Phil Goes To London

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Thursday, 11/16/06
  • Travel
• Friday, 11/17/06
  • Trains and Tubes
  • Lunch, drinks, and dinner
• Saturday, 11/18/06
  • The Rugby Game
  • Walking and wine
  • Dinner
• Sunday, 11/19/06
  • Sight-seeing
• Monday, 11/20/06
• Tuesday, 11/21/06
  • Work
  • Party!
• Wednesday, 11/22/06
  • Work
  • Insane Drinking
• Thursday, 11/23/06
• Friday, 11/24/06
  • To the data center!
  • The Hat
  • Garlic and Shots
• Saturday, 11/25/06
  • More sightseeing
  • Dinner at Ruth and Connon's and the Dog Races!
  • The Angus Steak Houses
  • My Hotel Room
• Sunday, 11/26/06
  • Last bits of sightseeing
• Closing Words

There are a lot of things that are different about the UK (and most of this is probably common to a lot of Europe) compared to the US. Here are some of the things I noticed:

• Things are smaller: toilets, rooms, hallways, staircases, etc.
• Toilets have their tank and other plumbing hidden in the wall - all you see is the bowl
• Probably related to the above point, toilets are tuned to super-strength. You don't have to worry about clogging one, flushing a toilet unleashes a small hurricane.
• Bath/shower combos don't have doors or shower curtains like you'd expect - they have half of a door. The other half of the shower/tub is open. See pictures below. Apparently the British like wet floors. :)
• Restaurants are a lot smaller. But people don't seem to wait; if there's more than one or two parties waiting, a restaurant will tell you they can't seat you, and you go find some other place to eat.
• You don't tip bartenders. They're paid well and if you try to tip them they will be very confused. In some cases, they may even get offended.
• Every electrical outlet has an on-off switch on it. Just so that you have to take one extra step.
• Everything has raisins in it! Who the hell puts raisins in a cinnamon bun??
• There are cameras everywhere. Big brother really is watching you. I'd heard about the UK government installing cameras in public places, but that doesn't really describe it. On most reasonable sized streets there's a multiple cameras at every intersection, and almost every building has a camera along the street. On small streets you'll still see them, just not as often. There are a lot of cameras.
• They don't really have street signs. Well, that is to say, they label streets with a small placard on the side of buildings about 3-5 stories up. If you don't know to look for them there, you're in trouble.
• Streets in London might as well just be spaghetti. Don't ever expect just because you were going North a second ago you're still going North; you're probably now going South-East.

Before I left for London, everyone told me I wasn't going to find any good food in London, and I'd probably be eating a lot of Subway and McDonald's there since I wouldn't like anything else. Further, if I did like something, I was likely to get so little of it, I'd go home hungry. Given I'm a very, very picky eater, this seemed very likely. Well, this was just completely untrue. I ate fine the entire time I was there. One or two nights I wasn't a fan of my meals (not bad for a 10-day trip), and I ate a Subway one night as I was too busy to look around, and McDonald's my last night because I was too sick to look around. As such, I've listed what I ate below in the journal. The two meals I didn't like were the company party dinner and the salami sandwich.

Thursday, 11/16/06

The plane ride was nothing to report on, except at the end when the guy seated in the row in front of me passed out. He'd had two alcoholic drinks (I heard him order one, and then heard the flight attendants discussing that he had two when they were tending to him), no water than I can recall, and I know he never once got out of his seat. It's generally bad not to get up and move around on a 10 hour flight. That's why they tell you that at the beginning of the flight. They also tell you that it's easy to get dehydrated on a plane and thus you should drink lots of water. In addition, they remind you to drink alcohol in moderation. Finally, as you might remember, alcohol causes dehydration. So, I had little to no sympathy for the bloke.

Anyway, the guy called the flight attendants over to say he thought he might pass out. He then proceeded to do so. At this point, four very attractive female flight attendants got the guy, who I'd guess was in his mid to late twenties, out of his seat and laid him on the floor. They gave him an oxygen mask, put cold towels on his head, raised his feet and pet his head. At this point, I was sorely tempted to say, "Yeah, I think I might pass out too!" But alas, I didn't. After about 10 minutes he was awake and starting to talk to the pretty lady leaning over him. They announced that the captain had called for a medical team to meet the plane and have a look at him and we'd all need to wait for the team before we could disembark. Fortunately they showed up, brought him to the back of the plane and got out of our way.

Friday, 11/17/06

I got off the plane, and made my way through customs and then over to the Heathrow Express. The Heathrow Express is a train from the airport into London that drops off at a subway station. The subway in London is called the "tube." I withdrew some local currency from an ATM (exchange rate is about US$2 == UK$1) and purchased a train ticket for about UK$15. I jumped on the train which lets off at Paddington station.

I then took the Hammersmith and City line to King's Cross station. This turns out to be not the shortest route, but not a bad one. Unfortunately the line I was on wasn't going all the way and I had to get off, drag my luggage up a flight of stairs and immediately back down another to arrive on the same level, but on the other side of a stair case. This seemed pointless and annoying to me, but I was shortly on the next train. Arriving at King's Cross I dragged my luggage up and down more stairs, jumped on the Picadilly line, and got off at Covent Gardens, where my hotel is. Turns out that my hotel is actually quite a bit closer to the Leicester Square station, but oh well. I dragged my luggage through Covent Gardens, checked in and unpacked.

Lunch, drinks, and dinner

At this point it was mid-afternoon, so I started wondering about to see what I could find. After a while I ended up in China town, checked the map and noticed I was close to the office. A few "oops, I'm going the wrong way" incidents, I ended up in Leicester Square and called Connon who came down to let me into the office. I met the team and then we headed out to a local pub called Imperial for drinks. A rum and coke and a beer later, everyone was headed out. Since I was in the mood for a burger, Connon showed me a local joint called Hamburger Union. I had quite a tasty burger there, then went back to my hotel, took a picture for prosperity, and went to sleep. Oh - note the emergency exit sign which you might recall from my Cancun pictures.

Saturday, 11/18/06

Anyway, after a few tube stops, we were near Twickenham Stadium and stopped at a local pub to wait for others and grab a few beers. I drank water as I was pretty dehydrated from how dry London is. Andy and his friend joined us, but Bruce and his wife were running too late, so we headed down to the stadium. The amazing thing about Twickenham is that it's at the end of a residential road. It's house, house, house, stadium. It's very bizarre, and to see it is very surreal. I took some pictures of the residential streets being packed and the stadium at the end of the street.

And so onto the game it was! Andy, a SA'er, explained what was going on for most of the game which was incredibly useful. Bruce and his wife Paula showed up about 1/4 into the game. England won - though we left a few minutes early just as it was tied.

Walking and wine

Then we walked over the bridge and met Ruth's parents for a drink at a famous wine bar of which I cannot remember the name. The bar is really amazing because most of it is a big cave! Ruth's parents were a lot of fun, and Connon, Ruth's father, and I had some great conversion.

Dinner

So I looked around and picked their first recommendation. They were too busy to seat a table for one. OK, what about take-out? Nope. They refused. Tried the next one. Same thing. Tried the next one, same thing. Tried the more dingy looking one across the street - the nice lady at the front was happy to have me! So I sat down, ordered and ate. Got a few strange looks, no biggie. The manager gives me a look that I suspect is a "your taking up a table!" but I ignore it and eat. When the check comes, I'm looking at it and I look up and the manager is staring at me and nods his head to say "go! get out!" Wow. That's a new level of rude.

Sunday, 11/19/06

I got up and ready and headed out to find breakfast. But absolutely nothing is open on a Sunday morning in London. So I ate at the hotel - everything was good except the overly greasy sausage.

I set out to get on The Big Bus Tour, but ended up picking up The Original Bus Tour instead. They're roughly the same. These are two-story open-top buses that go around the city, have tons of stops and a person pointing out sites and telling you about them. You can get off anywhere you want and get back on later - they come about every 15 minutes. A ticket is good for a day and includes a boat ride on the Thames, though my ticket was good for two days due to a promotional offer.

I bought a ticket from a guy in Picadilly Circus

I went to to the bus stop and waited for the bus. After a while I realized I was at the stop for The Big Bus Tour and not The Original Tour. So I found a stop for The Original Tour... and as I got there I realized I no longer had my ticket! I ran back and found my ticket lying in the street. Phew! I ran back and caught the next Original Bus Tour bus.

Then off we were! First, we drove by Trafalgar Square (2), some other stuff (2), and marble arch (2), and Little Ben (1):

I had decided I wanted to do a full round on the bus and then go around again to jump off and see individual sites. But I changed my mind and jumped off the bus at Buckingham Palace which is also where the Queen's Gallery is:

Here you can see the fantastic gates surrounding the palace as well as the palace itself. Interestingly, some of the guards were carrying out music stands, in the most formal manner one can carry music stands.

Out in front of Buckingham Palace is an... island, for lack of a better term. It's a circular cement structure with 4 staircases leading up to it, statues in the center and statues at the edge of each staircase.

Next to the palace is the, eh, Royal Park, or something to that effect. The gates here are arguably more fantastic than the gates to the palace, but since you can just walk around the gate (its free-standing, no fence), it's clearly only for show.

Then it was back on the bus and over to Westminster Abbey. Since it was Sunday, the Abbey was closed to tourists, satisfied myself purely with external pictures.

Behind Westminster Abbey is the houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

Then back on the bus for a drive into downtown London (all the above is in the West End). While waiting for the bus two very cute American girls came up and waited for the bus - but one of them had lost her ticket. However, they managed to sneak on the back door. We passed several beautiful buildings that I took pictures of even if I didn't know what they were. The domed building below is St. Paul's Cathedral, the torch, (which, if I remember correctly, is in memory of the fires that burned London essentially to the ground), and the bridge is the Tower Bridge (next to the Tower of London).

Speaking of the Tower of London, that's where I spent a majority of the day. I took a 45 minute tour and then spent another roughly 3 hours at the Tower. The Tower is actually a fortress. It has various outer walls, it once had a moat (which got so disgusting, they filled it with sand and it now houses concerts), several towers including "Bloody Tower," the crown jewels, the armory (well, the old armory really - no one would use most of these guns today), a chapel, and other things. The chapel has many famous people buried beneath it as that's where traitors who were hanged were buried. The Beefeaters (so named because they're paid in food so they don't drink their money away) live there. They have to receive a certain rank in the British military, serve for a certain number of years, and apply. The Queen selects one new one each year.

The first thing I did was to take a tour from one of the Beefeaters. These guys are awesome! The tour was absolutely brilliant. He was cracking jokes the entire time, he was truly interested in the history he was teaching us, which made it interesting, and really just had a lot of energy. It was a great tour. I heard other Beefeaters giving tours and theirs sounded similarly exciting. As I mentioned, after the tour (which was about an hour), I spent over three more hours walking around the Tower of London seeing all there was to see!

The glass table below is where the stump for beheadings used to be. It was recently removed and replaced with that monument.

When the tower was a prison, the prisoners carved the following things into the wall. Take a good look - they're as deep as they look!

Then, off to the armory! Guns!

The next few need a bit of explanation. The first one was a chapel in the tower, the second is one of the first toilets - simply a wooden seat with a whole, and below that a diagonal hole in the floor that empties outside of the tower. Yummy. Following that is the armor for one of the King Henry's (if I was meant to tell them apart, they'd have different names), who was famous for his massive codpiece.

Walking outside I caught one of the guards outside the building for the crown jewels moving. They do this occasionally.

This is the building with the crown jewels in it - unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside.

Then more walking around, including one tower with a few people dressed up and playing the part of a King, his daughter, and a servant, as well as walking on two of the walls of the tower, and getting to see a few torture devices.

And a few final pictures on the way home.

On the way home there was so much traffic due to a celebration of some sort that they dropped us off several blocks away from Picadilly Circus (in Trafalgar Square) so they could get back to where they need to go and still pick up the next group on time.

Monday, 11/20/06

Monday was work. Nothing exciting.

Tuesday, 11/21/06

Then to the party where they had an open bar, mega-sized Jenga, mini-sized pool, mega-sized Snakes and Ladders (the British version of 'chutes and ladders' and when I say big, I mean you are the piece, you walk on the board), darts, mega-sized Dominos, mega-sized Connect Four, and mega-sized Chess.

A game of mega-Jenga between myself and 3 other guys (teams of 2) drew a lot of attention as it went on for quite a while to a point where impossible things were happening. We were pulling blocks out that should never have been able to be pulled out. Then the amazing event happened! Almost every row only had two blocks in it and the other team went to pull out one of them. I smiled as this surely had be the end. The top half of the tower slammed one side down as the brick came out, but stayed standing at this angle! Then it was my partner's turn and he went to pull the last brick from that row out! I told him he was insane, but he pulled it out and the other side of the top half of the tower came crashing down and stayed standing - once again straight up! We took an entire row out of Jenga!! Screams of amazement and applause erupted in the room. The game continued on for quite a while until there was just nothing left. I was given the fatal turn and attempted again to take one side of a row out of Jenga, but this time it all crashed down. We were all warmly congratulated on many good plays.

After games and much drinking we headed back to the office to pick up our stuff. Connon got briefly sucked into work.

Wednesday, 11/22/06

Amazingly, we were at work by the usual 10am! Stuart came in around 11am.

Today was just more work - but this time, while very tired.

Friday, 11/24/06

The Hat

Garlic and Shots

The bottom floor (read: basement) is a pub. It's a small room, with a bar, and off the corner of the room is an even smaller cave with a table in it (it used to be a coffin, I'm told, but now it's just a table). This cave is affectionately known as The Crypt, and is first-come, first-serve. We of course were there at opening waiting to take-over the crypt.

The upper floor is a small-ish restaurant with garlic ribs, garlic burgers, garlic everything. Truly great.

But of course, the most amazing thing about Garlic and Shots is the Blood Shot! The Blood Shot is a famous concoction of Garlic and Shots. It consists of taco sauce, minced raw garlic, chili sauce, and vodka. The pictures below make it look orange, but it's a deep red. It'll warm you up on a cold day, that's for sure.

The first picture is just Connon. The second picture, from left to right, is Dave, Jocelyn, Ruth, Connon, Me, Bruce - and I forgot the last guys name. The seventh picture (the next one with new people in it), is the guy whose name I don't remember, Andy, and Andreas. The last picture (which is upstairs in the restaurant), is me, Connon, Ruth, Paula, and Bruce.

Saturday, 11/25/06

On my way to the London Eye, I was early, so I stopped to take pictures at Trafalgar Square. The last two pictures are from the bridge next to the London Eye.

I got to London Eye just before 10am, and, much to my surprise, was on the Eye at 10:10.

I was off at 10:40, and headed to Westminster Abbey. I got there around 11 and asked how often they did tours. She pointed to the last tour of the day that had already been in progress for a few minutes. I paid for my ticket and hurried to catch up.

The tour was excellent, and I was in for quite a surprise. The 2nd-to-last area of the tour was the area the choir sits in, which is also the part of the building that makes up the original "Abbey." After talking about the choir for a while he noted that the evensong service was coming up at 3pm (it was almost 1pm at this point), and any of us were interesting in seeing it he could reserve some seats for us - simply talk to him after the tour. So afterwards 5 of us went to go ask him the details. He said if we showed up at 2:30 in line he'd pick us out and sit us up with the choir. I wasn't going to turn that down!

I walked around the Abbey seeing pieces I missed until 2pm. Unfortunately no pictures are allowed inside Westminster Abbey, but there are a few places - out in the courtyard, and some of the more extraneous parts where pictures are allowed. That's where the pictures below come from. At 2pm I left to go grab a quick lunch and got back in line about 2:25. By 2:40, I'd found the other people from my group, and by 2:45, our tour guide had led us in and sat us next to the choir! A beautiful service followed, most of which was brilliant singing by the Westminster Choir.

The last picture below is a memorial in the street on my way back to the hotel.

Dinner at Ruth and Connon's and the Dog Races!

There are two entrances to Walthamstow: the rich and the poor. However, they're labeled, "main," and "popular" to be a bit more politically correct. At the main entrance it costs UK$15 to get in, and minimum bet is UK$20. At the popular entrance, it's UK$3 to get in and minimum bet is 20 pence. We, needless to say, went in the popular entrance.

It was a blast. When you can bet 50p at a time, you can bet all night long and only be down a pound or two when you leave. We left two races before the end mostly because we wanted to beat the rush, and a bit because I was starting to feel like shit.

The Angus Steak Houses

My Hotel Room

Sunday, 11/26/06

Most of the Tate Modern was terribly disappointing. However, the famous slides were impressive. When you get there you must immediately get in line to get a ticket for some time later than afternoon if you'd like to try the slides from the 3rd, 4th, or 5th floor. I got there at 10:30, stood in line for an hour, and got a ticket for 1:30pm for the 5th floor. I walked around for an hour and then tried my luck getting on the slide. There was no line on the 5th floor, so they just let me go at 12:30 with my 1:30 ticket. It's a lot of fun! It's just like any other slide, but it lasts longer.

Much to my amazement, while I was in the line to get tickets, many people where discussing whether or not to get a 5th floor ticket... they thought it might be scary. It's a slide people! I'm deathly scared of roller coasters, so I have sympathy. But for God's sake, it's just a slide! Ah well - less people for me to contend with.

Then it was over the bridge (first picture below), and to St. Paul's. With my fascination for Knight Rider, I took a picture of One Knightrider Court as I walked past. Like Westminster, unfortunately, St. Paul's is closed to tourists on Sundays. So I just took picture of the outside.

I was supposed to meet Michael at the Tate, but he was running late, so I met up with him here. We grabbed some lunch and headed back to my hotel, had a drink in the bar, and then he went home and I went upstairs to pack.

Closing Words