Ingenious British Plugs

I learned something quite amazing today about British wall outlets.

It all started when my boss gave me my new phone today. I got one of those snazzy PDA/Phone combo things so I can get rid of what little life I had remaining by signing up for "push" email. For some reason, they shipped us the European versions of the phone, with a European charger.

Now, I have a lot of different adapters - US to UK, UK to US, UK to Europe, US to Europe - but I don't have any Europe to UK...it just doesn't seem necessary. So, my boss said, until I get the proper adapter, I could just stick a screwdriver in the top of the socket and then plug the two prongs in the bottom.

I was horrified. Here my boss was asking me to stick a metal object in the power outlet?? Is my performance really that bad? So I made him prove it to me - basically the top outlet is the ground (he called it earth, btw) - and if you stick something in it, it opens up the bottom two holes so you can stick the rest of the plug in. Basically, this means that in addition to having a built in on-off switch (pictured right) - that all of our plugs are inherently child proof. Brilliant!

I guess it is a good thing - 220v is a whole lot more than 110....twice as much, even.

Fifth of November = Fourth of July

So lately, there have been a lot of fireworks displays near my house. Last night, Saturday night, a week ago, etc. It seemed a bit strange to me - I haven't really seen any fireworks since I have been here. Tonight, after I saw listings for fireworks in Time Out as well as some kids lighting firecrackers in the streets, I decided to do a little investigation.

Turns out that this weekend is Bonfire Night, or Guy Fawkes Night. On November 5, 1605, five conspirators including Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up Parliament and kill King James the I. And I guess Londoners (and maybe the rest of England, who knows) celebrate the occasion.

I guess it has a whole lot more history than a US hell night, but it still seems a bit strange to me. Unfortunately, I will be out of here on Saturday, so I won't be able to experience the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot.

Blog Hiatus

A few reasons for my long hiatus between postings...

• I left London on September 28 to go first to Munich and then on vacation in Greece.
• I caught a nasty bug in Greece that is still hanging on to some extent.
• I had a houseful of guests visiting me in honor of my birthday (yay!)

In any case, I am determined not to let October go by without a posting or two. Especially since I leave for the states for three weeks next Saturday.

Here are some pictures I shot in September before I left London. The Guildhall pictures are from the London Open House, when a whole bunch of buildings are open to the public.

Le Mickey Mouse

I spent this last week at EuroDisney, or Disneyland Paris, as all their logo'd merchandise said. I was actually there for work, for a sales conference for our entire European sales team. We have our annual conference in Anaheim, near another Disney, so maybe we got a good deal or something. The timing was pretty good as most kids are back at school from holidays.

I have to admit that this was not exactly a place on my list of sites in Europe to visit. As I expected, it was pretty much a little slice of America plopped down in France. I was so disoriented the entire week because it was so much like Disney World, including the decor of the hotel, with the primary differences being the crap weather and the people speaking French. I usually try to speak a bit of French, or any other language, when I travel, but I felt like I was in America all week.

Thursday night we went into the Park for dinner and drinks, and they had the Thunder Mountain ride open for us to use. Again, it was just like the one I have ridden in Anaheim. That was good thing I guess, since it is a fun ride.

The worst part, by far, was the fact that every evening when I returned to my room in the New York Hotel, I had to walk over a gigantic Yankees logo. Ugh!!!

An American Red Sox fan in London

It is tough to be a Boston Red Sox fan in London. Especially in September, when the season is drawing to a close and the playoffs are fast approaching.

The first and most obvious problem - baseball is an American sport. Duh, you say. Of course. But if I was a soccer fan or an American football fan or even a hockey fan (okay, hockey is not so popular here, but it is in Europe, along with a growing appreciation for basketball), it would be easier to cope. Football (the real version) is popular all over the world, and I happen to live very close to Arsenal - close enough so they would clamp my car on match days if I had one. Even if I was an American football fan, I could have the discussion about, oh American football is not the same, blah blah blah, or I could watch rugby, which doesn't seem that far off to me.

No, here we have cricket, and people say, oh well, cricket is just like baseball. Wrong! Right now the whole of England is mad for cricket, because of something called The Ashes. This is a year to year rivalry played all summer between Australia and England, to win a small urn filled with ashes from a cricket bat some women burned and presented to one of the teams back in the late 1800s, when the two countries started this tradition. All summer cricket has been all the rage, because for once in a great while England has the chance to bring home the Ashes. For the last several days, England and Australia have been playing a test match at the Oval, a big stadium in the south of the city. Every morning on the radio someone is talking about it. John Major wrote a silly little poem about it that I have heard three times this week, and Mick Jagger was on the radio with him the other day as well, calling in from Minneapolis of all places.

Today I tried to actually watch the cricket on televison to see if I can get into it. I tried, I really did. I even went to wikipedia to read the rules of cricket to see if I could understand it. But it turned out that it was just good napping fodder. There are all these guys out there, with quaint outfits, bowling and hitting the ball with the funny bat for what seems like forever. And when there wasn't a rain delay (several) - which Brits seem to think is a good sign for some reason - they are taking breaks for lunch and for tea. I thought baseball games were long. I tried to get some context to the whole thing by reading a comparison between baseball and cricket, but all it made me do was yearn for more baseball.

Next problem - watching actual games. I subscribed to a channel called NASN - North American Sports Network - so I could see a few games. Of course, they have to cater to all sports, so they don't often show baseball games, let alone Red Sox ones. They seem to show a lot of NASCAR and Canadian football for some reason. But, every once in a while they will show a game, which leads me to the other problem....

Time difference. Last night there was a game broadcast live - the MFY (not my TLA, but it fits) vs Boston, from Yankee Stadium. And because of the time difference - it started at midnight! Funny enough, there is a local Red Sox fan club here of sorts, and I really wanted to go to the sports bar where they were and see the game, but I just couldn't stay awake. I wound up going to sleep then getting back up at 12:30 to watch it, only to find that NASN's signal was all screwed up. I called them and the guy told me that I was basically out of luck - no one else had reported any problems and that he would report it but no promises. How dare they! Luckily the signal came back eventually.

So I stayed up until 4 am to watch my sox play like total crap. 4 errors I think they had, and the Yankees won 8 to 3. Pathetic.

Thank goodness for the Internet. I just 'watched' half the game on mlb.com gameday and I am happy to report they creamed the evil empire 9-2, and Curt Schilling pitched 8 innings.

I also have to mention the other really annoying part of being a Red Sox fan here. Whenever I see people wearing baseball hats in public in London, 99% of the time they are yankees hats. What really galls me is that I don't think the people wearing them even have a clue about baseball, they are just wearing them to be hip. I have seen all different colors, including one in Burberry plaid. Even one of the July 21 bombers was wearing a new york warm up jacket. Didn't you guys get the memo? They remind me of all the people in the US who wear Michigan hats and jackets, not because they went to college there, but for some reason they think it's cool. Idiots.

I imagine as the playoffs and/or the world series (hopefully :) start up, I am going to be even more irked at the lack of baseball coverage here. Either that or I am going to have bags under my eyes every day through the end of October.

English Chopper

Yesterday afternoon I went to meet a couple of colleagues for drinks at the Tower Thistle, a hotel near the Tower of London. I wasn't in the mood to be crowded into the overheated tube, so I got there at least a half hour early.

When I walked into the building, there was a coffee lounge place with a big window, and I saw an older guy in there that looked really familar. I thought, nah, that can't be right, it must just be another old guy with a white handlebar mustache and a wife beater t-shirt on.

Sure enough, I sat down in the same area and the other folks and camera crew started showing up, as well as the guy's two sons that were in the show. American Chopper must be shooting an English Chopper episode right now in London.

Ironically, one of the guys I was with had only seen the show the past couple of nights on British tv. Unfortunately I spent a new years day with CF watching an American Chopper marathon, so I felt like those guys were family.

I was too embarassed to go over to them and say anything, and I didn't have my camera with me anyway to record the event. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

That Black Brew in Dublin

Tuesday evening I visited the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, as part of a business trip. I have to admit it wasn't quite what I expected. I pictured a quaint, red-brick building with some big vats and a friendly Irish tourguide to take us through and explain how they make the beer.

Instead it was kind of a beer disneyland, 7 stories with elaborate interactive exhibits and a self-guided tour designed to get you up to the top to have a pint overlooking Dublin. Kind of overdone in my opinion, though some of the exhibits were quite interesting, and the two pints of Guinness I had were probably the best ever. I did succumb to the commercial pressure and bought myself a cool t-shirt.

Royal Windsor

Today I took the train out to Windsor, with hundreds of other tourists, to see the Queen's official residence. It is a pretty amazing place, I have to admit, at least from the outside.

I think the furnishings are a bit overdone and kind of worn, but I guess that is what happens when things date back to the 17th century.

Speaking of shameless wealth, inside the castle is Queen Mary's doll house. This was built for her in the early turn of the century, and took three years to build. It is lovingly furnished with lifelike miniatures - everything from the books in the drawing room to the tiny brushes and dustpans in the maids closet. I guess it was shown at a couple of festivals before coming to rest permanently in the castle. It is amazing to me that the royals are so wealthy they could commission a three-year dollhouse project that no one probably even got to play with.

Also open today was the Frogmore House, so I made the journey over there to check it out as well. I didn't pay extra for the guidebook, but I surmised it was a country house, a more normal size, with amazing gardens, specimen trees and ponds all around. It was also home to many family photos and a lot of tacky knicknacks. I guess even the royals feel the need at times to purchase dioramas made of seashells and fake bouquets of flowers in glass globes.

It was a bit surreal to see the starbucks and mcdonalds across from the castle on the high street, and to see planes flying overhead every fifteen minutes or so.

Summer London Photos on Flickr

I found my compact flash card reader and got a new battery charger for my camera so now I am back in business. Here is a small set of photos from my first three months in London (with a few snuck in from Edinburgh).

Stop Staring at Me

Enough of the mundane stuff for a while. Today I went to the National Portrait Gallery, one of the many free museums in London. I was in the mood to see some art, but wanted it to be a bit more approachable, and portraits certainly fall into that category.

The whole gallery itself is a pretty remarkable concept. It has been around since 1856, and I guess the first portrait it acquired was one of William Shakespeare. Today it has everything from portraits of the Tudors to photographs of the CEOs of Orange and Vodaphone. Mostly Brits, yes, but lots of others who are influential to British history as well. I saw portraits of David Bowie, Edmund Burke, Mary Queen of Scots, the Queen Mother, Winston Churchil, Lord Nelson, ...I could go on and on. It was a pretty neat gallery but after a couple of hours I had the weird feeling that all the pictures were looking at me. After all most of them are painted that way with the wandering eyes.

The gallery keeps on getting bigger - since 1980 they have been commissioning new portraits of influential folks, and they also sponsor a portrait of the year award (well, BP does) , so there was a roomful of new portraits of all kinds of anonymous figures. Pretty amazing stuff.

Grocery tales

I was thinking about my dishwasher salt today (by the way, it was successful - my dishes are clean at last) and I thought of a few more quirky grocery things that are different from the 'States.

• Butter - comes in a big block about the size of two sticks. No helpful measuring lines to cut off just what you need. There are English and Irish varieties, haven't quite sussed out the difference.
• Milk - comes in very small pint containers - the biggest they sell are about half gallon size. Doesn't last very long - maybe 3 or 4 days according to the sell-by and use-by dates.
• Eggs - at the store, they are not refrigerated. Makes it difficult to find them as they are in just a regular aisle.
• Coffee - sucks. No beans to grind (hello, even Carson City has that) and pre-packaged stuff with nice names and labels but tastes like crap. I gave up sampling and now just stick to canned Italian coffees. Tea is where it is at I guess. There are plenty of Starbucks, Costa Coffees, and Cafe Neros though, so getting a cup around town is not a problem.
  
• Beer - sold by the bottle or in 4-packs. Very rarely do I see bigger packages - Stella seems to be the only one going for 12 packs - probably because it is the French answer to Bud.
• Vegetables - are often packaged, like at trader joe's - and don't last very long.
• Muffins - English muffins are just called Muffins. For some reason that always makes me laugh.

I shop generally at Waitrose, which is a kind of fancy, mostly organic store like a Whole Foods or a New Seasons. Occassionally I also got to Sainsbury's, but only if I am in the neighborhood. It seems like there are a lot of organic foods for sale in general, it must be a food craze like it is in Portland.

This last week I finally succumbed to ordering online from Waitrose's brother - Ocado, which I have to admit was a great experience. I found everything I wanted online, picked a time for the order to be delivered, and it showed up perfectly on time. The guy brought the bags all the way up to my flat, and they were neatly sorted in orange and purple bags telling me which needed to be frigerated. I had signed up for it a month or so ago and never ordered, and I got these great marketing things from them acting like a jilted lover, and begging me to come back. It was very cute, but it never worked until I had back spasms and didn't want to carry anything.

As with most big cities, you have to do your shopping once or twice a week - for a couple of reasons. First, you usually have to carry it home yourself, and second, things go bad fast. I have seen big supermarkets in the burbs, like Tesco, that look more like Wal-Mart type experiences, but I am in no hurry to go and check out that shopping lifestyle.

Streaky, Salty Dishes

A couple of weeks ago, I ran my dishes through the dishwasher and they didn't get clean at all. My dishwasher is a SMEG, which is a pretty high end brand here I guess, and looks pretty neat, as do all my appliances, so I thought it was kind of odd it would go on the blink like that. The soap didn't really come out of the little basket, so I thought it just needed to be ran again.

After two more washings, it became evident that my dishes were not going to come clean. In fact, they got really cloudy and gross, with a gray layer of film on them. I had no idea what was going on, but since I was going to the states, I figured I would deal with it when I got back.

When I got home, I had the wild idea of reading the manual for the dishwasher. In the troubleshooting area, it told me that if my dishes were streaky, it was probably because the salt was low.

Salt, I thought? in the dishwasher??? WTF?

Sure enough, there is a space in my dishwasher to hold salt. It is filled with about a litre of water, and you pour special dishwashing salt in there until it is full, 170 grams or something like that. I guess it lasts for about 20 washings before you have to do it again. I had never seen anything like it before, but when i went to the Ocado website to order my groceries (yes, I am lazy, but I hurt my back, remember?) there were about 5 or 6 different brands of salt. I chose Finish.

I guess I must have hard water. I hadn't really noticed otherwise. Huh.

My first taste of socialised medicine

Today I had incredibly painful back spasms for the first time in my life. I could barely bend over, sit down, stand up or walk at points during the day. Maybe it is because I slept curled up on an airplane for several hours Sunday/Monday, or perhaps it was due to my extremely heavy backpack and suitcase I dragged up and down the train steps yesterday? Hmmm.

In any case, today I experimented with the UK healthcare system. I called NHS direct, which is a nurse intake sort of service. I guess I wasn't considered urgent, because it took the nurse about an hour to ring me back. He was very nice, and recommended that I go to a walk-in centre up the street from me. He said it they could make sure nothing more serious was wrong and give me some stronger meds. What the heck, I thought.

So, I took a painful bus ride up the street to Whittington Hospital. It was your typical hospital waiting room. It was strange that emergency was mixed in with a hospital clinic. I think the main difference was that the walk-in clinic was run primarily by nurses.

About 2 hours later (I completed one book and nearly finished the other I brought), I finally got a dose of drugs to help, then about 15 minutes later saw a nurse who gave me some more to take home. I thought it was interesting that they gave me a box of medicine - prescription strength - without sending me to a pharmacy or making me see a doctor. I guess nurses have more authority in an NHS system.

I also got chastized a bit for not having a GP doctor. The guy who checked me in said something about how I won't likely be able to come back - they usually let you go the first time but after that I have to go to a GP or get referred by one. Something about the fact I have only lived here a couple of months and haven't paid in enough. He talked to fast and I was squirming in pain, so I don't really remember.

but what i do remember was our short religions discussion:

Receptionist: What is your religion?
Me: I don't have one really.
Receptionist: Now you do. It's None.
Me: laughing
Receptionist: I am into necrophila, sado masochism and bestiality. Am I flogging a dead horse? Hell yes!

He claimed he was quoting a book or a movie or something. But in any case, not your typical hospital admitting person!

Welcome to my Next Blog

I moved to London on the 31st of May to take a new job and begin a new adventure in the United Kingdom. Since I got here, I have been trying to think of a way to both remember my experience as well as keep my friends and family posted with what is going on in my life. Since I seem to be doing okay with my other blog, I thought I would give this a try.

Ironically, I leave tomorrow morning to go to back to the states for a week. But when I return, I will hopefully have some interesting things to say. But now, unfortunately, I should get ready for bed. I have to leave my flat tomorrow morning before 6 a.m.