So, the rest of the sessions were really very cool.
We heard from this woman, Karen Armstrong, who was given 1 wish to do whatever she wanted for the world, and she decided to start the Charter of Compassion. She is organizing the major world leaders for every major religion on the global, and creating a document outlining the standards for humanity that are common themes across religious backgrounds, with the belief that this could help bring more interest in peace and understanding worldwide. It was really a very interesting prospect, and one that I think everyone respected. So on November 12 of this year, the charter will be unveiled, and we all need to be sure and read it. Religious or not.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/karen_armstrong_makes_her_ted_prize_wish_the_charter_for_compassion.html
We heard from an author from Nigeria who writes about African characters and what that meant for her and for the kids she reads it (a really interesting, impromtu psychology class), a super hilarious Danish Architect (i'm going to add photos later of everything when my computer decides to cooperate) who has build some totally kick ass modern stuff across the global:
We saw some cool ideas that people have for creating cheaper living spaces in Africa, a German monk who pissed off my dad by groping a priceless globe on the stage and then telling everyone that they were trapped in the evils of the internet and being a little bit superscilious about the whole thing, a woman who scales mountains to learn about the ancient Inca etc.
I found that the coolest people we met though, were these people called the Ted Fellows. They were young, social activists from all over the world. I made friends with a social activist organizer for immigrant workers in Bahrain, a young super engineer and Ph.D. guy from Uganda, a former SAYBRUGIAN! who now runs some NGOs in Guatemala and Haiti, and a magician. Pretty super.
The whole experience ended with an afternoon of Pimm's and Punting. The punting was a bit of a disaster, since it involves floating in a box and pushing with a long metal pole up and down a stream...well there were lots of people so there was lots of crashing, and I managed to hit every single tree on the shore. I dont think I'll be trying that again.
After lots of exploring around Oxford and late nights I kept waking up with really blood shot eyes. less than 5 hours of sleep a night? and high power/energy all the time? very overwhelming. Not so surprisingly, once Dad and I finally made it to London we were exhausted. And we slept 16 hours, waking up at 3 pm yesterday. Oops. We discovered a few things that make Brits crazier than Bostonians: 1) the food sucks. Incredibly much so. Wtf. 2) The streets are crazy and there is not rhyme or reason there. It even makes Boston look well planned. What happened here? 3) Heathrow airport. Enough said.
Anyway, once we finally got up, we made a mad dash into the street, somehow mananged to make an appointment for my absolute favorite thing in the world : High Tea, and went shopping. It was SUCH a lovely afternoon. But seriously about the high tea thing. If you ever need to win my forgiveness/love for something, take me out for high tea. Ok i'll shut up about the tea, but it was loads of fun being with dad and making up stuff about the interesting characters we saw, and buying some tea and all that. I even found a pair of GORGEOUS ballet flats that I cant wait to show people. And we made it to my new favorite store: Desigual. Total Diana location. Crazy colors and shapes and generally fabulousness.
That evening Dad and I saw War Horse, the new play that has come out in London and has been very very well recieved. And in truth, it was very chilling, but I liked it a lot. its about this strange english boy and the relationship he develops with this horse, who is sent to fight in World War 1. And it had lines in German, French and English, so i had a fun time with that, but it was also really interesting to see how the english and the french and the germans interacted in the play. very very interesting. plus, the horse puppets are INCREDIBLY cool and well built. Kudos to the designers!
So we stayed out late and saw this bachlorette party, where all the women dressed like slutty nuns and had indian food in the restaurant where we ate...after they had been bar hopping all night and were miserably drunk. the food was good and so was the atmosphere once they left...
I have much more to say but more interesting things to do.
I apologize to the comment on the last thing, the videos are not yet up from that day. I'll get back to you, but you arent forgotten. peace.
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