The flight from Boston to London was pretty good other then the rather tall Norwegian kid sitting beside me taking up a lot of my leg room. He was a nice enough guy though, has his masters in psychology and is currently working on his PhD at Boston University, so we had a fair amount to talk about. He's been to London a few times so I asked him what was fun to do here, and he told me to go see the Lion King musical...he obviously doesn't know me very well.
So after a sleepless flight we finally arrived in London, and after a bit of confusion about the subway system we managed to make it to the "Blue Bell Hotel" right outside of London. Unfortunately we couldn't check in for about 3 hours after we arrived so we were forced to immediately go out and wander around for a couple hours instead of napping for a couple hours like we so desperately wanted/needed to do.
We intended to go to a bunch of different places on the subway, but of course we didn't end up where we intended to so we wandered around some market that we just happened to run into. It was a lot of fun though, there were a lot of street performers and cool little stands/shops to look around (check out the pictures if I can figure out how to upload them). We also saw a cool old church and really just "immersed our selves in the London culture" if you will.
After we got back we took about a 5 hour nap, which was desperately needed. Then we walked about 5 minutes to the "Old Swan Pub" for some fish and chips and an English beer called "John Smith's" which was established in 1758. It was ironic because I'm pretty sure my "John Smith" was actually brewed in 1758 and served to me 253 short years later. I mean it wasn't quite that bad, but we'll call in "interesting". On the bright side of things, our fish and chips were out of this world...and just seeing a local pub in the full swing of things was really interesting. I got the feeling that the waitress (which you could only order from if you went up to the bar) thought I was a typical spoiled American when I asked for extra tartar sauce. I could tell she thought that when I asked and she said, "YOU ALREADY GOT ONE WITH YOUR MEAL!" I could also tell when she brought me my extra "tartar sauce" at 8:30 and said, "sorry, the kitchen is closed...all we have left is straight mayonnaise" when the restaurant part of the pub didn't close until 10. It was fine with me, because I don't mind mayonnaise, but I really did find it interesting how she viewed and treated the "spoiled american" when I asked for something extra.
Another quick side note about the pub experience: I already mentioned that you must walk up to the bar and order what ever you want. I also found it interesting that you aren't expected to tip the guys behind the bar (I was a bit skeptical and watched 4 or 5 people go up before me and they didn't tip them...so neither did I). There's also no "wait to be seated" signs...and most people come in, sit down, clear off the people's trash before them to a corner of the table, go up and order, and then wait for the waitress to come bring their food and clear the table at the same time. Obviously, that was very different to what I'm used to in the states.
After the pub, Megan and I walked around for over an hour taking in the sights, sounds, culture, and overall experience of the U.K. culture. I wish I could recount all the differences to the US I've noticed in the few hours that I've been here, but I'll share some of them with you:
-Almost all business men wear super pointy dress shoes with their suits.
-Everybody in general dresses weird (Apparently gym shorts and t-shirts aren't the fad here. Also, Chase Franklin...you belong in Europe, not Boone).
-Apparently the electrical outlets are different here.
-They drive on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car...weird.
-The street signs are posted on fences and other random places beside the street approximately 12 to 18 inches above the ground...with cars parked in front of them.
-Everything costs the same as America...except it's in pounds instead of dollars. So, basically everything here is about 60% more expensive than it is in Amurica.
-I've seen more "nice" (take it for what it's worth) cars here in the last 8 hours then I would normally see in 8 months in Hickory.
-They sell canned mixed drinks (see pictures). Including: Gin and Tonic, Jack and Coke, Soco and Lemonade/Lime, Vodka and Cranberry, and Crown and Coke.
-Speaking of alcohol, for those of you who drink Stella, you can get a 6 pack of 16oz Stellas for a little less than $10 here...even with the terrible exchange rate.
-Getting sports on TV to show to a public audience is extremely expensive...so almost none of the pubs here get more than 3 or 4 channels of TV.
-Building on the last point, it didn't seem to matter to the patrons of the pub. They all talked about twice as loudly and twice as much as most Americans in a sports bar/pub...even without sports to watch.
Anyway, It's almost 12:30AM here so Megan and I are gonna finish off this bottle of South African wine that we bought and head to bed. We have a full day of sight seeing ahead of us tomorrow. It all starts with a 1.5-2 mile stroll through Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard.
I hope everybody is enjoying the blog so far, and I'll update again as soon as possible!
Cheers,
Mark
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