(no subject)

[inahandbasket]

So far, London is lovely if a bit dreary and wet.
We've really just trod around the central part of London mostly, but I feel we did it a decent bit of justice for only having two days to do so.


Saturday:
- Walked the Strand/Fleet street, ogled old(ish) buildings, discovered Prosicated's camera no longer functional. Regretted not hauling along my whole photo kit.
- Hit St. Pauls Cathedral, walked all the way up to the top (counted nearly 500 steps all told), amazing view of the city!
- Then we wandered and meandered over to the Borough Market and availed ourselves of lots of local tasty. Bread, cheese, meats, fruits, turkish delights, hard cider (which turned out to suck), and some British and Belgian beers.
- Went back to the hotel after a good bit more meandering and had ourselves a lovely feast. Watched the latest Potter movie which we missed in theaters. (First miss!) They did it well, excellent fight scene which didn't translate as well in the book. Lots of eye candy.

Sunday:
- Wandered Regent st. and Soho in the morning, got some apparently exclusive British tea at some poncey department store. Found a decent pub to grab some food at, discovered the beauty of English cask ales. Oh my.
- Wandered over to Buckingham Palace, giggled at the uppity guards, checked out Westminster, houses of Parliment, etc., and made our way back up the Thames along the embankment.
- Went to hotel room, researched a pub for dinner, sent to it. Discovered that it was a sister pub to the one we had lunch at, and had the same menu. Doh! Ordered different food, sent back Prosicated's icy onion tart and got some lovely bangers and mash for her instead. Had yet more lovely cask ales.
- Went back to hotel, finished off the remaining beers from Borough Market, crashed.

Monday: back to work for me, Prosicated's checking out more of town and meeting a friend for dinner while I go out with work folk. (Whee office politics!)
Tomorrow: morning of work then onto a plane.

First pet peeve about London, their insistance on having a separate faucet for hot and cold in sinks.
So. Annoying.

Work's picking up again, back to it.

Oh, nearly forgot my current earbug!
Check out http://www.myspace.com/airtistmusic
"naturalbiodynamictranceproject" / Electroacoustic.
Didgeridoo, jew's harp, and a beatboxer doing 'techno/dance' style stuff.

Comments

[kivrin.livejournal.com]

When I was in London in '99 I really enjoyed the Cabinet War Rooms and I hear good things about the Imperial War Museum.

[djluminal.livejournal.com]

AIRtist = HOLY CRAP!

Thank you for turning me on to them, I was amazed at what I saw and heard. I love the idea of "electronic" style music being performed by traditional instrumentation, and hearing it done well is a real pleasure.

Enjoy England, get home safe :-)

[inahandbasket]

isn't that awesome?

I've had a hankering for this sort of stuff since I nearly became part of a live drum 'n bass duo back in college. Sadly it fell through, but I've been wanting to scratch that itch ever since.
Someday...

[pasquillacious.livejournal.com]

Let me second that on AIRtist.

[moira-kathleen.livejournal.com]

The whole faucet thing? One of the reasons a couple of my (non-British) friends would joke that England was a third world country when we were living there.

Also, were the pubs part of Wetherspoon's?

Thirdly, Strongbow is a good hard cider.

[macthud]

Mmmmmmmm, Strongbow...

[inahandbasket]

yeah, the one we found was a local and organic one, they had various vintage wooden casks on tap and would fill you a 2-pint container to go. The stand was full of people who seemed to be locals.
It sounded like a good plan, tasted mostly like bile.

Prosicated cleansed her palate with a Strongbow on drought at the pub on sunday. ;-)

[moira-kathleen.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, Strongbow. It was pretty much all I ending up drinking in England. I've finally found a place that sells it here in the US; of course, that place is in Oregon...

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Pet peeve about America: firstly, the fact they only have one tap. Secondly, that they don't say taps. :P

[inahandbasket]

Pubs have taps, sinks have faucets.
=P

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Come to my city. I can show you a pub with ten cask ales on, and then take you to another with twelve, before winding up at one that not only does a different twelve but IS ON A RIVER BECAUSE IT IS A BOAT.

(Seriously, though, come to England when the beer festival is on in Earl's Court...300+ cask ales to choose from in one event.)

[inahandbasket]

Next time i make it over here, you're on!

I thought about dropping you a note, but it was so last minute that I figured it'd just be too hectic on my part even if you happened to be free. ^_^

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Well, it's up to you. I've never done the London one, but the one that's about two miles from my house is the second-biggest, so I've never really felt that I needed to do the London one, but if you visited I'd certainly be open to the suggestion! :)

Oh, and I actually had all Monday morning with nothing to do, so meeting up would've been possible (I think you were still in London on Monday morning/early afternoon?).

[rainbow-spork.livejournal.com]

First pet peeve about London, their insistance on having a separate faucet for hot and cold in sinks.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I believe I ranted about this at dinner after I got back from Scotland & Ireland, did I not? I DON'T UNDERSTAND IT. I thought SURELY in the roughly 10 years since I'd lived in the UK they'd have figured this one out, but apparently not. IT MAKES NO SENSE. You know how I was saying that this recent trip brought me a sense of closure made me realise that I don't really want to live in the UK again? I swear to god, about half that realisation was brought about my friggin' lack of mixer taps. The REST of Europe has them, why not the UK and Ireland??

/rant

[nanila]

Hello! I have met you now, had a drink with you and also laughed at limp tulips with you. Finally, I have added you on LJ, which is of course the real indication of whether or not you like someone, eh?

Hope you made it safely back to the land of single sink taps, weak lager and uncomplicated flush toilets.

[inahandbasket]

Obviously. Added back. ^_^

And I'll have you know that the states have come a long way in the microbrew segment of the beer world... =P