{"id":26,"date":"2009-05-15T10:28:17","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T17:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/?p=26"},"modified":"2009-05-18T10:35:48","modified_gmt":"2009-05-18T17:35:48","slug":"i-hope-i-have-a-soft-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"Soft landings recommended when naked."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span>So London. I got in on Wednesday to London Euston and I must say, London was quite different than the sleepy town of llandudno! Apparently the rumors of public toilet charges are true, 30p (about 50 cents) for one use. Pee at home folks! Urine removal is a good racket to be in… they’re never going to outsource that one! If your computer job isn’t working out, start making toilets.<\/p>\n

<\/span>London was pretty intimidating at first… the station was huge and full of people busily running about. If you’re ever in London, buy an Oyster card. It’s a 3 pound deposit and it cuts your public transit costs in half or more. Plus it’s got a FOB or something in it, so you just put it in your wallet and then touch your wallet to the turnstyle. Pass the turnstyle with style! The subway, or Tube, is pretty much spaghetti style. If you Google london tube map, you can see what I mean.<\/p>\n

<\/span>I made it to the hostel with a tired back… as I mentioned in my earlier post, the place was a zoo! There were little adolescents running around making noise… it’s strange how loud young folks talk given that their hearing is better. Oh well. The other hostels I’ve been in has been occupied mostly with 20 somethings and everyone has been quite friendly and personal, saying hello in the hall and whatnot. Here, it’s more like the grocery store where everyone looks for a way to get past you without really thinking of you as a person. Kind of like the difference between walking in a suburban neighborhood and walking in a city. I guess it’s nothing surprising… crowded places become much more impersonal. I’ve often thought the reason is just because you don’t have time to be personal to so many people. Walking in a suburb, you may liesurely pass a couple or someone walking a dog… saying hello when there’s just you and them is totally normal. In a crowd of people, you can’t possibly greet everyone. I guess another dimension of it is the fact that walking in the suburbs is usually recreational, whereas most people in the city who are walking are going somewhere or doing something. It’s not like you wave to strangers while you’re driving your car to the grocery store, why would it be any different.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Anyway, it is interesting to be reminded of my age here. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel all that old or anything… but knowing that some of the people staying here are half my age is kind of different. The guy in the bed next to me is actually living at the hostel. He was about my age, living there for a year… I guess he grew up in Glasgow where he made it sound like he was living in poverty. Apparently, the hostel I’m staying in is located in one of the safest areas of London, very close to a super rich neighborhood. He was telling me that a little way down the street were houses with 20-30 bedrooms. Wow. I was surprised to learn that he felt immensely culture shocked moving there… I usually think of culture shock as an international phenomenon, but it makes sense from the way he told it. Coming from an area where people have nothing and being exposed to people who live in total excess would be pretty unnerving. I felt a little strange talking to him given the nature of what I’m doing and my situation… not too strange mind you \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/span>So the place was my first real hostel experience. Honestly I didn’t think it was too bad… my biggest \u00c2\u00a0complaint was the internet. The fire alarm went off right as I was getting in bed the first night… now that thing was loud! I’m not joking when I say, I could actually feel the sound waves in parts of the room. I guess they don’t want you to sleep through it! It shut off before I got out of the room, probably someone in a school group. Just glad I wasn’t already sleepin!<\/p>\n

<\/span>I ended up talking with a Pakistani guy in a coffee shop while we were both looking to get on the net, the shop had some problems as well. He ran the chic women’s clothing store across the street and had been living there for 20 years or something. If I had to describe him briefly, I’d say he was as superficial as his shop was! By his own admission, he had a hard time holding on to his money because he blew it all improving his image. He was originally from Mancester and used to make the 200 something kilometer drive to London just to drive around in his new car and pick up chicks. I guess at this point he’s resorted to picking them up on the internet… he told me I could jump in some chatrooms and have a nice hotty next to me in 30 minutes. Some people never grow up I guess. He was ok with who he was though, if it works for you man, go for it. He did recommend me a good bus tour as well.<\/p>\n

<\/span>I took the bus in the morning, nice deal. Hop on and off for 24 hours with your ticket, and it went to pretty much all of the touristy spots. I decided I’d spend a day or two doing the tourist thing. I walked through the whole of the National Gallery… I’m really not one for art. I think I went through the whole place and only found a few paintings that really struck me. I think what I appreciate is interesting and beautiful colors and natural beauty. Most of the art there was themed and wrought with symbolism… I don’t view art as a puzzle to figure out. Or displaying historical scenes, there were tons of those. Honestly, my sister has a picture hanging up her apartment of a pier with some beautiful colored sky and water, I don’t even remember it now but I think it’s a lovely mix of green and red and orange. That’s the kind of stuff I like. Not friggin depictions of a faun flirting with a nymph while Cupid restrings his bow, boring! I think east asian art really coincides with what I like. More of trying to convey a feeling using beauty as the device more than communicating rational topics.<\/p>\n

<\/span>I did also go to the British Museum, now that was something. My friend Graham told me it was a fantastic place and it lived up to his description and more! I was overwhelmed… as Graham said, they looted the entire world of artifacts, crafts, trinkets, and treasures and they all ended up in the British Museum. They have a room, the theme of it is Enlightenment or something, with ceiling high glass cases chock full of things from everywhere. It’s like they have something from every era and every place. I realized in this first room that there was no way I could reallly appreciate everything in the place. I decided to walk through the entire place without lingering too much or reading too much, my head was full after that first room. I’d need a week straight in there to really absorb a good portion of the content. In another room, they have the actual Rosetta Stone… that was cool. It’s right next to age old Egyptian statues and walls of hieroglyphics they had transported.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span>One of the more modern exhibits was a long glass case filled with a typical man and typical woman’s lifetime medication regiment, side by side. Alledgedly, each contained over 14,000 pills. There were arranged in an expansive grid of cells with fabric on top and bottom. Cool! Anyway, a history buff could plan a whole trip to London just to explore that place, I saw the whole place in about 3 hours and I don’t know that I’d go back without some company \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/span>The bus tour included a boat ride on the Thames, but I skipped it to make it back to Trafalgar Square to get on a walking tour called Ghosts of London by Gaslight or something, also included. On the bus on the way there, I saw a glaring example of cultural difference between America and Europe. Displayed billboard style across a stadium was an advertisement of a muscle blound black rugby player with long dreads diving superman style to catch the ball… butt ass naked. Sure the junk was cleverly hidden by the angle, but he had no clothes on! Even the bus guide was surprised, and he remarked hilariously, “Oh gee that bloke’s got no clothes on! I hope he’s got a soft landing…” I couldn’t stop laughing when I digested what he meant about the soft landing. Ah London.<\/p>\n

<\/span>The walking tour was decent, the guide was great but the content was a bit weak… afterwards I ate Thai with someone from the tour, an odd fellow stopping in London on his way to Madrid. London daylight throws you off… the sun sets around 8:30 this time of year, so it gets late quick. It’s strange getting back to the hostel just a bit after dark and realizing it’s 11. So it goes!<\/p>\n

<\/span>Walking around with my backpack all day makes for some gooooood sleepin \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So London. I got in on Wednesday to London Euston and I must say, London was quite different than the sleepy town of llandudno! Apparently the rumors of public toilet charges are true, 30p (about 50 cents) for one use. Pee at home folks! Urine removal is a good racket to be in… they’re never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.michaelaikins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}