08 August 2011

How Pocahontas Really Died

Knife fight.  In Gravesend, England.  She probably came here thinking, "My, what a quaint town.  What a cute little village on the banks of the Thames."  Unbeknownst to her, the locals of Gravesend prey on naive Powhatan princesses by luring them in with charm and character and cobblestone streets, and then they gather all their chav friends together and paint with all the colors of the wind.  And that was the last of Pocahontas.

But, no, seriously guys, Pocahontas is buried here!  A city's tourism industry could thrive on that alone!  But somehow, people in Gravesend don't think that's cool at all.  My friend Tom always described his hometown as a complete ghetto.  I imagined him living in the equivalent of the Projects, south of London, with hypodermic needles strewn across the sidewalks and hand guns hidden in babies' diapers.  But that all changed when, upon minutes of arriving, I come to learn that Pocahontas died here!  And Charles Dickens lived here!  And there are 12th-Century castles and cathedrals just chillin' off the side of the road!  In southern California, we don't have the luxury of that kind of charm.  We go to Disneyland for that.

Soooo what if there is a bullet hole in the front window of Tom's house and his little sisters aren't allowed to walk outside by themselves.  Pish posh.  Potato Potahto.  I'm a glass-half-full kind of girl.  I am of the Pocahontas school of thought.  Maybe it didn't turn out so well for her, but did it for anyone who talked to raccoons? 

 At church 

 Oh look, kids, a castle on the side of the road.

 Tom's family

Gravesend at night

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