Walk Softly and Carry a Big Schtick - July 31st, 2005
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11:40 am
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England swings like a pendulum do
Friday afternoon, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) library_lynn picked me up at the office and we headed to LAX. I'd learned at the last minute that our airlines had a 70 lb per bag weight limit, not 50 lbs, so we didn't have to do any last-minute shuffling -- we'd packed our bags to the 50 lb. limit. We have new aloha-print suitcases, two red (mine) and one blue (hers). I used Lynn's old carry-on bag for my uses, instead of taking the padded laptop bag; a calculated risk, because there's less protection for this computer [as you can see, it made it through unscathed], but I didn't want to grapple with two carry-on items. Lynn used her new "Shoujo Beat" bag that she got when she signed up for Shouju Beat at Anime Expo. When I wheeled my luggage out of the office to the car, and we loaded the car, we made the decision to bring the folding trolley with us. It's travelled internationally before -- it was a checked item on our Toronto trip -- but, like us, this is its first trip overseas.
We made it to London, took Heathrow Express to Paddington Station (a natural place for a bear to change trains) and activated our GSM phones. We're on Vodafone. My UK ph#: 0 7767 741313. library_lynn is 0 7767 741314. I've brought a number stamper and stamp pad, and I've been stamping my cell number on the back of my business cards. Maria, anyone else dialing from outside UK, I believe the country code is 44 and you leave off the zero. Therefore you should be able to dial me from the US (for example) by 011 44 7767 741313.
I also had lunch: a genuine cornish pasty from West Cornwall Pasty Co., there in the station. I asked the man settled the question of how to pronounce the word "pasty"? (Some pronounce it with a long A, some with a short A -- in other words, to rhyme with tasty or nasty, respectively.) He pronounced it with a schwa or short O sound -- like the first part of posse or possibility. Well, now I know. He was mildy surprised to learn I'd had pasties in California.
The folding trolley came in hndy getting our luggage from Heathrow to Paddington and onto the Underground. I ran into my ankle, though, so I've got a bruise on my left ankle now. Ouch! We took the Bakerloo line to Baker Street, then the Jubilee line to North Greenwich. Which is a station straddling zone 2 and zone 3 -- so we went a bit of a ways out from central London, in other words. Then a taxi to the Express/Holiday Inn.
The room had an interesting feature: you had to put your room card key into a gizmo to make the lights in the room work. We flopped down, took a nap and a shower, and eventually emerged into the world; walked down to the 14-screen "Filmworks" which is the core of a little shopping centre, with several restaurants and next door to a DIY warehouse store, an electronic appliance store (i.e., like a Home Depot, followed by a Best Buy store), and a supermarket called Sainsburys. There was a Starbucks in the grocery, but (a) they were closing when we got there and (b) didn't have wireless access. So we didn't get online last night as originally planned.
We had dinner at Nando's,, which is a Portuguese chicken place. (Sort of like El Pollo Loco, as far as the marinated chicken goes.) I had a "Savanna" Cider, from South Africa; library_lynn had a hot chocolate which was served up frothy like a capuccino w/o the coffee. Nando's was very tasty; their chile and lime "mild" chicken was spicy enough for me, I'm glad I didn't go for one of the hotter options.
The "Express by Holiday Inn" has breakfast, as just about all UK hotels do; this was a so-called "English" breakfast, which is a continental breakfast bar. Fruit (including Washington apples), cold cereal, apple juice (they were out of orange juice), milk, cheese, croissants, irish butter... I don't think I'm leaving anything out. I was ready for some pancakes and bacon after eating breakfast, but Lynn was satisfied. Not "full" but she didn't want to be full. One of the two lifts was out of order. We were on the 4th floor; the ground floor had a chinese restaurant (I didn't eat there, though), the 1st floor had reception and the breakfast "great room", and the 2nd thru 7th were guest floors. One working elevator is not enough! Every lift that came up was full; every lift that came down was full.
And we had three full suitcases plus the folding trolley to get downstairs... so, I lugged them all down the stairs. Broke a wheel on one of the new suitcases. I'm not thrilled with how these hold up, because I'd bought a purple suitcase for my K.C. trip and one of the wheels stopped working there, too. I got them at J&J Rugs, on Maple Street between 8th and 9th in L.A.'s garment district; I was happy enough with the guy's attitude about taking back or fixing my purple one, so I got more, but now I'm thinking I shouldn't have... also I shouldn't have picked two reds, I should have all different colors so I can easily pick which is the one that has my clean clothes.
But I digress.
We took a taxi from the hotel directly to King's Cross Station. We're staying two nights at the Belgrove Hotel, which is on Belgove Street -- it's not on the maps. The maps shows "Belgrove Square" near King's Cross, but not Belgrove Street. The taxi driver couldn't find it. (And he charged us 30 pounds to go from Greenwich to King's Cross. We're thinking next time we'll struggle with the underground again, it's much cheaper.) We got out, talked to a couple of cops, and eventually figured out how to find the Belgrove. It's next door to the California Hotel, and the next street over has a number of additional small hotels, all pretty much interchangeable I believe. We'd been cautioned that the Belgrove wasn't the best; it may be a hole, but it's a cute hole. Or something. We're in a room with two twin beds again; it's a tiny room, but it's the one closest to the front door, and everything's up and down stairs so close to the street is good.
And now we're at the British Library. (And next time I'll do my composing off-line...)
More later, I guess. Having a wonderful time, wish you were here. Tomorrow we go to Cadbury World, and tomorrow night we go to the Tun - the London fan meeting at Walkers of Holborn. Then Tuesday, up to Glasgow!
Current Mood:  chipper
Tags: conventions
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10:55 pm
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Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you. Shall I stay
Sunday. It took my almost an hour to write up my last post, which I foolishly did while connected to the WiFi at 4.50 pounds an hour. That's about $8.10 on my credit card. An expensive lesson; it turns out there's an Internet Caffe (the E is silent, "Internet Caff" is how they pronounce it) around the corner from the Belgrove where you can use their computers, or plug in your own, for 1 pound an hour. And even though I'm composing this on the clock again, I don't feel nearly so stupid. Besides, library_lynn has gone to sleep and there's no lobby in the hotel or other room that I can sit in. So it's worth it to me just to have a place to hang out. Besides, I'm checking my e-mail in the other window, and checking my facts. So here we go.
library_lynn is, of course, interested in books. (Aren't we all.) After she checked out what she could see at the British Library -- which is more of a museum than a regular public library, and she didn't present her credentials to get logged in to the Reading Rooms. It didn't take her long to exhaust the possiblities open to her on a Sunday. She wanted to check out the bookshops in Charing Cross Road, as she'd heard there were many interesting new and used bookstores there.
We went back to take the Underground, got a pack of 1-way zone-1 tickets, and went to Charing Cross. Which, we quickly learned, is near Trafalgar Square. Okay, I had to see Trafalgar Square. Having read about it in books it was time to see it for real. She dropped me off there and went shopping.
Trafalgar Square is a concrete park. No, that's not fair. It's a beautiful plaza with fountains and memorial statues and some huge lion statues. The National Gallery faces the square, St.-Martin-in-the-Fields is at one corner, and the embassies for Canada, South Africa, and Uganda all face the square. Plus various shops and stuff. And today the steel bands played.
Stardust Mas and Pan were the first ones I noticed, as I came down the steps. One of the songs they played was the Anne Murray classic "Thinking about the things we used to do." I heard "Dancing Queen" playing during one of Stardust's breaks -- and found the rest of the story, where four more bands were set up in the square. (At any given time, you usually had two steel bands playing.) There was the Fantasia Steel Band, Ebony Steel Orchestra (which played a medley which included a number of Elvis songs including the one I quoted for my subject line, Perfidia, and Red Red Wine), Southside Harmonics Steel Band (South Side refers to south side of London; they say most of the steel bands are on the west side, so that's something that sets them apart), and, incredibly, the large Croydon Steel Orchestra. In everything I'd heard about Croydon fandom, nobody ever told me the place hosted a steel band!
I thought I'd brought a book, but I hadn't. I had my laptop (and some picture-gathering software work I wanted to puzzle out) but had difficulty concentrating. So I just wandered back and forth and eventually parked myself next to one of the fountains to listen. (It was hard to find a place to stand that stayed smoke-free.)
About five o'clock, library_lynn and I reunited, and I learned that she hadn't found a single bookstore in Charing Cross Road. She spent a happy afternoon shopping, and bought one or two things, but nary a book. We looked around for a place to eat. She'd found a street full of places to eat, and we strolled along seeing if any were non-smoking establishments that would suit. Eventually we made it down to the Embankment; it would be foolish to come this far and not look at the Thames, so we looked at it. Yup. It's a river. We opened up a tourist map the hotel had given us, and learned that "Ed's Easy diner" had four or five London locations, and they claimed to be an American diner. Well, it was a bit of cop-out; but I didn't want to eat at Subway or McDonalds or TGI Friday's or Rainforest Cafe, I can do that at home. Seeing how the Brits interpret American diner food, though, that might be interesting. The closest one's in (or rather, near) Piccadilly Circus, so we take the Tube to get there. The direct route would have been to take the Piccadilly Line, of course, but that's the line that's closed for reconstruction...
Did we mention that the tunnels in the Underground have big posters advertising "The Algebraist" in paperback?"
We went to Ed's. Hmmm. Mostly your basic average retro diner place. It took me a minute to realize the menu said "Fries" instead of "Chips" -- a nice touch, I give them points for that -- but they lost half those points by using the local spelling "Chilli." I think this is the only place I've ever seen advertise "Chilli Fries." The burgers were good. One odd note: I ordered a side order of onion rings, and they came first. Like a starter, I guess. Maybe they didn't grasp that "side order" meant "bring it along side the entree?" A minor nit to pick, of course. They have a bunch of little signs next to each other hanging from the ceiling with things you can order; the ones closest to the door as you come in say "BEERS" and "SALADS." Two nitpicks: (1) the American old-fashioned burgers and malt shops (even Johnny Rockets today) probably wouldn't feature them quite so prominently, and (2) if they did, it would say "BEER." Or "COLD BEER," probably.
Back home, Ruby's is a 1940's style diner (sort of); most of the other retro diners have a 50's theme. This place was decorated like those, but with 60's rock and roll playing... and a little 70's. Well, whatever, they're trying to brand it as an "American" style establshment. We enjoyed our dinner and that's really all we asked for.
The bill was 18 pounds, after the discount our tourist map gave us. I told library_lynn that meant it was about $32 american, whereupon she gasped; but everything's expensive, we just have to revise our budget upward. And eat more take-away food. Like those pasties -- there's another West Cornwall Pasty Co. in King's Cross station. I'll get a meat pie of some sort, or maybe some fish and chips, and we'll go to a sit down place where Lynn can order a salad and a jacket potato.
I was tired, my ankle's slowing me down. We got back to the hotel, I took a nap until about 9 pm, when library_lynn was ready to turn in... So here I am, around the corner. Tomorrow morning we take the train to Birmingham and connect to the Bournville line to get to Cadbury World. Adventure awaits.
Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Some smooth jazz in the background of the internet caffe
Tags: conventions
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