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.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
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.
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.
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