in the beginning…

i am now in london. so far, it’s been relatively painless. the flight from birmingham to atanta was uneventful. it’s only 28 minutes in the air. the flight from atlanta to gatwick airport in london was decent, 8 hours in the air. the plane wasn’t full so there were a lot of empty seats. luckily, there was no one sitting next to me. however, i still really wasn’t able to sleep. the recliners in first class looked way more comfortable, but the $650 to $4000 comparison is no contest.

the only truly interesting part of the whole trip thus far has been the holdup by the immigration officer. she was nice enough, but asked way too many questions. apparently, she thought there was something strange about coming to london to watch football matches for 3 months and only have somewhere to stay for the first 6 days. i should have tried to get a copy of the notes she was taking. where are you staying? how are you going to fund this? how much cash do you have? what teams are you going to see (should have said west ham at this point and it all would have been over, but i didn’t find out until later that that was her team). after a round of questions, she went to this little booth with other immigration officers, chatted a bit and then came back with more questions. this had to go on for at least 30 minutes and then it was on to searching my bags. after locating my bags, relatively easy since everyone else was already gone by now, we went to the customs area where they have tables to search bags. first, my laptop bag, which had the only interesting bits, she took moose’s card and a valentine’s day card from my parents to copy for “my file” (why?), as well as a business card. i think she took some other stuff to copy, but i don’t remember what exactly. then then searched my rucksack (backpack). it was much less interesting since there was only clothes in it. luckily she didn’t take everything out. although, some socks tried to escape. first the dryers now at customs.

after searching everything, and not really finding anything, we went back upstairs where i waited a bit while she copied everything. she brought my stuff back, stamped my 6 month visa, told me to go to a west ham game and i was finally on my way. this would have been much more entertaining if i had recorded it. i don’t think my no-sleep banter was helping the situation either (“i don’t know” is apparently an insufficient answer). in the end, i think that she was just confused by the whole situation and just kept asking questions to see where it would go. i was never in doubt that i wouldn’t get in the country. for future reference, if ever planning a trip such as this, it’s probably a good idea to get your visa ahead of time, even though it’s not required.

a short (30 minute) trip on the gatwick express train and i was at victoria station. very crowded. it’s a main hub. lots of foreigners. i just walked from there to my hotel, the melbourne house.

it’s nice enough, the room is a single, no shower, no toilet. those are shared.

i’m boring myself. after checking into the hotel, i grabbed a sandwich at this little coffee shop that had internet access (they were still cleaning my room). i think the 3 girls that were working there were all french. the place was tiny, i don’t know why they had 3 people working there, and another guy doing the internet access downstairs. whatever.

now for some important stuff, didn’t need the power convertor i got at radio shack for $18 or the adapters for it, another $18. in fact, i can’t even use them with my laptop since the convertor won’t take a 3 prong plug. i was able to get just an adapter at a place named dixons (like radioshack) in the victoria station shopping area for £8. speaking of pounds, coins are annoying. they have 1 and 2 pound coins. i see now why the dollar coin didn’t make it in the u.s.

i asked the guy who runs the hotel (everton fan) about getting football tickets. not much help really. he said that he normally just gets tickets fromt ticketmaster and only “super fans” have season tickets. thus far, i would have to say that football over here is really no different than pro american sports (including college football) to the general population. it looks like getting tickets for a good game is down to an expensive ticket broker or a scalper (whatever they’re called here) outside the stadium. i think i’m going to attempt to hit the fulham vs arsenal match this saturday and get tickets outside. worst case, i can probably watch it at a pub near the stadium.
i would also say that london is similar to chicago and new york in that all the attractive women appear to be foreigners. it’s not the same it the south.

i still have to find somewhere to live the rest of the time and get a pay as you go mobile phone.

cheers.

p.s. – wordpress rocks.