It’s 12 o’clock somewhere, but not here. The hall is packed but they don’t start serving beer until noon!! We’ve got a seat and we’re waiting it out. The Weisswuerste and Leberkaes should be here soon.
Oktoberfest!!!
A Change of Season
You can pack away your tank tops (or vests as these crazy Brits call them). Summer seems to be over folks. Maybe I shouldn’t call it Summer since we never really had Summer. No, I arrived in March and suddenly the jet lag faded and Spring hit us with a warm smack upside our heads. I remember April lunches in the city parkette across from my work and the weekends with Jason trying each park on London’s leafy menu.
But it never really got warmer than that. I think we had Spr-ummer. Which is probably why I’m more aware of of this change of season.
It’s cold alright, early November in Toronto cold.
I don’t have much else to report. We might be moving soon, but I don’t want to share too much. We haven’t seen the lease yet and I don’t want to jinx it. We’ve come so close to renting a new place twice now, I can’t bare the thought of having to start the search all over again.
For now, I wait for my lease, pull on a jumper (that’s a sweater don’t yu know!) and watch the MOBO awards on BBC Three. How can such a powerful voice come from such a tiny shell of a body?? Amy Winehouse, put down the heroin and pick up a Banger in a Bap (..bap! see, I’m learning).
Our latest visitors
It’s Sunday, we’re having traditional roast with our latest visitors at a gastro pub on Columbia road. The flower market outside has finished up and we’re enjoying a Sunday catching up with friends.
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Summer is coming to an end
It’s around 7pm and on my walk home from work I can see the sun setting. After a slightly annoying day at ye old office a walk through Hyde park hits the spot, and I welcome the visual spectacle. But it does mean those really long summer nights are coming to and end. For the last few months I’ve enjoyed sunsets after 9pm (well when it’s not pouring down new historic rainfall amounts) and lots of daylight.
This weekend the mayor is hosting the annual Thames festival self described as the offical end of summer festival.
I can only hope we get that Indian summer meteorologista are talking about.
Fingers crossed.
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It’s Been One Fantastic Year
One year this week, September 10th, 2006, I entered the
Travel this year for Sylvia and I has included
This year we’ve viewed more flats in
We’ve had lot of interesting experiences that have made it to the blog including attending horse races, dealing with the tube, travelling by train, hunting for the perfect flat, buying Manolos, navigating the floodwaters, watching local sports, exploring English cuisine, mobile blogging, tasting sweeteners, bitching about the weather, hanging out with the cats, stumbling through the language barrier, getting well deserved status, attending tradeshows, exploring the Sunday pub culture, tasting cheese, the trials and tribulations of international professionals, ranting about the commute, ranting about budget airlines, and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of travel.
So what do we think about living here? We bloody love it. Let’s hope 2008 is even better.
Licence to … Drive
I’ve got my UK driver’s licence! Oh yeah!
No, it’s not what you think – I didn’t take a road test. Actually I still have yet to attempt to drive in the UK at all. Through the miracle of international treaties, I can drive in the UK without ever setting foot in a right-hand drive car. It’s like diplomatic immunity but … well … nothing like diplomatic immunity.
Consider this list of countries:
- Australia
- Barbados
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Falkland Islands
- Faroe Islands
- Hong Kong
- Japan
- Monaco
- New Zealand
- Republic of Korea
- Singapore
- South Africa
- Switzerland
- Zimbabwe
What do these have in common? Well nothing, except that the UK allows people with driver’s licences from this haphazard list of countries to “trade in†for a UK licence. My Canadian licence was due to expire next month so I figured I might as well do the swap. By the way, I notice a disproportionate number of “island countries” in this list. I think there’s a pro-island bias in the UK.
But it’s not all roses and kitten tails. I cheerfully ordered the relevant forms but when they arrived I found their dirty little racist secret:
What?! So you’re telling me I go take a driver’s test in Zimbabwe and I’m a-okay to putter around in a manual transmission but a Canadian can’t hack it? Are they saying that the drivers of Barbados are more capable than I, a noble graduate of Ontario Truck Driving School (car lessons)? I feel so singled out, betrayed. I bet if I were born on an Island they wouldn’t have any issues with me. At least they printed it on 100% recycled paper.
But then I realized I’m kinda crap at driving a manual transmission anyway and they’re probably right: most Canadians can’t drive a manual transmission car worth shit.
Ah well. I traded in a licence that expires in 2007 for one that expires in 2017. Shazam! Maybe I’ll try taking a driving test in Zimbabwe next time I’m there.
For my dear friend Nelson
Saw this pub near old street tube station. See you next week!
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Sweet or salty?
I know everyone speaks English but sometimes you really can feel like a foreigner. Last night we went to see that Bourne (incredibly loosely based on the book) movie. I bought some popcorn like I often do, but here in jolly old England I was asked ‘sweet or salty?’ The lady looked quite confused when I said ‘no, and no’. She actually looked quite baffled and asked again. ‘Sweet or salty’ ‘Um, … Normal?’ Confused pause. ‘Sweet or salty!’
‘Uh, salty I guess …’
She handed be over the largest small I’ve ever seen and I marvelled in the fact that the popcorn wasn’t bright yellow and oozing with butter ala Toronto.
It was however as expected, salty. WAY to salty.
I think next time I’ll go for the beer they were selling in the adjacent kiosk. Yes, beer in a movie theatre
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Tourist day 2
In between the england vs isreal football match and Canada vs whales rugby match we take John and his friend Chris to London’s must see spots. Today, tower hill and tower bridge.
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tourist photo
Jason’s brother is in town and we’re out revisiting the sites
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Last Week in Europe
While I’m sure you all can’t get enough of “Sylvia rants about her commute,” it might be time for me to finally write an article! I just got back (very late Monday night) from one week in Europe – Brussels and Berlin. Europe? Yes, haven’t you heard? The Brits don’t really consider themselves part of Europe. They often say they’re “going to Europe” by which they mean “the continent” or “real Europe.” Admittedly, things are pretty different over there – the chavs speak two languages for instance.
I’ve had just about enough of air travel lately (having taken probably about 70 flights this year already), so I opted to begin my journey to the Continent via the train. I arrived at the Eurostar terminal in Waterloo just over an hour before my train and I couldn’t even check in yet! They didn’t board the train until 10 minutes before departure. Now that’s a nice change.
The Eurostar trains are good – better than airplanes – but not as perfect as I expected. I was hoping to get a pile of work done but with no power outlets (c’mon, it’s electric!) and no WiFi, my options were limited. Maybe I have to go First Class? However I did manage to get my highest score yet on Ka*Glom (damn you SHAUNDOUGHERTY – how do you score so high?).
But in the end it was a smooth journey. Less expensive, faster, and more comfortable than flying. I’m sold! When the Eurostar opens at St. Pancreas (less than 5 minutes walk from our flat) then I’ll be taking it as often as possible. And, they just hit a new speed record for London to Paris this week.
My hotel in Brussels wasn’t so great. For instance, there was a moth in the room and no soap in the despenser in the bathroom. Internet accesss was obscene: only WiFi with lousy reception (natch) and it was €20/day!! The best though, was the iron.
Like most hotels on the Continent, there is no iron in the room. I figure there must be some kind of EU tax on irons that make them particularly expensive because they seem to have every other useless hotel peripheral but never an iron. If I’m on a business trip, I would rather have an iron over a TV, but hey, that’s just me. But I digress. I phoned housekeeping, as per usual, to ask for an iron. The fellow on the other end of the phone sounded very confused. After explaining to him that “yes, I need it to iron my clothes,” he said “there’s one in the hallway.” Usually housekeeping brings it up but hey, if the can’t even be bothered to fill the soap dispensers I’m sure they’re not exactly employing a top-notch housekeeping staff.
Here was the iron:
Yes, the ironing board is firmly attached to the wall and the iron is chained there as well. I had to stand out in the hallway, ironing my trousers, while guests and staff walked by. There is something truly ridiculous about this. I was tempted to strip off my clothes and start ironing in my birthday suit; maybe ask a few passers by if they need me to iron anything while I’m there. I’m sure they’d love a naked man standing in the hallway saying “Hey buddy, can I press your trousers?”
Anyhow, I’m done staying in Ibis Accor hotels.
So on to Berlin. My Lufthansa flight was uneventful. Berlin is an interesting city; much more spread out and spacious than a typical European city. I guess that’s what can happen when they rebuild it from scratch 60 years ago. It was good to practise my German which is getting worse quickly as I rarely practice.
Guten Morgen. Ich möchte zur Messe bitte fahren.
I was attending the “IFA” tradeshow during the week; this was a first for me. IFA is a typical enormous sprawling German tradeshow – kinda like CeBIT, but not in a shitty city. The strangest thing about IFA is that it’s completely open to the public so you’ve got a young couple pushing a pram next to granny inspecting the latest LCD TVs. Very strange. I was busy all week helping our customers with their tradeshow events and press. Here’s Wim – our trusty Señor FAE – helping Lucky Goldstar get their house in order:
Of course I was also meeting with the press every day to tell them all about our new and wonderful technology that enables users to improve their productivity quickly and easily through the use of multiple monitor computing with DisplayLink‘s unique network display techno…uh… sorry about that. I’ve been doing elevator pitches all week.
IFA, it seems, is all about the TVs. Who would have thought there were so many TV manufacturers out there? It seems like China has invaded the LCD market. Every room was plastered with huge LCD TVs proclaiming “Full HD” and “True HD,” as opposed to the “Half HD” and “False HD” the manufacturers have been peddling for years.
One vendor stood out however:
The miracles of modern CRTs! It takes some guts to go to a consumer electronics tradeshow and fill over a thousand square feet with 50 year old TV technology. Bravo!
This wasn’t an Asian tradeshow, so there weren’t as many funny things as some other shows I’ve been to. Still, I managed to find a few gems.
Walinda Technology Co. has what has to be the world’s most boring trade show booth:
I guess they blew so much cash on the booth space they didn’t have the budget for anything else. If Walinda don’t do it for you, these folks will keep you 100% satisfied:
At one of the restaurants, they had these random “speech bubbles” hanging from the ceiling:
I particularly liked this guy who was walking around:
No idea what these were for.
Sylvia joined me for the weekend, which would have been perfect if a) I didn’t need to work through half the time and b) shops were open on Sundays. Oh well, live and learn. We did go to a dark restaurant on Saturday night, but I think we’ll leave that for another blog post
The strike continues
The tube entrance at King’s Cross. This is the wait to get on the two running lines. The line goes a block long. Meanwhile across the street the buses are full and stops are rammed. But if my coworkers can catch their black cabs in to work from south Kensington … Well then surely I can make it in on time too.
No smiles for me today
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Strike again
So far I have to say, loving the tube strike. It gave me a great excuse to sleep in, and for once living at kings cross worked to my benefit. King’s Cross provides loads of bus options and the themeslink (over land rail) is still running and 2 or the 3 remaining functional tube lines run throug King’s Cross . Not that I dared try to take the tube. I’ve seen the scary amounts of people who come off those commuter trains, I’m not fighting with them. No, I took the rail down to blackfriars in the city and enjoyed a nice 30 min walk to work. The sun is shining weather is crisp, and I’m getting a bit of exercise.
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Let the Chaos begin..
Fresh off the BBC website:
Tube strike travel chaos expected
Tube passengers are braced for travel chaos this week after unions confirmed a 72-hour strike by maintenance workers would start on Monday.
This should be a fun few days. I can’t even imagine what the streets will be like, and Jason has our camera!
Update your damn website
I’m coming home from Berlin and I’m on the standsted express and it’s late. We get to tottenham hale were I can connect to the Victoria line and get home quite a bit faster than if I stayed on the express all the way down to London Liverpool. But it’s late it’s 11.45 so I decide to check London tube online for their last tube time, I.m that clever:
Tottenham Hale 0528 0544 0555 … … 0057 … 0720 … … … 0020
You can imagine my shock and anger when I get through the turnstile and hear that the last train left 15 minutes ago. Seriously? How? I read your damn schedule and checked!!! I go talk to the unhelpful man in the booth who tells me that it’s Sunday, trains finish early. I show him the online schedule still loaded up in my handheld and he frowns and says, oh … That schedule is wrong. Wrong?! How?!? How can you be wrong about the last train by 45 minutes?!? I’m pissed and I tell this guy how ridiculous this is. I’m trying to get to kings cross and had I known your schedule is WRONG I would have stayed on the express train all the way to Liverpool street and taken the tube there (which generally runs later) or taken one of the many short bus options. Now I’m stuck in zone 3 waiting for a series of2 night buses at midnight because you incompotent monkeys can’t get your schedule right!!! I know I say this all the time, but I am SO writing them an angry letter.
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Quiet morning
This is an odd site on the morning rush to work. I usually need to elbow a few old ladies and hip check the odd pregnant lady to get a seat. Not this morning, I seem to have happened upon a district line train less than half full. Has daylight savings kicked in?? What’s going on?!
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Pining for the Fjords
To set the record straight, no we don’t have a thing for rain.
Several of my friends who lived here last year told me about this heat wave in London last year in August and about the general lack of air condition in the city that makes things miserable. When I started working and commented on our freezing cold a/c (in April!) coworkers told me I would be happy come August, when it’s HOT. So, with that in mind, I figured we’d be eager to escape the heat and want to head north into Scandinavia. So several months ago I booked us tickets to Bergen, a city that averages over 260 days of rain per year! 3 days in the crisp Norwegian Fjords, oh how clever I thought I was.
But then we get the 2007 floods and the worst summer on record (since the 1700’s apparently) and I feel a bit silly flying north for the last bank holiday of the year.
But with e-tickets burning a hole in our inbox, it’s off to the fjords for us.
As the plane makes it’s pass over Bergen, first impressions are excellent: dark green landscape of small islands dotted with brightly coloured houses. After a slight delay with EuropeCar, we loaded into our green Ford and headed North.
Driving in western Norway is probably as close to driving in a car commercial as you can get. Tight narrow roads wind through the forested hills meanwhile breathtaking scenery drops down into the valleys below you. Once you get about 2 hours outside of Bergen the traffic dies down nicely giving you that “closed course” feel (Except when you round those blind corners and find yourself head on with a tour bus).
To get through the impossible landscape, the Norwegians have cut hundreds of tunnels into the fjords, some as long as 24km, many of which cut directly through the fjord. But with the landscaped so geographically shredded the infrastructure is further supplemented with high class car ferries.
We made our home base for the weekend in Mundal, a tiny village in the Sognefjord, Europes largest Fjord.
This village may only have 2 hotels and 1 cafe, but it still manages to have 14 bookshops and the self declared title: Norway’s Book Town.
I’ll be honest, those who know me well, know that the idea of paper books sitting out in the damp outdoors does not sit well with me. But that’s another story.
***
Sunday brings us across another car ferry to Ornes to check out the Norway’s oldest stave church:
.. and later that day to Jostedalen Glacier, the largest glacier in continental Europe. Both stops involved a bit of a hike, clearly the glacier more so:
The fjords are a place where photos just can’t do it justice. The scenery is truly magnificent.
After several weeks in Iceland in 2003, we are no stranger to glaciers. But with this one we managed to get a more dramatic view of the glaciers edge. In Iceland, the end of the glacier more subtly melted into the rock, where as here it appeared to be cleanly sliced revealing the layers of blue and white on the interior.
That evening we drove back to Mundal snacking on Wasa rye crispbreads topped with local Yarlsberg cheese and thin slices of dried salted lamb. Norwegian food is in fact quite delicious. The meatballs with cloudberry sauce we had for dinner the night before were excellent as was our lunch of Smorbord, open faced sandwiches common to Scandinavia that we first sampled in Copenhagen in 2005. And as we learned earlier that day, local raspberries taste uncannily like gummy Swedish Berries. Thankfully unlike Iceland, Norway is not a culinary dead spot.
***
Monday we decide to take a long scenic route back to Bergen starting with an hour and a half long car ferry across the fjord to the small port village of Vangsnes. Cruising the fjords gives you perspective as to just how massive the surrounding hills are. Ribbons of glacier waterfalls trickle down the slopes of the hills; it’s a peaceful way to travel.
As we make our way back to Bergen, our little green Ford makes the shockingly steep climb out of the Sognefjord away from Vangsnes and remarkably over into the next fjord just south of us.
It’s at the top though that we experience the most memorable scenery of the trip.
At the top of the fjord, the trees disappear and the landscape turns to rugged moss and rocks. The temperature drops to about 6C and for a while it’s only us and the frisky sheep. We stop and take time to breathe in the air.
I look around and note a scattering of small bright red coloured farm houses and quietly hope that we can find a guest house for next time.
Oh, to spend a weekend on top of a fjord in almost solitude rambling along the rocks with only the sheep.
I quickly sketched out a future long weekend.
We learned early in our travels that even though we adore living in big cities, we do have a thing for vacationing in remote desolate places. Iceland, Atiu, and now this place, Vikafjellet.
With an early evening flight to catch, we tore ourselves away and zipped down into the valley on the other side and after a few hours (and many more winding roads) later we reached Bergen.
It may not have been sunny skies and beachy weather, but a weekend in the Norwegian wilderness seemed to satisfy our August Bank Holiday needs.
But perhaps I’m not entirely fulfilled.
After 3 days I’m left pining for the fjords.
The Italian Shop
I new deli slash sandwich shop slash cafe opened in Belgravia the other week. It seems I’ve found London’s version of my much loved Toronto Bay street establishment, Mercatto’s. Except perhaps that this place takes the Italian vibe beyond shelves stocked with Italian products, and further stocks their shop with (pretty, this is belgravia after all) Italian staff who yell orders at each other in full on pationate Italian.
They make a tasty rocket and tomato salad too.
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Tab day at the Sandwich Shop
I stopped by what has quickly become my favourite lunch time stop: Buckingham Coffee Lounge. Tucked behind a shopping complex with the likes of mainstream eateries such as Nandos, Eat, Wagamamas and the ever present Marks and Spencer, my little sandwich shop is delightfully simple. No Rocket + Brie & Cranberry compote baguette to be found here, just straight forward simple British sandwiches. Which of course means obscene amounts of mayonaise. But if I’m careful in my ordering I can avoid the typical gloopy english sandwich and get something quite tasty, and for under £ 2.50! Lately, I’ve become a bit of a regular, and as a result I’ve noticed that I’m not alone. The same 4 staff members who work there every day are starting to know me, but not as well as the hoards of cabbie drivers who seem to come by everyday. I’ve noticed the black cabs lined up outside before, but never paid much attention to how often these guys lunch here. But today the staff was extra chatty with them, since I learned today is tab day. At least half the place was setteling their weekly tabs with the shop. Quite the trusting policy especially given that we’re in central London and all the papers on the coffee shop tables are splashed with headlines about the 11 year old boy shot dead in a drive by shooting (err.. ride-by, it was from a bicycle. The killer is beleived to be 13). But in this little sandwich shop, London feels very friendly.
In this photo, you can see the green sign for the shop, and all the black (and one token red) cabs lined up outside.
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The circle line is experiencing severe delays
… And as a result, Victoria station was backed up and temporarily closed due to over crowding. Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
Back in the U.K.
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You know what I love about the British.. their sense of humour. It’s so dry and just plain amazing.
There are these two old British guys at work who sit upstairs, I used to sit near them and know them quite well. I ran into them at the end of my lunch. Now I have on a coat, a scarf, rosy red cheeks and a half broken umbrella and those two are just out in their regular suits. So I question them and they proceed to, as the British call it, take the piss out of me. Please picture this with molasses thick British old man accents:
me: No jackets?
Num 1: oh what? No, I wanted to get some fresh air..
Num 2: …yes, it’s just so dreadfully hot these days.
Num 1: … mm, yes, just stiffling actually.
Num 2: well, it is August, we must expect it.
me: oh yes, hardly. It’s freezing out today! And the rain makes it worse
Num 1: oh what? this? Just wait until November
me:
Num 2: No, that’s when the real rain starts.
Num 1: You’ll be happy it’s dark. You won’t be able to see the rain.
Num 2: hmm yes, only way you can bare it.
So amusing.
For the Brits who read this
This photo is for the few Brits out their who read this. This is Toronto’s version of the tube. Notice how wide and spacious it is, almost luxurious. It’s 9.30 am and hardly a crowd (unlike the Victoria line that dies down for about 12 minutes around 11 before picking up the lunch time crowds) And the crowning achievement … Air conditioning!!
(we won’t discuss the limited service map or that there only 2.5 lines …details details)
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Serenity now!
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The joys of our neighbourhood
This is King’s Cross after all. But what’s with the paper bags? This is London, I believe public drinking is legal … If not those chavs on the bus, construction workers at the grocery store and football hooligans on the tube (on Saturday morning I might add) have some explaining to do! Seriously, why hide it? Although I admit it looks a bit artistic. Have artists moved in? Maybe the neighbourhood really is gentrifying!
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Potter Spotter Part 2
Continuing on the Harry Potter mania, there was a full gaggle of muggles at platform 9 3/4 today:
They were all fully decked out in capes, and the chaperones had wizards hats. How odd.
King’s Cross is busy today in general. I don’t know why, but today seems to be tourist day and my normally empty train is packed with poorly dressed fat Americans. Admittedly the weather is beautiful, but that seems to be the norm this past week.
These seats don’t recline either
A café near our flat has retired airline seats as chairs:
They’re pretty beat up and broken but they’re still newer and in better condition than anything you’ll find on an Air Canada flight! I’m glad I can fly Virgin Atlantic nowadays (well, to everywhere but Canada).
How packed is the tube?
The Victoria line this morning at 9:10am. I was pouring sweet within seconds. Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device
Sunday Roast with some Canadians
i love that London is a transport hub for people. You get lots of random people passing through on their way to somewhere else. Today my old clasmate Scott was on a few day lay over on his way to a 4 week trip to Africa. We met him for some Sunday roast at a unassuming pub near oxford circus. This roast had the biggest Yorkshire pudding I’ve ever seen!!! Not your normal little cupcake sized bowl, no this was a huge slab of Yorkshire pudding goodness:
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BlackBerry Blogging
To continue our reputation of “the house of the future,” I’ve decided it was about time to set up mobile blogging on britlog. Through the miracles of modern technology, Sylvia and I can now post to the blog from our BlackBerrys. Here’s Sylvia blogging on the street:
This will ensure we can post all of our rage as it happens.
Adverts on the tube
This is typical. An advertisement for something I don’t get. I don’t know who that is (am I supposed to?) and I just think the question is a bit rude! Maybe I should be reading one of the several dozen trashy gossip magazines they have here. Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device