London Calling

I'm back from my 2+ weeks in London all refreshed and ready to get back to the daily grind (NOT!!!)

The day I flew, there was a big blizzard in NY, it probably snowed from 10 am - 3 pm and then it turned into an ice storm, though my flight was shockingly supposed to leave on time. That was until we got on the plane only to find out that one of the toilets was broken. The pilot explained that they all worked while in flight, but they use a different system for flushing while grounded, and one was not working while we were on land. Um...who cares - no one goes to the bathroom on the plane while on land!! They had to call the specialty toilet tech to fix it, but there was only one and he was on another plane. When that was fixed, they had to get the specialty guys to de-ice the plane. After that, they needed another set of specialty guys to dry ice the plane. THEN we had to wait for MORE specialty guys to direct the plane onto the runway. That totaled 2.5 hours of me sitting on the plane with two screaming kids sitting behind me, and quite frankly it was torture.

I landed on Saturday and Dave picked me up from the airport. His roommates were away the whole time so I was able to throw my shit all over the flat, yeah! We cooked loads and watched a bunch of movies (I recommend The Machinist and In Bruges.)

Dave looking all hubba hubba in the kitchen

Hugs

On the night I arrived, we went into Clapham and met up with some of Dave's friends for Xmas dinner and drinks. I pulled something really dinky out of my Christmas cracker, can't remember what it was but it was plastic and probably broke.

kds

We met up with Jay a few times and I met Joy for lunch that first week. Dave and I also searched high and low for quiz machines around St. Christopher's Place, one of my favorite areas of London.

We actually "did" some things on this visit. A pub quiz in Clapham. A panto (I'd never been.) The movies (Burn After Reading.) We also went ice skating at the Natural History Museum.We didn't fall at all
We heard a big crash (garbage or something) and I was like "Uh oh, who knocked the dinosaur over?" Hahahaha!!!! Well, I thought it was funny.

We went to his parents' house for Xmas. On Xmas eve we played the Wii and went to the Red Lion (the village local pub), Xmas day at the house we had dinner, played my new Spot the Intro game, and did karaoke till 3 in the morning, Boxing Day his brother et al came over, and the day after all of the cousins put on a nativity play.

Little GoodmansDave's uncle from Texas via Saudi Arabia came for a visit on the Sunday. We went into Clacton and it was about -23 degrees by the water. You can tell by the photo:The following day we went to Colchester Castle.

First capital of England (I think? I can't remember, I drank too much over the holidays.)

Olivia with her medieval shield
Dave, my soon-to-be slave

On New Years we went to Brixton for the XFM night. It was okay, I'm not a fan of Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip who were playing but good music otherwise. Long queues but at least we were able to walk there and back. They confiscate your gum there by the way.

jh

We went to Canary Wharf to meet Shiraz for lunch. I'd never seen these "men" before.

We did a London Pub Walk along the Thames. It was a tour of places on the south bank with stops at 3 pubs. I finally got to see where Bridget Jones lives!

lh

We stopped in the Tate Modern as part of the tour. The giant exhibit with huge spiders is up at the moment.

On my final night, we met up with Ben, Alex, Dan Dan and Andy C. at Liberties for a drink. I left on Sunday and it's back to the visa countdown now. Blegh.

jhg

I'm watching The Bachelor right now. Since when do the girls get out of the limo and tell him he's gorgeous, handsome, beautiful? Are you kidding me? The dental hygienist walking up to him with fake messed up teeth was really funny (until she confessed that she'd been stalking him.)

jh

On Tuesday night I saw Glasvegas at Bowery. I only knew a few songs by them but the hype over them in the UK has been ridiculous so I thought I'd go. Yeah, so I'm not convinced. I think they would have sounded better in a bigger venue as they have a powerful sound, but I just wasn't that into the music. That may be because I don't know the lyrics of anything and you can't understand what the singer's saying but still I wasn't feeling it. Also, they had these super bright spotlights that shined on the audience for at least half of the show - that's the first time I'd been to a gig where the audience was squinting or looking down for a lot of the time. I saw Keith Murray from We Are Scientists downstairs afterwards though. First indie band spotting of the year yippee!

jh

Last night a few of the girls from work hung out and ordered in Indian food. Amazingly I tried something new!! The food was actually from a kosher vegetarian Indian place so I couldn't get my usual chicken tikka masala. I had Palak Paneer instead - it was cheese chunks in a spinach sauce and it was delicious.

mh

Something I have to share with you - my new favorite commercial. Watch it here, I love it!!!

uh

Time to read Twilight, totally obsessed.