tourist in my own city

8/30 - 9/3/2006

So I just put some of my laundry in my washer/dryer and I have no idea what any of the settings that I made mean so we'll see how it turns out. I probably should have tested it on some socks first or something but oh well.... It seems like the outfit to go out in on Friday or Saturday night consists of expensive-looking jeans, a nice jacket of some sort, and a nice shirt and shoes, of which I only have the shirt and shoes so I should probably go shopping anyway.

It's almost the start of my second week here and things have been going pretty well so far, although never as planned. I've been trying to think ahead about things to do so that I don't get bored during the time before I find people to hang out with, but so far it looks like I won't have to worry. Every time I have a few things thought out I end up getting sidetracked and doing 10 others. For example, my plan on Friday night was to get out of work, come back to my apartment, go to this Turkish restaurant that I read about in my guidebook, rent a movie, and go to bed. However rather than coming straight home and going to dinner I ended up exploring the area around my apartment for a while and never made it to the Turkish restaurant. My eventual cuisine? Indian- not because I couldn't find the Turkish place, but because I found this other place first. (On a side note, I'm watching the news right now and it turns out that the Tube stop where I got off for the restaurant was the same one where the terrorist bombings occurred last year and the memorial was Saturday. I was wondering why there was so much construction going on....)

After dinner I was going to look for this movie rental place that I saw online but I couldn't find it so I decided to wander around downtown London for a while instead. I'm glad I did because I stumbled on the West End which is the happening place at night and ended up walking around for 4 hours just taking everything in. I had already explored a little after work during the week but not this area and I was amazed by how many people were out. It was just as crowded as Michigan Avenue in Chicago, only it was midnight and this was every street in the neighborhood! While exploring I found a Virgin Megastore where I bought a movie I'd been meaning to see for a while which I watched later when I got home. I'm not going to lie, I was worried about being lonely and feeling useless here since I don't know anyone to hang out with yet but I really couldn't be happier. There's so much to do in this city that I know I won't run out of things to do or places to explore even if I don't end up meeting and going out with people, so I'm not worried in the slightest.

Saturday and Sunday were also good examples of my planning gone awry. Saturday I had planned on taking a bus tour around London, walking around the South Bank of the Thames (because I had heard from various people that this was a fun area), and possibly finding some live music to listen to. I bought a ticket for the bus tour and was going to do the whole thing in it's entirety and then backtrack to the places I found interesting, but the Tower of London was too much to pass up so spent a couple hours there before completing the tour. I'll be honest- I was expecting to be impressed by the crown jewels but they still blew me away. I've seen lots of diamonds before never any so huge or so many in one place! I also did an audio tour and I must say, people might look dumb wearing them and walking around in their own little worlds but the two that I've done so far (Chambord in France was the other) have been amazing! I could have read about the history from a guidebook but it wouldn't have been the same. In the end I decided that taking the bus tour was a great decision even though it seems like an über touristy thing to do because it really helped me get my bearings in the city and pinpoint the places I'd like to revisit.

After dinner and an authentic English Stella I walked around the West End some more and ventured a little further out than I had on Friday. Although I had a blast I probably should have bought a more detailed map because it seems like no street in London goes in a straight line for more than a few hundred feet and I definitely walked past the same place a couple times trying to find my way back home. I was amazed again by how many people were out and also by the fact that it seems like at least a third of the people I overhear on the streets are from other countries. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised though since the UK is such a relatively small country compared to the US and is so close to so many hundreds of other cultures.

My three activities for Sunday that I had decided on during the bus tour were to watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, go to a Latin music street festival that I had read about in my Time Out magazine, and go to the evensong service at Westminster Abbey. None of these things happened and I wasn't the least bit disappointed. I set my alarm for 8:30 but forgot to turn it on so I missed the changing of the guard and decided to try taking one of the other bus tour routes with the rest of my 24 hour pass instead. After breakfast and a coffee I walked to one of the bus stops but remembered that my pass included a river boat tour so I scrapped the bus tour and did that instead. Like Saturday I planned on doing the tour in it's entirety and continuing to the festival and Westminster Abbey, but Greenwich looked like fun from the boat so I decided to explore there for a while. I'm really glad I did because I had a blast wandering around the town, exploring their little market, and straddling the Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory. The weather was beautiful and I really couldn't have asked for a better day. I even stumbled on a full-blown bike race! I was wondering why the police suddenly cleared the streets until the pace cars with their bikes on top flew passed, followed by the bikers themselves. On the news tonight everyone was making a big deal about it because it's a sort of practice run for the London Olympics in a few years

After the boat tour ended I had planned on finding some dinner and heading home but there turned out to be a semi rave going on underneath one of the bridges across the Thames right downtown. What??? And this is only the coolest example of the random crap that I keep running across. Who would have expected to find a rave complete with the quintessential grungy crowd and random drunks and pill poppers right underneath the shadows of the parliament and Big Ben??

My experience in London prior to this was right after high school when I came here with my family at the end of our European vacation, and I really wasn't that impressed. It seemed too similar to the US and not exotic enough and although I was really excited about returning here to work for a couple months I wasn't expecting that perception to change. I was wrong, and even though it may be true that London's culture is the most similar to the US out of any international city, it's not the US and believe it or not, I'm even having a little bit of culture shock (the electrical outlets that you have to individually turn on had me and my TV and stereo stumped for two days, not to mention the washing machine that I'll soon discover if I understood enough not to ruin my clothes). I had expected to travel through the rest of Europe on most of my weekends here and I definitely will somwhat, but now that I know there is so much to do here I want to stick around and experience the place that I live.

My main plans for the coming weeks are to pick up my visa in either Paris or Amsterdam, rent a motorcycle and ride around London, visit Devon in western England, and possibly my friend Dennis from work who's in Sweden with his wife's family. Judging from how well I've stuck with my plans so far however who knows what will actually happen. The one plan that I intend to follow through with is to keep documenting my journey so you'll find out the outcome soon enough. Let me know how things are going back in the US!

Here are some of the pictures from my first week.

Sep 5, 2006 - 19 Photos

and no snakes!

8/28-29/2006

so my journey has gotten off to a good start so far. i got my luggage checked and went through security with only about 45 minutes to spare which was nice because i didn't have a lot of waiting to do. i had been planning on getting some stuff done before boarding the plane but at least i had time to get a bottle of water and a sandwich. i've never traveled with this many bags but so far it hasn't been much of a hassle. i was kind of worried that they wouldn't let me take both my laptop and suit bag on the plane but no one even commented on it.

i was also extremely lucky on two other accounts. the first was that my seat ended up being broken so that it wouldn't recline and the second was that the weather in chicago was horrible. why would this make me lucky you might ask? well i wasn't lucky enough to snag a business class seat and the coach seats are tiny and even though i was in a row with only two seats there was a guy sitting next to me and hardly any room to move. the fact that my seat was broken meant that the flight attendant volunteered to look for another seat for me, and (so she explained) the bad weather meant that a bunch of the connecting flights were delayed and there were a bunch of extra seats on the plane. long story short, she moved me to a window seat further up the plane to a row where i was the only person and had room to stretch out. not so bad!

now i'm sitting on the plane watching "the inside man" and typing on my laptop until i get tired enough fall asleep or the battery dies. even though i have to go straight to work when i arrive i've accepted the fact that i'll be tired as hell and it couldn't possible be that bad could it? anyway it looks like i'll just be copying files from the hard drive and dvds that i'm bringing along and all i have to do after work is meet the leasing agent to pick up my keys. i'm excited about the whole thing so no matter what i go through i don't think it will be that bad. how can i complain when i'm being sent to london for two months?