Month: January 2005

I have tons of LJ entries that I wrote on my laptop when we were in London, but the lack of internet access prevented their posting. I'm going to get those online in the next few days, as well as pictures from my trip. In a nutshell, I had a blast. London is big, bustling, fast, lovely, quirly, loud, expensive. Getting back into the day to day grind is going to be rough, especially given that Katy is still there and I'm here, and that's going to suck the big hairy ass.

It's 10pm local, therefore my brain thinks it's 3am. Loads of fun. My last meal was… way to long ago, really. I'm hungry, so I'm going to type this entry and go grab a bite to eat and then crash HARD.

— this is something I wrote while sitting at the gate

It's 2:30 and I'm sitting outside my gate. Katy is on her way back to Leicester as I write this. This has to be the quickest check-in in history. Baggage checking took a whole 2 minutes and the security scan didn't take that much longer. I didn't beep! Not once! Not even a small one! So now I'm sitting outside my gate with little over 2 hours of waiting time in front of me. I had a bit of a scare when I tried to open the gate doors and set off the alarm, but it was nice and shut up when I closed the door. The gate isn't opened yet. From what I've been hearing up and down this lounge, I take it I'm not the only one to have done this.

I miss Katy already. It's going to be rough not having her close. I've decided to kidnap her when I have a better idea of her schedule.

As a side note, the Luggage tried to eat a small child. Go Luggage!

—

The flight was uneventful, and I spent 7 hours sitting on my duff reading the DaVinci Code. I'm almost done. It's a good book.

FOOD!

Today started slow but ended with a bang (or so I hope). We went through the usual morning routine of snoozing the alarm 5 times, Katy kicking me out of bed (supposedly so I could have the privilege of showering first, but I suspect so it's because she wants to sprawl on the bed) and then breakfast. I flipped throuhg the hotel's yellow pages to find a good italian restaurant that was close by – and still in existence.

We headed towards the Tate modern art museum. It's a very ecclectic mix of stuff I found really cool, like original Mondrians, Warhols, Dalis, Matisses and Rodins and the rest, which I can classify in the following categories:
– stuff I could do myself
– stuff I find ugly as sin
– stuff I just don't get

A few times while we were wandering the exhibit halls, I caught myself asking “is this a sculpture or did a workman just forget his tools here?”. I also ran into my favourite type of person to hate, the goatee-sprouting beret-wearing pseudo-intellectual mofo, who just oooohs and aaaaahs in front of a sculpture of a brain getting penetrated by a dildo.

Once the gallery was done, we took the tube to Oxford Circus to do the last bit of shopping. I went completely mad at Whittards and bought something like 20 pounds of tea and coffee. Sa-weeet! We also went sock shopping for Katy, but again the selection was found lacking. It was better than the other day's shop expedition, but still, meh. We went on a vinyl expedition to go look for a friggin copy of Floyd's DSOTM. After 5 shops, we finally found one but it was too expensive for something I will basially hang up on my wall. Damnit.

Got back to the hotel to drop off the packages and I took the opportunity to pack my suitcase. It surprised me that everything I bought fit inside! I knew that I had lots of presents coming in, but damn, I know I did buy lots of stuff while I was on this side of the pond. Still, I'm not complaining. The Luggage (and yes, it deserves a capital L) will be hellish to lug aroung the underground tomorrow, especially given the fact that the Picadilly line isn't going all the way to Heathrow because of line maintenance.

After a bit of weird british daytime TV, we went to dinner. It was plentiful, it was tasty, it was filling, it was well served, and best of all, IT WASN'T DEEP FRIED! Hmmmm, pasta. That was our treat for the week. A nice little Italian cafe on Kensington High Street called Sopranos. Had lots of nummy food and a bit of booze (on an empty stomach, which probably explains the drunken, after-dinner underwear shopping trip which, though brief, yielded 4 tops and a pair of undies).

Walked to the Royal Albert Hall, picked up the tickets and headed to the bar (of course) to wait until the doors opened. Katy quote: “The most important thing you have to remember when you show your ticket is to look sober!” The show was good. Lots of wows. The juggler is, if anything, better than the last time I saw him.

So tonight is my last night in London. By this time tomorrow, I'm going to be in Ottawa and by the same time on sunday, I'll be in Montreal. I'm going to be jetlagged as hell, and I'm going to be missing my sweetie. Going back to work seems surreal just right this minute. It's always like that after a vacation where you completely disconnect from your day-to-day reality. Monday will bring back the duldrum of dealing with IBM and a 5-hour time shift with Katy. I'm really not looking forward to that one. I've gotten used to being in the same timezone; hell I've gotten used to being in the same bed. Le sigh. I really need to get the girl setup in North America. I was telling her this on the tube. Best case scenario is for me to be in Montreal, with Katy and a Tesco. She's going to work at it.

This morning was spent with a constant erection. The British Museum rocks, mostly. To make it extra-super-duper, hordes of screaming children should be forbidden (and fed to geese, according to Katy). Older children should be kept on leashes and gagged. Besides that, the museum is simply BEAUTIFUL!

We saw the egyptian, sumerian, greek and roman galleries, as well as a room dedicated to japanese swords. My favourite room was the Enlightenment Gallery. DROOOOOOOL! When I become filthy rich, as opposed to simply being filthy, I want a library like that one. I understand what they meant when they said that it would take a week to properly look at everything in the museum. It's…. wow. I saw the Rosetta Stone, frescoes from the Acropolis, century-old katana, millenium old mummies…. what's not to be humbled by.

On the way to and from the museum, I amused myself by taking pictures of cool doorways along Bedford square. Cool pictures – I was feeling inspired (and silly, a dangerous mix).

Came back to the hotel to empty out the memory card and get new batteries for the camera – I managed to kill two sets of rechargable batteries at the BM, Lounged around a bit, then headed out to the Imperial War museum.

Another wow museum. It's in the middle of nowhere, really, but it's a very interesting place to visit. My dad would have loved it. I took lots of pictures for him. Imagine seeing Monty's battle tank, a V2 rocket, and loads of WW2 memorabilia. We walked through a Holocaust memorial that was… powerful. They had a scaled model of Auschwitz… It was powerful to see, and realize that it was setup as a killing factory. Trains coming in at one end and leaving at the other, with big ovens in the middle…

After the museum, we were really hungry and we'd made plans to go to an italian restaurant recommended by the travel guide Nat had given me. Big big big HUGE piece of advice. Never make eating plans based on a 6-year old guide… We tubed it all the way to the end of a really posh residential neighborhood, only to realize that the restaurant wasn't there. Niiiiiiice. That really wasn't cool, as both Katy and I were getting hungry and we had to fall back on plans to go to Garfunkle's. Meh. I'll make it up to her tomorrow, as I'd promised her a good dinner.

London is bustling, crowded, and if I lived here for a long time, I think I'd end up killing someone. People have no sense of personal space on the street. They'll bump into you, cut in front of you, and generally behave like obnoxious barbarians. It's like road rage, without the road.

Took the tube to Bond St. this morning to go to the Canadian High Consul offices to get information about immigration. Things are promising. The tube is still an exercise in incongruity. Some trains on the same line will end at different stations along the line. If you want to go further, you need to exit the train you're on and jump on the one that's behind you. Oh, and mind the gap. Oh, and don't leave your baggage unattended.

Bond Street is where the money is and it shows. It's not everywhere you see an international yacht broker. It's also a prime shopping area, which we made full use of later on in the afternoon. Katy bought trousers (not pants, trousers. The difference is subtle but significant :) [katy edit: pants are underwear!!!] and I got her a backpack and raided Thorntons, a chocolatier.

We went to Madame Tussauds. It's sad. They pronounce it like Two-Swords (with emphasis on the final S)… From what I gather, there really wasn't a lot of people compared to the usual crowd that's expected there. Still, I wanted to murderize some people. There were just too many of them. People kept walking into us – especially Katy – and walking into camera shots. Bastards. The statues are impressive in their likeliness. Admission was bloody extortion though, but hey, I'm happy to have seen it.

After Tussauds, I satisfied a jones by going to the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker St. Basically, it's a victorian house that they dressed up as described in the novels. Dr. Watson was a good-humoured but cynical gentleman that looked bored senseless. The shop was amusing. Stick a Holmes profile on anything and it'll sell. I lusted after old Strand magazines, but at 70 pounds, they were too costly.

Random quote:

– K: Are you going to take a picture of the door?
– R: I'll take a picture of a shoe if I think it's cute.
– K: OK, take a picture of mine.

– I'm offended by their lack of selection of socks.

birds! birds! birds!

Went to Canada House at Trafalgar Square this morning to get information about the possibility of Katy emigrating to Canada. We found out that we need to go to the other canadian pavillion on Bond Street, so we're going to head out tomorrow. We ended up completely ignoring our plans and wound up in St-James park close to watch the birds and look at Buckingham Palace.

Random moments and quotes of the morning:

– seeing horny pigeons humping each other
– seeing Katy do the horny pre-shag pigeon dance.
– “I have my head in my boobs, leave me alone”
– “Geese are nasty. They hunt in packs. You just watch, they'll go eat a small child now”
– walking in front of the queen guards barracks and hearing the drill band playing Petula Clark's “Downtown”

After St-James, we walked to Westminster Abbey. It's a beautiful church. I would have loved to take pictures of it, but you couldn't use cameras inside. It messes with your mind to see a church that's been built in the 14th century and has seen kings live and die. It's beautiful, but people inside it seemed oblivious. Seeing a kid blow bubble gum bubbles was… meh, I'm being a snob here, but i just wanted to smack him. Poets' corner was really interesting, seeing the burial slabs of Byron, Shelley, Carroll, as well as other famous names (including Darwin, which was oddly cool).

We tubed it over to Leicester Square, where we spent a bit of time glancing at all sorts of bookstores. Had a greaseball burger at the Angel and Crown, a little pub, then tried to find a cloting store along Tottenham Court road. We saw a stupid amount of electronic stores, followed by a stupid amount of home furnishing stores, but not a single clothing shop.

Got back to the hotel to chill a bit, where we both got scared and scarred by a kids TV cooking show. Imagine a gourmet chef, kids and a grown man dressed up as a yeti trying to make breaded chicken cutlets… mmmya.

Things took a turn for the worse when Katy got news from the agency who's handling her volunteering post. The only apartment they can find for her is unfurnished. As in, not even a fridge or a stove. It threw her for a loop, which sucks the really, huge, hairy ass. She doesn't know what she's going to do, and I feel helpless to help her :(

took the train from leicester to london (st pancras station) this morning. it was a short ride, only 1h15 minutes. I had fun trying to get nice pictures along the way. I'd just point the camera out the window and click randomly to see if I could get something nice. It was mostly farmland and grazing land, with a few villages here and there.

In London, we took a ubiquitous black cab. Cabs in the UK, I have learned, are completely bizarre. Apparently, luggage counts as a person (i.e. the more people you are in a cab, the more the fare cost for the same distance – weirdos, the lot of them). Got to the hotel, where the accomodations are spartan but should suffice to sleep in and look clean. Stowed most of our stuff then went on walkabout. After a bit of a false start figuring out a map of the Underground, we headed towards stuff we could just look at – we'll start the visiting tomorrow. We got out at Tower Hill station and headed off towards Westminster. It looks like a reasonable walk on paper, but it took something like 4 hours to do.

The first thing we saw was Tower of London and Tower Bridge. We didn't go inside cause the admission prices are highway robbery, though I'm kinda disappointed to not have seen a beefeater guard. We walked along the Thames snapping pictures along the way.

Amusing random moments:
– seeing “look right” painted at every street crossing to prevent tourists from being squished by traffic
– Katy doing the wee dance trying to find free public toilets
– Katy yelling out of nowhere “a rat! a rat! look, a rat, now that's a London trademark!”
– myself almost walking up stairs that lead into the Thames

We passed lots of bridges, each nicer than the previous ones. For an annoyingly long amount of time, I had “London Bridge is falling down” stuck in my head – probably because we went over it. Southwark Bridge has a really cool underpass, where the tilework illustrates the history of the bridge. The Blackfriars bridge is really pretty at night, and is close to clean, free public toilets, so that's something in its favour :D The new Millenium Bridge looks cool, and apparently has now been fixed so it doesn't induce motion sickness on those people who cross it because of all of the swaying it previously had.

We reached the Embankment, where out of nowhere we saw an Egyptian Obelisk flanked by two sphynxes. We had our first good look at the London Eye and Big Ben in the distance. The Eye is impressive. It's BIG, and it's scary to think that only “little” spokes keep that wheel upright. There was Golden Jubilee Bridge, a cool suspension bridge, and then the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben.

We were walked out, so we headed back to the hotel on the tube. That's another source of weirdness. Putting aside the ubiquitous “mind the gap” jokes and adverts about rats coming to eat your trash, you need your ticket to *exit* the tube as well as get into it. Madness, sheer madness.

Went to eat at a place called Garfunkle's, which will probably have our repeat business as its close to the hotel, reaaonably priced, varied menu, and most importantly, didn't kill me.

That's it for now. We're watching Coronation Street right now on a TV that “has all its channels squiffed wooed (translation: jumbled up)”. Katy was about to “throw a wobbly” because she couldn't find Coro', poor thing :)

Katy and I are leaving for London today, so that means that I will be offline for a while, until I get back home. We might stop in to Internet Cafes once in a while, if the rates aren't murder. Have fun y'all, we will :)

Yorkshire pudding: bowl-shaped pancakes, good.
Crumpets: fluffy pancakes, good.
Red Leicester cheese: orange cheddar, good.
Cheshire cheese: british feta, good.
Lancashire cheese: saltier british feta, good.
Trifle: jello with custard and whipped cream, mmokay.

One thing I'll always remember from this trip is that British food ingredient labelling, while sometimes painfully cynical (ingredient list on a block of cheese: cheese), are actually more precise on the stuff that actually matters for my allergies.

I've been able to have curry for the first time in 4 years, which basically made me come in my pants, and I also ate commercial sausage for the first time in too long a time. Hmmmm, sausage. And profiteroles, HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! And coriander and chili pasta sauce, something I must look into again. And victoria sponge cake with cinnamon and nutmeg and other sweet spices.

And booze, jeebus, the booze!

Oh, and they have the WEIRDEST chip flavours for the holidays. Like honey-glazed ham and mustard, roast chicken with rosemary, lamb with thyme or curry. I mean, WTF?

Oooh, and bisto… The British have an unhealty obsession with their gravy, but I have to admit that it is damn good.

Katy's uncle Stuart and her gran just left, so we're off to bed. Later all. Hope you all had a good day. I did :)

*yawn!*

Just woke up. Last night was fun. Went to see Phantom of the Opera with Katy and Rita then headed back to the house for food and drink. Note to self: coriander and green chilies in a pasta sauce kicks ass! Must investigate the possible uses of that nice green herb.

Then came drunken Trivial Pursuit (which was WEIRD as hell, cause we were playing with the brit edition – so imagine what that means in terms of geography, politics and history), then fireworks, then other kind of fireworks.

Today will be another day of food and drink and family. It also happens to be our 3 month anniversary. Time flies…