Patrick in Spain

Posts Tagged ‘UK’

We got to Dublin early this morning around 7AM. Unfortunately, this was a little too early to check into our room, so we had to do something to kill the time. Even though we couldn’t officially check in yet, they let us eat the complimentary breakfast, which was nice. I wasn’t too tired, but after breakfast, most everyone else took a nap on some couches in the lounge. I guess I mostly just checked email and wrote the Liverpool post. Speaking of the Internet, there was free wifi in the building and the rooms, so big score there.

I finally woke everyone up from their nap around 10:30 AM when it was time to go on this free walking tour thing they had. We followed this redheaded Irish guy around for 15 minutes where he mostly just talked to one person. It was kind of terrible. Then, we actually arrived into a big crowd only to realize that what we just experienced wasn’t part of the tour, he was just getting us to the beginning of the tour. So, we adjusted our disappointment meters back down and gave him a second chance. Fortunately for us, it was awesome from that point on. The guy was really entertaining and shared a lot of facts about Irish history. He made some jokes about the Irish not being very good at naming things or planning, but all of his stories were really good.

Apparently in Ireland, they don’t say “What’s up?” or “What’s going on?”, they say “What’s the crack?” While crack does also refer to crack cocaine there, unless you’re using it in a drug related context, crack typically refers to fun or a good time. In many of his stories, Ireland “called” some other nation (obviously a jest in some cases since they wouldn’t have had phones at the time). Every time he did that, it was “Hey Spain, what’s the crack? What do you think of the English?” or “Hey Germany, what’s the crack? We think we could use your help.” So, we all found that pretty entertaining.

The tour ended up being rather long and afterward we went back to Jacob’s Inn, checked in, and took a nap. The room was a 10 person room, but our remaining two roommates wouldn’t be checking in till later that night. There was one bathroom + shower in the room, and there were couple community bathrooms + showers  in the hall, which was rather convenient. By the time we got out again, we were really hungry. We stopped at this Georgian (as in the country) restaurant where they had a student discount and had all you can eat. It was totally delicious, and we certainly ate our fill.

I was starting to get a little burnt out on people after spending the past week in close proximity to 8 individuals, a couple of which I found that I didn’t quite see eye to eye with, and I needed to call Wachovia one more time about a fee that seemed incorrect, so I went to the lounge downstairs, which was quiet at the time. After I got all set up, I made my call. It turns out that the fee was supposed to be there, unfortunately.

I chilled out in the lounge for a while and played couple games from Kongregate.com, which is a pretty easy way to waste time when you’re feeling a bit brain dead. I might’ve watched something from Hulu or the major network channels, but those don’t work over here. Bleh, stupid licensing. Anyway, I was enjoying the quiet when a lady lead  herd of children in to watch a movie on the big projector screen. I still wasn’t quite in the mood to head back yet, so as I played my game, I watched most of Johnny English. I’m not really sure how those children choked it down, but it seems that they actually enjoyed it. It’s a spy movie parody starring Rowan Atkinson of Mr. Bean fame. The movie was dreadful to say the least, and I don’t know that I’d even consider exposing children to it. IMDB’s rating of 5.7/10 is generous, and I think it deserves closer to a 4.7/10.

Today was our last day in Liverpool. We were be here Tuesday and last night, and the today, we’re flying over to Dublin.

So, we leave the train station where we just arrived from London. Outside the station, nobody knew exactly what direction to head in, and it turns out that whoever got directions only got that “it’s really close once you leave the station”. As it turns out, that’s not quite the case. We picked the direction with more lights and headed that way. It took a while to get to the first corner, so when we reached it, it was time to figure out where Hatter’s hostel was. There was a bar across the street, so a couple of people went over to ask for directions. Apparently, they got an earful. First, they asked the bartender, and he started out fine. He got stuck though, and asked one of the waiters. Apparently multiple waiters ended up talking, and so did some of the regular customers. Eventually, we see them come out with an older gentleman who we learned was named Joe.

Joe chats with us for a minute as he ponders the directions. Shortly, a woman walks up to us. She doesn’t look homeless, but she’s definitely not in her right mind, most likely drunk from the same bar. She asks for 20 pence to make a phone call. So, one of us asks her if she’s knows the way to Hatter’s hostel. She says she does, so Joe gives her the 20p (They don’t actually say “pence”, they just say “p”, if I haven’t mentioned that before). Ben, however, didn’t notice that she’d already been given the money, and proceeded to give it to her himself. We asked her where Hatter’s was, and she kind of blankly stared at us, so Joe, deciding she didn’t really know what she was talking about and with Ben having given her additional 20p asks for his money back. “You didn’t give me 20p,” she responds. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but this sounds like it could be headed in an amusing direction. “Yes, I just did,” Joe retorts, his slightly intoxicated, Liverpool accent thick. “No, ya di’n't,” she replies again. Finally, apparently frustrated, Joe shouts “P*ss off, ya f*ggin’ slag!”

Anyway, we ended up getting directions 3 more times, multiple of which mentioned a “wig wam” shaped building. It turned out, the cathedral they were referring to really was wigwam shaped. My camera was buried in my bag at the time, but one of the others got a couple pictures.

The Hostel was okay, slightly smaller that a freshman dorm with its own bathroom and 4 beds in two bunks, so we had 2 rooms for all 8 of us. We were pretty hungry at this point and headed down the street, opposite of the direction we came, to see if we could find a place that was still open to get some food. We found this place that was pretty much a Döner Kebab, where we got some chicken fingers, burgers, and whatever the typical Döner Kebab meat thing is. When we went back outside, we realized that we were here earlier, and that this was in fact relatively close to the train station compared to all that winding around we did. Oh well, at least interacting with the people was entertaining.

We watched TV for a little bit as we finished our food, but after that pretty much took showers and crashed since it was kind of late. Just like London, there was free breakfast in the morning of cereal, milk, toast, and juice.

The next morning, we got a couple cabs (There are 8 of us) and headed to the Liverpool football (soccer) stadium. Apparently, there are two stadiums in the area, one blue (the opposing team, Everton) and one red (the local team, Liverpool). Dennis, Ben, and kind of Vlad were all Liverpool fans, but the rest of us didn’t particularly have a preference. The driver of the cab I was in was a Liverpool fan, and thus by the rules of rivalry, had to down Everton. As we were heading up a hill at one point, he pointed off into the distance and said,  “And if you look over that way, you can see that blue s***hole [Everton Stadium], though I don’t know why you’d want to.” Later, he made another comment to the effect of “Better dead than blue.”

When we finally got there, we grabbed some hotdogs at a little cafe and listened to their American music, since everywhere has American music, before the tour was supposed to start. Only Ben, Dennis, and Conrad actually went on the tour since it was like €12. The rest of us just chilled in the cafe till they were done, except for Vlad who went to get shave old school barbershop style. Unfortunately, the place he found, the main guy was out for lunch. Since we didn’t have enough time for him to really wait, he got a shave anyway with an electric. Once they finished, we visited the gift shop where Vlad and Ben got shirts. After that, we called the Beatles Fab Four Taxi Tour cabs which came and got us. First off, I recommend the tour to anyone that makes it to Liverpool. It was definitely worth it. Better than any of the bus tours they offer.

On the Beatles Tour, we visited pretty much all of the historical Beatles sites in Liverpool. Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, various houses that the members lived in, and even the church where some of the founding members met. The cab drivers were really nice, and knew a lot, which made it much more enjoyable. One of them was an Everton fan, though, and ragged constantly on Vlad (who was the only one wearing his recently purchased Liverpool shirt). Our cab driver, probably to make it more even, often ragged on the other driver for being an Evertonian. Anyway, the tour was a bit long, but I found the whole thing to be enjoyable. We got out at every stop to give time for pictures and detailed explanations of the Beatles story. I only found out after the fact that a couple of the people on the trip really didn’t care about the Beatles at all, but I won’t list their names for their protection. Overall, though, I think everyone had a great time, and it lives up to all the hype.

The drivers dropped us off at the last attraction which was where, if I recall correctly, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married. They probably would’ve driven us back, but Hatter’s was only a few doors down, so it wasn’t any trouble just to walk. Once back, I purchased the three hours of internet card which Vlad split with me. I was going to let him use 15 minutes of it for free, and I told him to sign out when he was done. I took a short nap, and when I awoke an hour later, he was still using it. After he finished, he’d used like an hour 15, so we just split the cost of the card at that point.

By this point, we were hungry again, so we got something to eat at a little shop. After that, we headed to a club/bar thing called Bumper. It was pretty close by, only a couple blocks over, and had a really nice atmosphere. Mostly young people in the 20 to 25 range, and it had the feel of the kind of place people went to hang out and dance, and not so much to pick up random strangers. The kind of place you could get to know all the regulars if you came frequently enough. Everyone got a drink (soda for minors), and we chilled out on a couch and had a good time. The music selection got more interesting as the DJ became more intoxicated (hopefully all the empty bottles on the table weren’t his, as he probably could’ve inebriated a small elephant with that amount).

The next morning, we got up really early to catch our flight. We called another set of cabs and checked out. We piled in, and the cabs took off. Now, I can’t say how the other groups cab went, they pulled off slightly before us, and we didn’t see them again till we got to the airport. Ours went phenomenally. Instead of pulling out behind the other cab, he did a U-turn and headed in the other direction. I was a little concerned at first, but after a bit, we just went with it.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned the zig-zig lines in another post, or in just a picture, but England has these lines on the road in some places:

They mean that you aren’t supposed to pass other cars, here. Essentially everywhere else, you are allowed to pass. Well, our driver passed in those sections, looked both ways and ran a couple lights, and sped us to that airport faster than was legal, I’m certain. Going only like 10-15 miles, and having left slightly behind them, we shouldn’t have beat the other taxi by 5 minutes, but we did, and it was awesome.

After that, we went and got on our flight to Dublin. The only complication we had was that the one bag we were checking was overweight, so Anya removed some things from it. Vlad later had trouble getting through security with Ben’s shaving gel because of that, but it didn’t affect us making it on the flight, and Ben will have to buy more gel.

Getting settled in in Dublin, and I’ll update again when I can.

On our last day in London today, we went back out to Westminster and saw the Westminster Abby. It was really nice from the outside, but because we had limited time and it was a bit more costly than I expected, we didn’t go in.

We went to a local restaurant just down the street from the abby. The other guys had more generic stuff, but I got the shepherd’s pie, and it was pretty awesome. I guess I should’ve taken a picture of how awesome it was, but I ate it too quickly and we were trying to beat the train strike.

I’m going to come back to the strike, but before we headed to our final stop, we visited the train station where part of the Harry Potter movies was filmed. They have a little thing set up for Platform 9 3/4, and Jason, Ben, Conrad, and I took some pictures looking pretty dumb.

So, on to the strike at the Metro. This story is pretty crazy, in my opinion. The workers of the London metro are pretty much all union members. They decided they weren’t getting enough pay, holidays, etc., so they informed the city that they would be striking today (June 9, 2009). The city and the union started having talks beginning, if I recall correctly, last week. Until yesterday, everything was going fine, and London was meeting pretty much all of their demands for increased pay and all that. What happened yesterday is that the union demanded that two fired employees be reinstated. Not such an unusual union request, you might think, but you’d reconsider if you heard why they were fired.

The first guy the union wanted to reinstate was fired for opening the doors on the wrong side of the train, as well as lying about having performed safety checks on the train. The second guy was fired for suspected theft from the Metro, and he will be on trial for said theft at some point this month. So, London, of course, couldn’t agree to that, so they didn’t. Thus, tonight at 7PM, they struck (or is it striked for this type of strike?). There were all kinds of advisory warnings to be off the metro by 7, so we made it to our last metro stop by 6:30. By that point, the trains had already been getting a bit packed. Our train to Liverpool wasn’t scheduled to be there until 8, so chilling out in the lounge was in order until it our train go to the platform.

Another story in the paper that I found amusing was one about the Obama family sans President Barack. Apparently Michelle and the kids visited London some time recently. The British paper that I was reading had a nearly half page article abot the Obama ladies eating a local pub. The paper, hiliariously, took an offended tone that the First Family ate at a local pub rather than at some high class restaurant. It even went as far as to make drinking puns such as “Mich-ale” and “O-bar-ma”.

We landed in London in the afternoon yesterday and made our way to St. Christopher’s Inn in Hammersmith. We mostly just walked around to both the east and west. There was a nice park, and London seems pretty cool, overall. For dinner, we ate a Thai restaurant and watched a London soccer game. Vlad wanted to hang around for the Bulgaria vs. Ireland game, but that would’ve been a few hours, so we went on instead.

Also, yesterday, Vlad convinced us to head out to a region known as SoHo where there was apparently supposed to be good bars to hang out in. We were looking for a club named 24:London, which, as I’ve been told, uses Microsoft Surface like technology to create a very high-tech and engaging experience. Needless to say, the nerd in me was more interested in the surface than the drinks, but whatever, I was along for the ride. We ended up getting to the right metro stop, but then apparently those who were guiding us there, which will remain nameless *glare*, did not write down enough directions to actually get us to this club. So, we ask a few people, and they either don’t know or are either secretly hype men for other clubs and advertise those instead. There’s a lot of these hype men, as I’m calling them. They ask you if you’re interested in going to a bar or whatever, and point you in the direction of the one that pays them. They mostly wear black trenchcoats and black bowler hats, for some reason. We end up wandering around in a circle like three times before finally heading in a new direction, which was them deemed too gay, then not too gay, before we ended up heading that way. By this point, people in the group are getting annoyed with this walk and each other, so we just end up in some random cheap club. A few people had some drinks, checked out the mediocre dance floor, waited for Vlad to finish his drink (which becomes a common occurrence on the trip) and headed out.

Walking in what we think is the right direction for 24, we run into another hype man who tells us that Paul Oakenfold is playing at some bar (that I bet he worked for). I don’t know the name, but Ben and Jason do. He is, according to them, one of the more famous DJs that tours, and is supposed to be worth seeing. My comment to the whole scenario was that we’d just gotten a pop-up advertisement, and for some reason a groupmate clicked it. I think my assessment turned out to be the most true as you’ll soon see. A few people paid to go in when we got there, but Ben stopped and asked the bouncers who was playing. They didn’t mention Oakenfold’s name, so Ben inquired further. We realized that no, he wasn’t there, and wasn’t allegedly going to be there for a week. We were assured the current DJ was good, too, but people that paid go their money back and we all left instead. With that behind us, we followed the hypeman back to the bus stop. He told us that he didn’t know that Oakenfold wouldn’t be there for another week, but I didn’t buy it. We got on the bus and headed back.

This morning, we got up and went to Big Ben and the London Eye. Big Ben was really cool looking, and I took a few good photos of it. Vlad, Anya, Dennis, and Tim all went up on the London Eye (like a Ferris Wheel with small glass rooms instead of buckets and seats) for £16. The others of us, Jason, Ben, Conrad, and I, went and watched the street performers. I took a few videos of them, and compiled the first half into this YouTube video. Some of these guys are pretty good, and I’ll have pictures uploaded when I can. If you see any of the pictures and can identify the acts, feel free to comment here with that. I was also interested to find that there were a number of horror genre events in London. We saw a place called Fright Club and another called The London Dungeon, though we didn’t have the time or inclination to actually visit.

I had to talk to Wachovia for a third time (First time was before we left for Spain. Second time was in Spain.) today. I was a little frustrated and disappointed that my card had been locked again, even though they now knew for certain I was in Europe. I found over the phone that what happened was one of the things I purchased was through a company apparently based in Texas of all things, and thus Wachovia put a hold on my card when I made another purchase back in Europe. I got it all straightened out by calling them again. I used Yahoo! Voice, which is an awesome service, to make my call.

I’ll now spend a minute pushing Yahoo! Voice because it was really great. Essentially, you need speakers, a microphone, and a cable/dsl level connection and you can call anywhere in the world for a great rate. The service is Pay-As-You-Go, and prices range from 1¢ a minute to call the United States to 27¢ a minute to call Moroccan mobile phones. It doesn’t matter where you’re calling from. Also, United States 1-800 number calls are entirely free. You don’t even have to put money in your account to make those free calls. The program is a free download for at least Windows and Mac (didn’t check on linux). Anyway, my kudos to that service.

We rode the metro system around a lot since we arrived, and it’s a pretty nice system. The locals seem to mostly refer to the below ground train system as the Tube or the Underground. The passes we needed were £5.60, which is about $9.25, so a little pricey, but they lasted all day, and we made sure to get our money’s worth out of them. Like Barcelona, the London metro system beats Atlanta’s with its eyes closed. Atlanta definitely needs to take some cues from the successful metro systems in the US as well as abroad. I think London’s system is overall more comprehensive and reaches more parts of the city more easily than Barça’s, but more of Barcelona’s trains and technology are newer. The London tubes feel like they’ve been around forever, and Wikipedia agrees with me, dating the system to the 19th century.

I guess that’s a good segue into how old things are in London. Unlike Barcelona which has older parts, London just generally feels older all over. It’s got an interesting aesthetic about it that I’d probably like to explore more than I have time for. I have a feeling that many of the great and old cities of Europe share this kind of quality, and hopefully, I’ll make it to some of them as well.