the REAL tourist stuff. People recommend Elvis (although they have no idea where Graceland or Sun Studio are, and they have no idea that Memphis was not Elvis' hometown), and shopping (even though the shopping venues they recommend have the exact same shops you would find anywhere else).

Well we would have LOVED to stay and conduct more experimenting, but at 7PM we decided to leave downtown before it got dark and the creeps came out to play. We thought we'd get closer to the Pyramid and take pictures of it, so we made the first left turn we came to--sinxe the Pyramid was to our left and all. We ended up on the bridge taking us to Arkansas. We didn't find a place to turn around for FIVE MILES into Arkansas. We REALLY felt like two clueless tourists then.

So we had dinner in Arkansas and congratulated ourselves on the success of our first day as Memphis tourists.

So tonight at the desk I amused myself by playing things on here.

http://www.hymnsite.com/

Before I'm Dead

Things I want to do before I'm dead.

1. Swim with dolphins (like in Orlando)
2. Be in somebody's wedding
3. See "Scrooge" live onstage
4. See Mannheim Steamroller in concert
5. Ride in a train with a sleeper car
6. Have a little orange cat so I can name it "Pumpkin"
7. Wear one of those snow hats that has a long tail
8. Ride an airplane
9. Build a sand castle that looks like a castle and not a big pile of sand
10. See the aurora borealis
11. Go ice skating on a frozen pond
12. Have a rose garden
13. Raise guppy fishes
14. Make a bottlecap belt of Jones soda caps
15. Own a little yellow baby chick
16. Find a clear umbrella
17. Punch a shark in the nose the way they say you should if you're about to be attacked (but not get attacked)
18. Go to an Olympic event
19. Visit the Smithsonian
20. Have my licenseplate say "OB1KNOB"
21. Meet Connie Willis
22. Learn a really cool self-defense karate chop type injury-inducing movement to have up my sleeve for use on creeps
23. Find piano music for the music from "The Illusionist" and "Tristan and Isolde"
24. Find someone to teach me to make lace because I'm stupid and can't figure out how to do anything crafty from pictures. Because I'm DUMB.
25. Use a spinning wheel
26. Make a website with html even though I don't know html and probably can't learn it very fast
27. Ride a hang glider or biplane or something of that nature
28. Wear this exact dress when I get married: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.therosedress.com/dresses/0-ad-wedding-gowns-alyce-picture1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.therosedress.com/dresses/dresses-pg12.html&h=509&w=364&sz=20&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=-_vgepC6OpSyrM:&tbnh=131&tbnw=94&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwedding%2Bgown%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den I'm telling you now that is the only dress that will do. A bargain for $700.
29. Learn ballroom dancing
30. Find a restaurant that has a dance floor, like A REAL DANCE FLOOR, people, not some sleazy club full of beer and disgusting people, I frown on clubs, I frown like this >:(. I am talking about a REAL restaurant where respectable people go that has a place for people to actually DANCE in, not wiggle around like fish out of water wearing practically no clothes while loud headbanging music plays. Preferably this fabulous restaurant will have a live band.
31. Actually make it through a Disciple group. I have attempted to do so twice and both times have been dismal failures. I think it would probably be nice actually getting to FINISH said Disciple group.
32. See all that musical stuff in Salzburg
33. Figure out how to make wheat bread turn out as good as white bread always does, that stupid wheat flour makes my bread mess up and I want to know what I have to do to make it turn out edible
34. Float around in the Dead Sea
35. See the Grand Canyon

I think God loves little paps too much not to let them into the kingdom of heaven. I think whe the bible says "every creature" that takes in little paps. The are definitely little creatures.

"Little Paps are in the Kingdom of God." (-Daddy)

My sleep cycle is screwed. I'm wide awake at 4AM and I'm dead sleepy at 2PM. O_o

My mission for the summer is to make friends with this girl I hate. She doesn't like me and I don't like her. So I started writing her on facebook being extra nice to her and she's been writing back and when I told her about my beautiful little doggie that died that I miss so much she set me a facebook gift that looks like this:

And she said "we love you!" so she must like me now and so now I feel ok because someone who used to hate me now thinks I'm pretty nice.

So tonight for several stupid reasons I had to walk by myself from Richardson to West to work the West desk from midnght-4AM, and so I called up Amanda to talk to on the way so I wouldn't be alone and I saw these two scary looking guys in ball caps on the other side of the street as I was walking. And I watched them as I walked and I started walking faster and they were walking together... and they started crossing the street to MY side and I didn't like that one bit so I sarted crossing over to THEIR side so we could just switch sides... and they kind of split up so one was walking toward the back of me and one was walking toward the front of me and I got really scared so I decided to let out a piercing shriek and I ran REALLY fast into the closest building which was NOT West Hall but SMITH Hall, where my friend TOBY was working. And I told him what happened and he called Police Services and then he walked with me over to West Hall and I was too busy running to watch where the two creepy guys went but still I wasn't very interested at the time in finding out where they were going, I was more interested in running fast and getting Toby to protect me. O_o So I decided never EVER to walk across campus in the dead of night EVER again even though it seemed like it would be ok at the time.

I never walk across campus by mself because I'm scared, but tonight I waited at the Richardson Towers South desk for 15 minutes for Ashley to come down and walk with me but then it tured out she was working a double shift so she had already BEEN over there for 4 hours, and she was the only other person working across campus. Tiger Patrol was so tied up they said they couldn't be there for 15 minutes and by that time it was already 11:57 so I was so afraid I was going to be late for my shift and get written up I went across campus alone. O_o So I figured it would be ok just once. NOT!

Now I've decided I'd rather try to weasel out of a write-up than get mugged and killed by some guy. Mabe those two guys weren't planning on mugging me but the way they split up in the road scared the CRAP out of me.

"This is my Father's world: Why should my heart be sad? The Lord is King; let the heavens ring! God reigns; let the earth be glad!"

...Not working yet.

Sniffle.

The doctor was wrong-- there was nothing wrong with THAT heart.

MUAH love my little doggie. :( :( :( Georgie Pap October 22, 1998-June 19, 2007.

Ok so since I have run out of stuff to do "working" at 3AM I thought I'd try this blog because nobody ever reads my livejournal and I hate livejournal anyway. And since I'm sad today I try to amuse myself so I don't be sad.

Blah.

I bet nobody's going to read this anyway.

Two months is too little

They let him go

They had no sudden healing

To think that providence would

Take a child from his mother while she prays

Is appalling

Who told us we’d be rescued

What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares

We’re asking why this happens

To us who have died to live

It’s unfair

This is what it means to be held

How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved

And to know that the promise was

When everything fell we’d be held

This hand is bitterness

We want to taste it, let the hatred numb our sorrow

The wise hands opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow

This is what it means to be held

How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved

And to know that the promise was

When everything fell we’d be held

If hope is born of suffering

If this is only the beginning

Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved

And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we’d be held

(Natalie Grant)