when it rains it poors

did i ever mention that things just seem to always fall into place for me? where to begin. i’ll guess i’ll just fill in starting with the 8th.

i believe i spent most of the day shopping. did i just say that? most of the day is probably a stretch. i was man shopping. it was probably about an hour including travel time (which was not insignificant). it had been raining off and on since the previous day. not good when your shoes have mesh on the tops. i got some new shoes at this mostly dr. martens shop near the leceister square tube stop. done. i can’t remember the order, but at some point i got a mobile phone. apparently, most people in europe do pay-as-you-go instead of a monthly fee. it’s also a different cost for text messages. this would probably explain why they say europeans use  text more than americans. anyways, this should have been done the first day.

i also picked up a copy of “goal!” and “revolver”. “goal!” was pretty good. the usual cliche sports movie scenes though. i haven’t watched “revolver” yet. it’s the newest guy ritchie movie. not released in the u.s. either. it supposedly is complex, socritics panned it. i’ll have to ship them to the u.s. when i’m done.
that night, i went to highbury to check out the atmosphere at the arsenal vs real madrid game. tickets were a touch expensive at ~$400 from scalpers (touts) so i had to pass. it would probably be a pretty nice area to live in. you would, of course, have to be a gooner. i also walked around and checked out the new emirate stadium. you too could live in the new condos next to the stadium and have guaranteed season tickets for a measly $400k. kind of makes those downtown homewood condos look crappy since they only have an ugly town hall. no stadium, no season tickets for a major english premier league clubs. losers.

anyway, it was pretty amazing. i walked around for most of the first half. the pubs up the street were all packed to the point people were turned away. there were even people looking through the windows of the pubs.

pretty amazing. the other pictures didn’t really come out too well. it would have been awesome to be in the stadium, but at what price? oh, and interestingly, the same crazy religious woman was down the street from the tube stop standing in the road yelling at people. telling them they should turn away from football. sacrilege! i took some video with the camera. i’ll have to try and upload it somewhere.
that was about all for that day. all in all, it was a good day.

the 9th i was going to actually try and get around to looking at some more areas. i ended up walking across the millinium bridge, saw the replica globe theatre. no pictures, i’m sure there are plenty already in existance. i then went out on the d.l.r. (docklands light rail) to the “all saints” stop to look at a flat. i wasn’t supposed to meet the guy until night, but i wanted to go ahead and look at the area since it would be faster if it sucked to just cancel. it sucked, i cancelled. however, while i was out that way i headed down to canary wharf where the flat on the thames i previously mentioned is. nicer area. i went today and checked it out. more on that later. the canary wharf area really isn’t what you picture when you think of london. it’s all new and modern. it used to be a big port and shipping area (shocking), but when that died off i think it was pretty vacant for a while. at this point, the flat situation was looking pretty gloomy. i ended up at some point working out a deal with the hotel guy to where he would give me the next week at 25 pounds a night. that was in range of what i was looking to spend weekly. that would give me time to not have to rush into anything.

i guess it was after that i went up to  kensington high street and bayswater tube stops. a “high street” is apparently equivalent to a “main street” with shops and what not flanked by housing on adjacent streets. kensington high street has a lot of expensive shops. (mom, there was a laura ashley, but it was closed. i’ll have to go back at some point to get you that catalogue.) it’s seems in a lot of these areas that the shops usually close fairly early, 19-ish. the restaurants stay open longer.

bayswater was decent, however, it seemed like a large number of american chain shops in this area though. i’m not sure why.

i spent the rest of the night watching “goal!”. i’m sure there’s a lot that i’m leaving out. i probably should record things the same day if i can’t post directly.

today, finally, i did laundry this morning. exciting. i then moved back into a new room, next to my first one, that’s even smaller than the first. i know, it’s difficulty to believe. if you weighed 200 lbs you would be screwed. i almost can’t move in it. i should be here too much so it’s not a problem.

i think after eating at benjys at victoria station shopping centre i went up to the baker street tube station. it’s where madame tussaud’s is. i didn’t go in though. from there, i ended up walking to the marleybone high street area. i think this would be a pretty decent area to live. good feel. it was a bit away from tussaud’s so it wasn’t touristy. i don’t think most tourists get very far from tussaud’s.

i had gotten an e-mail from the guy at the flat on the thames in canary wharf this morning and had arranged to see it at 18:00. it was probably around 15:30 so i started making my way towards canary wharf since it’s a bit east of the central city. almost everything around canary wharf is brand new. a lot of glass and steal skyscrapers. looks like every other modern city. the canary wharf tube station is very large and nice. from there, you can get into a couple of different malls. they are all fairly nice, maybe high end. i didn’t go in any stores (shock). i was really too busy trying to find a toilet. it’s all very nice if you want to go shopping. especially if it’s raining or freezing cold (the wind off the water is a bit much) or both. you never have to go outside.

i walked from there over to look at the flat. it was extremely nice. i think 4 stories. i meant to take pictures. there’s a roof top terrace that looks over the thames to onside (with the millinium dome on the other side of the river) and the skyscrapers in the opposite direction. at 160 pounds, including all bills, internet and a cleaning service, it seems too good to be true. i was going to sleep on it, but decided on the way home that i just couldn’t pass it up. at least for a month while the guy i talked to was going to be out. the only real downside is that it’s not really “london” when you picture “london”. i always think of close buildings, with narrow streets and shops. so starting in about a week, i’ll be living there for at least a month-ish. i’m supposed to meet the othere guys that live there either tomorrow or sunday just to make sure there’s no problems. part of the goodness is that the guys that live there are german investment bankers! that means i can work on them to generate funding for a startup (then think of an idea) and work on my german before the world cup. it’s as if there’s a higher power watching over me. of course, if that was true, everyone’s really wasting a lot of time on sunday mornings.

i went to the pub around the corner to eat dinner. fish and chips. it was pretty good. the music choice in the place was total crap. luckily, i can only here out of 1 ear and even that one i think might still be a little stopped up. it’s hard to tell for sure.

so, a few quick comments. apparently black is the new black here, because pretty much everyone seems to not where any color at all. even my tan pants seem to stick out. would it kill these people to put a little color on? does the weather cause the fashion or the fashion cause the weather? it’s a mystery. i wore my purple dino socks today since i was doing the wash. i made sure when i was on the tube to cross my leg to make sure the purple stuck out.

i really like that the price on the item in stores is the price you pay. vat included. what i don’t like is the stupidity that they’ll make stuff cost 99p. what the hell? i’m reading “memoirs of a geisha”. in it, they comment that there’s a unit of money in japan called a ‘sen’ that’s 1/100th of a ‘yen’. even at the point of the book, 1920′s, a sen is a worthless amount. when is the u.s and u.k. going to get a clue and get rid of this ridiculous fractional money. useless. either that or start saying things a 8000 cents. doesn’t go with the easy character input though. the 1 and 2 pound coins also makes it difficult to not have any change on you.

so, a start at a checklist for how to move to london.

1. if you’re going to be staying for an extended period to watch football matches and don’t have somewhere to stay the whole time, it would be a good idea to get your visa in advance. time saver.
2. make sure not to rupture your ear drum. to avoid flight ear, it’s probably a good idea to not chew gum so it won’t pull your filling out (forgot to mention that earlier). it makes it annoying to try and communicate with these people with poor pronunciation if you lose hearing in one ear.
3. when you get into victoria station, i think it’s impossible not to come through there regardless of airport, go to the tourist information center or any tube ticket booth and get yourself an oyster card. apparently 50 pounds is the limit. there’s an additional 3 pound deposit for the card that you supposedly get back when you turn it in. they’ll give you a thing to register it, but according to the website it’s not required. so don’t do it. you won’t have an address anyway.
4. go up the escalator to the shopping centre and walk straight to “the carphone warehouse” and get yourself a pay-as-go mobile phone. this will give you 5p /min (20 minutes for a pound) calling to the u.s. and 15p/min local calls and 7p local texts. the phone i got was free with a 50 pound top-up (that’s the phrase for pretty much anything where your pre-paying on an account, no idea where it comes from).
5. go to your hotel and take the rest of the day to bum around as your already way ahead.
6. while bumming around, check out gumtree.com for short term flatshares to let. luck into finding some germans with a nice place.

that list alone probably would have saved me about 4 or 5 days.

tomorrow, no pressure. all i have to do is get up to watford (way out at the end of a tube line) and try and get tickets for the watford vs reading match. i will have to support reading since they have 2 u.s. players. i suppose i should try calling in the morning to see if they still have tickets. it should be a decent game since reading is first in the 1st division and watford is 4th. i’m also kind of looking forward to seeing what kind of area watford is as an extreme suburb. hopefully it will be very village like. hopefully, after that i’ll head to canary wharf to have a pint with the germans.

i really have to try to not get stopped up like that. i know there are all kind of things i’ve left out. oh well.