Hey chaps
Don’t have much time, since the battery is low and there is no plug on this blasted train.
I am headed for a new countryJ, I always like discovering new country, and my destination is wails. Some might say whales is not a country, so I had a debate with a fellow called O.G who I found is a welsh person and he had a debate with his friend, I don’t know the other lad about it, that other lad wanted to see 30 countries by his 30th birthday, and they decided that Wales, Scotland, Ireland and northern Ireland are separate states , I agree (since they have a national soccer team). So it is decided by a vote of 3 and the council of the welsh that country number (I think 41 or 42, need to recount) is just an hour ahead.
And you know that you can’t just come to the place, you must do something of importance, so in about two and a half hours I will go to the Cardiff stadium and watch my 1st ever international rugby match between the local expecting defeat Welsh side V.S the impressive New Zealand All Blacks (one of the top 3 teams in the world) so this is an experience worth remembering, filming and blogging about.
So let’s recap the last few days.
I arrived , wait , let’s go a day back.
Monday after noon I was about to go to the Cleveland airport, and lucky my remembering wife commented that the flight is not from the Cleveland airport, thus saving me another flight story (and yes, again with Delta), so we drove to Akron and had a smooth flight to Atlanta and from there to Heathrow.
Ok now we are in London, Tuesday at noon.
Took the Tube to Hammersmith, then walked to the hotel. It’s a novelty here, people walk, they don’t walk in Cleveland, just last weekend we drove from one store to another in the same shopping complex, how American is that!!!!, so I like the walking part. It was cold , but not too cold.
I freshened up, wore my best clothes (the actual wedding pants) and went to work. The first day was a prepare day and since the staff doesn’t work in the evening unless they have to, I had an early evening, but so tired from the flight that I crashed early, woke up at night for an hour then slept through.
The next morning I was happy to find an English twist to the breakfast, with sausages and eggs (instead of the usual bacon and eggs in this hotel chain, and crausons ( I know its misspelled, but what is the right spelling , can’t find it with the spell check tool) instead of rolls. Then walked to the hospital for a long upgrade day, upgrade days are the worst, you don’t know what to expect only to expect that something would go wrong. Something did, 90% of the work was finished in an expectable delay with obstacles solved, but one issue remained (unsolved till now!!!). so went back to the hotel at 2 am and ate nothing but meat pie (this is my version of local cuisine), came back at 7 am.
Before coming back I had an English breakfast,
This time I wasn’t as excited to find sausages and the roll which I cannot spell, don’t get me wrong, its good, but I like to try new British food. This day was shorted and by 10 pm I went back to the hotel after having a meat pie that day.
On the road back I passed by a Lebanese shop and had myself a Shawarma , I had high hopes of a middle eastern place, but it was late, the meat was dry, the humus was in low amounts, the garlic sauce was very garlicky , and I enjoyed every biteJ.
Next morning, Thursday already and I have yet to see a bit of London, since Hammersmith is a city suburb of some kind without any real tourist attractions other then Bars. I did discover that 90% of woman are dressed in short skirts, and sine I freeze in my pants, how they do not, the trick is the nylons, they all wear some form of tights in all shapes and colors, and the skirt acts as the 2nd layer. I was not cold below the knee since I have the high sock now, but my thighs are freezing, in short, I need a skirt. Londoners are smokers, it is very noticeable and every one drives on the wrong side. I was scared a couple of times by seeing a car with no driver, till I look at the passenger holding the wheel.
This is my 2nd time in London, the last was 15 years ago, and it was my last vacation before the army, I was in a different mindset, to see and experience everything. I am more serious now and focused on work.
On Friday morning I woke up and had an English breakfast with exactly the same ingredients, and spent the rest of the day trying to solve a problem and very much felt like this would never end, every time a hurdle was met, another came, it was ridiculous, with lap tops crashing, new errors, software that does not want to be installed, I blame bill gates and expect a refund.
Later that day (after going to a Turkish place and really enjoying a quality Shwarma). We reached the last hurdle and found, and we discovered that the (some) of the problem lay in a simple network port miss configured, since this type of thing needs to be handled by IT in the facility, we waited for them and I spent the time by reading Narnia (there is a Narnia movie coming up). And left at a reasonable time of 7 pm. I felt I was working too many hours this week (not unusual about the many hours or the feeling of working too much) so I decided to hit the city.
I discarded by nice clothes and wore my Gil clothes and snickers and went out bravely without my pouch to the Tube and was on it around 8 pm, the last tube ends before midnight so I had to plan my time carefully and not miss out. I arrived at half eight (that’s 8:30 for you non UK people) to St.James station, I had a basic tourist map and started to walk fast, since it was cold and I still didn’t have a skirt.
Right away I noticed the blue lights of the Eye of London, it stood out above everything. But it was still far away and I started by passing by the Scotland yard , sorry the NEW Scotland yard and took a photo next to it and checking if any sloth is watching me do it. (btw, Scotland is the only country in the British isles that I have not visited, passing by the Scotland yard does not count, perhaps if they interrogate me) from there I went to the Westminster Abbey which was closed at this time , like most place I would see this night, but it is very impressive at night, you notice more things when you travel alone and you notice more things at night. Like the many clocks on the buildings, Big Ben is not the only one, Trafalgar square had 3. Ben was saying that time was running out so I moved on, watched the lights on the Thames and walked by the river , passing the Great Obelisk and the Sphinxes, and unusually dragon like fish statue on the many lanterns. And always the Great Eye is watching.
I passed the Hispaniola ship and proceeded towards Convent Garden which looks remarkable at night, with the Christmas lights, huge starts and apples (wait for photos), most impressive, but time was short and I moved on through the crowds (it is Friday night) to Leicester square and was surprised by the half price tickets signs in every corner, I moved on to Piccadilly square and from there on Regent Street which was full of huge Narnia signs and lights till oxford circus and proceeded to Totenham square back to Leicester square to Trafalgar square (with the many clocks) and paused there to look at the square from the wrong side.
In Piccadilly I think I took a photo of a guy taking his own Osh photo, never took a strangers Osh photo before, but here I took the photo of the square from behind, you don’t see the faces on the status, but Big Ben is very obvious in the background. It was already 11 and I decided to plow on, so I walked through the Mall. I never knew why the big street in Washington is called the Mall, now I know, it’s because the English have this street, but I still don’t know why the English call it the Mall. It was dark at the Mall (it’s not a shopping mall and it is night). I walked by Buckingham palace and the queen did NOT invite me for tea, how rude of here, I could have given her wedding tips, help arrange the invites, I am now experienced in that sort of thing, but she chose to ignore, so I moved on till I reached wellington Arch and back to the last Tube station.
Oh while in the Mall (it’s a wooded area) to ladies which were peeing in the woods , ran out to their parked car, not an important event, just not something one would expect so close to the rude queen.
Got on the tube at 11:30, the tube was full and too girls in the next cart decided to have fun and do faces through the windows. On the windows they have 2 stickers, with a narrow gap in the middle, so they would stick their faces with the slip just for the eyes, it was kind of funny so I took a video. I managed to be back in the hotel precisely at midnight. Full of cramps and feeling great.
This morning, I woken up, packed and had an English breakfast of the same unchanged menu and went to the hospital for last check, the last problem is still unresolved but it is up to IT to fix, so I had a decision to make. London is full, no hotel beds (in a reasonable price) out there since there is a big rugby match with England facing Australia, so should I spend the day tracking a hotel and walkabout London or do the unexpected. At one point I felt like I was way to serious in the last year and decided to stop and enjoy myself.
So I took the tube to Paddington station and now I am on the train heading for Cardiff, I found out about the game on the train which is full of hopeful welsh lads heading for the game. I have no hotel for the night, only 15 pounds and no ATM number (I do have credit cards so no worries) and no specific plans for tomorrow, but what the hack, it fun.
Oh, did you know that there is no pound symbol on the English keyboard, they Call it the Has sign but whatever the name , it is not there, they also don’t have the At symbol, so I have no idea how they email each other, I have to Google At symbol to find it and copy it to an email , forcing me to be creative.
The country side is lovely with green hills, lots of gray ships and the occasional black ship, some mobile hamburgers in their pre burger form and white frost on the low rolling hills which makes an interesting combination with the green fields below.
That’s it for now, I still owe you tails of the new house and the move itself, but that will come at another time.
Cheers from the welsh border.
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