the last days in the UK

So, my last few days in the UK were fairly eventful. I went out on the town with a kid from gay.com. Saturday evening I had drinks at Sanctuary, ended up just chatting with him. Then we grabbed burger king (eyeroll). We watched part of a huge breast cancer marathon. In the 20 minutes we sat there, we caught neither the beginning nor the end of the stream of people walking by, late at night. This was right outside picadilly circus, not far from buckingham palace.

Sunday, I caught the changing of the guard before heading off to Oxford to spend some quality time with Ro. I had another curry + pear crumble meal (at the nosebag in oxford, tastty, but a bit pricy. =) Oxford is pretty, it was great seeing Ro again, more pictures will be forthcoming.

Monday, I checked out the London Eye (huge lines! I passed on it), and the British Museum. More pictures. Huge, enormous, filled with priceless artifacts. Pretty, too. Art ranging from the modern to the truly ancient. Countless artifacts and archaelogical stuff too. I got totally lost. I had dinner at Mildred’s. Spotted a gay bar on the way. Mildred’s, good food. Slow service, but I found it friendly. They are looking for waitstaff. It has a rep for iffy service, but I think that’s mainly due to being swamped.

Later in the evening, I came back to the bar. It was smoky of course, I got hit on by some very inebriated guys who I did not find attractive. Eventually settled in to chat with a friendly, older, deaf bear. He introduced me to his friends. Turns out that 3 of us were from ohio. The friendly bear was from Berlin, OH, and a friend of his from Steubenville. Heh. Still, they were good, friendly people. Tea & hot chocolate afterwards, then back to the hostel to get ready for the plane flight to germany … which is another story. =)

Germany not going as well

I knew the language thing would be an issue for me, but I wasn’t quite aware how much of an issue. Not being able to communicate well with most of the people around me really bugs me. Not that many of them seem to be interested in talking. The weather has been totally clear the past couple days.

It didn’t take me long to figure out I overpacked, but traveling in second class on the national rail system drove the point home. One suitcase partially underneath the seat in front of me, my gym bag between my legs, and my backpack on top of my legs. And still the suitcase invaded the legroom of the seat next to mine. A teensy bit cramped. There was no apparent luggage space, other than an overhead rack to short to accomodate anything but my backpack, which has all my entertainment materials. I’m not sure whether there’s a baggage checking arrangement, or you’re just not supposed to bring that much stuff in second class [, moron].

I finished Skipping Toward Gommorrah on the plane to Frankfurt, yesterday. It’s a pretty good book, overall. The premise of the envy section is weak, and the pride section is redundant with much of his other writing (though still relevant and well thought out).

I’m probably going to rent a bike and check out the castle today. Joe told me where I can find a veggie friendly place around here. This trip segment solidly makes the point that two days anywhere is not a very long time. grr, sigh.

I want to find vegetarian (at least, vegan would be nice if swingable) versions of the local cuisine; it’d be cool if I could find a local homo establishment to meet people. My goal in going on this trip was to expose myself to different cultures. To really do that, I feel like I ought to be speaking to locals, getting to know them, forming transcontinental friendships. Whatever, no time for any of that. This is cranky scu speaking.

London: My observations

Okay, this is a really cool town. If I had the money, and no residency considerations, I’d choose this over nyc in a heartbeat. NYC is the only remotely comparable town I can think of. But london has better architecture, better city design, and better public transportation. Plus I like the accent. On the other hand, everything is incredibly expensive, and this city sleeps. Or at least the part I’m in does.

London is compact, liberally dotted with parks, and sometimes more than dotted. There are large statues and monuments all over. Buildings that you’d think are monuments, but serve more mundane purposes. There seems to be a 4 story minimum building height, with no real upper limit in site. Public transit goes everywhere. The suburbs are still banal. The boundary between urban growth and pastoral areas is shockingly abrupt to my US experience. I haven’t seen a single story house anywhere. At all. Lots of litttle side streets. And contruction, reconstruction, or deconstruction everywhere. You see buildings that have to be hundreds of years old next to one that was clearly built sometime in the last 20. Often times sharing walls. That parts a little chaotic. Some of the streets are paved in brick, others with asphalt, slate, whatever. Ditto for the sidewalks. I have nearly been killed at least 10 times by my aggressive pedestrian reflexes combined with traffic coming from a direction I don’t expect traffic to come from. Getting used to this hasn’t been entirely good for me, because it’s screwed up even my sense of east v west, and furthermore, if this were to still be in place when I got to the US, I’d risk being roadkill again. Though, I have to say London drivers are the most aggressive drivers I’ve seen so far.

The food has been pretty good, despite the expectations I’ve been given. I’ve been selective. Veganism is easier here than in chicago, harder than sf or minneapolis. But really, it all depends on your planning, forethought, etc, etc. I could use more of that. =)

The locals are, on the whole, polite, and very non-intrusive, but friendly once conversation is initiated. Yeah, I think I’d enjoy living here. But that sure ain’t in the cards. =)

If I ever have mone money than I know what to do with, I might come back here. But more likely, I’d go looking for an equally cool place with a better exchange rate. 😉

In London

Scamming free wireless. The flight was nice. London is pretty. See, I even took pictures (warning, huge and unedited). It is rainy and cold (though not cold by minnesota standards).

And, oh my god it is sooo easy to exhale money in this place. It’s not bleeding, like there’s some abnormal injury, just going through everyday processes is expensive. Travel is expensive, lodging is expensive, and food is expensive. Oy.

Also, my voltage adapter blew after about 30 minutes of doing its job. RIP. Should have read the fine print. This was after I kindly (read: accidentally) donated my western european travel guide to some anonymous underground passenger.

Today I took a little walking tour and took many pictures of architecture. I went looking for the Cartoon Art Trust, but apparently my guidebook was either outdated or flat out wrong. The place I went looking was under construction. Near “Gay’s the word”, a nice hole-in-the-wall, gay-male-focused queer bookstore. (turns out it’s significantly closer to my hostel, but not open again while I’m in London). I shrugged it off and went to the London Transportation Museum… which is closed for remodeling or some such. But at least I got to see Covent Market. Pretty cool little spot. Incredibly crowded.

I had lunch at an organic, hippy restaurant. It was tasty, I got a bowl of dahl and a tasty fruit crisp for a little less than 7 pounds, or nearly 14 dollars, with water to drink, shared tables, and self service on the silverware, water, etc. I sat and chatted with some friendly locals, who are moving to Geneva. One in international relations, something or other, and her husband a pastor, helping with gangs.

I replaced my step down transformer with a higher power one, for about $50 (an even higher rated one would have cost me about $25 in chicago). Thus how I am able to upload my pictures and chat with you all tonight.

Tonight I plan to hemmorhage money. I’m going to go to a gay bar somewhere nearby and chat with some locals. That’s the plan, anyway.

Tomorrow, I’ll hang out with Ro for most of the afternoon in Oxford, and watch the changing of the guard at buckingham palace (since it’s near where the bus will pick me up). Monday is largely unplanned, but I do intend to take a trip up in the London Eye.

A strange reluctance to leave

Okay, so, Minneapolis hasn’t been the greatest for me. So, why am I so hesitant to leave? Is it the gnawing feeling that I could have done better? The feeling that I never really got to know the place, because I was so profoundly wrapped up in my own little internal dramas? Enh, maybe.

Maybe it’s looking back over the past couple years with a critical eye and thinking of the opportunities missed, the time misspent, they ways I could have done everything better. And the urge to fix it where possible.

Reluctance to start over? Who the hell knows.

I just know I’ve been dragging ass on my way out the door. And here I am lounging in the wake of my packing frenzy. Looking at the few items that I didn’t push into a bag or a box, somewhere and feeling a bit of despair because I won’t be able to cram them all into the suitcase space I have.

I think I need to calm down, chill out. It’ll all be okay. I’ll head up to Chicago tomorrow and get there in the afternoon. It’ll be fine.

skype account

I purchased a skype number so that while I’m overseas, people won’t need to pay out the nose to get in touch with me. It’s even based in the chicago area. Heh. Cool.

Any other skype users out there?

For those not in the know, skype is a phone-over-internet (voice over ip, or VOIP) service, so that one can call people anywhere for reasonable rates. For instance. Calling the UK on my cell is like $1+/minute. Calling the UK on skype, to a land line, is $.021/minute. Ditto for Scott in Germany. Now, cells can be more expensive to reach, as I found out the hard way. Dialing Ro’s cell # cost $.76 cents for 3 minutes. Still better than calling from my cell.

And if anyone I were calling used skype, it would be free.

You prepay, so it’s like a calling card that way. You can also buy numbers (for $12 for 3 months or $38 for a year) that forward to your client, or to a voicemail service, which you can, of course, access from anywhere online.

Oh, and they’re having a promo where it’s free to call the US and Canada until the end of the year. Sweet.

send me an email if you want the geeky new #. 😉

Stephen’s Virtual Yard Sale

Free Queen Size Bed, with mattress, frame and boxspring. You just have to cart it away.

Two 6′ x 2′ x 1′ (approx) bookshelves with 1 fixed and three adjustable shelves. In good condition. Asking $15 each.

One larger shelving unit. about 6′ long, maybe 5′ tall, has 4 shelves. Asking $40. Around twice the capacity of regular bookshelves.

Two rugs. Originally about $100 each. asking $25.

One 18 speed bike with helmet, lock, light (case cracked), rear rack, emergency tire pump, high quality men’s seat. Drop down handle bars. $50. Not pretty, but very functional. 1 Saddlebag available, price negotiable.