A bit of traveling, some cool markets, and finally some amazing food

Well, I seriously doubt anyone is still reading this because I haven't posted anything for about two weeks.  In case I'm wrong and people still remember I exist, here's a bit more from my travels.  I've had an amazing time seeing some towns outside of London and found some the best markets here in London that I wish we had more of back home.

So last time I posted that I had done a bit a bit of sightseeing outside of London.  Weekends have been perfect for me to get out of the city and seeing a bit of the countryside.  My first weekend out of London consisted of a day trip to Bath.  I never knew this, but Bath is known for the Roman baths they still have the existed way back when (no clue on the year).  My plan was to see Bath and then take a tour to Stonehenge because it's not too far from Bath.  Getting there was probably a bit more stressful than I needed, but this was all my fault.  So the subway/tube here is really simple and probably the best in the world.  You buy the Oyster card, put money on it, and then you go places quite efficiently.  I assumed that the train system would be equally easy.  While I'm sure the National Rail is quite simple once you actually know what you are doing, my first time there pretty much had me swearing to myself in the middle of the wrong train station.  So I knew where I wanted to go and I was under the impression that all train stations went everywhere you want them to go.  Completely wrong.  Certain stations only have trains that go to certain areas. This sounds very intuitive so I really don't know what I was thinking.  I went to the Waterloo station thinking I would just buy a ticket and go, but apparently if I left from there I would have had to transfer like 3 times and it would have taken me 3 hours just to get there.  If I left from the Paddington station like 6 tube stops away, it takes like an hour and 20 minutes.  After talking to like 4 different attendants, one of them was finally helpful and understandable (a necessary combination for me), I got my ass to Paddington.  I tried to buy my ticket from a machine, but I should have known this would fail because everything here hates US credit cards.  That forced me to have to wait in the ticket line, which had some interesting characters to say the least.  30 minutes later, I finally had my ticket.  I grabbed a quick Whopper while I waited for train (I couldn't help myself, I have a issues with fast food) and after another 30 minutes I was off to Bath.

Bath is a beautiful city.  When I first got off the train, the town looks like a very nice upscale city with tons of cool shops and beautiful architecture.  There is a main canal/river that runs all around the city that has probably the most beautiful bridge and little city center along it.  There are also numerous parks and grassy knolls to just hang out at.  Once I got past all these little places, I found the Roman baths and I was quite impressed.  Tourists get to walk all though the baths and the underground area where everything was excavated.  There is still a open air bath and that is surrounded by statues and columns, all of which makes you feel like you are in a different time.  Very cool place.  I wandered around this place for a good two hours before I finally decided to take in the rest of the city.  I walked all around and even took some time to sit in this huge park in front of what I think is a hotel called the Royal Crescent.  It was nice just relaxing for a bit and not acting like a tourist for little while.  The problem is that I took way too much time taking in Bath and I didn't realize that I was taking away from Stonehenge time.  By the time I made it back to where the tours take off from, they told me that I wouldn't get back from the tour until 8:30ish.  That would have put me back in London way too late so I decided to just call it a day and head back home.  

The next weekend my plan was again to go see Stonehenge, this time on Saturday, and then Sunday go the opposite way out to Canterbury.  Well, I of course end up sleeping in way too late to make a trip to Stonehenge because I actually worked until like 11pm that Friday night (don't ask).  I think I subconsciously, though, I have been sabotaging that trip simply because everyone and there mother has told me to skip this.  I still think the idea of ancient rocks stacked up in the middle of nowhere is interesting, but I know an hour and half train ride plus some more cabbing/bussing really doesn't make it worth it.  Once I finally woke up I instead went to Buckingham palace to say hi to the queen and walked all through the nearby gardens, parks and museums.  Nothing too exciting there other than lots of history lessons and tons of picture taking, but I did make it to the more posh section of town where a lot of the designer store are as well as the world famous Harrods.  I was a sweaty mess at this point, but I still wanted to see what all the excitement was over this store.  I knew I was not going to fit in immediately simply by looking at all of the Ferraris, Maseratis, and other gorgeous car parked out front as well as all of the older looking rich folk who were eyeballing me like I was homeless.  Once I got inside, I knew I was already in for an interesting ride.  So I didn't know Harrods sells all expensive, sort of upper class sort of stuff; I thought it was just a mall.  I walked around trying to find anything that was in my price range, and I came up with pretty much nothing.  I also managed to get very lost and ready to strangle all of the people who seemed to be actively trying to get in my way.  Upon trying to leave, it took my nearly 30 minutes to find an exit/navigate through the hordes of annoying shoppers.  I seriously think they pack that place so tight with people and have as few exits as possible to keep people inside, forcing them to eventually buy something.  I finally found my way out of the store and got as far away from that side of town as possible.  

That Sunday I did end up waking up at a decent time and since I had already looked up all the necessary travel info (see, I'm getting smarter), Canterbury was a go.  I got to the correct station, had another Whopper, and got on the train like I was an expert.  The train ride to Canterbury was again quite beautiful.  The countryside really is pleasant and I can see why people live out there.  Canterbury itself was nice, but nothing like Bath.  This place felt much more medieval and castle-like.  The cathedral was absolutely amazing.  The amount of history there is incredible.  The cathedral itself stands taller than everything else there and it's hard not be taken aback by it's size and beauty.  Inside is even more amazing, especially when you look up and how high the ceilings are and think about how long it must have taken to build.  The stained glass is beautiful and the ornate nature of everything there was quite impressive.  I easily spent two hours just walking around and taking pictures.  Sadly though the cathedral closes early on Sunday so eventually I got kicked out before I had a chance to completely see everything.  That left me to wander Canterbury, and to be honest, there really isn't much else there.  I tried to find some thing interesting to see, but failed miserably.  Defeated, I got back on the train to London.  I was happy I went, but I should have looked into what else to while I was out there.  

Moving beyond my weekends, my weekday nights here are pretty much either drinking with coworkers or being tired at home.  Last Wednesday, though, I decided to try and get lost again, this time in Oxford Street area where there is a ton of shopping.  My coworker was giving me shit because he thinks I'm not seeing enough of London so he suggested I go there.  Why he chose there, I have no idea because as most of you know, I'm not much of a shopper.  What I've found since coming here, though, is that everyone else who comes here loves shopping.  Oxford Street has at least two of every store you can imagine.  I literally walked by the same store at different points along the street.  I won't knock that business plan because it seemed like every place was doing fine as I'm never seen so many people buying stuff.  

As I was walking down Oxford Street I couldn't help but notice that there weren't any British people around me.  Everyone was either Italian or French or even Middle Eastern.  It made me realize just how much of a global city this is, more so than any other I think.  It helps that it's much closer to so many different continents and groups of people, but it's still fascinating seeing the melting pot which are the streets of London.  What I also realized was that London really doesn't have like thing it's known for, at least in my opinion.  Maybe I'm wrong, but most cities have like that one thing that everyone knows it for.  Los Angeles is the movie business and beautiful weather (and traffic), Vegas is booze and partying, and New York is arts, more nightlife, and I guess working.  I can't really come up with one thing for London.  It's kind of got everything, but maybe not one thing in particular.  Plus, maybe crap weather, but that's not something you want to be known for.   I'm going to continue to think about this as the trip rolls on. 

This weekend I decided that I was done leaving London and I wanted to see some other good spots in London.  My friend at work told me that our company actually was sponsoring a showing of the new Harry Potter movie and he had an extra ticket.  I thought this would be a perfect way to start the weekend of more London sightseeing.  I, however, am an idiot and got dragged into a pretty heavy night of drinking at Dizzy's on Friday night.  As always, I didn't eat any dinner (other than the half bag of Doritos I inhaled after I got home) and this night everyone was big on Sambuca shots.  This all lead to a very bad sugar and processed cheese induced hangover and me almost sleeping through the movie.  Thankfully I somehow woke up on my own 30 minutes before I needed meet my coworkers at the theater.  I somehow got my life together, got on the tube, and made it to Leicester Square just in time.  My friend was there with his girlfriend and her two sisters, so I had to try and hide that fact that I was in terrible shape.  I did almost throw up after I got into the theater (there were also a ton of families all around us as well), but thankfully they had free waters for us and I was able to keep it all down.  The movie was good and I actually felt much better after a solid two hours of sipping on water and turning my brain off to watch the movie.

It of course was raining when we got out of the movie, but I wanted to go see a few of the weekend markets London is known for.  I've been to Borough Market a few times for lunch, but I had never really looked around too much.  Since it was close to where I live, I figured this would be a good place to go because I could get home easily to go be more hungover.  I think I can honestly say Borough Market will be the thing I miss most about London.  It has amazing lunches, great fruits and vegetables, and some delicious cheeses.  I hadn't eaten yet and I decided to get this duck roll that I had been eyeing for a few weeks.  Oh my it was delicious.  In previous trips I've had chicken burgers, chicken wraps and fish and chips, all of which were good, but this duck roll was by far the best yet.  After walking around some more, I also bought a baguette along with a hunk of a brie-like cheese and some blue cheese to snack on later.  The rain was still coming down hard and since I still didn't feel perfect, I decided to call it a day.  I later went out for some sushi at a place I say while at Borough.  It was ok, just nothing like what we have back in SF.

Today I decided to go to a different market up in Camden.  This market is much dirtier and sells mostly knock-off clothing, but it's still a very fun area.  The shops are all in these packed alleys and there are literally people everywhere you look.  I took about two hours just walking around and looking for hidden gems amongst all of the shops.  I did find this one amazing Argentinian steak sandwich stand.  This thing was stacked with some of the best beef I've had.  If there is anything this weekend has shown me is that London does actually have some good food, but you just need to know where to find it.  I think it's known cuisine is terrible (mushy peas, meat pies, etc.), but there are some great places for a good meal.  They have way too much of chain stuff like KFC, Pizza Express and Pret A Manger (sandwich place on literally every block in the city), but some of the small little niche places are quite good.  

After the sandwich and some more wandering through the rain soaked market, I ended up getting on the tube and going to Wimbledon of all places.  Wimbledon is at the end of the line and about 30 minutes outside of London.  Even though the tournament was done, I still really wanted to see it for some reason.  I'm happy I did because they have a very cool museum there showing all of famous matches and even shows the men's and women's singles trophies.  In addition, I was able to latch onto a tour that got to go see Center Court.  I thought this was really cool because not too many people get to see this court.  We weren't allowed on the grass or anything, but it felt special just to be in the building.  Lots of sports history there and I couldn't get enough of it.  The whole complex though was pretty dead and no tennis was being played.  It would have been cool to see that, even if it was two nobodies playing. 

And that pretty much takes me to now.  I just watched the US women lose to Japan in the World Cup, and I have to say the US should have won with all their chances, but they still played pretty crappy on defense.  In case you were wondering, I've got another 3 days here before I leave and I have a feeling it's going to be mostly working and goodbye drinks.  I'll hopefully post one more time with some last good stories.  For now, I'll say goodnight.  

Happy belated 4th of July

So I've been terrible at giving updates and thank you to those who have been calling me out.  Sadly though I'm tired and I don't know if I have much in me.  But I have some good news on the food front and I can let you in on my very drunken, but fairly quiet 4th of July.

This will be somewhat Memento style as I'm going to tell you about tonight first and go back to the 4th of July.  Thursday nights are a big drinking night here and everyone from the office pretty much rallies for at least a few pints at any number of the local pubs.  Just to paint the picture of how easy it is to get drunk here, there are approximately six pubs all within fifty yards of our work: Dizzy's, Fine Line, Monument, The Walrus and the Carpenter, Britannia, and The Folly.  I'd say we go to Dizzy's the most, only because it's the closest, followed by the Walrus because it's the coolest looking and furthest from the office (less work people).  Tonight we chose the Walrus, which I like because I literally live right above it.  The weather today has been crap...rainy and windy with a side of freezing cold.  We huddled in the alley next to the bar to drink our pints (everyone drinks outside here, even when it's raining) and as people started to leave, the idea was thrown around to go to a place called Bodean's for BBQ.  I was immediately skeptical because if there is one thing this town has shown me is that it gets all food wrong.  Everyone said it's amazing and I agreed, mainly because some good ribs sounded amazing.

We walked int the restaurant, which was only a two minute walk to my place, and I immediately fell in love.  The first thing I saw as I walked in were three different TVs, all playing different baseball games and one even had Pardon The Interruption (it's on ESPN for those who are unaware).  American sports, how I missed you.  They had the Colorado/Atlanta game on right above me with PTI on just across from us.  I knew immediately that I was going to love this place.  They have all American beers and all things BBQ.  I ordered a plate of baby back ribs, BBQ chicken and pulled pork.  I'm not saying it's the best BBQ I've ever had, but it hit the spot.  Everything was just about right, the sauces were amazing, and the view of Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser arguing over whatever they were talking about absolutely made my night.  The pulled pork was easily the best and I wish I had about three more plates of it.  This was easily the best meal I've had the whole trip.  After a hefty meal and a lot of complaining about how full we all were, we called it a night and I headed home to say hi to anyone who is still reading this blog.

So the funny thing is that I was supposed to go to Bodean's on the 4th of July.  They apparently to a big party with buffets of ribs and what not, but I was having a hard time convincing anyone to come.  I was talking a big game on Monday and explained numerous times why and how Americans celebrate the 4th of July.  The problem is that it is just a Monday here and the British could care less about some random US holiday.  No one cares that it's a big day for Americans.  Thankfully I was able to convince two guys from my team to come out, but it was not going to be the big party I was hoping for.  Nevertheless we ended up having a pretty good time.  We went to Dizzy's just across the street after work and to my surprise they were serving bottles of MGD.  I of course insisted that we only drink American beers and after a little bitching from the guys they agreed.  We had a few rounds and drank there for at least a couple hours.  The funniest thing I've learned since coming here is that Europeans apparently don't know about twist off beer caps.  The bartender was struggling to pop the caps off the MGD bottles and I just grabbed one and twisted it off thinking I could help.  Literally the bartender and the two guys I was with had this shocked look of "how did he do that?"  I wish I had played it up more, but I showed them the groves on the bottle and they were stunned.  It was like I taught them magic for the first time.  It's the little differences here that I think are the most fascinating because our countries are so similar.

We ended up bar hopping all throughout the Aldgate section of town (east of downtown London) and it was honestly the most dead night I've seen since coming here.  I think it might have been a mini protest to the 4th of July, possibly because all of the Londoners didn't want to deal with drunken Americans such as myself starting U-S-A chants and singing "America: Fuck Yeah!"  I don't blame them, but it was still pretty tame.  I tried to pick up the pace of the party and switched to jack and cokes, like I do, but it was more of a last ditch effort.  All in all, I ended up having a good time hanging out with my coworkers.  If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be having as much fun as I am and I owe them all big for that.

That's pretty much it for this week.  I figure in my next post I can tell you all about last weekend in Bath and my trip to Canterbury, which will be this next weekend.  I'm going to watch some TV now and pass out because I am seriously full on some delicious ribs and pulled pork.  Goodnight and happy belated 4th of July to all of you.  I hope you all had a good one.

Wishful Thinking

So as many of you know, I my favorite type of food is Mexican food.  Burritos, enchiladas, tacos...I love it all.  Well, when I finally committed to this trip, I knew one of the hardest things I was going to have to give up was the deliciousness which is a well made burrito.  Today, though, my coworkers and I were talking about different restaurants in the area around our office and one guy brought up that there was a burrito place not that far away.  You could imagine the excitement rush over me upon hearing those beautiful words.  While I knew I should be skeptical, my desire got the better of me and I forced us to go there immediately.

When walked through a little rain about 3 blocks away to a very cool street market, apparently where scenes from Harry Potter were filmed.  About the last shop there was the burrito place called Tortilla (creative).  The best way to describe it would be a really ghetto version of Chipotle. The look of the ingredients alone almost made me want to walk out of there.  The meats all looked dry, the cheese had that look of being left out for hours in the sun, and the rice looked like Rice-a-Roni.  And to top all that off, when I asked for guacamole to be added, the man took a big spoonful of this brown chunky stuff that was sitting right in front of us.  I had no clue that that was the guacamole because I have grown up under the assumption that guacamole, especially when prepared in the near past, should be green.  I couldn't take what I said back so I just ate my words and said that would be it.  For the record, I had a steak burrito, with the white rice as opposed to the tomato rice as they called it, black beans, medium salsa, cheese and guac.  The man wrapped it up and handed it over, all for an incredible bad price when you actually do the conversion, and we were on our way.

When I got back to my desk to eat, I had all but given up on any chance of this thing tasting good.  Part of me still wanted to give it an honest chance so I took my first bite expecting little more than a full stomach after it was all said and done.  The verdict...probably the worst burrito I've had in my life.  The rice and guacamole combination shouldn't be fed to prisoners let alone paying customers.  Its only redeeming quality was the steak.  It honestly was not that bad.  But when it's covered in so much other nasty crap, it's hard to say anything was good.  Epic fail for my burrito in London.  But I'm not defeated.  Research this afternoon and some help from my friend Shachi will hopefully lead me to something better than what I had today.

One last funny side bit to close the story out.  The coworker I went out with to get the burrito stopped by my desk about an hour after lunch with only two words to say: "Good burrito."  I almost lost all hope for the British right then and there.  That's it for today.  Goodnight and I hope all of your lunches were better than mine.

Some photos from the first 10 days

They weren't lying about the food

It's been a week since my last post and for that, I apologize.  I've been amazingly busy most nights, which I'm pretty happy about because it's a whole lot better than being super bored by myself.  Highlights from this week will be far less interesting than last week and I can't say I've lost any more phones, but I think that's probably a good thing.

Last weekend ended pretty quietly with me going to the Tate Modern on Sunday afternoon and walking around South Bank a little more.  I remained much closer to the area I'm familiar so that I couldn't lost.  The museum is huge and there's a ton of interesting works to see.  The featured gallery was a photography exhibition showing all sort of family portraits of people related to people who have died throughout history.    It was interesting, but after about 3 hours of art and walking around, I got a little bored so I decided to take scenic route back to my flat.  Along the way I saw the Globe where Shakespeare originally showed all of his plays.  Happy I saw it, but there were way too many people around.  I decided to call it a day.

Work on this week was pretty uneventful.  I don't think the people there really thought about how they wanted to use me so it's been mostly on me to figure out how to fill my day.  Thankfully no one in my office back in SF really knows I'm gone so requests from there keep rolling in.  After work is where most of the exciting stuff happens so I'll stick to those stories.

On Monday night I officially had my first curry.  I was working later than expected and one of the guys from my team suggested we grab some beers and some dinner.  He was shocked to hear I hadn't been to a curry house yet, especially because the best one in the area is apparently right below my flat.  So curry/Indian food is a lot better over here, but so much spicier than I am used to.  After only a few bites I was already sweating and my nose could not stop running (someday someone will have to explain why that happens when I eat eat spicy food).  The meal was fantastic and the walk home was even better because it was literally about steps.  The next morning, however, I was still feeling the effects of the curry.  We have market update meeting every morning at 8:30am and I was still sweating through the whole thing.  Everything I drank or ate still tasted like curry.  Just from that I've decided it might be best for me to avoid curry houses as much as possible.

British food overall is terrible.  From what I can tell, they have no concept of fresh vegetables and anything healthy they do have tastes completely bland.  We are definitely spoiled in California.  Meat here comes predominately in the form of sausages or burgers.  I can honestly say one day I had sausage for all three meals one day, and from what I can tell, that's actually somewhat normal.  Someone here was talking about how he thought that most people here eat pretty healthy and had to stop myself from laughing because I realized that he was being serious.  I'm not even sure how that's possible because I can't even find salads on menus here.  The other easy option here is of course fish and chips.  Every place has some form of fish and chips, and every place claims to have the best.  I'm no expert, but they pretty much all taste the same.  And they all come with a thing called mushy peas.  These have to be the worst form of peas known to exist, yet they apparently love them.  I think the idea is to take already terribly tasting peas, mash them together and then overcook them.  Talk about culinary mastery.  I'll be avoiding these from now on.

Other fine bits of British cuisine that I've had are things like brown sauce, shrimp chips, and sausage rolls.  Brown sauce is good, but it's just like a brown sugar sauce.  Apparently it's big here.  The shrimp chips are vile little things.  Imagine Lays potato chips flavored like ketchup and shrimp.  The sausage rolls are delicious, but quite possibly the most unhealthy thing I've seen here.  They are basically really fatty sausage inside a puff pastry and topped with butter.  A guy in my team ate four of these with a diet coke for lunch.  I almost had a heart attack just watching him eat that.

On Wednesday night I went out to Leicester Square (pronounced Lester, go figure) and Soho to check out the theater district.  I grabbed dinner with Anne, the lady from my flight over, and her daughter.  Dinner was expensive and again not very good, but Anne and her daughter were good company.  I think they were kind of bored after having been traveling all throughout Europe with just each other and needed someone new to talk to.  After dinner I decided to take them to a pub because they hadn't had a drink yet since coming back to London.  I think I got them both pretty drunk, which was not my intention, but very funny by the end of the night.  Anne again tried to drink like I do and her daughter was not an experienced drinking even though she was a sophomore in college.  I quickly realized I could out drink the town of them combined so the night ended pretty early.  After I got them back to their hotel, I wandered around the area for a bit just to see what was going on there.  Bad idea.  This area is definitely the tourist spot of London and I was quickly annoyed with the number of people bumping into me and the randoms that kept walking up to me and asking if I was to go clubbing or if I wanted to "have a good time".  After a few seconds of that, I just hopped in a cab an got out of there.

Thursday night was supposed to be a team dinner night, but the boss man decided to postpone it for the week after.  That meant everyone had the night free from wives/girlfriends already cleared so we decided to make it a big drinking night.  We went to a bar called Dizzy's across the street from work and started with a few pints there.  Our intention was to do a bit of bar hopping, but after enough drinks no one was in any shape to make any decisions so we just stayed, which is fine by me because I knew how to get home.  No great stories to tell other than apparently Brits like buying Americans random shots and  I was again the last man standing that night.  When I walked in the next morning, one of the guys from my team told me that I needed to go back to SF because he wasn't sure his liver could take many more nights like that.  I'm pretty proud of that.

Friday night was more of the same.  This time we did end up doing a bit more bar hopping so I got to see a bit more of the town.  Went home around 1am and got a great night sleep before what I hope to a very fun and busy weekend.  The plan is to do some touristy stuff today, including Regent's Park, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and Westminster Abbey.  Sunday was supposed to include a trip out Wimbledon, but I just checked and apparently they don't play on the middle Sunday unless rain forces them to.  Looks like I need to find something else to do.  Thinking I might try to get out to Stonehenge now instead.  Should be fun.  And with that, I'm off to go explore.

Warm beer, never-ending rain, and a lost BlackBerry

It's late Saturday night/early Sunday morning here and I can't fall asleep so I figured I'd give some good updates to the trip.  Since my last post, I've begun working and I'm just starting to settle into life here.  I'd love to say it's been all great stories and good times, but my afternoon on Saturday brought all the fun I've been having back to reality.  But I'm getting ahead of myself so let's go back a few days.

Thursday was my first day at work and in many ways it felt like I was going to a new job.  I had no clue where the office was, who anyone there was, or what exactly I would be doing there.  Because of my excitement and possible lingering jet lag, I ended up waking up way too early so decided to read some emails and pace around for a bit  as I knew I couldn't leave yet.  I eventually left and headed for what I thought would be a decent walk to the office.  Well, it turns out the office is a literally 100 yards from my flat.  This was a good thing because it was absolutely pouring rain outside.  I know I'm early into this trip, but I have a feeling rain will be a consistent theme throughout my time here.

I won't go too much into detail on the work stuff, but overall it went well.  Everyone in my new team is solid and I have a feeling we will get along really well.  I'm familiar with the general idea of how they do business so the work side of job shouldn't be too much of a problem or hard to pick up.  The day went by quickly and of course was capped off by a trip to the pub.  The team took me to a pub called the The Ship, which basically looks exactly how you would imagine every British pub looking.  They had a good selection of beer, chips and my new favorite bar snack, pork scratchings.  They are basically dried pork fat, much like pork rinds, except without the deep frying.  Delicious.

The whole warm beer fad here is not as bad as the world makes it out to be.  Certain beers are served at around room temperature and are pumped out as opposed to a draft beer like we are used to.  The summer ale I had was quite good and while it was a bit on the warm side, it went down quite smoothly.  And from what I can tell, places all still have beers we have on tap like in the US, which are all served cold.  The mixed drinks, though, are a sad thing to see here.  When I saw the bartender measuring out one shot of booze in each of my jack and cokes, my heart died a little bit.  In the US, the formula is simple: glass, ice, pour coke and bourbon/whisky at equal pace at same time until glass is full.  Sometimes bartenders even top off with additional booze to ensure bar patron will thoroughly enjoy their tasty beverage.  No, not here in the UK.  Everything is measured and sad, which is going to take a lot of getting used to.

After some good US vs. UK banter and inevitable boring finance talk, the guys who took me out slowly went off.  Only one of them able to make it out to last call with me, which is 11pm for pubs, and we were both in pretty bad shape.  Neither of us had eaten dinner (a rookie mistake on my part), but since I was basically already back at my flat, I decided to just call it a night and pass out.  Sadly though, I woke up at like 4:30 in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep.  That made for a very slow work day the next day.

After work on Friday, a few coworkers took me out for a beer again.  After a couple beers and some party juice (Red Bull-vodkas for the non-Schuman readers of the audience), they decided to go to a housewarming party for another guy from my work and thankfully they felt like it would be fun to drag the new American guy along with them.  Four of us grabbed a cab and headed on our way.  British cabs are strange in that if more than two people get in, the other two people have to pull their seat down from the middle and face the other two people in the cab.  I, of course, did not know this and just crouched until the rest of the group laughed and made me aware of why I'm an idiot.  We went up the road to a place I couldn't find again no matter how hard I tried, where a pretty cool party was already under way.  It was still pouring rain outside and what was supposed to be a rooftop party was forced to be inside.  Everyone was drinking a ton and very friendly.  A lot of the people there worked for my company so we had at least a little something in common.

The night progressed and the booze kept flowing.  The person who lived in the flat had a girlfriend from Sweden and all of her sisters and friends were there as well.  They were a hilarious group and were leading the party with an Icelandic drinking game called Spoof.  It's too hard to explain now, but I will show you all when I come back; it's very fun and easy to pick up.  We were all also now speaking very basic phrases in Swedish, most of which centered around how to order a drink and swear at bartenders.  The rain had finally subsided and we eventually were able to go outside to drink there.  This was even more fun because once outside, a swam of little dogs poured out of the house next door to greet us.  I don't think there could have been anything more entertaining to a group of drunk people than about six little chihuahuas running around and being everyone's new best friend.

Eventually the night had to end and at around 2am I grabbed a cab to go home.  I had again not eaten dinner, so once I got home I made myself what I think was sausage and onion pita with mustard.  That may sound gross to most of you, but believe me it was delicious.  I passed out for what may have been the longest sleep I've had in years.  I woke up the next day at around 3pm and after chugging about a gallon of water to rehydrate myself, I decided to go for a walk and see where the streets of London would take me.  Here is were my troubles began.

I took the path along the side of the south end of Thames and eventually wandered inland just see what I would find.  After about an hour of walking and taking photos, the skies again turned an ominous shade of dark gray and before I could figure out where I was, it started absolutely pouring rain once again.  In my haste to salvage my day, I forgot to grab my umbrella when I left (in my defense, it was perfectly sunny at the time), so I basically just had to suck it up and walk back through the rain.  Once I finally admitted to myself that I was lost, I decided to get out my phone to see where I was on a map.  While the map was loading, I placed it down on top of this large plastic thing so that I could take my backpack off.  I now know that this plastic thing is actually a rainwater runoff contraption that almost all buildings here have.  Now, I checked to make sure that there was a top on this thing so I felt confident that I could place my phone on top of it and all would be fine.  Well, right when I put my phone in it, the screw top fell right through and my phone went down into about 6 feet of water.  I tried to grab the phone before it sank all the way to the bottom, but to no avail.  All I was able to grab was the top of the rain water thing, which I then discovered was broken.  I also noticed that my hand had been sliced open a bit, probably when I was trying to grab my phone, and blood was now running down my hand.

After a few minutes of laughing at my situation, I took a few pictures of the stupid rain thing for the memories and just kept walking.  It was probably pride that stopped me from just getting a cab, but I wasn't going to give up and thus I stubbornly kept walking in the hopes of finding my way.  Sure enough, I finally saw some buildings off in the distance that I knew were by my flat so I knew I was going in the right direction.  And about 30 minutes later, I was finally home and completely soaked through.  I cleaned myself up and decided if this was the worst day I could have here, well then at least it's out the way.  I just can't wait to hear my admin's reaction when I have to explain why I need a new phone sent to me.

And that's the latest from here.  I plan on going another direction tomorrow and seeing what trouble I can get to over there.  For a first weekend in new a city, I think I've had a pretty eventful one so far.  Until next time.

Welcome to London

Hello from London.  If you are reading this blog, you hopefully know that I've created this page to document some of the fun and interesting people/places/things I've witnessed during my month long escapade in London and the greater United Kingdom.  This is the first time I've ever attempted to any sort of blog or published writing, so I fully expect this to be boring and full of errors.  I will make a few attempts at humor and post a few photos to keep this interesting, but I make no promises.  I also suck at writing so deal with it.  And with that, here we go...

I'm in day one or two of my trip and so far things are going well as can be.  I say day one or two because I am all sorts of messed up on the time.  I was fully planning on staying awake all day after I landed, but failed miserably and took a nap from 1pm to 6pm.  The day started out well with very few hiccups.  I was pretty much packed when I woke up and there really wasn't too much I had to leave out due to space constraints.  It's extremely hard to pack for a month long trip when you have no clue what sort of weather to expect or what you will be doing.  I brought a shit ton work stuff and I know it's way too much, but I'm a terrible traveler.  Plus, I have a feeling that no matter what I wear I'm going to look like the unstylish American.  I don't really care because I truly am unstylish and American.

Once at the airport, I flew through the check-in lines and security.  My company put me up in business class and apparently that gets you places in SFO.  I got to go in some special line at security that had one person in it while the rest of the goons at the airport glared at me while they waited in their longer line.  After that, I grabbed a quick lunch, called the parents to say goodbye, and basically just sat around for my flight.  Pretty boring so far, but once I was finally on the plane, things started to get fun.

First off, you may be wondering why I titled my blog Six Brandies Deep.  Well, the story goes that once I got on the plane, the fabulous staff at United started feeding me drinks left and right, and since I was basically like a giddy little school girl sitting in business class for the first time, I couldn't say no to anything.  They started me out on some sparkling white wine, which was just ok, but after we took off they came around with more glasses of wine along with good assortment of roasted nuts.  One of the flight attendants (whom I must say had one of the finer mustaches I have ever seen) took a liking to me and made sure to fill me up whenever I was empty, which was quite often.   We had a fine lunch/dinner, which was accompanied of course by more wine.  When the dessert cart rolled around, I noticed that brandy was an option.  Again, since I'm new to the whole business class thing, I asked if booze cost extra, and the mustached man just laughed as I think he was finally understanding that I'm not used to this sort of thing.  He went away for a second and came back with this glass in a glass thing where the inner glass had a full glass of brandy and the outer glass had hot water heating the brandy to a perfectly warm temperature.  Let me tell you that these drinks were AMAZING.  I've never been a huge brandy drinker, but I may be after this trip.  I popped back two of those pretty quickly and at that point I could officially say that I was pretty buzzed.

Everyone around the plane was trying to fall asleep and as much as I wanted to as well, I was not tired at all and was almost in party mode after all the drinks I've had.  I watched a few movies and chatted with the person sitting next to me, Anne, who was traveling with her daughter all through Europe.  She started getting envious of all the deliciousness that I was drinking and joined me in another brandy.  Mustached flight attendant kept an eye on my and every time my glass was empty, he came around with another brandy, even if I didn't ask.  Now that's service.  He eventually stopped with the whole warm glass thing and just started giving them to me straight up.  It's a good thing I was drunk because the movies on the plane were pretty bad.  I watched Unknown, Hall Pass, and Just Go With It.  Hall Pass was funny, but I think it helped that I was drunk.  Unknown was blah, but no amount of alcohol could have saved Just Go With It.  Adam Sandler, you are better than that, or at least you used to be.  Go back to penguins and calling the shit poop.

The flight was wrapping up and I was into what I believe was my sixth brandy (hence the title of the blog).  The flight attendants started cleaning up the cabin, and mustached flight attendant walked by and basically called me out to finish my last glass.  I felt hungover at this point as I had been drinking very little water, but I of course chugged the final glass down as I'm not one to back down from that challenge.  I've come to the realization that mustached man just wanted to see how drunk he could get me, and for that, he will forever have my respect.

The flight landed on time at Heathrow and I again flew through security/customs.  I got to where I was supposed to meet my driver, but he wasn't there.  It's at this point I realized that it is humid as all hell and I was sweating profusely due to the combination of me carrying all my luggage, my newly acquired hangover, and the fact that it's hot as balls.  The driver showed up, but I forgot to get a picture of him holding the sign up with my name on it like I said I would.  We left the airport and hit immediate traffic because we were in the height of morning rush hour.

My first thoughts on London from the drive in was that it looks a lot like Boston.  All of the brick, weird combinations of new and old buildings, and tiny streets made me feel like I was simply on the east coast and not in a different country.  I struck up a conversation with my driver about the Olympics and where all of the construction was for it.  It was at this point he started to get somewhat agitated, as this is apparently a very controversial thing over here.  No one wants the Olympics here because there is no money for it and the people feel like it's a waste.  My driver proceeded to follow-up with some racist jokes related to where they are building the new swimming complex and black people.  I let out an uncomfortable half laugh and decided that maybe it's best to just shut up for a little while.

We finally reached my apartment and the driver went on his merry way.  I meet the flat manager Mike and he showed me my flat and explained how to use everything (yes, I'm calling it a flat as this is the cool thing to do so fuck off; I'm looking at you, Jordan/Choi).  At this point I'm exhausted and everything he told me pretty much goes in one ear and out the other.  He finally left after a few minutes and I'm left to figure out my day.  I ended up spending about an hour at the grocery store because I couldn't find anything and not much is the same as in the US.  I also attempted to get and Oyster card, but the machine wouldn't take my card so I gave up.  I got home, unpacked the food as well as my bags, and proceeded to sleep the best sleep I've had in a long time.

The place I'm staying at is fine.  The kitchen sucks and it will be hard to get any sort of cooking done as it's the size of a closet and there is maybe a spoon and two pans to use.  Thankfully there is the an Indian restaurant at the bottom of the building along with a very popular pub, which blew up around 7pm.  I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time there.  Good news is that I have an amazing bed and the room is pretty quiet.  There is a TV, but I've already come to the conclusion that British programming blows.  All they have is QVC type stations, BBC news, re-runs of Top Gear (the best thing I've seen so far), and bad shows from the US.  I shouldn't be watching TV so I guess this is a good thing.

So that pretty much brings me to now.  I'm past my hangover and of course drinking again; scotch whisky this time.  I know most of you reading this probably didn't need all of these details, and I promise these will get more brief as the trip moves on as I have a feeling I'll have less and less to talk about.  I'll try to update everyone as I start to do more and more cool stuff.  For now, I'll say goodnight and I miss you all.  Tomorrow is my first day at work so it should be a good one.