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.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)