November 2007 Archives

It's the little things that make staying in my own home so nice. A bed that doesn't jab me in the upper back with twisted springs. A shower that has a setting between "scald" and "freeze". Not having to sleep with creepy cherubs watching over me in the gayest hostel room in existence... Some of the other cherubs were much much worse...

As geeky as it is - and it is incredibly geeky - there's really only one way to describe today. Charisma 18, Knowledge (local) +3. Yeah, those are D&D stats, you may commence mocking...

...done for now? Good. Let me explain. The canadian couple from earlier this sleep addled morning turned into just one canadian and we went on a nice walking tour where we met yet another kanuck as well as two austrian gals. The walking tour was bitter bitter cold and generally uninformative if somewhat entertaining but I did succeed in making some friends. Pretty dang good too because this trip was really sucking "meet random cool people in a hostel"-wise. It is then decided that we need to go to the canadian embassy, off to some random square for someone else to pick up a package (very suspicious) and then off to the Natural History and Science museum. I had a vague idea of where these three items were located within the city (especially in relation to tube stops) and a generally pretty good sense of direction so I became defacto expedition leader. It didn't matter that I didn't *actually* know where I was going, I was apparently confident enough in my presentation of opinion that I was trusted implicitly. My word was law when it came to where we went and what we did next. I think I'm still a little drunk with power. I'm going to have to learn to twist this to form some sort of army of minions. Note to self, look into that when I get home.

Dinner itself was also immensly gratifying. Since 3 of the 6 of us were still very tightly budget bound in college we managed to settle on a little steak house where some would be splitting others' meals. Side note - scottish steak appears to be the worst cuts available, even the presentation shots looked marginal at best. Continuing; It turns out the restaurant has some sort of "per person cover charge" of about a pound ($2) which is surprising and unwelcome but whatever, we're hungry. We ordered and the waiter - a pompus fat man in a tuxedo - makes an underhanded comment as he leaves with our order (I wish I could remember what it was but it's been purged from my mind by blind rage). In short order the stronger willed canadian and I conclude that this is both bogus and lame, she gathers up the gaggle of others and I leave to inform the mustachioed man that we didn't care for the service and would be dining elsewhere. Right next to another table of patrons. The look on his face was truely truely satisfying, righteous indignation carries the wrong connotation but it's the closest turn of phrase I can think of to describe it. The subsiquent meal at "Ultimate Burger" was probably the most delectible I've ever had (and the waitress there just asked if we wanted a few extra plates).

I should credit the fat man a little though, he did spawn an interesting conversation on the nature of what is expected of patrons at a restaurant. I defended my position that if you're there and paying for something then you can reasonably be expected to be treated with some respect (providing of course you are also respectful of them). If it's a very busy night and they can't afford to have half a table sit idle then simply inform us and no harm done. Being an ass is not an acceptable means of communicating this information. One of the ausrians and I debated this for quite some time, it was fun.

So now I'm about where I like to be in my trips, a nice group of 5 temporary friends and vague plans to wander the city in search of strange and interesting things. A day behind "schedule" but glad it happened. Totally makes the trip.

I realize my spelling is attrocious. I've even downloaded firefox in the hope of getting the red squiggles to tell me just how bad it is but no luck. I really must learn to write at some point.

It appears that canadians have started taking the place of australians as the people you meet everywhere. So far I've bumped into a different on each night (or it may be a cleverly disguised same one, who knows) - always coming and going, they're a good crowd to fall in with. One couple appears to have adopted me and insists that I join them on a walking tour of london today. It's free, so hard to argue with the price. I've already seen about half of the stuff, but at least it's an organized something to do. Now if I can just manage to go back to sleep and get just a few more Z's I'll be fine - this 4 hours a night stuff is starting to take its toll on me. Perhaps I am getting old. Bah.

Yesterday was fun though (it's 8am now) despite spending FAR too much on the Dali museum for what it was. I mean seriously, £16 for two rooms? Granted, there was a horse (with melted clock saddle, naturally) that I would have happily wheeled out of there go sit next to the stolen Prodigal Son from Rodin but still - over $30 for two rooms. I opted not to spend a similar amount on the starwars exhibition, I may grow to regret that.

Navigating some strange back streets I managed to find the flee market of entirely useless things. Let me tell you, if you're ever in london and REALLY need repackaged off brand batteries at 8 in the morning then Lower Marsh road is where you want to be.

Well the radio just blared that it is "horridly bightingly cold" and I'm clearly on the edge of delusion so it's back to sleep for now. Up in an hour or two for another couple-ten miles of walking and then off to camden markets.

I wonder if this well make any sense when I read it again later - it already feels like it doesn't right now. I love traveling :)

Once again I seem to be unable to sleep at night while in this time zone - yet don't seem to require a lot of sleep during the day either. I think I slept for about 2 last night then another hour each way on the train (we'll get to that). Hopefully sleeping in a room that doesn't smell like petrol or turpentine has been sloshed all over very surface will help things. I love staying in hostels. I really do. Especially when it's 4 in the morning and you decide to take a shower and not ONE of the six shower stall has anything in common in terms of how to operate them. I settled for the one with two vertical spinners that through some form of alchemy controlled the direction of water flow. Still, didn't have to hold down a button to use them so that's an upgrade in my book.

After my brisk morning shower I decided to do what i do best when traveling and just go and get lost. South seemed like a good enough direction and I eventually found my way to parlament (after harassing some ducks) where I met Bob. Bob's a this horribly grizzled looking old guy that's probably not much older than 50 (he refused to be specfic or be photographed for that matter). Bob's been camping out in front of parlament ever since the Iraq war started demanding that briton pull out of the campaign. for those of you keeping score at home that's 6.5 years. He didn't really like to talk about is reasons (he's told that story too often) but his side kick - an even more weathered man who's name I've forgotten - was all to happy to ramble on about conspiracy theories. It's rather unfortunate that this guy was bob's spokesman since it added that special lack of credibitilty that only the borderline insane can provide. Still a fun time, I may go back tomorrow.

After trying to to decide where to go while dead exhausted I chose to head to stonehenge since it afforded me an hour and a half train ride on which to doze. And doze I did - so much so that the folks who clean the train after the fact were the ones to shake me awake. Thank god salisbury was the last stop. Having missed the bus I grabbed a cab driven by Henry another enjoyable briton. He was more than willing to talk on pretty much any subject that came to his mind including the perils of learning to drive on the opposite side of the road. He also told me that those ancient stones are apparently down range of an artillary range so you might occasionally hear a boom or two while in the field. A boom or two is actually a sustained boom about every 30 seconds. With low flying helicptors. I imagine the druids didn't have to deal with that. Stones commenced, not much to say there, then a ride back to london sharing a booth with a humorless business man.

The rest of the day was hunting down a few choice souvineers for those who require plaster Big Ben's and scouting out a couple of the places I want to see tomorrow. There's even a production of MacBeth staring Patrick Stewart. Captain Picard doing "that scottish play" - I think my nerd credentials require that I see it. It's either that or the profanity spewing muppets. Tough call.

man I hope I can sleep tonight...

The end of my first hazed day in the UK was spent enjoyably watching england lose against croation for some sort of semi-final (I think). Given the size of the very drunken croatian crowd out in piccadilly circus it's probably a good thing they're not rioting right now. I must say though, for a footie game, pretty dang exciting. Down to the wire and all that.

otherwise so far it's been reconoitering and trying to figure out how the hell londoners know where they're going. straight roads? ha, those are for pansies. Street signs as well. I do so very much love the underground though - here to there in about 10 minutes at just the swipe of a card.

Uneventful flight though somewhat noisy due to the chollicy baby convention taking place on the plane. Thank god for ear plugs.

tomorrow brings... well I'm not sure yet. I've got quite a few little things circled but no real plans. Thankfully I managed to find a place to sleep from saturday on (I only had two nights booked anywhere). It's even the same hostel despite being told that I couldn't extend my stay earlier in the day. It's a nice enough place - I don't know anyone by name yet but I celebrated and got good natured ribbing from several nice but unnamed strangers during the game.

And now to sleep and dream of strange Stonehengian dreams.

I had an enjoyable exchange with my manager today. He strolls up to my office and asks if I'll have my cel phone with me while I'm traveling. Yes, but I won't be answering it, just for emergencies.

How about your hotel number? Nope, I'm in a hostel, probably not the same hostel from night to night either. I'm actively considering a quick side trip to Marikesh.

Will you be checking your mail? Nope (assuming work mail). I sort of drop off the grid when traveling.

He mutters "hmmm" and walks away. Ahhh, satisfaction. I'm now officially looking forward to my little trip.

And so now I'm packing. I usually start off with the toiletries bag out of habit or tradition or whatever. I open up the draw-o-travel stuff and find two packages with nothing but squiggles all over them. Left over "interesting" things from egypt. I've figured out that one of them is meant for treating montezuma's revenge (or the egyptian equivalent thereof) but the little blue bottle with no recognizable words or numbers has me baffled. Clearly I must have gotten it for a purpose. I'm thinking terror scared london is not the place to bring a mostly unlabeled, certainly unidentifiable substance with me. Back in the drawer it goes.

This is how much my brain is hard wired to play scrabble. Another way of looking at it is this is how much of a complete word dork I am. I played a pretty well matched game with patrick on thursday - lost 425 to 409 - and had only one sort of bad move. This morning I woke up and realized I'd missed a bingo on that one really bad move - ironically I'd missed the word "elusive" playing "lives" instead (waste of an S, see previous comment about word geek). Really, who has waking dreams like that?? I relate this to miles this morning since I know he'll be fascinated about it and at THAT moment realize that I had an O in the rack (I'd almost been able to spell louvers) and so couldn't have missed "elusive". Ha! take that brain. Wait, what?

I also rode a 7 person bike and decided it would be fun to go to the UK for thanksgiving. I'm not sure which is cooler.

And people run away from you when you're lumbering through the neighborhood at 9 at night with a loose dog and a 50 pound rucksack strapped to your back (training).

I think I might have a tad too much energy this morning.