report from the past few days....
Haven’t been able to get my hands on a keyboard connected to the internet in a while, so im just going to type this into Microsoft word, and paste it into a blog entry later. But trust me, its Sunday night, and dog-gone-it, I’ve got class tomorrow.
Friday night me and the roomates went out to dinner on oxford street near picadilly circus. we went to an all you can eat pizza place for £5.99, so i had 7 pieces, and some noodles, and some corn, to make sure that i ate enough so that i wasn't getting the raw end of th deal. after dinner we walked around for a little bit and went back to the hotel. this was when courtney's oney situation went a little crazy and she ended up getting money from her parents so everything worked out. when we got back, we played a little cards and watched british movies on the tv, very relaxing, because the next day was big... the movie we watched was about 2 couples, where each guy in the couple liked the opposite girl, it was crazy... but i couldn't turn it off.
So I’m going to pick things up with Saturday morning. Woke up for my last free breakfast at the royal national hotel, took my last shower there, and got myself dressed and packed, for today we would move to our apartment! The problem was how to get our luggage to from the hotel to the place, and for some the solution involved a taxi. For me on the other hand, I used the transportation which I had already paid for, the tube. Since by now I am a pro- I figured – “how hard could it be to lug a 65lb bag of luggage through the streets and sub streets of London?” I may have looked like the biggest tourist in the world, but I strapped my backpack on, and took one bag of luggage with me (left one to come back to). The trip is something like this: bout a block and half walk to the russel square tube stop. There are over 150 stairs down to the subway platform from there, so they offer a lift for the masses. Then I take the subway westbound to holbourn, where I go switch lines from the central line to the picadilly line and take the second subway 3 stops to marble arch. Marble arch is home to a giant marble arch, which is right on the skirts of hyde park, and that’s our tube stop. We know exactly that it’s a 10 minute walk down oxford street/edgware road to our turn, which is at the corner with the argos (a store that’s all catologue shopping, where you find what you want, go up to the desk, ask for it, and they go back to the warehouse and get it for you). Theres also a casino on the corner called ‘victoria.’ So we turn and walk a block to brendon st. and then go to #32. And there we are. So with a suitcase rolling behind you, its quite a struggle. But me and Patrick did it, and everyone else took the taxi, and we beat them, so we went to the estate agent’s, which is around the corner, and we got the key. Moved a bunch of stuff in, thankfully they put 8 single beds in instead of the few double that’s lingered about... but they stored one in our fabulous kitchen. Only 3 sets of keys, and we have to get the others made ourselves. But its nice, because we’re good business. And they know it, so we have the upper hand – see, su London puts out a list of realtors that are good and trustworthy.. and since we bought from them, they know that they’re on the list. So they want to keep us happy so we don’t give a bad report and they end up OFF the list. So hopefully that will be used to our advantage.
So I got there, sweating, because I put on the clothes that wouldn’t fit in my bag. Thankfully it hasn’t downpoured at all yet (knock on wood), so I haven’t had to worry much about the weather. Actually Friday and Saturday were both gorgeous, but today, Sunday, was a bit grey. So it was a nice day to move, so I unloaded all my crap, kind of organized and by now everyone else was here, so they were unpacking.
I got lost on the way back to the hotel, which was very unfortunate. London is a big city. One wrong turn, and you’re screwed. Unfortunately, I tried to be a little adventurous and get off at a different tube stop than the regular one, that’s still close to the hotel, but had no Idea how to get back. I ended up walking in circles and made it back to the original stop I got off at, and went over to the tube stop right by the hotel.
Made it back to the place, and got everything unpacked. Living with Andrew and max will be interesting. Max brought tons of stuff. He puts everything on hangers. Sweatshirts, t shirts, whatever – all hung. As a result, by the time I got back with my 2nd suitcase, all the hangers were gone. I had to scrounge around and find some to use for at least my nice shirts which had severe creases from being in the suitcase all day. Andrew brought a lot too, but we’re all troopers and will get through it.
So when everyone was done unpacking in the house, we got together and constructed a list of everything we needed. And we shopped. We shopped so much that by the end of the day we were wheeling a cart back to the house with groceries. Its nice splitting a bill 8 ways tho! Only paid 8 pounds this week, and we got a lot of things that will last a while. You’re probably wondering how we’re going to deal with meals? Well, we’ve got a pretty good system.. breakfast and lunch are up to everyone individually, so everyone bought some ‘personal items’ which are initialed and stored on personal shelves in the kitchen. Dinner runs on a 7 day schedule, where everyone has a night except for 1 person. 3 of the 7 people cook 4 nights (same day) in the month. The other 4 cook only 3 of the 4 days that come up in the month. Then the 8th person does the 4 other random days left over by the people who cook only 3 days. Its confusing, but we have a whiteboard whith a schedule! And you must write down what you’re cooking, so we don’t have doubles day after day. My day is Wednesday. And Patrick got lucky day number 1, Saturday, so he had to cook tonight. We went all out. Well, we knew that we had 2 bottles of wine, a huge kitchen table (2 put together), and it was a special day, so we went all out. Everybody dressed up. We lit candles, and the kitchen looked fab. As the brits are saying these days, it was the dodge bollocks. So Patrick fixed us a wonderful dish of penne pasta with tomato sauce and parm cheese. We had everything. It was very awesome! A great way to kick in the new house. After that we chatted and shared some laughs, and then stayed in for the night. No internet, and by then we had realized that thhe heat wasn’t on. What a disastor. We had no idea how to get it to work! It was the coldest night since I camped outside! Even with my sheets and huge comforter! Very cod, and we couldn’t figure out the hot water either – you have to turn something on, and we think you cant have both the heat and hot water on at the same time. Still pending – we’re going to the landlord early tomorrow to get that straightened out. Another thing is the tv – we get awesome satellite tv, its really spectacular, over 400 channels – the only problem is, EVERY CHANNEL IS OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST! We scanned them all! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in English. Not even british stuff. We have to turn the satellite off to get local channels, and the quality is less than healthy.
Anyways, had some ice cream for dessert, very good, and then went to bed after more chatting and stuff. Oh and we arranged the furniture in the living room on the diagonal, and it looks fantastic. The house is gorgeous.
This morning we all slept in late because it was our first morning with no responsibilities (free breakfast). We all cracked open our cereals and had that. Today (Sunday) we bought a toaster, george forman like grill, and a tea water warmer-upper, so those should come in handy. So we slept in, and figured out the hot water – and it turns out we have about 25 minutes of hot water before the tank runs dry. Not so hot, but we’ll see what happens. I think im going to be taking my showers at night.
So people got ready, and we cleaned up a little more, and then went shopping again, where we got that toaster and stuff, some people had some other stuff they needed. All I wanted to get was gum and a hat. So I got my gum at Woolworth around the corner, and then went down to oxford street which is for shopping. Shopping carts have a unique system here, you put in a pound, and get the cart, and the pound stays in the handle, but you cant get it. You have to put it back in the queue with the other carts for it to dispense the pound, so it prevents theft. And it works, because there is no way whatsoever to get the pound out unless the cart in queue infront of yours clicks into yours in the right way. Anyways – all I had to get was my hat so I split up with everyone and went down the street to get it. Lots to choose from. I spent 5 pounds at marks and spencers on this grey painter-like hat. Its very chic, and I think its pretty british. No words or logos, which is definitely European, and its grey so it matches a lot. Then my objective was to make sure I was gone long enough so that someone whould be home when I got back, because I didn’t have a key. It felt good to be on my own for a while. But I quickly got lost. The thing is, you go into a store, maybe a corner store, and you shop (I went into the nike store, and watched a little futball), and you come out and don’t remember which way to turn! So I got lost, yea, but it was worth it. I end up back on oxford, but going in the wrong direction and I hear this loud music infront of this old old building with pillars and big windows… and I look inside, and se a dj playing off an ipod. Look up, and I see an enormous apple logo! I GOT LOST AND MY INSTINCTS TOOK ME TOO THE LONDON APPLE STORE! Amazing. Also, and amazing store. 2 stories, with glass steps, a theatre in back with wireless internet and live demonstrations. A “genious bar” for advice and trouble shooting, not to mention the music and overall atmosphere – all simply amazing. It was a great place to wind up. And I ended up making my way back to the house ok.
So tonight was Andrews night to cook – and man, Andrew may be the best cook we have. What a meal this kid cooked. He got pork from the supermarket, spiced it up with something amazing, kind of breaded it, cut up some potatos and made seasoned French fries, and then fixed up some Kal, or Cal, it’s a green leafy vegetable, that’s pretty good. But overall, the meal was incredible! He’s Italian, so he’s been cooking a while, and it shows. Everything was delicious!
After dinner we talked about schedules and stuff, and hung out a little, enjoyed our last few hours of life before school starts, and now im headed to bed! I took an iceburgh shower, which was horrible, but I needed to get clean. Tomorrow at the faraday house I will be checking emails and maybe I’ll post this! I think I’ll take it in on my thumb drive! Oh good idea. Anyways, class tomorrow at 1040, but it takes 20 minutes to get to th faraday house, so I need to get up around 930. Hopefully internet will be in the house soon, so I can start some daily entries, but for now I guess this will have to do.
Until the next time – cheers!
Jamie
Friday night me and the roomates went out to dinner on oxford street near picadilly circus. we went to an all you can eat pizza place for £5.99, so i had 7 pieces, and some noodles, and some corn, to make sure that i ate enough so that i wasn't getting the raw end of th deal. after dinner we walked around for a little bit and went back to the hotel. this was when courtney's oney situation went a little crazy and she ended up getting money from her parents so everything worked out. when we got back, we played a little cards and watched british movies on the tv, very relaxing, because the next day was big... the movie we watched was about 2 couples, where each guy in the couple liked the opposite girl, it was crazy... but i couldn't turn it off.
So I’m going to pick things up with Saturday morning. Woke up for my last free breakfast at the royal national hotel, took my last shower there, and got myself dressed and packed, for today we would move to our apartment! The problem was how to get our luggage to from the hotel to the place, and for some the solution involved a taxi. For me on the other hand, I used the transportation which I had already paid for, the tube. Since by now I am a pro- I figured – “how hard could it be to lug a 65lb bag of luggage through the streets and sub streets of London?” I may have looked like the biggest tourist in the world, but I strapped my backpack on, and took one bag of luggage with me (left one to come back to). The trip is something like this: bout a block and half walk to the russel square tube stop. There are over 150 stairs down to the subway platform from there, so they offer a lift for the masses. Then I take the subway westbound to holbourn, where I go switch lines from the central line to the picadilly line and take the second subway 3 stops to marble arch. Marble arch is home to a giant marble arch, which is right on the skirts of hyde park, and that’s our tube stop. We know exactly that it’s a 10 minute walk down oxford street/edgware road to our turn, which is at the corner with the argos (a store that’s all catologue shopping, where you find what you want, go up to the desk, ask for it, and they go back to the warehouse and get it for you). Theres also a casino on the corner called ‘victoria.’ So we turn and walk a block to brendon st. and then go to #32. And there we are. So with a suitcase rolling behind you, its quite a struggle. But me and Patrick did it, and everyone else took the taxi, and we beat them, so we went to the estate agent’s, which is around the corner, and we got the key. Moved a bunch of stuff in, thankfully they put 8 single beds in instead of the few double that’s lingered about... but they stored one in our fabulous kitchen. Only 3 sets of keys, and we have to get the others made ourselves. But its nice, because we’re good business. And they know it, so we have the upper hand – see, su London puts out a list of realtors that are good and trustworthy.. and since we bought from them, they know that they’re on the list. So they want to keep us happy so we don’t give a bad report and they end up OFF the list. So hopefully that will be used to our advantage.
So I got there, sweating, because I put on the clothes that wouldn’t fit in my bag. Thankfully it hasn’t downpoured at all yet (knock on wood), so I haven’t had to worry much about the weather. Actually Friday and Saturday were both gorgeous, but today, Sunday, was a bit grey. So it was a nice day to move, so I unloaded all my crap, kind of organized and by now everyone else was here, so they were unpacking.
I got lost on the way back to the hotel, which was very unfortunate. London is a big city. One wrong turn, and you’re screwed. Unfortunately, I tried to be a little adventurous and get off at a different tube stop than the regular one, that’s still close to the hotel, but had no Idea how to get back. I ended up walking in circles and made it back to the original stop I got off at, and went over to the tube stop right by the hotel.
Made it back to the place, and got everything unpacked. Living with Andrew and max will be interesting. Max brought tons of stuff. He puts everything on hangers. Sweatshirts, t shirts, whatever – all hung. As a result, by the time I got back with my 2nd suitcase, all the hangers were gone. I had to scrounge around and find some to use for at least my nice shirts which had severe creases from being in the suitcase all day. Andrew brought a lot too, but we’re all troopers and will get through it.
So when everyone was done unpacking in the house, we got together and constructed a list of everything we needed. And we shopped. We shopped so much that by the end of the day we were wheeling a cart back to the house with groceries. Its nice splitting a bill 8 ways tho! Only paid 8 pounds this week, and we got a lot of things that will last a while. You’re probably wondering how we’re going to deal with meals? Well, we’ve got a pretty good system.. breakfast and lunch are up to everyone individually, so everyone bought some ‘personal items’ which are initialed and stored on personal shelves in the kitchen. Dinner runs on a 7 day schedule, where everyone has a night except for 1 person. 3 of the 7 people cook 4 nights (same day) in the month. The other 4 cook only 3 of the 4 days that come up in the month. Then the 8th person does the 4 other random days left over by the people who cook only 3 days. Its confusing, but we have a whiteboard whith a schedule! And you must write down what you’re cooking, so we don’t have doubles day after day. My day is Wednesday. And Patrick got lucky day number 1, Saturday, so he had to cook tonight. We went all out. Well, we knew that we had 2 bottles of wine, a huge kitchen table (2 put together), and it was a special day, so we went all out. Everybody dressed up. We lit candles, and the kitchen looked fab. As the brits are saying these days, it was the dodge bollocks. So Patrick fixed us a wonderful dish of penne pasta with tomato sauce and parm cheese. We had everything. It was very awesome! A great way to kick in the new house. After that we chatted and shared some laughs, and then stayed in for the night. No internet, and by then we had realized that thhe heat wasn’t on. What a disastor. We had no idea how to get it to work! It was the coldest night since I camped outside! Even with my sheets and huge comforter! Very cod, and we couldn’t figure out the hot water either – you have to turn something on, and we think you cant have both the heat and hot water on at the same time. Still pending – we’re going to the landlord early tomorrow to get that straightened out. Another thing is the tv – we get awesome satellite tv, its really spectacular, over 400 channels – the only problem is, EVERY CHANNEL IS OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST! We scanned them all! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in English. Not even british stuff. We have to turn the satellite off to get local channels, and the quality is less than healthy.
Anyways, had some ice cream for dessert, very good, and then went to bed after more chatting and stuff. Oh and we arranged the furniture in the living room on the diagonal, and it looks fantastic. The house is gorgeous.
This morning we all slept in late because it was our first morning with no responsibilities (free breakfast). We all cracked open our cereals and had that. Today (Sunday) we bought a toaster, george forman like grill, and a tea water warmer-upper, so those should come in handy. So we slept in, and figured out the hot water – and it turns out we have about 25 minutes of hot water before the tank runs dry. Not so hot, but we’ll see what happens. I think im going to be taking my showers at night.
So people got ready, and we cleaned up a little more, and then went shopping again, where we got that toaster and stuff, some people had some other stuff they needed. All I wanted to get was gum and a hat. So I got my gum at Woolworth around the corner, and then went down to oxford street which is for shopping. Shopping carts have a unique system here, you put in a pound, and get the cart, and the pound stays in the handle, but you cant get it. You have to put it back in the queue with the other carts for it to dispense the pound, so it prevents theft. And it works, because there is no way whatsoever to get the pound out unless the cart in queue infront of yours clicks into yours in the right way. Anyways – all I had to get was my hat so I split up with everyone and went down the street to get it. Lots to choose from. I spent 5 pounds at marks and spencers on this grey painter-like hat. Its very chic, and I think its pretty british. No words or logos, which is definitely European, and its grey so it matches a lot. Then my objective was to make sure I was gone long enough so that someone whould be home when I got back, because I didn’t have a key. It felt good to be on my own for a while. But I quickly got lost. The thing is, you go into a store, maybe a corner store, and you shop (I went into the nike store, and watched a little futball), and you come out and don’t remember which way to turn! So I got lost, yea, but it was worth it. I end up back on oxford, but going in the wrong direction and I hear this loud music infront of this old old building with pillars and big windows… and I look inside, and se a dj playing off an ipod. Look up, and I see an enormous apple logo! I GOT LOST AND MY INSTINCTS TOOK ME TOO THE LONDON APPLE STORE! Amazing. Also, and amazing store. 2 stories, with glass steps, a theatre in back with wireless internet and live demonstrations. A “genious bar” for advice and trouble shooting, not to mention the music and overall atmosphere – all simply amazing. It was a great place to wind up. And I ended up making my way back to the house ok.
So tonight was Andrews night to cook – and man, Andrew may be the best cook we have. What a meal this kid cooked. He got pork from the supermarket, spiced it up with something amazing, kind of breaded it, cut up some potatos and made seasoned French fries, and then fixed up some Kal, or Cal, it’s a green leafy vegetable, that’s pretty good. But overall, the meal was incredible! He’s Italian, so he’s been cooking a while, and it shows. Everything was delicious!
After dinner we talked about schedules and stuff, and hung out a little, enjoyed our last few hours of life before school starts, and now im headed to bed! I took an iceburgh shower, which was horrible, but I needed to get clean. Tomorrow at the faraday house I will be checking emails and maybe I’ll post this! I think I’ll take it in on my thumb drive! Oh good idea. Anyways, class tomorrow at 1040, but it takes 20 minutes to get to th faraday house, so I need to get up around 930. Hopefully internet will be in the house soon, so I can start some daily entries, but for now I guess this will have to do.
Until the next time – cheers!
Jamie
posted by Jamie at 9:51 AM
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