Blah Blah Blah the Phillies won the world series. It's a pretty safe estimate that I've been in or around the city of Philadelphia for about 98% of my life...well in that 2% that I've been gone they decide to man up and win a championship. I'd appreciate of the rubbing-it-in-my-face is kept to a minimum, thank you very much.
In other news, I spent the past 10 days touring around Italy. We hit up 4 different cities, so I'll do a brief rundown of those. My rundown will be minus The Rock and Christopher Walken, unfortunately.
Our first stop was Venice for 3 days. We arrived at 130am, and I must say, Venice is quite possibly the hardest city to navigate, especially at night. For one thing, there are no roads with cars. Its only canals with boats and creepy alleyways. "Where we're going, we don't need roads" applies tremendously. We eventually found our way to the hostel where we settled in for the night and prepped for an adventure. Essentially, Venice is one giant tourist trap. Everything is overpriced, there are 4 basic types of shops, and 3 basic types of places to get food. The 4 shops consisted of glass items, masks, leather bags and jackets, and random Italian nick knacks. The 3 places to eat were little cafes that served various pizzas, paninis, and calzones, sit-down restaurants that served the usual italian fare of pastas, and gelato vendors. Needless to say, I ate gelato an average of twice a day throughout the trip, which, along with gorging on solely pasta and pizza for the rest of my meals, led to a bit of weight gain. I expected that going in, so no harm done. Overall, I am not a huge fan of venice. There is absolutely no night life, the food is so-so if best, and everything is overpriced. I'll give it a grade of C-. Don't get me wrong, it was very beautiful to be on the water at all times, but Venice is not a place I would want to spend more than two days in. Oh, and we had a little run-in with the Venitian police. We were sitting outside of the train station when 3 of them came up and asked for our passports. None of us had them on us, of course, so we ended up sitting there for like 3 hours until they could be retrieved and we could be let go. At least I can say that I've been looked up in Interpol now haha.
The next portion of the trip consisted of Bologna. It was much more of a standard Italian city...not many people spoke english, the food was fantastic, and it was more laid back. Again, there was pretty much no nightlife, which was very disappointing, but the food definitely made up for it. Not only was it cheap, it was the tastiest. Works for me. We were forced to stay in a fancy hotel for one of the nights rather than the usual fare of hostels. It probably cost about the same as all of the hostels combined, but we bought a bunch of cheap wine and threw a bit of a hotel party. Speaking of which, Italy is fantastic for wine. I drank it pretty much ever day with meals, and they even have 1 euro boxes of wine. 1 euro! Ridiculous. Needless to say, wine was drunk, cheese was eaten, and we didn't watch the end of the world series (it was the night of the 3 innings to clinch). The painful part is that we were supposed to be able to get it via satellite but it was thunderstorming out so no dice on that. We got the play-by-play from the sister of one of the kids I was with, so I at least got to semi-live that awesome moment. Bologna grade: B
Next up was a brief one-day visit in Florance. It definitely would have been nice to stay there longer, but you gotta do what you gotta do. The hostel was really cool there, complete with full cafeteria and bar. There was barely any nightlife in the whole city, once again, which is a disappointment. As far as I can tell, Italy does not like to go out past 11pm. One of the big things about Florance was the art and museums. Both Da Vinci and Michaelangelo lived and worked there during their life, so a lot of their works were prominently featured. The biggest attraction was Michaelangelo's "David" sculpture, which definitely lived up to its hype. Other than that, the art all kind of blended together...it all looked very similar, had similar subjects, and was just pretty much boring after seeing 5 or so museums of it. As uncultured as it makes me sound, its the truth. It did run into Splinter and April O'Neil, however. Always a good time. I asked for Krang, but he was nowhere to be found. Grade: B+
Rome was our final city, where we spent a solid 3 days. It is definitely a city that lives up to the hype; absolutely try to get there if you can, kids. The first night that we got in was Halloween, so we all threw together whatever costumes we could come up with and went out. I ended up being a rock star, complete with eye make-up and bandanna, only to gain a witches hat and rock that at the bar we went to. We first met up with friends of one of the kids I'm with, which was cool. We tried to go to this club but it started down pouring as soon as we got of the subway. After running from tree to tree to try to avoid the rain we decided to scrap the idea and instead head to an irish bar. The subway stop that we had to get off to go to the bar is right next to the Colosseum, which was definitely one of the most surreal moments of my life. Stepping out of a subway station and seeing a 2000 year old structure lit up in the night that housed gladiator battles is just absolutely ridiculous. Living wise, we booked a 5 person room to sleep 7 people for the entirety of the stay. It made things much cheaper, as well as the sleeping arrangements very interesting. The first two nights all 4 girls slept in the same king size bed, with the 3 guys getting their own twin beds. The last night ended a little differently, however. We all got a little drunk and 2 of the girls ended up passing out on twin beds. So that left me to sleep between 2 girls on the king size bed (sorry mom and dad, it just had to be said), which definitely wasn't a bad idea haha. They were fine with it an coined it the Branwich the next say, so all is well in the world. Needless to say, Rome was a good time. Drank lots of wine, saw lots of really old shit, and just lived it up. Grade: A
I got by in Italy by speaking a combination of Italian, Spanish and English. It all worked out in the end.
Alrighty its 3:20am right now and I'm sitting here typing in a toga. It was Rachel's bday tonight so we celebrated with Togas. I can't say that i've done this before, but it was definitely a good time. Very free and enjoyable. I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow, so next time you hear from me will be after a little taste of the Dutch. Ciao.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
What are the odds...?
Less than 5%. I have been alive for 21 years. The Phillies have gone to the World Series exactly once during those 21 years. So of course, the one year that I am away from the City of Brotherly Love, it decides to rub it in my face with a National League Pennant. So basically the city will be going crazy for the next two weeks and I'm stuck 3000 miles away. Anyone have frequent flier miles/$700 they wouldn't mind giving me so I can make the trip back?
In other news, I went to Dublin this past weekend. I must say, that is one wild city. Irish people by nature are just ridiculous, coupled with the fact that the average person probably started drinking at about 4 in the afternoon every day. The one major downside to Dublin is that everything is ridiculously expensive. A pint of beer averaged about $6, so needless to say, I didnt' drink nearly as much as I was intending to, although thats not to say that I didn't have my fair share of Guinness. On a whole, though, Dublin is a really cool city. Pretty much everything is within walking distance, which was nice. We did a lot of the usual touristy stuff, such as touring the Guinness factory. That was actually a really cool tour, which of course culminated with a "complimentary" pint at the roof-bar. I never realized this before, but the beer company Guinness and the Guinness Book of World Records are one in the same. Quite a unique diversification for a beer company, I must say. Some other highlights of the trip include touring a really old Irish jail where a lot of the Revolutionaries who helped shape the country as it is today were once imprisoned. We had the trashiest Irish family behind us through the entire tour, which added an interesting element. Definitely some inbreeding going on there. We took a bus tour of the country/mountains during one of the days. Got to see where Braveheart was filmed. Enough said. Oh, and one of the pubs we went to was called Porterhouse...it was essentially 4 stories of beer. All of the walls were lined with different types of beer, and they even had their own brews. A bluesy classic rock cover band was playing some quality tunes, which made for a good time. They sold a giant stein of beer for 10 Euro which consisted of about 3.5 pints of beer. It was a necessity and allowed me to look down and laugh at all of the beer drinkers with only a measly pint. So basically the weekend consisted of lots of drinking, walking, and sightseeing. Overall, a success.
My British Food and Wine class is awesome. We essentially go into class and listen to the dude talk for an hour, and then eat lots of cheese and drink wines. I've probably consumed over 30 different types of cheeses of the past 2 weeks, which I'm sure hasn't made things very pleasant for the rest of the kids due to some minor gas leaks. By the way, did you hear about the excavating explosions of 1948? They were due to some miner gas leaks.
We watched a movie on the BBC at 2 am last night starring Jet Li called "Bodyguard from Beijing" (in China) or "The Defender" (in US). Absolutely ridiculous. Look it up, as I assure you you'll be in for a treat.
The majority of the flat, including myself, attended a Football game on Saturday. What better way to pregame a football game than by doing a case race at noon? Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. The two teams playing was Fulham and Sunderland, with the resulting score being 0-0. This is exactly why I, and everyone else in America, will never really get soccer. 0-0? At least throw some penalty kicks in there to get some action going. I did have a footlong hotdog on a baguet in the stadium though. No potato roll, but it got the job done.
One thing that I love about these British Professors is that they are very liberal with their breaks during class. They seem to get genuinely upset if they don't give us a break every 45-60 minutes. And the breaks are usually at least 20 minutes to a half hour long. AND they generally go out and buy us food during the breaks. So basically there's nothing better than taking a class about Shakespeare complete with an hour-long intermission where we get to eat meat pies and jaffa cakes. By the way, we're meeting in the pub for that class this week. Be very jealous.
Thats enough for now. I'm going to try to be more diligent with updating...who knows how that will turn out.
In other news, I went to Dublin this past weekend. I must say, that is one wild city. Irish people by nature are just ridiculous, coupled with the fact that the average person probably started drinking at about 4 in the afternoon every day. The one major downside to Dublin is that everything is ridiculously expensive. A pint of beer averaged about $6, so needless to say, I didnt' drink nearly as much as I was intending to, although thats not to say that I didn't have my fair share of Guinness. On a whole, though, Dublin is a really cool city. Pretty much everything is within walking distance, which was nice. We did a lot of the usual touristy stuff, such as touring the Guinness factory. That was actually a really cool tour, which of course culminated with a "complimentary" pint at the roof-bar. I never realized this before, but the beer company Guinness and the Guinness Book of World Records are one in the same. Quite a unique diversification for a beer company, I must say. Some other highlights of the trip include touring a really old Irish jail where a lot of the Revolutionaries who helped shape the country as it is today were once imprisoned. We had the trashiest Irish family behind us through the entire tour, which added an interesting element. Definitely some inbreeding going on there. We took a bus tour of the country/mountains during one of the days. Got to see where Braveheart was filmed. Enough said. Oh, and one of the pubs we went to was called Porterhouse...it was essentially 4 stories of beer. All of the walls were lined with different types of beer, and they even had their own brews. A bluesy classic rock cover band was playing some quality tunes, which made for a good time. They sold a giant stein of beer for 10 Euro which consisted of about 3.5 pints of beer. It was a necessity and allowed me to look down and laugh at all of the beer drinkers with only a measly pint. So basically the weekend consisted of lots of drinking, walking, and sightseeing. Overall, a success.
My British Food and Wine class is awesome. We essentially go into class and listen to the dude talk for an hour, and then eat lots of cheese and drink wines. I've probably consumed over 30 different types of cheeses of the past 2 weeks, which I'm sure hasn't made things very pleasant for the rest of the kids due to some minor gas leaks. By the way, did you hear about the excavating explosions of 1948? They were due to some miner gas leaks.
We watched a movie on the BBC at 2 am last night starring Jet Li called "Bodyguard from Beijing" (in China) or "The Defender" (in US). Absolutely ridiculous. Look it up, as I assure you you'll be in for a treat.
The majority of the flat, including myself, attended a Football game on Saturday. What better way to pregame a football game than by doing a case race at noon? Needless to say, it was an interesting experience. The two teams playing was Fulham and Sunderland, with the resulting score being 0-0. This is exactly why I, and everyone else in America, will never really get soccer. 0-0? At least throw some penalty kicks in there to get some action going. I did have a footlong hotdog on a baguet in the stadium though. No potato roll, but it got the job done.
One thing that I love about these British Professors is that they are very liberal with their breaks during class. They seem to get genuinely upset if they don't give us a break every 45-60 minutes. And the breaks are usually at least 20 minutes to a half hour long. AND they generally go out and buy us food during the breaks. So basically there's nothing better than taking a class about Shakespeare complete with an hour-long intermission where we get to eat meat pies and jaffa cakes. By the way, we're meeting in the pub for that class this week. Be very jealous.
Thats enough for now. I'm going to try to be more diligent with updating...who knows how that will turn out.
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Go Phils!!!
If the Phillies somehow make it to the World Series this year, I will be torn between being ecstatic and furious. Of course I will be happy that my team makes it to the championship, but the fact that they had to do it the one fall that I am in a baseball-less country will be quite frustrating. Who even understands Cricket anyways? The good news is that I am able to watch the games at various venues around the city. The bad news is that they start 5 hours late and there are approximately 17 people that give a damn in this city. Oh the sacrifices we make.
We toured Parliament this morning and it was very interesting...no George Clinton sightings though, unfortunately. My recent binge of watching the West Wing over the past few months has gotten me rather interested in politics, so learning about Britain's political system was pretty cool. I've also always been a sucker for history, and despite my love for Ben Franklin and the likes of America's brief historical context, the fact is that it is just that: brief. Britain has faced over a thousand years of turmoil, invasions, political upheaval, and bad teeth, so there's obviously a lot to take in, especially in a building like Parliament. I won't get into the nitty gritty, but their system is very in tradition, which in turn makes it seem rather flawed. Granted, they are getting away from the tradition of the monarchy and into more of a democracy, but I definitely see two main flaws through my limited understanding. The first is that the people don't directly elect the Prime Minister. Britain has a general election every 5 years (or sometime in between...they can just decide to have elections whenever, which is weird) where they people elect the members of the House of Commons; there are currently 646 members of the House, along with 2 political parties, the conservatives and the labor party. Whichever party ends up having at least 324 members, or the majority, for you disinclined math people out there ;-), is then considered to be the governing party. The head of whatever party is the governing party then automatically becomes Prime Minister. So essentially the people vote for the party, not the candidate, which doesn't makes sense to me, especially since he or she has the power to send Britain to war. The other main issue with the system is that they don't really have a good system of checks and balances. Their legislative, judicial, and executive "branches" all fall into Parliament, with certain people actually acting as all 3. So essentially there aren't any solid checks and balances. Sorry for the history/politics lesson, but I just feel like you all should be enlightened. At least I know Madison will enjoy it ;-)
Quick Heroes update: we successfully finished Season 1 and have moved onto Season 2. The only thing that sucks is that the shows that I have saved on my computer have French subtitles, so we never know what they're saying whenever they speak in Spanish or Japanese or whatever other random languages they use. Damn the man.
I have all of my trips abroad planned out and paid for, which is a relief. I'm going to Dublin on October 10th for a weekend. Definitely going to visit the Guinness Factory. Brilliant! Hooooray Beeeeer! Then, for our midterm week-long break (ha! you suckers at Drexel don't get this) we're going to Italy. We'll be there for 10 days, visiting Florance, Rome, Bologna, and Venice. The following weekend I will be going to Amsterdam for 5 days, where I'm meeting up with Jeremy, which should be sweet. And then for the weekend of November 21st I am going to Madrid to visit Kurt in Spain. Gonna see a Bull fight. Sweet. If any of you readers have ever been to these cities and have places for me to check out, let me know. I'm pretty much up for anything.
We learned about these things called Bear Gardens in my Shakespeare class. Basically, to warm up the crowds before plays back in Shakespearian days, they would chain a bear to the center of the stage and make it fight dogs. The people would make bets on how many dogs the bear would kill. Bears that were exceptionally awesome at killing dogs would essentially become celebrities, complete with names and retirements. As inhumane as this is, I have to admit that I would love to see this. As would Michael Vick, I'm sure. Oooo I did not just go there...
I'll leave you all on that thought: Bear Gardens.
We toured Parliament this morning and it was very interesting...no George Clinton sightings though, unfortunately. My recent binge of watching the West Wing over the past few months has gotten me rather interested in politics, so learning about Britain's political system was pretty cool. I've also always been a sucker for history, and despite my love for Ben Franklin and the likes of America's brief historical context, the fact is that it is just that: brief. Britain has faced over a thousand years of turmoil, invasions, political upheaval, and bad teeth, so there's obviously a lot to take in, especially in a building like Parliament. I won't get into the nitty gritty, but their system is very in tradition, which in turn makes it seem rather flawed. Granted, they are getting away from the tradition of the monarchy and into more of a democracy, but I definitely see two main flaws through my limited understanding. The first is that the people don't directly elect the Prime Minister. Britain has a general election every 5 years (or sometime in between...they can just decide to have elections whenever, which is weird) where they people elect the members of the House of Commons; there are currently 646 members of the House, along with 2 political parties, the conservatives and the labor party. Whichever party ends up having at least 324 members, or the majority, for you disinclined math people out there ;-), is then considered to be the governing party. The head of whatever party is the governing party then automatically becomes Prime Minister. So essentially the people vote for the party, not the candidate, which doesn't makes sense to me, especially since he or she has the power to send Britain to war. The other main issue with the system is that they don't really have a good system of checks and balances. Their legislative, judicial, and executive "branches" all fall into Parliament, with certain people actually acting as all 3. So essentially there aren't any solid checks and balances. Sorry for the history/politics lesson, but I just feel like you all should be enlightened. At least I know Madison will enjoy it ;-)
Quick Heroes update: we successfully finished Season 1 and have moved onto Season 2. The only thing that sucks is that the shows that I have saved on my computer have French subtitles, so we never know what they're saying whenever they speak in Spanish or Japanese or whatever other random languages they use. Damn the man.
I have all of my trips abroad planned out and paid for, which is a relief. I'm going to Dublin on October 10th for a weekend. Definitely going to visit the Guinness Factory. Brilliant! Hooooray Beeeeer! Then, for our midterm week-long break (ha! you suckers at Drexel don't get this) we're going to Italy. We'll be there for 10 days, visiting Florance, Rome, Bologna, and Venice. The following weekend I will be going to Amsterdam for 5 days, where I'm meeting up with Jeremy, which should be sweet. And then for the weekend of November 21st I am going to Madrid to visit Kurt in Spain. Gonna see a Bull fight. Sweet. If any of you readers have ever been to these cities and have places for me to check out, let me know. I'm pretty much up for anything.
We learned about these things called Bear Gardens in my Shakespeare class. Basically, to warm up the crowds before plays back in Shakespearian days, they would chain a bear to the center of the stage and make it fight dogs. The people would make bets on how many dogs the bear would kill. Bears that were exceptionally awesome at killing dogs would essentially become celebrities, complete with names and retirements. As inhumane as this is, I have to admit that I would love to see this. As would Michael Vick, I'm sure. Oooo I did not just go there...
I'll leave you all on that thought: Bear Gardens.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
I'm Shakin' it boss
RIP Paul Newman
I took the plunge and ate my meat pie for dinner tonight. It was delicious. Vegetarians are idiots.
We saw Spamalot earlier in the week at a theatre in Piccadilli Circus. Unfortunately, the London version of a circus doesn't include bearded ladies and contortionists, just over-priced nightclubs and restaurants. But the show was quite good. I saw it in New York before but it was nice to see it Monty Python's actual country; the accents were genuine, they made fun of Scotland constantly, and there were a lot of little side-remarks that only British people would get. They even made a Hockey Mom/Sarah Palin reference. Fantastic.
A friend of one of the girls I'm living with was DJing at a club in east London last night, so we made the arduous journey out there to take part. I think I was expecting something a little more like the Bulgarian techno that I've grown accustomed to, so I was a little disappointed. It would have been better if everyone in the place was dancing, but alas people are lame and refused to dance. A side note, it's legal to carry around and drink beers on the street, which is a bad idea when facing a 40 minute ride on the tube. The things we learn...
So contrary to my alleged hatred of Heroes, I decided to throw the first 2 seasons onto my computer in case I felt like watching. Well, here I am, 13 episodes in, completely addicted. There's been about 7 or 8 of us who have been watching, usually late at night, when we return from pubs or whatever else we had been doing that night. Generally, we'll sit down with the intention to watch one or two episodes and end up staying up until 5am watching like 4 or 5 at a time. Damn Heroes. Don't think I'll be watching Lost anytime soon though. I mean, I'm pretty sure they found them 2 seasons ago, so no need.
I took the plunge and ate my meat pie for dinner tonight. It was delicious. Vegetarians are idiots.
We saw Spamalot earlier in the week at a theatre in Piccadilli Circus. Unfortunately, the London version of a circus doesn't include bearded ladies and contortionists, just over-priced nightclubs and restaurants. But the show was quite good. I saw it in New York before but it was nice to see it Monty Python's actual country; the accents were genuine, they made fun of Scotland constantly, and there were a lot of little side-remarks that only British people would get. They even made a Hockey Mom/Sarah Palin reference. Fantastic.
A friend of one of the girls I'm living with was DJing at a club in east London last night, so we made the arduous journey out there to take part. I think I was expecting something a little more like the Bulgarian techno that I've grown accustomed to, so I was a little disappointed. It would have been better if everyone in the place was dancing, but alas people are lame and refused to dance. A side note, it's legal to carry around and drink beers on the street, which is a bad idea when facing a 40 minute ride on the tube. The things we learn...
So contrary to my alleged hatred of Heroes, I decided to throw the first 2 seasons onto my computer in case I felt like watching. Well, here I am, 13 episodes in, completely addicted. There's been about 7 or 8 of us who have been watching, usually late at night, when we return from pubs or whatever else we had been doing that night. Generally, we'll sit down with the intention to watch one or two episodes and end up staying up until 5am watching like 4 or 5 at a time. Damn Heroes. Don't think I'll be watching Lost anytime soon though. I mean, I'm pretty sure they found them 2 seasons ago, so no need.
Monday, 22 September 2008
I think I'll be George Washington for Halloween...
There are 2 main hazards to life in london: the cars drive on the wrong side of the road, and my shower is essentially a volcano. First for the cars. Its ridiculous. You have to look behind you when crossing the street, which is a big pain in the ass. Also, the cars, not pedestrians, have the right of way in this lovely city. So basically they can and will run you over when given the chance. And there's a ton of little side streets that essentially look like driveways. But they're actually streets, which of course includes cars zipping out, looking to run unsuspecting Americans over. And the shower will go from a perfect temperature to face-melting hot in an instant. Kinda like a Van Halen guitar solo. As much as I love faces being melted, ala Raiders of the Lost Ark, its quite annoying when I'm trying to get my manly self clean.
So there is a giant park literally right across the street from our apartment. Its just as big, if not bigger than Fairmont park, except there's not the constant hazard of scary black crack heads running about. I went running there on Sunday and discovered this place called "Speaker's Corner." Essentially, people go and stand on stools and just talk loudly about whatever they want to talk about, which in turn causes hordes of people to stand around and listen. When I ran by there were about 8 people speaking about various topics. The popular choices seemed to be politics, world issues, and religion. It will be very interesting to go back right before and right after our election in November to see what the Brits have to say about our new president, whomever that may be.
I made a point to eat the 2 most commonly thought of British foods in the past couple of days: Fish and Chips and Bangors and Mash. Delicious. Although its annoying to have to call french fries "chips." I also couldn't help but buy a frozen steak pie at the grocery store. Its basically 1600 calories worth of steak inside a pie crust. Sounds fantastic to me.
We saw the Shakespeare play "Timon of Athens" tonight at the Globe Theatre. The Globe is supposedly still set up the same way that it was hundreds of years ago, complete with an open roof, a standing room only section in the front (where we were), and male nudity. Hooray for penises. I was planning on bringing various fruits and vegetables to throw but was told its frowned upon. Damn actors and their unions.
My fantasy football team is the shit. Screw you Gilly and Stumpo. And way to go Birds. Beating Pittsburgh without the services of my favorite chocolate midget Brian Westbrook is no easy feat. If the defense continues to play like that throughout the rest of the year, then Superbowl here we come. I watched the game at The Sports Cafe, which is essentially the place to be if you're American and its a Sunday. They played all of the football games as well as the end of the Phillies game, so I felt like I was right at home. There were prolly about 15 other people from Philly there as well, so we had a nice little cheering section going on. And Howard Lederer and Scott Williamson, along with other poker pros, were there in the VIP room. I know you all probably don't care that much, but it was pretty crazy for me. They're all here for the European Poker Tour event thats here next week.
Our TV here is absolutely terrible. It only gets one channel and there aren't any AV inputs on the back, rendering my Wii that I lugged here useless. I'm gonna work on that problem in the near future.
Does anyone know if Netflix works in Europe? Or if there is some sort of substitute movie subscription service?
I met up with Alicia yesterday before the game and we went to this lame excuse for a food festival. Granted, it was the last day of the festival, but I definitely expect some free samples at a function like that.
Thats it for now. Adios.
So there is a giant park literally right across the street from our apartment. Its just as big, if not bigger than Fairmont park, except there's not the constant hazard of scary black crack heads running about. I went running there on Sunday and discovered this place called "Speaker's Corner." Essentially, people go and stand on stools and just talk loudly about whatever they want to talk about, which in turn causes hordes of people to stand around and listen. When I ran by there were about 8 people speaking about various topics. The popular choices seemed to be politics, world issues, and religion. It will be very interesting to go back right before and right after our election in November to see what the Brits have to say about our new president, whomever that may be.
I made a point to eat the 2 most commonly thought of British foods in the past couple of days: Fish and Chips and Bangors and Mash. Delicious. Although its annoying to have to call french fries "chips." I also couldn't help but buy a frozen steak pie at the grocery store. Its basically 1600 calories worth of steak inside a pie crust. Sounds fantastic to me.
We saw the Shakespeare play "Timon of Athens" tonight at the Globe Theatre. The Globe is supposedly still set up the same way that it was hundreds of years ago, complete with an open roof, a standing room only section in the front (where we were), and male nudity. Hooray for penises. I was planning on bringing various fruits and vegetables to throw but was told its frowned upon. Damn actors and their unions.
My fantasy football team is the shit. Screw you Gilly and Stumpo. And way to go Birds. Beating Pittsburgh without the services of my favorite chocolate midget Brian Westbrook is no easy feat. If the defense continues to play like that throughout the rest of the year, then Superbowl here we come. I watched the game at The Sports Cafe, which is essentially the place to be if you're American and its a Sunday. They played all of the football games as well as the end of the Phillies game, so I felt like I was right at home. There were prolly about 15 other people from Philly there as well, so we had a nice little cheering section going on. And Howard Lederer and Scott Williamson, along with other poker pros, were there in the VIP room. I know you all probably don't care that much, but it was pretty crazy for me. They're all here for the European Poker Tour event thats here next week.
Our TV here is absolutely terrible. It only gets one channel and there aren't any AV inputs on the back, rendering my Wii that I lugged here useless. I'm gonna work on that problem in the near future.
Does anyone know if Netflix works in Europe? Or if there is some sort of substitute movie subscription service?
I met up with Alicia yesterday before the game and we went to this lame excuse for a food festival. Granted, it was the last day of the festival, but I definitely expect some free samples at a function like that.
Thats it for now. Adios.
Friday, 19 September 2008
Cheerio!
So I've made it here to London. I must say, its a pretty sweet city, at least from what I've seen in the past few days. There's definitely a lot of changes to random little things in life, but overall its pretty much like any big American City.
The plane ride over wasn't at all bad. Virgin Atlantic is definitely the way to fly; everyone gets their own personal tv with the choice of a couple hundred or so movies and tv shows. I got my Marky Mark fill by watching The Happening, which wasn't as bad as people said, but its definitely not something I would spend money on. Honestly, what happed to M. Night? Talk about peaking early. Signs and 6th Sense were quality, Unbreakable was good, and then the rest were just trash. The Happening definitely had a pretty cool story, but the acting was horrendous and nothing really stood out about the directing/cinematography. Its almost as if the actors were purposely trying to make it cheesy and stupid. Thumbs down, Marky Mark. At least there's Max Payne to look forward too. Oh wait, that looks terrible as well.
The one bad thing about the plane ride was the fact that I didn't sleep at all and London is 5 hours ahead of East Coast time. So I was essentially up for a good 40 hours straight once I get here. It's a good thing that I slugged it out with my basic human need of sleeping, however, cause I've already adjusted my body clock to the time here. Screw you, Jet lag. Oh, and the beef stew I ate for dinner on the plan gave me a ton of gas. But everyone was asleep so they dealt fine.
So the living situation is fairly unique, to say the least. There's 17 of us, 13 girls and 4 boys, all living in one giant apartment flat. There's 5 or 6 bedrooms, each of which house anywhere from 2-4 people. Mine is tiny, but there's only 2 of us so its not too bad. Aside from the obvious bonuses of living with 13 girls, I don't really know how I'm going to take it. Let's just say that my living style isn't very girl-suitable, as I'm sure Stumpo and Demarest can attest to. We shall see. My roomate's name is James and he seems pretty cool. Honestly, everyone seems pretty cool, but who knows what will change once I've had to live with everyone for a while.
We went out to a couple of bars last night, which was ok. Nothing too out of the ordinary thus far. The prices aren't even that bad for drinks; at the one place, each beer was 3.50 pounds, but it was quality beer and you don't have to tip the bartenders. So even though that translates to about $6, you'd still spend at least $5 on a glass of something like Becks and still have to tip $1. And the buy beer in stores isn't even that bad. I bought an 8 pack (weird, I know) of Carlsburg pounders for like 6 pounds. not too bad of a deal for decent beer. there's also a college bar right down the street at Imperial College, where they have 2 pound drinks. So hopefully it won't be too much of a financial burden.
Coffee will prolly be my downfall when it comes to money. There are starbucks all over the place (+), but the prices are exactly the same as the are in the US (i.e. 1.90 pound for a venti coffee instead of $1.90), which is no good at all. And when you order coffee, they ask if you want it black or white, white being with milk (they don't have half and half here, another minus). And to get something "To Go" is actually called "take-away."
My neighborhood is one of, if not the, wealthiest in London. A lot of royalty live here, which is cool I guess. I've never seen so many Bentleys, Aston Martins, and Rolls Royces just parked on the street. The standard car is essentially a BMW or a Benz, and it just goes up from there. This affluence definitely sucks when it comes to prices though, especially for us poor college kids. We'll just have to deal. Like I said, restaurants and bars aren't that bad, as well as the supermarket, so I'll be fine.
My class schedule is also pretty awesome. I don't have classes on mondays and thursdays, i have class tues 1-5, wed 1-9, and fri 9-1. About as good as it gets, me thinks, besides the 9am on fridays. But its my british food and wine class. So I think I can deal with eating and drinking that early.
Well thats about it for now. I'll check in sometime soon. Adios.
The plane ride over wasn't at all bad. Virgin Atlantic is definitely the way to fly; everyone gets their own personal tv with the choice of a couple hundred or so movies and tv shows. I got my Marky Mark fill by watching The Happening, which wasn't as bad as people said, but its definitely not something I would spend money on. Honestly, what happed to M. Night? Talk about peaking early. Signs and 6th Sense were quality, Unbreakable was good, and then the rest were just trash. The Happening definitely had a pretty cool story, but the acting was horrendous and nothing really stood out about the directing/cinematography. Its almost as if the actors were purposely trying to make it cheesy and stupid. Thumbs down, Marky Mark. At least there's Max Payne to look forward too. Oh wait, that looks terrible as well.
The one bad thing about the plane ride was the fact that I didn't sleep at all and London is 5 hours ahead of East Coast time. So I was essentially up for a good 40 hours straight once I get here. It's a good thing that I slugged it out with my basic human need of sleeping, however, cause I've already adjusted my body clock to the time here. Screw you, Jet lag. Oh, and the beef stew I ate for dinner on the plan gave me a ton of gas. But everyone was asleep so they dealt fine.
So the living situation is fairly unique, to say the least. There's 17 of us, 13 girls and 4 boys, all living in one giant apartment flat. There's 5 or 6 bedrooms, each of which house anywhere from 2-4 people. Mine is tiny, but there's only 2 of us so its not too bad. Aside from the obvious bonuses of living with 13 girls, I don't really know how I'm going to take it. Let's just say that my living style isn't very girl-suitable, as I'm sure Stumpo and Demarest can attest to. We shall see. My roomate's name is James and he seems pretty cool. Honestly, everyone seems pretty cool, but who knows what will change once I've had to live with everyone for a while.
We went out to a couple of bars last night, which was ok. Nothing too out of the ordinary thus far. The prices aren't even that bad for drinks; at the one place, each beer was 3.50 pounds, but it was quality beer and you don't have to tip the bartenders. So even though that translates to about $6, you'd still spend at least $5 on a glass of something like Becks and still have to tip $1. And the buy beer in stores isn't even that bad. I bought an 8 pack (weird, I know) of Carlsburg pounders for like 6 pounds. not too bad of a deal for decent beer. there's also a college bar right down the street at Imperial College, where they have 2 pound drinks. So hopefully it won't be too much of a financial burden.
Coffee will prolly be my downfall when it comes to money. There are starbucks all over the place (+), but the prices are exactly the same as the are in the US (i.e. 1.90 pound for a venti coffee instead of $1.90), which is no good at all. And when you order coffee, they ask if you want it black or white, white being with milk (they don't have half and half here, another minus). And to get something "To Go" is actually called "take-away."
My neighborhood is one of, if not the, wealthiest in London. A lot of royalty live here, which is cool I guess. I've never seen so many Bentleys, Aston Martins, and Rolls Royces just parked on the street. The standard car is essentially a BMW or a Benz, and it just goes up from there. This affluence definitely sucks when it comes to prices though, especially for us poor college kids. We'll just have to deal. Like I said, restaurants and bars aren't that bad, as well as the supermarket, so I'll be fine.
My class schedule is also pretty awesome. I don't have classes on mondays and thursdays, i have class tues 1-5, wed 1-9, and fri 9-1. About as good as it gets, me thinks, besides the 9am on fridays. But its my british food and wine class. So I think I can deal with eating and drinking that early.
Well thats about it for now. I'll check in sometime soon. Adios.
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