The day before yesterday I dreamed I was in the West End- I have this friend here who always wants to travel and for some reason I dreamed she and I had gone there- we were wandering around the West End (which looked less like itself and more like a futuristic shopping mall) and I ran into another friend of mine. We all decided to get dinner and then after that to walk to Oxford Circus to Beard Papa and get cream puffs.
Somewhere on the way I noticed things weren't right- there was supposed to be a bookstore somewhere and it wasn't there and that jarred me out of the dream before we'd made it anywhere near Oxford Circus.
I spent two and a half months living in Italy and I've never dreamed about it. I spent six weeks in England- mostly in London- and I almost can't believe how much I miss it. I miss the Tube. I miss my Oyster Card. A few weeks ago there was some site doing a bookstore review and the place was somewhere in Soho and I kept thinking I must have walked past the store at some point and never noticed it. I keep thinking the Chinese food I had in Brighton was the best I've ever had- even though I know it's a lie.
Ugh.
I picked up Andrew Grant's Even the other day- it's this pretty badass spy novel- that I first found out about on the Tube. They do these massive posters on the walls there about this week's book and David Trevalyon- the spy in the book- gets his life stolen and he's going to get... Even. Pretty Jason Bourne-ish. Turns out there's a sequel out now for it. Picked it up for my Kindle.
And back to the morose stuff. I saw this guy at work the other day- just one of the customers milling about- a doppleganger for Andy. It took my breath away. To some extent things like that make me angry. That there's only so many bone structures or hair and eye combinations amongst all of us. Other times I see something like that and, I mean, of course it's not him reincarnated- the time is all wrong for that, this guy was like, 20 or something- but it's spooky. It made me think of all the things we don't wind up doing or saying. I used to work at this pizza parlor and we'd get free pizzas all the time and I used to take them over to his apartment. I always thought how uncool it would be to tell him how much it meant that he let me in and I never said anything. I kept meaning to make him a pair of gloves and never settled on a pattern and every time I start to think about having cold hands in the winter and making myself just one more pair I remember I never made him any.
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Showing posts with label England. Show all posts
Friday, August 12, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Sherlock 2 John Watson Scarf
I went and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 Thursday night and it was great- there was a preview for Sherlock 2 that looked like a lot of fun (technically I'm still more excited about Sherlock season 2 on BBC, but whatever). RDJ looked horrific in drag. Jude Law had an amazing scarf- blue and brown and cream colored.
Sherlock 2 John Watson Scarf
I'm using Vanna's Choice yarn from JoAnn's. It's worsted weight. I'm having to guess at the amount but I bought:
3 skeins Colonial Blue
3 skeins Chocolate
1 skein .....that oatmeal colored yarn with the brown threads in it. I lost the ball band already :(
CO 40 stitches. I did it long tail, but whatever you like.
Oh, right, size 9 needles.
CO 40 stitches in chocolate, then knit, purl, knit, purl all the way across. next row knit the knits, and purl the purls. The scarf will shrink in width but be thicker.
This brown section, make it 16 rows. Then start with the oatmeal color and do 2 rows. Then start up the colonial blue and do that 10 rows. Then the oatmeal again for 2, then go back to the chocolate. Make it as long as you need to and be sure to end with a brown section.
Now that you're done knitting it and ready to go solve some mysteries get out your trusty copy of... (i was going to say Half Blood Prince, but...) Sherlock Holmes Collected. (if you don't have that in some massive edition, go buy one. but until you've got it, use your massive Harry Potter books) Watson's scarf has really big tassels and I've only got one decent-ish picture of them so I have to guess a bit how they're done. Wrap the yarn around the book- all three colors- and cut it when you think you have enough. In the pic I've got that shows the tail of the scarf, it looks like you take two strands of a color together, use a crochet hook to pull them through, then slip the ends through the loop of yarn you pulled through. Pull it tight. That's one tassel. If I squint really hard it looks like the order of colors of tassel are oatmeal, chocolate, then colonial blue. Repeat it across.
It looks like it hits Jude Law at the knee so make it pretty big.
(also, Charles, I saw an ad for Disney's John Carter of Mars, and at the bookstore there was what looked like a movie tie in novel for Solomon Kane, and there's Conan at the end of the year. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?)
Sherlock 2 John Watson Scarf
I'm using Vanna's Choice yarn from JoAnn's. It's worsted weight. I'm having to guess at the amount but I bought:
3 skeins Colonial Blue
3 skeins Chocolate
1 skein .....that oatmeal colored yarn with the brown threads in it. I lost the ball band already :(
CO 40 stitches. I did it long tail, but whatever you like.
Oh, right, size 9 needles.
CO 40 stitches in chocolate, then knit, purl, knit, purl all the way across. next row knit the knits, and purl the purls. The scarf will shrink in width but be thicker.
This brown section, make it 16 rows. Then start with the oatmeal color and do 2 rows. Then start up the colonial blue and do that 10 rows. Then the oatmeal again for 2, then go back to the chocolate. Make it as long as you need to and be sure to end with a brown section.
Now that you're done knitting it and ready to go solve some mysteries get out your trusty copy of... (i was going to say Half Blood Prince, but...) Sherlock Holmes Collected. (if you don't have that in some massive edition, go buy one. but until you've got it, use your massive Harry Potter books) Watson's scarf has really big tassels and I've only got one decent-ish picture of them so I have to guess a bit how they're done. Wrap the yarn around the book- all three colors- and cut it when you think you have enough. In the pic I've got that shows the tail of the scarf, it looks like you take two strands of a color together, use a crochet hook to pull them through, then slip the ends through the loop of yarn you pulled through. Pull it tight. That's one tassel. If I squint really hard it looks like the order of colors of tassel are oatmeal, chocolate, then colonial blue. Repeat it across.
It looks like it hits Jude Law at the knee so make it pretty big.
(also, Charles, I saw an ad for Disney's John Carter of Mars, and at the bookstore there was what looked like a movie tie in novel for Solomon Kane, and there's Conan at the end of the year. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?)
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
MOAR SHERLOCK
So I had a dream this morning I was at the Trafalger Square Waterstones looking for Sherlock tie-in novels. I was like oh god... Amazon.uk says there aren't any so at least my bank account is sighing in relief.
No, no, I don't want this one because it's got a pretty cover. Nope.
No, no, I don't want this one because it's got a pretty cover. Nope.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Cute Song
Every time this comes on Capitol 95.8 I'm like yessss. The dance he does on the traffic stops reminds me of Edinburgh- the tour guide we had kept jumping up on those things, even after he started drinking.
It's funny the things I think of that I miss in Europe- mass transit is almost always number one. I still can't get over the fact that when I was in Montepulciano I could get the bus to Chiusi, then the train from there to Rome Termini, a bus from there to the airport, the plane from there to London, ride the tube... I was in Trader Joe's tonight and they had some wine from Montepulciano- it's weird to think that's the winery at the other end of town from where I lived. I miss the ice cream trucks all over London- practically the same as you see in the music video. I miss low tide on the Thames, when I'd climb down some algae infested steps to muck around in the clay and old bricks and mussel shells- one time I found a two pound coin and spent it on boiled candy ten minutes later at some place that makes it from scratch.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Ceroc
I was at a BBQ last weekend in Surbiton and after it got dark suddenly people started dancing in the kitchen. Really good dancing- like on Dancing with the Stars! I asked what they were doing and it's called Ceroc. It's a huge craze over here in Europe. If I check the main Ceroc site here there's about five different places I can go most nights of the week to take lessons and dance after. And they're all different places.
Monday night I went to the O2 center which is like a mall, I think, and I took my first lesson. I wish we had this over in America!
This isn't exactly the same dance I learned Monday, but it's pretty close. They had in a few arm things I don't know how to do yet.
You get a really good workout doing it, too. And you meet a lot of people- When I went to my second lesson/dance on Wednesday night there were about four people I recognized from Monday and I'm terrible with faces...
I really, really wish we had this, but I know why we don't.
Monday night I went to the O2 center which is like a mall, I think, and I took my first lesson. I wish we had this over in America!
This isn't exactly the same dance I learned Monday, but it's pretty close. They had in a few arm things I don't know how to do yet.
You get a really good workout doing it, too. And you meet a lot of people- When I went to my second lesson/dance on Wednesday night there were about four people I recognized from Monday and I'm terrible with faces...
I really, really wish we had this, but I know why we don't.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Wow. Ok. Sorry.
I didn't realize I'd gotten so far behind on blogging until Mom mentioned it.
I spent a day in Oxford last weekend- no really outstanding pictures from that but it was really something seeing the city and walking around it. We payed extra to see Christ Church College- part of that was used for Harry Potter- and it was really beautiful. I can't really picture people going to school there, but then again I didn't see any classrooms either.
The day after that was when it got really awesome...
We took the train out to Salisbury, then from there went on the Stonehenge tour. Imagine a somewhat curvy country road, riding in a doubledecker bus at alarming speeds. Yeah, scared me too. And then we're driving through a big open area of fields and the driver says, Look Forward, and there it is. And then we actually get there and get out of the bus and walk under the road and onto a little sidewalk and right up to the stones. I couldn't have been more that 20 or 30 feet from the stones at one point. THAT CLOSE. All that was keeping me from them was this little, tiny, chain on some posts about a foot high and not a guard in sight. If we weren't all thinking the same thing I'll be surprised but no one jumped the fence. I think I took about a hundred pictures right there.
It was an audio tour too, which was interesting. It needed better writing but it was about an hour long and really informative. Except for the part that said "...and then the stones were levered up ramps of dirt and lowered into holes in the ground, upright, like teeth into the gums of the earth.". You could see the moment where everyone got to that part of the audio track. The looks of horror.
After that we went to Avebury which is... A big hill. A gigantic hill with trenches and such. And while we were climbing it we took a wrong turn and walked about 3/4 the way around the hill instead of straight to the top like everyone else. Let's put it this way, I explained two years of Days of Our Lives plot lines while we walked, that's how big the hill is. Finally we found a way up and played with some whippets on top of the hill (Fergus and Alfie) and watched one of them climb a ten foot stone wall like a spider or a goat.
From there back to Salisbury and the market (where we bought freshly made donuts and dried apples) then to the Cathedral which has the most incredible baptismal font in it. It sort of doubles as a reflecting pool and gets a large portion of the stained glass in it. I took a picture but it was pretty dark in the cathedral. It's not worth posting on here.
This is Brighton, where I went on Tuesday night.
It is the dodgy capitol of the world. (Dodgy = Skeezy). If you have seen The Lost Boys and/or a pier by a beach with amusement park rides on it, you have seen Brighton. We hopped the train after our field trips were done and an hour later we were at the seaside. Which is another reason to love the train system here. An hour that I spent eating a sandwich and writing in my journal, then knitting a glove, and there is the freaking ocean! I think we spent two or three hours in the town, laying on the beach, throwing rocks in the ocean, riding a carousel, walking on the pier, then eating the best Chinese food I have ever had in my life. And then we came home.
Oh, and I threw seaweed at Sarah and she screamed.
Tonight we went to see WarHorse which probably the biggest play in all of London. It's about this boy named Albert who has a horse named Joey who gets conscripted into WW1 and then Albert joins the war even though he's 16 to go track down his beloved horse. All of the horses are done with these incredible wicker frame puppets. There is no moment you do not believe you are seeing real horses.
Tomorrow I leave for Cardiff!
I spent a day in Oxford last weekend- no really outstanding pictures from that but it was really something seeing the city and walking around it. We payed extra to see Christ Church College- part of that was used for Harry Potter- and it was really beautiful. I can't really picture people going to school there, but then again I didn't see any classrooms either.
The day after that was when it got really awesome...
We took the train out to Salisbury, then from there went on the Stonehenge tour. Imagine a somewhat curvy country road, riding in a doubledecker bus at alarming speeds. Yeah, scared me too. And then we're driving through a big open area of fields and the driver says, Look Forward, and there it is. And then we actually get there and get out of the bus and walk under the road and onto a little sidewalk and right up to the stones. I couldn't have been more that 20 or 30 feet from the stones at one point. THAT CLOSE. All that was keeping me from them was this little, tiny, chain on some posts about a foot high and not a guard in sight. If we weren't all thinking the same thing I'll be surprised but no one jumped the fence. I think I took about a hundred pictures right there.
It was an audio tour too, which was interesting. It needed better writing but it was about an hour long and really informative. Except for the part that said "...and then the stones were levered up ramps of dirt and lowered into holes in the ground, upright, like teeth into the gums of the earth.". You could see the moment where everyone got to that part of the audio track. The looks of horror.
After that we went to Avebury which is... A big hill. A gigantic hill with trenches and such. And while we were climbing it we took a wrong turn and walked about 3/4 the way around the hill instead of straight to the top like everyone else. Let's put it this way, I explained two years of Days of Our Lives plot lines while we walked, that's how big the hill is. Finally we found a way up and played with some whippets on top of the hill (Fergus and Alfie) and watched one of them climb a ten foot stone wall like a spider or a goat.
From there back to Salisbury and the market (where we bought freshly made donuts and dried apples) then to the Cathedral which has the most incredible baptismal font in it. It sort of doubles as a reflecting pool and gets a large portion of the stained glass in it. I took a picture but it was pretty dark in the cathedral. It's not worth posting on here.
This is Brighton, where I went on Tuesday night.
It is the dodgy capitol of the world. (Dodgy = Skeezy). If you have seen The Lost Boys and/or a pier by a beach with amusement park rides on it, you have seen Brighton. We hopped the train after our field trips were done and an hour later we were at the seaside. Which is another reason to love the train system here. An hour that I spent eating a sandwich and writing in my journal, then knitting a glove, and there is the freaking ocean! I think we spent two or three hours in the town, laying on the beach, throwing rocks in the ocean, riding a carousel, walking on the pier, then eating the best Chinese food I have ever had in my life. And then we came home.
Oh, and I threw seaweed at Sarah and she screamed.
Tonight we went to see WarHorse which probably the biggest play in all of London. It's about this boy named Albert who has a horse named Joey who gets conscripted into WW1 and then Albert joins the war even though he's 16 to go track down his beloved horse. All of the horses are done with these incredible wicker frame puppets. There is no moment you do not believe you are seeing real horses.
Tomorrow I leave for Cardiff!
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Lost in Translation
For future reference "Quiet Hours 10PM to 8AM" actually means LETS SLAM THE DOORS AS HARD AS WE POSSIBLY CAN EVERY FIVE SECONDS UNTIL SOMEONE ACTUALLY COMES OUT IN THE HALL AND STABS US IN THE EYE.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Very English
So. Before I get to all the "what have I been doing" stuff I have to tell you what happened this afternoon. I go to school in two buildings- the dorms I live in and one I have to walk about four blocks to that looks like it's Hogwart's In London Campus. Really it's just the UCL Cruciform building, but it's pretty badass looking. To get to my class I have to walk down a hallway which makes a sort of left hand curve around a stairwell. But you can see into the stairwell from the curve because there's windows- open arch style. When you get around the curve you make an extreme right hand turn to get on the stairs.
As I'm walking to class I see someone coming up the stairs and I think I've got to be careful coming around the corner because I might collide with the person and knock them down the stairs. So I sort of pause a second coming around the corner so they have time- only no one comes up. I peer around the corner and there's no one on the stairs. Or in the hallway.
NO ONE.
I even turned around to look behind me. I'm the only person in the hall at this point. And I kept looking around for a second before I was like ....was that a ghost?
On the way out of the building my friend Sarah made me ask the desk people if the building is haunted and they looked very grave and said ...did you see something? And I told them in the stairwell, and they started to tell me about people they see in the classrooms after everything is locked up at night, or noises. The building is over 300 years old. Of course it's haunted.
Saturday we did go to Camden Lock and it was just as punk rock and awesome as it was last time I was there. And everyone here in London has colors in their hair so I decided to get some too. And some stockings, since that's also the thing. After the Market I came back to the dorm and got in touch with my friend Steve who lives here and we planned a pubcrawl. That was a blast! And Steve is hilarious and the night went on just long enough to be really really fantastic and still let me get up early Sunday for...
The Battle of Hastings! Which was hot, and miserable, and sunny. But the abbey was beautiful and something right out of Highlander (which I've been rewatching) and the countryside makes you want to lay down on the grass and take up painting. Or fishing. After, I had this enormous Full English Breakfast at the restaurant we went to called... A Taste of Battle. da da ching!
Then we headed home on a rather mysterious train. See, we went to the train station at the right time for our train but there was no train there. And we waited and found out the next train we could take was in an hour. Then the digital signs at the station change and say the next train coming down the line (not the one we're waiting an hour for) is not for civilian use. About all of us ran out onto the platform to see if it was nuclear weapons or cattle or what, but the train stopped and looked normal enough. There were people on it so we all ran around like crazy people getting our bags and jumping on the train. And inside the train the intercom was like NOT FOR CIVILIAN USE and we were like "oh no do we get off what's happening" and the train conductor yelled at me to get back on when I hopped off. And then the train started up again and we were all asking each other what was going on.
I pointed out if the train was MI-5 only they were probably going to come down to our carriage and shoot us. And we all nervously laughed.
No one shot us. Thankfully. And then nothing happened last night- I thought about doing more mudlarking but decided not to go when I realized I'd have to go alone. Then class today, and then a ghost.
DOVER BTW
As I'm walking to class I see someone coming up the stairs and I think I've got to be careful coming around the corner because I might collide with the person and knock them down the stairs. So I sort of pause a second coming around the corner so they have time- only no one comes up. I peer around the corner and there's no one on the stairs. Or in the hallway.
NO ONE.
I even turned around to look behind me. I'm the only person in the hall at this point. And I kept looking around for a second before I was like ....was that a ghost?
On the way out of the building my friend Sarah made me ask the desk people if the building is haunted and they looked very grave and said ...did you see something? And I told them in the stairwell, and they started to tell me about people they see in the classrooms after everything is locked up at night, or noises. The building is over 300 years old. Of course it's haunted.
Saturday we did go to Camden Lock and it was just as punk rock and awesome as it was last time I was there. And everyone here in London has colors in their hair so I decided to get some too. And some stockings, since that's also the thing. After the Market I came back to the dorm and got in touch with my friend Steve who lives here and we planned a pubcrawl. That was a blast! And Steve is hilarious and the night went on just long enough to be really really fantastic and still let me get up early Sunday for...
The Battle of Hastings! Which was hot, and miserable, and sunny. But the abbey was beautiful and something right out of Highlander (which I've been rewatching) and the countryside makes you want to lay down on the grass and take up painting. Or fishing. After, I had this enormous Full English Breakfast at the restaurant we went to called... A Taste of Battle. da da ching!
Then we headed home on a rather mysterious train. See, we went to the train station at the right time for our train but there was no train there. And we waited and found out the next train we could take was in an hour. Then the digital signs at the station change and say the next train coming down the line (not the one we're waiting an hour for) is not for civilian use. About all of us ran out onto the platform to see if it was nuclear weapons or cattle or what, but the train stopped and looked normal enough. There were people on it so we all ran around like crazy people getting our bags and jumping on the train. And inside the train the intercom was like NOT FOR CIVILIAN USE and we were like "oh no do we get off what's happening" and the train conductor yelled at me to get back on when I hopped off. And then the train started up again and we were all asking each other what was going on.
I pointed out if the train was MI-5 only they were probably going to come down to our carriage and shoot us. And we all nervously laughed.
No one shot us. Thankfully. And then nothing happened last night- I thought about doing more mudlarking but decided not to go when I realized I'd have to go alone. Then class today, and then a ghost.
DOVER BTW
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Lazy Day
The last few days have been really busy. I haven't even uploaded the pictures from them to the computer, but when I do- probably tonight- I'll make another big post full of pics.
Thursday we went to the Globe for a tour of the museum and it was sort of at lowtide so before the tour (we got there early and then the museum opened half an hour late) I went mudlarking. It's basically when you go on the shores of the Thames and look for stuff. Coins, spoons, pottery- anything that might have been dropped into the river since people first showed up in the area can be found on shore.
Thursday night we went back to the Globe for a performance of MacBeth which was super gory and had this sort of canopy thing coming out from the stage with holes in it. If you wanted to stand with your head in one of the holes you were one of the severed heads in hell. Guess where I stood? You also had a higher risk of being bled on or terrorized by the weird sisters.
Friday a group of us went out to a place called Folkstone which I guess is the boonies. I think it's about an hour away by train and it's within seeing distance of the White Cliffs of Dover, if you don't mind hiking all the way down the rocky shore we were on, then climbing onto an abandoned wharf/lighthouse base/nuclear instalment. The view was incredible.
Today it looks like Sarah and I are going up to the Camden Lock markets. I think she's looking for a dress and I want boots. Who knows what we'll really find.
Anyway, update later.
Thursday we went to the Globe for a tour of the museum and it was sort of at lowtide so before the tour (we got there early and then the museum opened half an hour late) I went mudlarking. It's basically when you go on the shores of the Thames and look for stuff. Coins, spoons, pottery- anything that might have been dropped into the river since people first showed up in the area can be found on shore.
Thursday night we went back to the Globe for a performance of MacBeth which was super gory and had this sort of canopy thing coming out from the stage with holes in it. If you wanted to stand with your head in one of the holes you were one of the severed heads in hell. Guess where I stood? You also had a higher risk of being bled on or terrorized by the weird sisters.
Friday a group of us went out to a place called Folkstone which I guess is the boonies. I think it's about an hour away by train and it's within seeing distance of the White Cliffs of Dover, if you don't mind hiking all the way down the rocky shore we were on, then climbing onto an abandoned wharf/lighthouse base/nuclear instalment. The view was incredible.
Today it looks like Sarah and I are going up to the Camden Lock markets. I think she's looking for a dress and I want boots. Who knows what we'll really find.
Anyway, update later.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
More London
This is a cute video. This one is more OMG.
Ok, back to London news. I'm still really tired, but it's not jetlag or anything. I'm pretty well adjusted to the time here and when to go to sleep. It's that all this weekend we've been walking. Friday we had a tour of the part of town we live in so we can find the grocer's and the tube stop and school. Saturday we had a photo scavenger hunt all across London. We rode the Tube a lot, but there was so much walking. Today, Sunday, we went to Hampton Court and walked up and down it.
(btw that's a foot and a half step up into the train. gap indeed.)
I feel like I've mastered the tube system though I've only rode a train once so far (up to Hampton Court) and I still don't really understand the buses yet. Apparently it's a matter of understanding the layout of the city, then finding a bus going mostly the way you want to go, then hopping off when you get close. I'll have to use it Tuesday night though, because...
I have a ticket to go see Scissor Sisters!
And apparently I can't just take the tube there, I need to use the buses too. Very exciting.
In more scholarly news I have done all of the work due for the first week of classes, which starts tomorrow. And despite the pub food I'm still eating healthy. Tesco has cheap apples and carrots. On the way to Hampton Court I ate an entire box of grapes. And they do have macaroni and cheese over here- only it would be better to label it "macaroni in nutmeg cream sauce". Yuck. Glad I brought four boxes of it from Kroger at home.
SHIELD COINS COLLECTED: 5/7
Also London has a vampire problem. (besides all the twilight posters everywhere). Really I think it's a PSA for car accidents but...
Ok, back to London news. I'm still really tired, but it's not jetlag or anything. I'm pretty well adjusted to the time here and when to go to sleep. It's that all this weekend we've been walking. Friday we had a tour of the part of town we live in so we can find the grocer's and the tube stop and school. Saturday we had a photo scavenger hunt all across London. We rode the Tube a lot, but there was so much walking. Today, Sunday, we went to Hampton Court and walked up and down it.
(btw that's a foot and a half step up into the train. gap indeed.)
I feel like I've mastered the tube system though I've only rode a train once so far (up to Hampton Court) and I still don't really understand the buses yet. Apparently it's a matter of understanding the layout of the city, then finding a bus going mostly the way you want to go, then hopping off when you get close. I'll have to use it Tuesday night though, because...
I have a ticket to go see Scissor Sisters!
And apparently I can't just take the tube there, I need to use the buses too. Very exciting.
In more scholarly news I have done all of the work due for the first week of classes, which starts tomorrow. And despite the pub food I'm still eating healthy. Tesco has cheap apples and carrots. On the way to Hampton Court I ate an entire box of grapes. And they do have macaroni and cheese over here- only it would be better to label it "macaroni in nutmeg cream sauce". Yuck. Glad I brought four boxes of it from Kroger at home.
SHIELD COINS COLLECTED: 5/7
Also London has a vampire problem. (besides all the twilight posters everywhere). Really I think it's a PSA for car accidents but...
Friday, June 18, 2010
Really really tired
This sums up everything I have ever learned about living with other people.
Yawn. Fighting jet lag by staying awake as long as possible is soul crushing. I woke up on the plane this morning at... 9AM brit time or something and ate this delicious cinnamon cake they gave me in my breakfast box. And I have been awake ever since and it is... 9PM brit time now and I feel like it's the longest day there has ever been. Midnight sun, six month days, kind of long.
The dorms we're in are nice. From the outside they look like brutalist architecture but it's more soviet looking than that. I'll take a pic tomorrow when it's not so drizzly outside. On the inside the dorms are yellow. And the windows open. Window. And I have a sink.
Earlier we went to a pub to see the england/algeria (?) match. There's nothing like standing in a mad crush of people who are all shouting at each other about work today then howling like werewolves when the ball gets close to the goal and realizing you have no idea how football/soccer is played.
Ok. Super tired. Bed now.
TOMORROW: SCAVENGER HUNT
SHIELD COIN COLLECTION: 1/7
Oh, I also forgot to mention the 50p of custard I bought at Tesco's. It was more custard than a Ben and Jerry's carton could hold. For 50p. So good.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
This Just In From The Newsroom-
I am somewhere in the AJC. No, really. It's a one week long contractor job typing up address on raffle tickets, but it's still a newspaper building.
I went on a tour the first day I was here and got to see the big presses, vats of ink the size of showers, rolls of paper half the size of my car... There's actually this miniture train type thing built into the floor to drive the reams of paper around and load them into the presses. And the coffee machines they have here...
The one down in the bullpen area is the most amazing. It autobrews three 12-cup pots at a time, with warming plates and everything. When you go down there to use it all the journalists make growly faces and sort of lunge towards you, like maybe you were sent there to break the machine.
It's adorable.
Unfortunatly unlike on TV the journalists do not appear to be friendly. None of them have spoken so far besides glaring to communicate when you go near the coffee machine.
In other news, it is sixteen days til London.
I went on a tour the first day I was here and got to see the big presses, vats of ink the size of showers, rolls of paper half the size of my car... There's actually this miniture train type thing built into the floor to drive the reams of paper around and load them into the presses. And the coffee machines they have here...
The one down in the bullpen area is the most amazing. It autobrews three 12-cup pots at a time, with warming plates and everything. When you go down there to use it all the journalists make growly faces and sort of lunge towards you, like maybe you were sent there to break the machine.
It's adorable.
Unfortunatly unlike on TV the journalists do not appear to be friendly. None of them have spoken so far besides glaring to communicate when you go near the coffee machine.
In other news, it is sixteen days til London.
Monday, May 31, 2010
meh
Wow. I was sort of expecting about fifty flames over that last post.
Sorry I haven't written much lately. Spring semester was a nightmare and there's been some personal stuff going on. Nothing worth writing about though.
Right now it's seventeen days to London. Still have a lot to do before I can roll out. Like pack.
I finally saw Iron Man 2 today. Despite all the "it's not Iron Man 1" hype I thought it was pretty good. I feel a little gypped that Iron Man and Warmachine didn't fistbump in costume- but that was pretty much my biggest complaint. The movie didn't suck and for a sequel that a miracle, right? Tony did his big self-destruct thing which was fun to watch on the big screen. No matter how much they told me the Russian guy was a physicist I couldn't believe it- silver nail polish, dyed streaks in his hair, the prison tattoos. All I could think was "world's smartest hooker". He did have a good villain laugh, though.
On another note I saw Prince of Persia. (Spoilers) I don't even know what to say about it. Lots of parkour stuff and sharp objects and a princess. Mostly I think I feel cheated for the Prince guy since he lived through the whole movie and then went back to five minutes in.
Back to Iron Man- Jarvis could have talked 5000x more in the movie and it would have been awesome. Likewise that Jason Hammer dude could have stopped talking three hours before the movie started and I'd have been happy.
Sorry I haven't written much lately. Spring semester was a nightmare and there's been some personal stuff going on. Nothing worth writing about though.
Right now it's seventeen days to London. Still have a lot to do before I can roll out. Like pack.
I finally saw Iron Man 2 today. Despite all the "it's not Iron Man 1" hype I thought it was pretty good. I feel a little gypped that Iron Man and Warmachine didn't fistbump in costume- but that was pretty much my biggest complaint. The movie didn't suck and for a sequel that a miracle, right? Tony did his big self-destruct thing which was fun to watch on the big screen. No matter how much they told me the Russian guy was a physicist I couldn't believe it- silver nail polish, dyed streaks in his hair, the prison tattoos. All I could think was "world's smartest hooker". He did have a good villain laugh, though.
On another note I saw Prince of Persia. (Spoilers) I don't even know what to say about it. Lots of parkour stuff and sharp objects and a princess. Mostly I think I feel cheated for the Prince guy since he lived through the whole movie and then went back to five minutes in.
Back to Iron Man- Jarvis could have talked 5000x more in the movie and it would have been awesome. Likewise that Jason Hammer dude could have stopped talking three hours before the movie started and I'd have been happy.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
It's Been Weird
Sorry for the long break, things have been a bit crazy.
Started my second summer class which is a snore-fest. It's a history class where we spend most of the time discussing where commas go and "coordinate adjectives".
Began working on a Harry Potter scarf. You know, just in time for hellish summer temperatures and the movie. ^_^
Built an epic lego castle- which isn't epic in a huge, or turrets sort of way, but wins in sheer fury and creative use of clear red 1x1s as blood. (KSU did something wrong with my financial aid that day)
There's this study abroad next summer to London out of Valdosta State and I'm seriously planning on going. It's six weeks and there's a class on Shakespeare and another on London as a Setting in Novels (seriously, that's the class name)- think I'll get an extension on the ticket and stay an extra week or two so I can go to Cardiff and do all the stuff I couldn't do in the two days when I was there last fall. I just spent the last two hours reading stuff for class and babbling in IRC to my friend in London (who's asleep) about all the stuff I want to see/do.
(narg. it's still bugging me. i mean, i write stuff, and i never think to myself, "gosh, i'll put the coordinate adjective here." who names these things?)
London. London. London. It's going to be awesome. Did you know I only took about three pics while I was there? Remember when I dislocated my knee in Florence? That was about two or three weeks before London so I was hobbling around by myself on these crutches and it was like a bad comedy putting a crutch aside without dropping it to get in my bag and get the camera out and take a shot. I think there's one of a "do not put your bike here" type sign in the brownstone-y type part of town I was in, the Gloucester Street Station of the Tube, and me at Platform 9 3/4. The hostel I stayed in, the first night I got there, it was about 4AM when I wandered in and when I got up to my room there were like, six bunk beds and the only bed open was on the top of one, and everyone else is asleep and I couldn't even switch the light on while I hauled myself up the ladder with the bum knee. In hindsight it's insanely funny.
Somehow international travel is much funnier than local travel. I can't think of anything particularly funny about this last trip to Florida, back in May. But I think of Italy and there's the night where we were so punch drunk happy to be heading home from Pisa that we danced in the train. Or the demonic killer cherubs painted on the wall of the hotel room in Pompeii. Or my bum knee and climbing up a bunk bed at 4AM. Or this really nice older lady I met on the Tube while I was heading to Kings Cross and she asked me what else I was going to be seeing in England and I said I wanted to go to Wales and see Cardiff and she got so angry with me she started yelling in the train and I thought she was going to punch me. (Wales is like the boonies to people in London) And she wanted to know if London wasn't good enough for me? Couldn't I just go see Oxford instead- Or was I too good for Oxford?!
Heh. Travel. It's awesome.
Started my second summer class which is a snore-fest. It's a history class where we spend most of the time discussing where commas go and "coordinate adjectives".
Began working on a Harry Potter scarf. You know, just in time for hellish summer temperatures and the movie. ^_^
Built an epic lego castle- which isn't epic in a huge, or turrets sort of way, but wins in sheer fury and creative use of clear red 1x1s as blood. (KSU did something wrong with my financial aid that day)
There's this study abroad next summer to London out of Valdosta State and I'm seriously planning on going. It's six weeks and there's a class on Shakespeare and another on London as a Setting in Novels (seriously, that's the class name)- think I'll get an extension on the ticket and stay an extra week or two so I can go to Cardiff and do all the stuff I couldn't do in the two days when I was there last fall. I just spent the last two hours reading stuff for class and babbling in IRC to my friend in London (who's asleep) about all the stuff I want to see/do.
(narg. it's still bugging me. i mean, i write stuff, and i never think to myself, "gosh, i'll put the coordinate adjective here." who names these things?)
London. London. London. It's going to be awesome. Did you know I only took about three pics while I was there? Remember when I dislocated my knee in Florence? That was about two or three weeks before London so I was hobbling around by myself on these crutches and it was like a bad comedy putting a crutch aside without dropping it to get in my bag and get the camera out and take a shot. I think there's one of a "do not put your bike here" type sign in the brownstone-y type part of town I was in, the Gloucester Street Station of the Tube, and me at Platform 9 3/4. The hostel I stayed in, the first night I got there, it was about 4AM when I wandered in and when I got up to my room there were like, six bunk beds and the only bed open was on the top of one, and everyone else is asleep and I couldn't even switch the light on while I hauled myself up the ladder with the bum knee. In hindsight it's insanely funny.
Somehow international travel is much funnier than local travel. I can't think of anything particularly funny about this last trip to Florida, back in May. But I think of Italy and there's the night where we were so punch drunk happy to be heading home from Pisa that we danced in the train. Or the demonic killer cherubs painted on the wall of the hotel room in Pompeii. Or my bum knee and climbing up a bunk bed at 4AM. Or this really nice older lady I met on the Tube while I was heading to Kings Cross and she asked me what else I was going to be seeing in England and I said I wanted to go to Wales and see Cardiff and she got so angry with me she started yelling in the train and I thought she was going to punch me. (Wales is like the boonies to people in London) And she wanted to know if London wasn't good enough for me? Couldn't I just go see Oxford instead- Or was I too good for Oxford?!
Heh. Travel. It's awesome.
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