back from a 3-week blog hiatus

with all the time i've spent without writing a blog entry, you'd think i'd be chalk-full (chock-full?) of london-y goodness. this isn't really the case. besides the weekends where I have had visitors to keep me entertained, the rest of the weeks have been passed by watching countless episodes of x-files and trying to keep up with shows from back home (i'm on season 6 of x-files now, and isn't Lost crazy?!). since I've actually had the internet at home, i've felt less of a need to post blogs because I get to talk to a lot of people on msn and I don't feel as lonely. such as it is, here's an update for all those keen readers back home (or wherever you happen to be).

My first visitor was the charming Mr. John Sime. I took my first day off work (5 vaca days left!) to hang out with john that weekend, which made it even better! we took what I dubbed "the shotgun approach" to sightseeing: that is, you go onto a tube line and then through the course of the day, just see whatever happens to be the next closest thing. Scatter, and hope to hit something good. we saw, in no particular order:

• trafalgar square
• big ben
• london eye
• imperial war museum
• the show Stomp in covent garden
• the canadian bar The Maple Leaf
• buckingham palace
• green park (finding neverland!)
  
• picadilly circus
• oxford circus (the huge hmv)
• tower bridge
• city hall
  
• anything else john? you can put it as a comment

for supper one evening, we went to Brick Lane. I don't know if you are familiar with it, but the idea is, there is a street with lots and lots of Indian restaurants along it. You walk down the street, and each place has a guy standing outside trying to get people in. You then barter with said person, and try to get yourself a deal. Here's how ours went-

1st guy - hey you guys wanna come in here? for you, free drinks this evening
us - hmm... we're just gonna keep walking, but we might be back
2nd guy, down the road - hey there fellas, come on in tonight. for you guys, 25% off our menu!
us - hmmmmmm... we're just gonna go a few more places to check them out
2nd guy again - tell you what, I think you'll want to eat here. 25% off our menu, and free drinks
us - ok you've got a deal



the good mr. sime then took his leave, and i went back to another week of work. nothing of consequence really happened that week. nothing worth sharing anyway, as far as i can remember.

the next day, colin o'flynn of electrical engineering fame told me he was coming up for a few days to london the following weekend. needless to say, that made me happy. after work I went to go meet up with him, and we walked from cannon st. past st. paul's cathedral, to covent garden where we went to the Maple Leaf for a quick one, and then the Walkabout, an aussie bar. pub, sorry, they don't have bars over here I don't think. I would just like to take this opportunity to praise my own impeccable sense of direction, as we basically wandered from the total opposite direction from the way I had gotten there before, and found our way straight to it. I couldn't believe it. I digress. We then met up with colin's friend claire, and a few of her friends from the castle she is currently doing an exchange in, which is located in Bath, England. we went to kelly's (one of the friends) house in Soho, and then went to Walkabout in Leicester Square - but this one was more like a club than a pub. Also, it was in an old church... it was kinda unsettling. The next day, colin and I went to the Tate Modern, trafalgar square, st. pauls cathedral again, big ben, the london eye, westminster abbey, and played bowling and bumper cars at this arcade on the river thames. the boardwalk-esque thing made for some amaaaaazing pictures of big ben from across the river, it was fantastic. (see my facebook for better resolution pics)


we played some cards that evening with his friends, and then i had quite the trek to get home on the night buses. that was fun. ...

the next tuesday, I went to the Millennium Dome for a meeting! It was pretty cool to see it so close up! (anyone who's interested can look up "The O2" on wikipedia for a little backstory) Also, the 13th of feb marked my 1000th day of being friends with oml! so that was special also. Other than that, work was work for the rest of the week - pete (my boss) and I had a few beers after work on thurs/fri, so that was good as well.

last weekend, i was graced by the presence of yet more friends! Lauren came down from inverness, scotland for a few days, before leaving for Cairo. Finding her at Victoria Station turned into quite an ordeal (my fault, i forgot her mobile # on my computer at home, and I wasn't about to call my landlady to try and figure my computer out). Not only did I not know where she was, I also didn't know she was going to be an hour late! So when it was 8:50 and I was panicking trying to find her, I didn't realize she wasn't even in London yet. So, after extensive amounts of walking, I decided to take the tube all the way back home to get her # and call her. long story short, I found her eventually, we bought a few groceries for the next day, and then we retired at my house for the night (watching several episodes of x-files as well - thankfully lauren's also a big fan).

The next day, we got off to a decently early start. we hit a lot of the places I went with John two weekends previous, but they are cool places so I didn't mind revisiting them in the slightest. in addition, we saw the Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge, and the British Museum. within, we saw sarcophagi, pyramid drawings in hieroglyphics, the Rosetta Stone, ancient money, tombs, roman statues, etc. it was pretty cool.
After I said goodbye to Lauren, I came home and got in touch with Marie and Emma, and met up with them later that evening.


They were in town for a few days before going to Paris to visit their friend Johanna. They dropped their stuff off at my flat, and then we went to eat supper at wherever we could find a place. We settled on Garfunkel's, just off of Oxford Circus. We felt quite a bit like Americans - we had a platter with bbq ribs, chicken wings, 1/2 chickens, onion rings, coleslaw and fries. To drink? Budweiser was all they had left. Anyhow, after polishing that off, we tried to find a pub for a drink, but being a sunday night, not a lot was open. We wandered for probably a half an hour before we found a place - 10 pound cover charge for the 3 of us combined, then once inside, a stella was 3.50 pounds, and gin & tonics were 4.50 pounds. WOW. we stayed for one drink (obviously) and then walked back to the tube and came home.

This wraps up 3 long weeks of stories. this actually took like 1.5 hours to type up with all the pics and whatnot... but i wasn't exactly paying attention the whole time, so maybe 1 hour if I sat down and dedicated all my concentration to it. anyhow, hope this whets all you bloggers' appetites for delicious goings-on in london (yes janet, this means you too).

Next weekend, john and erin will be here, and we shall see the Blue Man Group, from the 4th row! I will keep you posted.

until next time




ps. all my pics can be found on my facebook profile - and the most recent album is right here!
this is 60 of 232 pictures I took this weekend. crazy eh?