April 21 - Oh yeah, the Prodigy

Saw the Prodigy on Thurdsay night. Danced our faces off, one of the best shows I have ever seen.

April 19th - Rough Weekend

But a very good one. Manuel visited. Tore London down. Spent Friday night boozing/dancing/eating bagels with hot salted beef in the East End around 4 a.m. Saturday was spent pub crawling to Notting Hill, more drinking, and then ended at some metal bars. It was an awesome time.

April 14th - Easter with the Kininmonths

My disappearance over the last few days can be attributed to the fact that I literally did disappear from London, as I was adopted by a family (the Kininmonth's, quite the lovely bunch) for the whole weekend.

Easter is a much bigger deal here in the UK than in the States (for obvious reasons I don't need to go into), so both Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays. This obviously pleased be regardless of what my weekend entailed, but being able to spend it with a family made it special.

We hitched a ride down to Isfield on Friday afternoon, had an awesome lunch, and spent the day lounging and filling each other in on life. After meatballs for dinner, we went to the Griffin, a local pub/restaurant/inn where both daughter and son (Harriet and Charlie) worked throughout the years, and I got to meet a wide variety of interesting and lovely people. And drinks lots of good local Harvey's beer.

Saturday was spent visiting Brighton and its loads of funky shops, cafes, and generally people watching one of the most eclectic, hip, and bizarre groups of people I have ever seen assembled.

I managed to pick up a couple of cds and eat a boatload of sushi, something I haven't been able to enjoy at all since being over here. God I miss sushi.

Saturday night we had an awesome dinner, followed by loads of wine and the playing of a game called Perudo, on which I am now officially addicted.

On Sunday, I went to Easter service at a 14th century church (Church of England of course) which was a neat experience. Then it was on to an enormous meal of lamb, veggies, cheese, wine, champagne, cake, jellies, all kinds of things. Ate a TON.

Monday was spent at the Plumpton race tracks, betting on horses, having a picnic, and riding stupid rides. Easter tradition. Most beautiful day of the year so far in England, so that was an added bonus.

Pics can be found here.

Thursday April 9th

The week is almost over, and I have a 4 day weekend coming up, which is probably the most exciting news I have had recently. Most exciting because none of my coworkers in the States get these days off, so they can try and hunt me down all they want. I ain't responding.

Had a great couple of last days with Luke. Monday night we watched the joke that was the National Championship game in a bar, LIVE, with a load of UNC supporters. Needless to say, the outcome wasn't satisfactory, but we still had a good time. It was a weird experience, with the game starting at 2:30 a.m. local time.

The venue was the Sports Cafe, which was a hybrid sports bar and dance club catering to 18 year-olds. Us old fogies were in an enclosed sports area, watching the game, while watching the awful dancing going on below us. If they only knew.

Luckily, the late night didn't screw with our schedules too much, and we got to have a nice last night out at an Austrian beer hall, with some of the best wienerschnitzel I ever had. Plus two liters of amazing Austrian beer.

There was also karaoke at this bar, with some very awful singers, which always makes for an even better time.

Monday, April 6th - A weekend in the park and church

So Luke arrived here on Thursday a.m. Thursday and Friday were both spent exploring the treasures of British culture, which meant spending the entire day/evening in pubs and not making it more than half a mile from my flat. Thankfully this is pretty much the extant to which Luke wants/needs to know about the British, so my duties as tour guide can be considered a success.

Saturday was spent doing more of the same, except for a quick diversion OUTSIDE of the pubs for another steadfast British tradition, drinking in the park. Met up with Jordan (another 10 year or so reunion for he and Luke) and drank several cans of fine Carlsberg while avoiding getting attacked by some geese that didn't seem all too happy with our presence.

We then made our way to Camden town, danced a while, and ate boatloads of falafel.

Sunday, I felt great since Saturday wasn't too much of a late night, so what do we do? Go to a party called "Church", which is the furthest thing from Church. If your church involves buy beers/ciders by the 3 in plastic bags and wearing neon clothing and exposing yourself to 1500 strangers, then this was the place for you.

We knew we were in the right place when we noticed several dudes in neon leggings marching down the street, several girls who looked like last night's party stumbling through intersections. We get to the venue, and the line is several hundred people deep, the site of whom would make any respectable grandmother (or mother) cry her eyes out.

I avoided taking pictures of the clientèle, so I'll leave the outfits up to your imagination. I think most of them were hastily constructed, probably in a drunken/high stupor from the night before, you know trying to think of a last minute Halloween idea. We've all been there. Anyways, 1500 of these people are hammered, dancing to the worst possible music (think Counting Crows and Third Eye Blind), and there are strippers on stage every now and then. I know it makes no sense at all, and I am trying to digest it myself.

We got bombed, had a blast, got in an argument with some Canadians, ate Burger King, and passed out.

Saturday pictures, and Sunday pictures.

Sunday March 29th - Why isn't Spring in the air?

Yesterday turned out to be one of the most bone-chilling and wet days I've seen so far, and it's supposed to be Spring now, and April is 3 days away. Can't say I'm too pleased with that situation. Granted I still feel blessed to have missed the NYC winter, but now New York is starting to pull ahead in the race to Spring. I'll stop complaining.

I started the day seeing the visitors off around 6 a.m. Stayed up and killed some work/laundry/writing. Enough productivity for a Saturday. Afterwards I had lunch with some coworkers who were visiting from California, and started boozing.

My next task was to pick up my cell phone from Wimbledon. Allow me to explain this bizarre situation.

So Thursday night, after a bender in Camden Town (involving Justin and I stumbling through a deserted Egyptian nightclub), I lost my phone. I am 99 percent sure that it was in my lap, and simply fell onto the floor of the taxi that we took home. I THINK.

So, the night ends with me assuming my phone is in the back of the cab. I call it a couple of times that night, it rings, but no answer. I figure since it's on vibrate, the cabbie doesn't hear it, but hopefully will find it the next day when he gets ready for his next shift. I go to bed.

Friday, much of the same. I call my phone several times, with it ringing all the way through to voicemail a dozen times or so. Still nothing. I do however hold off on contacting our cell phone ops and requesting a cancellation of this account + requesting a new device. Good thing I held off because ...

Saturday morning, I give it one more shot, just in case. Much to my surprise, a lady answers the phone. We quickly establish that I am the owner of the phone I am calling, and that she missed a couple of my calls on Friday, and that I am glad she held on to the phone. Next comes the interesting part.

So this lady tells me that she found my phone in her foyer around 6 a.m. Friday morning. Apparently someone had put it through her mail slot. Not that crazy, if she lived near me. That would make perfect sense if I had actually dropped my phone near my house, someone walking down the street sees it, figures maybe someone knocked it out of their pocket while fumbling for keys, so they assume it belongs to the inhabitant of the house it's closet to. So they put it through the door.

However, this lady lived about 10 miles from where I would have "lost" the phone. There are a couple explanations for this:

1) Cabbie eventually finds phone in back of car, decides to put it through the nearest mail slot when found. Highly highly unlikely.

2) Someone in the back of the cab takes it, and after getting out, decides to put it in someones door. Semi-likely.

3) Someone in the back of the cab takes it, walks down the street for a bit, trying to use it, can't figure out the password, has a moment of clarity and thinks that the right thing to do is to try and locate the owner, but doesn't want to invest the time and effort, therefore decides to put it through someones mail slot in the hope that they will track down the owner, rather than toss it in the garbage or break it. Pretty likely.

I think #3 is the answer. The only reason I hesitate to give that one a hundred percent probability is the fact that I know drunk people. I am a drunk person. As nice of a guy as I think (hope) I am, in that situation, depending on the number of drinks I had, I may have just broken the thing. Is this a karma warning?

Either way, I have my phone back, and the creepy thoughts about who was playing with/touching my phone on Thursday night. The things we will never know.

March 29th - house empty

So mom/dad/Rick/Candy/Justin all left this morning. Sadness. The house was quite full of life while they were here. Not that it isn't usually, but you know what I mean. Now I'm left with a boatload of linens and towels to wash, and 4 days to recover before my brother shows up.