Juliann the American

July 3, 2010

We had to go to the American embassy in London yesterday to report Juliann’s birth and get a passport so we can take her home with us. So after waking up at 4:45AM to head to London we had everything squared away by about 10:30. I had a nice victory against monopolistic bureaucracy by ducking out while we were waiting for our number to be called in order to buy a 5.50 pound envelope from a local post office instead of the 14.50 pound identical envelope “conveniently” available in the Embassy.

With the American flag and a huge Bald Eagle looking on, Juliann, in high patriotic spirits, exalted in her new-found official citizenship.

Some London color.

We happened upon the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace on our way back to the bus station.

I am curious what these hats are made out of and how they were ever thought of in the first place. Jill and I pondered the relationship between a culture and its hats after we saw the guy in the top hat above. Maybe a good marker of the level of vibrancy of a culture is the audacity and silliness of its hats. Native Americans with their feather head-dresses, (merry old) England with their top hats, Sikh’s with their turbans, Roman Catholic’s with their mitre’s, even now in England the workers in the various departments of grocery stores have different hats. It takes a good deal of energy to design, make, and make the effort of wearing such hats, so a tired and bored culture predictably lacks elaborate, extravagant, and silly hats. Heads of state in modern western countries don’t even wear hats anymore. They at least used to have crowns or wigs.