Subject:   [adventure!] A pound of water in a light drizzle

Date:   11/22/2003 12:25:54 PM

 

A couple of things I've learned about London:

 

London is expensive! My 'budget' hostel has somehow run up to 19.50

pounds/night. My advice to anyone who plans to visit London is to find a

cheap hostel in advance and book it for a week. You can get discount rates

this way, and you don't end up finding a place that has a cheap room for

tonight, but tomorrow night you'll have to switch to one that's twice that.

I was tired this morning and paid one pound (2 bucks) for a little bottle of

water, but aside from that I'm hitting the grocery store and trying to keep

the costs down.

 

For whatever reason[1], I have always been nervous around umbrellas. I'm

sure it has nothing to do with my parents' insistence that Beth and I would

poke our eyes out if we weren't extremely careful with them [2]. I know Beth

has the same phobia. I'm just sure I'll be walking down the street and

someone will turn suddenly and skewer my eyeball. You may have heard that

London is the "City of Two Million %&#-ing Umbrellas". You may also have

noticed that Brits are a pasty white colour, known to hardware store paint

departments everywhere as Picadilly Pale[3]. That is because the sun

doesn't actually shine on these poor buggers.

 

I shared a room last night with a Spanish couple who (after asking how

anyone could live even further North than Chicago! - yes I told them Windsor

is South of Chicago) told me with great confidence that Spain is the

greatest, most beautiful country in the world. So, I think I'll be in Spain

soon.

 

Yesterday, while checking into my current hostel, I met a nice girl from (of

all places) Pembroke, Ontario![4] Oh, and the guy at the front desk is from

Moncton. Aside from that it's Aussies, Aussies, Aussies ... and some

Spanish folks. Now I'm in a room with a Polish girl who keeps laughing at

my planlessness. So far the seat-of-the-pants approach has involved a lot

of walking to look for hostels[5], a great appreciation of Dad's raincoat, a

few digital pictures (I'll send out a link to them as soon as I find a place

to get them online) and a vague sense of what the first few days of the

Camino De Santiago would be like if you were carrying a small (non-wiggly)

child or a drugged midget[6] in your pack.

 

I'm sitting in an internet cafe right now with about 60 greeks jammed in to

watch the Greek football (soccer) game which just started. Lots of cheering

already! Now they're all singing football songs! Awesome! This morning

England beat the Aussies in an apparently important rugby game, but my

hostel full of Aussies was pretty empty. They were probably in the pubs.

 

Hope you're all doing well!

jay

 

 

[1] overprotective parents

[2] umbrellas, not our parents.

[3] my friend Martin Jones' stomach has actually been used to blind

opponents in fights.

[4] For those of you who are wondering, she does not know Julie.

[5] I haven't figured out the phone system here, but I've been told you can

figure out anyone's phone number by taking their social insurance number,

age (in days), longitude, and lotto picks (e.g.,

020-5482-376-439-385928-3-8-5-9-3-4493).

[6] French