Under The Bridge

No really - I was there! Possibly not under the same bridge, but still :) And how did I get there? Let's see... The day started at 4:30, or half past 10 in the real world - no accident that I was the first in the office this day as well. I had some wraps from the day before for breakfast (bought a cup of fruits and a wrap at a Au Bon Pain, but only ate fruits in the bathtub in the end...long story :) ), which had a very strange taste due to the combination of creamy sour cheese and some sweet sauce. Otherwise it was an OK day, not very riddled with meetings so I guess I must have done some real work as well. For lunch I was pointed to a place called Nook, which was kinda OK, even their quiche - only the waiter needed computized assistance to add up 8, 3 and 1, and some convincing not to give 14 bucks of change from a 20. 
The plan for the evening was to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, as I was told that's kinda touristy, but I'm not so sure about that reason now. On my way first I walked by the Grand Central station to check it out, it was grand enough for me indeed (but too dark inside for photos). On the way there I accidentally spotted the Empire State Building. How the hell can the tallest building of the city disappear from a block away, I don't know (other than the surrounding tallish buildings as a reason, of course...). From GC I took the train to the Bridge, where the darkest clouds ever made me worry about my lack of raincoat, but in a fortunate turn of events the clouds had other plans for the evening. So I crossed, unimpressed (the Bridge is being renovated, probably obscuring the wow-factor). On the far side Dumbo was already waiting for me - not the flying elephant, this was before the beer, mind you, but the Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. This is an area of bars and art shops and in general good atmosphere, a with regular-sized houses and nice dimly lit pubs. The best one seemed to be 68 Jay Street, serving great Brooklyn Lager and Wild Rise pizza. The former is a spicy, flavoury, generally good beer, and the latter turned out to be one of New York's recent sensations - the pizza with the wild yeast crust. All ingredients (as the Elders of the Internet explained later) are imported from Italy, all natural, including the wild yeast which is supposed to give a sour, tangy flavour to the crust. What can I say, it was a good Margherita, but without Google and the pizzaiolo I wouldn't have thought how special it should have tasted. With this behind me I got on the train back home, where finally had a good, full night's sleep. What came next? Check back for our next episode after a short commercial break for all the details!

M

New York City Boy

The strange thing is - walking around in NYC is not strange at all. Probably because you saw the exact same thing a zillion times befor in the movies, but it just doesn't feel completely new. The fact that it's still very unfamiliar just adds to the confusion. Central Park with joggers and bikers in the morning, tourists and locals alike crowding to pictures of some movie shoot, baggy trousers on the silver-colour trains, this is exactly what I would have expected :) It's a bit reassuring at the same time, especially combined with the fact that English is spoken a lot less muddled here than in London. Obviously I'm still a bit lost in a lot of places, one in particular is your usual Midtown deli. For one I can't seem to figure out where they keep the beer. Also I'm not entirely sure yet about the selection of pastries and sandwiches, I can't match up the names on the price list with the actual objects behind the counter. Just this morning I had something made out of too sweet, too crumbly dough dipped in sugar crystals, and I don't know the name of it to make it easier avoiding the same stuff in the future :)
The office is cool, luckily I managed to get out of the "hoteling booth", which is basically an oversized phone booth with a desk and a small single PC screen - I can use the desk of a colleague on vacation instead. There was the usual issue with the entry in the AM where the access card never works as promised but it was resolved quickly. Oh yeah, AM... the jet lag - I always forget which direction they say is worse, but I'm quite convinced it's this way around :) Yesterday I got in after 14 hours of travel still in broad daylight in the middle of the afternoon, so I strolled around the Avenues to fall asleep late enough, and still I awoke at 2AM (or 8AM per my internal clock). Maybe tomorrow will be better :) To prepare for it today I checked out Lower Manhattan, the Wall Street and NYSE with the signature bull, and also the new buildings on Ground Zero. I kinda expected the memorial to be in a more obvious place, but I only saw the arrows pointing towards it after a long walk in the opposite direction. Of course the arrows also mentioned I should pre-book so I just skipped this one. Further south was even better, not that many people at this "late" hour around 8PM. The small parks and the high houses gave that part a nice athmosphere, and I also found the street of Irish pubs for later reference.

Let's close this for tonight and log a quest for tomorrow - to find wifi to post this! (Actually in the end office internet was the Holy Grail - I'll still need the WiFi to add pictures)

M

Amazing Journey

It's been days since I last posted... This city is busy! Each and every night I walk around for hours, seeing only minimal parts, and still, there's the same amount to discover!
On Sunday, day of the last post, I walked around the Bund area, which is something like the old city center, like mid-1930s. It's got all the "European" architecture one would expect for that age, and of course an amazing view of the new business center of Pudong. Also, the crowds are huge... I bet about a hundred thousand of that 1.6 billion joined me for sightseeing :P For them, the Danish Girl Scouts were the biggest attraction, with their blue eyes and blonde hair :) I managed to dodge them all, one skill that was worth practicing in the busy metro hours at home! Also, I managed to catch a choir singing in Chinese, video hidden among the pictures (also well hidden :) )
Monday was just work - once I got past the amazing(ly expensive) buffet breakfast and the taxi drive who seemed to want to kill everyone on foot, but did not know the way! It's a good thing I got a walkabout on Sunday, I was able to point out the target as soon as it was in sight (i.e. behind us...) But even this way, the ride was cheap, the office was easy to find in the building, and the colleagues were as welcoming as it gets! I got a seat quite close to all the others, but far enough to make them IM me instead of just talk to me :) There's free ice tea and orange juice and Coke as well (if the fridge is stacked), one thing that's not happening at home. We went out for lunch to a nearby plaza, to some Cantonese restaurant, very close to where I had my Sunday dinner. (Which was in a mock-European place, with some very Chinese pasta-with-fish and beans-with-apricots-with-slimeballs as dessert). The lunch was pretty good, within my bearing of exciting taste, and sharing some interesting things like lotus roots and eggplants in strange sauce :) In the evening, I got afraid of a possible thunderstorm coming, so I just walked around the park that's near the hotel. This was only ~75% meant for - as it was impossible to cross the road which was around the park any other way! :) In the end, it was fine, and I managed to take pics of stray cats near a restaurant as well, which is probably unusual in China ;)
Tuesday took me to work on a different route after a different kind of breakfast ("American style", basically some fat added to continental breakfast). Work was as work is, lunch was in the ground floor cantine (edible but why???) as people had to get back to various meetings. I also held some work-related presentation sessions, since that's why I'm here :) People were somewhat interested, but not as much as the meeting room was smelly :$ Afternoon passed almost-quickly-enough, then I went for a stroll on Huihai road - to check out all the brand shops that are too expensive even at home! Louis Vuitton, Cartier, whatever, you name it... And one corner from this road, you can buy beer for .5 EUR to take home, and buy 100 days eggs from a metal bucket... The metro was close enough to get me home, luckily :) No money spent on luxury and no age-old chickens harmed! :)
Wednesday was a taxi trip in a different direction and another presentation session by yours truly. At least there were more people on this one so I must be getting better! :) Lunch was in a pretty good restaurant on Sechuan road, got their card as well. Not that I would go back any soon... The evening was spent in the Super Brands Mall, to buy a webcam :) Unluckily, my MasterCard was not properly processed at the store, so I may have payed triple price eventually, but the "Oh my God this is huge" experience was almost worth it. I also ate the (hopefully) most expensive ice cream of my life, ever, by accident, but it was pretty good :) On the way home, I realized that on ever corner they sell something related to the Expo and/or something that blinks, possibly with laser lights :)
Thursday was just another day... Big Boss from UK flew in, so we had a pizza lunch with him (Chinese make better pizza than the store on the corner at home, but probably more expensive, as well). He's nice, brought us out for dinner and drinks in the evening, and hes an amicable guy as well, so I'd say he was nice even if he did not pay for all the drinks ;) We got some Chinese "wine", which was more like some spirits, 52%, very fruity, very sweet... I guess tomorrow's headache will remind me of the name :) The dinner was fine, but things get more and more hot an spicy, we should take a break...
And now, I'm "home", the drain for the bathtub fixed, and I'm typing this for you lot :) I guess I should sleep instead, shouldn't I? :)
See you all soon!

M.

(PS. I may add the proper links to the photos "soon", until then, you have to do some guesswork :) )

Chinese Torture

Yay, I finally arrived! Well, I've arrived 12 hours before, but only now do I have time and the strength to write a bit. More time than strength, mind you, the time zone shift on the plane robbed me of precious hours of sleep...
The food was pretty good on the the Finnair flight, I tasted some French red wine with the main course and some port with the dessert. The port was not as good as I would have expected, but it was fine in any case. The entertainment system was also OK, I watched some newish comedy flick with Steve Carell and various episodes of The Big Bang Theory, all of which were quite good for relaxing. Sleeping was not that fine, even though it was possible to recline the seat almost perfectly horizontally, you still had some feeling of slipping down. The first rays of the sun woke me somewhere above the Mongolian plains, which ain't a lovely site, but it's nice. Flying forwards there were sooo many seemingly untouched forests to be seen, that was pretty. Then, approaching Shanghai, we got a glimpse of all the skyscrapers, and the light brownish sea... yuck!
Landing and passing immigration was easy, passing the people trying to sell their own airport transfer services less so. I was heading straight to the MagLev train, to see how those 430kmhs feel in reality. It was an amazing speed, although I would have expected a bit less racketing. Then, after the obligatory photos (shared later), I got to an official taxi, shown the destination printed in Mandarin, an my 15 minute car ride through hell started :) It seems like Chinese drivers obey two rules of the road: head where you want to, and honk! Luckily the drivers are more or less tied to the tarmac...
So, we got to the hotels, mine is now only the second highest - still, the view from the 75th floor room is not too shabby :) (Well I will have to switch to a different or get this fixed up as the bathtub leaks all over the bathroom, but that at least does not obstruct the view ;)
After settling down, I started a time run for the office to see how I would fare on Monday. So adding up all distractions, and the crowd, and the difficulties of getting a proper pass, not only a single ticket didn't do well on this run. Actually I did not even get that bloody pass, as noone spoke English to me when they should have. Probably would have been better with a younger clerk.
The city is amazing, and it's amazing hot as well. I wouldn't be able to tell from the architecture, that we are on the Far East, but all important buildings look like new. Of course if you take the wrong turn, you'll find yourselves in the shadiest of alleys, with strange things being cooked on the street, but sticking to the main routes should be a great experience :)

(I'll wrap up now and continue tomorrow - I'm falling asleep while typing. See you soon!)

M.

Welcome back my friends!

To the show that never ends :)

I'm waiting for my connection to Shanghai, chilling out in the Via Lounge in Helsinki-Vantaa Airport - how cool is that? :) Definitely not as cool as the complimentary welcome scotch ;)

The Lounge is pretty good (as if I had a comparison), nice minimalistic Nordic design, comfy reclining chairs, and a fine selection of food and drinks. And the view - an A340, docked to gate 36 I think :D Pretty fine that's for sure. The Finnair fleet is 6 years old at an average, with a 3 years average on the long haulers, so I guess the shiny white exterior of the plane is not just a cheap paint job to hide the rust.
The weather is supposed to be not particularly chilly - about the same 32C we have in Hungary. But I won't get outside the airport here in any case.
Also, I just checked and the Chinese electrical outlet standard is just the same - as the converter I have in a box, at home :P I hope the hotel is prepared for fools like me :) I might check the duty free though, maybe they have something for me as well, for a price.

I'll just cut this short now, chilling out should be about doing nothing at all, not even typing :)
Here's to hoping I'll have the time and willpower to update this regularly!

M.

(PS: Title shamelessly stolen from ELP)

Wine, women and song

Here I am, sitting on a bed of "London's best hostel", having a slight cold and not much to do, so I decided I would sum up my last week...

I guess the first day I did not cover was last Thurday - on this day I went out to see a real British gig :) (Which just reminded me that I wanted to do the same today... :) )
So I headed out to find King's College, or a bar in King's College, because the whereabout of the venue was not quite evident from the websites I've visited to check on the concert. Eventually I've found it, it was the "Tutu", named after Desmond Tutu, and it was on the 4th floor of a sidestreet building... :) The bar was quite fine, a band was already playing when I go there, so I went to find a beer and waited to see what happens. It turned out that the band originally playing was only the support of the support band, so when the place started to get full, the first one on the stage were The Blizzards, an Irish (and proud of it!) band, who rocked the hell out of us! Technology is a pain in the arse, that's how they commented on the heat of the lights. And how right they were. But the main dish was just yet to come - Captain! They're a new, up-and-coming English band, they have one album out and play quite good rockish music - so I had loads of fun listening to them as well. The club was full of young people, probably from the college :) It was a very nice evening, and I even caught the Tube to get me home.

On Friday my friend, P. arrived for a 5 days visit, so we headed out to meet up with another friend, V., who tends to live in London with various English girls :) We had a nice dinner at my place, I tried to make some really British ham&eggs, we hada few Guinnesses, and the we left to meet V. at his working place, the National Theatre, where he gave us a short tour backstage, but sadly we had to skip the main actresses's dressing rooms :) So we just headed south for V.'s place to a have a few beers in a nearby pub and a night of Texas Hold'em afterwards :) We were quite tired and wasted when we started for my apartment (where I hosted P. for a few days), and especially because the night buses are unknown to me and they have weird and slow routes anyhow we got home at around 4. So it was about time to call it a day :)

Saturday... Time to meet another friend :) T., a girl, was doing some work-related things in the city for a few days, so we decided to hook up near the Tower and visit the said building. The queues for tickets were soooo long despite the horrendous ticket prices! But eventually we got the tickets and entered the gates of the Tower - where we waited for the free guided tour led by an original Beefeater, or Yeoman Warder. He was an older chap, with very, very good sense of humour and a great presentation style. He gave us a short summary of the history of the area (so mostly of the people executed there), and I guess he was one of the best guides I've ever met - including myself ;) He had a really funny comment about just about everything, and even with the visitors he took the chance to talk a few words and generally be a good guy :) After this short tour, during which T. already left (work, work, work), we went to see the treasury - various British crowns, that is, and of course the Coronation Spoon, which is basically a golden spoon. This item made me finally understand where Monty Python's style and jokes come from :) All the other stuff was really flashy, there was the First and the Second Star of Africa, two of the biggest diamonds ever (the biggest one is like a medium egg...), the Koh-i-Noor diamond, huge rubies, and just everything shiny that ever got near England. It was pretty amazing, all these jewels fitted in various random objects, and the grandiosity of it all. There was a short video of the coronation of Elizabeth II., or EIIR (R for Regina, Queen), which made me realize again how fun it is to be in a real monarchy. In some ways, this monarchy lives around people, and gives a certain flair to everything, changes the way how you look at buildings and history. England/Britain is so proud of it's traditions anyway, so this just adds a little bit to this :)
After the jewels and stuff we rushed through the central building, the White Tower, to check out a few of the weapons kept there - they have a vast amount of historic weapons, armor, whatever, it's just amazing! The only problem was that we did not have the time to check it out properly - we had musical tickets for a matinee! What musical, you might ask - well We Will Rock You, of yourse! A musical, based on Queen's biggest hits, already in it's 6th smash hit year, standing ovation each and every night... It started with the bass of Innuendo, giving that ever tingling feeling of hearing the best ever sounds again! And for almost 3 hours we were flooded with this amazing music, presented by quite capable artists, singers, dancers, and of course a live rock band supplying the tunes! The story of the musical is less interesting, it's about how the lost rock music will return in the not-so-far future and free our minds, but the feeling of it all ... now that's what leads to a standing ovation :) It was a very, very good show, I'm glad I decided to go and watch it, and P. liked it even more :)
We wanted to get something to eat after the musical, and we had a nice dinner in an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant. The tastes were pretty much taken away from the food to make eat more eadible for English, but still there were some good moments in it. To round up the evening, P. & I wanted to find a good party in the Soho, but well, we sucked at that :) When we headed to find a pub, they were all closing (11pm... British, bah!), and all teh clubs we saw were a lot less appealing than they were full. In the end, we just took the Tube to have a good night's sleep - now that's a programme rarely advertised in Soho...

Sunday! Changing of the Guards, again, but this time, almost on time :) It was a good show again, I even managed to shoot a short video of the previous set of guards leaving Buckingham Palace :) I made a few pictures of the various critters of the St. James's Park again, squirrels can never get un-cute :) We strolled through St. James's and Hyde Park, to the Speakers' Corner, to see and hear a set of Britain's madmen share their views. This part of town is traditionally the place of protests, and on quiet days anyone can come out here with his or her soapbox and share whatever he or she feels important. This time, there was and old woman sharing her views about how useless life is and how we will end up in a very unpleasant afterlife no matter what we do. There was also a Nigerian guy who explained his views on immigration and how immigrants are handled in various places. There was also a Muslim person who really stood out for... well I don't think even he understood :) But the overall feeling of the place is nice, that random people can go out and share their random thoughts, and noone gets punched in the face :) V. met us here, and we went to have a British meal - me an Aberdeen Angus Burger, P. fish&chips, V. some barbecue chicken. The beers we tried were also quite good, one of them was even Madonna's favourite :) This was all in a pub near James Street, W, and a few streets N of the Bond Street Tube station, if anyone would ever want to find a place I did not give the name of :) We had an Italian macchiato nearby, then V. went home, and P. and I continued our quest for British beer and rock music. Which eventually lead to finding almost every remotely good place closed and heading home with the first night bus again as the Tube closes earlier on Sundays. Well, bugger.

Monday... I hardly even got to work when I heard how badly things turned out with the last piece of work we've done, but that got fixed very quickly - we have neglected a few things we shouldn't have, so I learnt a bit about how some of our processes should be done properly ;) Then I met up with P., who slept at my place again but refused to wake up at dawn, like I did :) He moved out, over to V.'s for his last night and he just gave me my keys - he was quite wasted even having slept a lot more than I did :) The day just crept away, and in the evening I headed to V.'s as well - we were cooking a nice Hungarian dinner for the current English girl :) She's a very nice person, and was glad to have us, and especially, she enjoyed the meal a lot :) As a dessert, we had vannila-cinnamon-apple-honey pancakes with some of the best Tokaj wine I've ever tasted - 17 years old, with a colour even red vines would envy! All in all, it was a great evening, and as it ended at around 2, I did not head back home, but stayed for the night - which led to having to wake up earlier, get home, get dressed and head to work... not the best start :)

And from then on, I basically spent my nights at home, fighting this minor cold, and yesterday evening packing - which was the hardest part so far :) My suitcase is huge, heavy and huge and mostly heavy :) Even though I managed to send my coursebooks to the home office with internal mail, I figure I'll still be carrying a lot more weight than I'd love best :)

So in the evenings I did some basic shopping, said my farewells to the Canary Wharf towersm that's about it. This good bye is a lot less painful than the Berlin one was, for several reasons. For once, this was just 3 weeks, and no matter how I got used to all this, how much I tried to be local, it was still just a longer business trip. Also, London is just not Berlin :) It's great, lovely, wonderful, but too crowded for my taste - here an average day sees the streets about as crowded as Christmas in Berlin... That's something I will not miss :)

Now, I had to move out of my apartment on Friday, so I had to take all my stuff with me to work in the morning, and then I had to get them to this hostel, Globetrotters Inn. Approximately on the opposite end of town... It's not that far by Tube, but I would have preferred a bit less rain on the way here :)
The room is okay, I share it with Chris, who works in IT as well, and is in London for a course, and an unknown girl who just got "home" and who has the bunk below me :) I had a great steak for dinner, but they did not have proper beer so I had to settle for a Stella with it...

Anyway, I have to close this for now, as it's late and people are trying to sleep :)
I'll write more later!

Ps. I did not re-read this post yet, it might be full of nonsense and typos...need to sleep first :)
M.

Bring on the night

I'm alive... I just haven't slept enough for 5 days now... Check my pictures, I'll be back later.

M.

Oooooh I have to sum up so much! I'll try to be quick, as I'm tired, as usual :) Tuesday... I had another training session, split up in two parts. The morning part was quite boring, just a replay of my last training with more emphasis on some parts. I wouldn't say it was completely useless, but I could have spent my time better. Luckily, it was over just it time for me to reach the loo :) Free drinks have an effect... :) The afternoon part was a lot better, we were given some useful information, which I'll probably use as well during my work. In the evening I quickly summarized my ideas in an email on how to solve a current problem - this turned out quite well in the end.
Oh, and this day I had my worst lunch so far :) It was turkey, supposedly "rosted with honey, with stuffing", and well, it was really turkey, period. No other tastes, and definitely no stuffing :) Even the potatoes were without a taste. I managed to get some very good horseradish sauce with all this, that took most of my pain away :) In the evening I went out to check out the Oxford Circus, and well, it rained :) The tube ride was strange though - this was the first time I left for the inner city right after work, and well, there were a lot of people! I could only get on the second train, which was full as well as the first, and there were people left on the platform... I can understand now why londoners complain about the tube, but my overall observation would be that the people were a lot more patient than they would be in Hungary in a similar situation. No pushing, shouting or swearing, even though I'm sure most travellers will be a lot happier if and when the Crossrail project gets another traffic line to the Wharf :)
So, the Circus was fine, a lot of shoppers everywhere, it was nice to get back home and have dinner in peace and quiet :)
Wednesday... No rain in the morning! I tried to take a photo of the Reuters building, with all the scrolling stock info on it - I think this photo does not do justice to reality, but I was in a hurry :)
Work was fine, lunch was great with a spicey cod steak in the cantine on the 12th floor of our Bank Street building :) We had a great view on the city, though the Eye definitely beats this :) I tried to find the Costa Coffee in our offices, but eventually I had to settle for Starbucks - they give a lot better latte than the free coffee machine does. It costs a quid, but in the "offical" Starbucks it would be more than 2GBP, so whatever... After work I went grocery shopping, tried out the third food store in the area, and realized that the choice in English food is quite narrow... I mean I would be able to buy a lot of things, but German salami and Spanish chorizos would blend well enough with Danish butter in just any other country... I want to eat British stuff! Even haggis, if I have to! Easier to say than do around here...
So at home, I had crab pate form the Hebrids, and then I left to try out that boat ride on the Thames I received a "Free Ride"-coupon for - and it was definitely worth it's price :) I had to go out to the O2 Dome to get on the boat, and it rained again, of course... The boat was very comfy on the inside, and very, very fast - I was told this is because it's a catamaran design. I got off near Big Ben, and tried to get home - I was quite unlucky with that, as the direct tube line was not running due to some train problems, so I had to go around town, with 2 changes and million kilometres afoot to get home eventually. The only thing to do was to write this entry, have some cheddar with crackers and a beer...And then, sleep!
Zzzzzz,
M.

Rain

Sunday started as slow as possible - Saturday's party was not without aftereffects :) I was just sleeping till noon, mind you, no other problems for me this time :) It took a while to decide what I would do in the afternoon, but eventually I settled for Greenwich - it's quite close, and I was looking forward to see the view of Canary Wharf from there. I took the replacement bus for the DLR (Docklands Light Railways, driverless trains which were undergoing weekend maintenance) to get to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. British people seem to have a lot of stuff dedicated for travelling by foot :) So anyhow, the tunnel runs under the Thames, and it's over 100 years old... It has pretty entry buildings on both sides, and a few years ago they installed elevators for the disabled, elderly and lazy visitors. Even on my side of the Thames the weather started to get exciting, wind was blowing like the world was going down, I guess this is where my photos started to get blurry as I could not stand still :) Also, my pics went even blurrier when the rain started falling and a few drops managed to get on the lens :|
Back to the tunnel for now, though... It was scary :) Not in the "Oh my God the homeless people will eat me" way of scariness, as usual for foot tunnels and subways, because this tunnel was fully lit and more or less clean, but scary because of being narrow and rusty and generally strange :) And it's quite long, too, I'd guess about a kilometre. On the Greenwich side I started exploring as the rain started pouring, pretty soon it was umbrella-time... This part of London is quite amazing, I wandered off the usual tourist path to see a few sidestreets, which was quite fun. I also took some pictures of the view - it's truly spectacular, but I'd need better equipment and weather to show it off properly :) Accidentally I bumped into the Greenwich Market, which was a nice little place - not too big, not too small, and you can buy anything from belts to massage to sushi. It was also a lot less stressy than the Christmas markets and such that I'm more used to. I bought quite a few things (on my scale, a lot!), some smokey Earl Grey tea, a wonderful new wallet, a selection of Italian pastry for half price, some raspberry fudge and a mulled berry drink to get warmed up a bit. It was a nice little trip, but as I was quite tired so I went home. Luckily the replacement buses were not really properly configured for my Oyster card, so I travelled for free :) I guess everyone else did, though. At home, it was sleepy time very soon.
Monday was just another day :) I was at work, solved another important problem, took part in a funny meeting with Budapest (we were drawing on a digital whiteboard to share our diagrams) and a nice sweet chili beef hot wrap lunch. After work, I checked out a bookstore just for the hang of it - it feels good to have that many English books around :) Then, I headed home to taste a very nice dinner based on the Italian bread I bought yesterday. I was told that just by reading me one would think I'm a fat guy... well I might be skinny on the outside, but on the inside, I'm a fat guy who's always hungry :)

The rest of the evening was just peace and quiet, with a small candle burning in remembrance.
Good night, and take care!
M.

Bridges across forever

I guess this weekend is over, and soon I can sleep again :) These two days were quite tiring and touristy, but all in all I had a good time again. On Saturday the plan was to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and then take a ride on the London Eye - so we met up with a few colleagues near Westminster to walk along Whitehall for the Horse Guards' Parade. It must be quite stressy for the guards' horses to stand completely still during their shifts, and even though a horse standing still is just a horse standing still, when there are 15 of them it looks kind of impressive :) Obviously these are not the more famous guards with the furry hats, so we went to see them to - we had to cross St. James Park for this, which was lovely, full of little animals :) There was a man feeding the squirrels, they were basically eating from his hands, it was nice. Strange how squirrels tend to hang around in castle gardens, I have photographed them in Marbork (Poland), Schönbrunn (Austria), Potsdam (Germany) and now here. There must be an international squirrel conspiracy to overthrow monarchies, and seemingly they already succeded in 3 other places already :)
Anyhow, there were all sorts of critters in the park, but we went for the ones with the furriest heads - just like thousands of others did. Basically we did not see anything of the main part of the CotG show, but the band played very good music :) And we saw some of the guards march out afterwards to their barracks, where they had a nice short finishing parade, now that was something noone knew of - so we had that show for ourselves :)
Then, we headed towards Westminster Bridge, crossed the Thames and arrived to the Eye, where I collected the previously bought tickets - it was like 10 seconds, I just had to insert the credit card which I used for the online purchase in a machine, and it printed out my tickets without any human interaction necessary. So that was quick - the queue, not so much. We queued for the actual attraction for like half an hour, but it was okay, and of course the view would have been worth even more waiting :) The Eye is probably in the best possible place to see the bigger and more known monuments of London, and since it's by far the tallest building in that area, you really can see everything. In clear weather, you can even see Italy, or so we were told ;) Sadly, we had quite foggy weather, so visibility and photographability ( ;) ) were both restricted, nevertheless, this was an amazing experience :) Since the whole project runs under sponsorship by British Airways, the whole thing is arranged like it was an actual "flight", they even call your trip a "flight". You have to "board" before, then you get security checked, etc.
So then we walked northwards by the Thames to cross the Golden Jubilee Footbridge, on the way we could see a lot of mimes and other artists, it was more or less funny... the guitar players are usually quite good, too. On the other side of the Thames we split up, the others heading for the Tower, me heading for the nearest hamburger stall :) After that I went over to the Blackfriars tube station (everybody please read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - the tube experience will never be the same boring thing again), just to check out St. Paul's, and cross the Thames again on the Millenium Footbridge. When this bridge was first built, it was so wobbly, that they had to redesign it to somehow dampen the wobbliness - on some of my pictures you can see the additional equipment installed for this purpose. On the other side of the bridge there was the Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe, neither of which is a particularly nice building, but the internals count a lot more I guess - no time for those though. I took a short walk in the surrounding area to the nearest Tube station to get me home, did some shopping, gave directions to 3 different British people, and did my laundry. Also, as I found the door of the dishwasher broken, I sent an email about this to the aparment owners, so they repair it and don't make me pay the costs :) Then, after all this fun I went over to one of my colleague's, where a few of us had a few beers before heading out to Soho! Soho's amazing, everyone's queueing for a pub, everyone's going for a party. We managed to find 2 pretty bad clubs to pay the entry fee of, so it was not the most succesful night money-wise :) Well, the first pub was a blues pub, which I would have fancied but the others did not, and the other was just not so very good. Basically we just had a few drinks and then tried to find our way home - it was not that easy to find the correct night bus, but eventually, past 4am, I finally fell asleep in my bed :)

And this was only Saturday... I guess Sunday deserves a separate post, and a shorter one, I promise :)

M.

Slipped away

Friday evening...normally, two days of rest would follow, but in my case, there'll be only a lot more sightseeing :) Today was the day of the Tower! Or at least the evening of it... We walked around it, crossed the Thames via the Tower Bridge, and then sat in for a beer near the London Bridge tube station. You would not imagine how many girls are dressed like it was summer! You look at them, and even you get cold...But then again, you look at them a little longer, and it's hot again :) Crazy English people...
I promise I will sum these days a up in a little more detail later, but I have a lot of sleeping to do. I'm sure you can understand that part :) Also, tomorrow is party-day, so don't expect a quick entry. Sunday is museum day, we'll see how that goes and how much time I will have awake and doing nothing.
Oh yeah, and today my direct manager commented on one of my observations with the phrase "Great minds think alike" :) If that's not a praise, I don't know what else would be :)
Some new pics are up again, please bear with me on them...I don't have neither the tools, nor the knowledge for proper night photography. Some of the worst pictures are made during some of my best time...Go figure...

Anyhow. Sleep. You too. Well. Bye.
M.

We make the road by walking

I'm tired. Again. Or did I already tell you about that? :)
Today I started off my day with a tasty bagel, as English as I could make it :) Then I went off for my first training, which was about all the homegrown systems MS was using. Most parts were quite interesting, and of course all this information is very important for later work. After the training session I went for grocery shopping to Marks & Spencer :) I know, that's a clothes shop for all you girls out there, but here in London they also sell bread & butter :) I bought some sausages and spicey sauces for dinner - it was quite good, especially knowing my cooking skills :) Then I went out to find the Sherlock Holmes statue at Baker Street, but I've found a nice little pub instead, next to the London Business School :) I had a London Porter, no photo this time, but the beer was the first typical lukewarm British beer I had :) I have no idea if that was on purpose, but it definitely tasted bad :) Then, I took a doubledecker to Piccadilly, to see all the flashing ads, which were not so interesting, then I went over to Trafalgar Square, and then I took a short walk by the Thames to finally get on the tube and get home! It was long and tiring day, and I still have to do the dishes... But hey, there's tomorrow for that! :)
Bah, now I'm off to sleep it all off!
M.

At the end of the day

Today was without any sightseeing - I'm a bit too tired for that, hopefully I will sleep that off by tomorrow. Work was good again, I solved a few important problems and saw a few nice new things about how stuff goes in our team and projects. I'm getting the hang of it, I guess :) We tried out the local cantine for lunch today, which is somewhat special since you can only use your MS ID-card for payments. You have to top it up like a prepaid SIM-card to be able to purchase stuff with it, and after that it's very simple - you just put it in the card reader and it deducts the costs and displays your new balance. Even the chocolate vending machine share this principle in our building. This is quite comfortable, actually, but of course you have to pay attention to have enough money on your card when you plan to use it :)
For lunch I had some kind of fish with some spicy tomato sauce, potatoes and some other thing which I suppose were sweet potatoes, but since that is not at all native to the UK , it could have been something else. It looked like sweet potatoes, anyhow... and it tasted okay :) I also had a pomegranate/thisberry/thatberry smoothie, which was a lot less appealing... it had a lot of banana in it, which spoiled the whole thing for me. But it was funny that the ingredients showed how many pieces of each berry were used :) It was an okay meal, all in all, filling and fine. I also had a banana but that was not particularly good, it was not ripe enough.
Later this afternoon I was asked to look into a few problems which are semi-important but would look very nice when fixed for this weeks release - so with a little help I managed to find the right spots to correct and voilá, my work will go out to the NY traders as soon as they need it :)
After work I went shopping to the local TescoMetro (again). This is a lot smaller than the Tescos we have in Hungary, more like the usual supermarket. They have a lot of cashiers, though, and they have a single queue leading to all of them - in the end a loudspeaker announces which cashier is free, so basically the queue is only split up at the very last step. Seemingly the system works well and it's quite fast. It's not really possible to buy that many things in one go, but I think there are stores for the weekend shopping too nearby. I will have to check them out for more cheese varieties and anything nice and English :)
The main things I bought so far are some roast beef cold cuts (amazing!), cheddar, of course, orange/lemon/grapefruit jam, and of course a small bottle of Marmite :) This last one has a very strange flavour, but I like it... It's like eating creamy gravy :)
I also had to buy some household items to do my laundry and washing up - sadly this is quite costly and of course I won't use a whole box/can/bottle of anything in 3 weeks. I was thinking about buying tabs for the dishwasher machine, but I settled for the usual "manual" dishwashing liquid - it would take weeks to gather enough dirty dishes to justify using the dishwasher :)

Oh well... Wednesday is over, tomorrow's stories shall come tomorrow :) Never forget to check my photos in the Picasa album!

M.

New sensation

Today was the first day at MS here in London. The walk to my working place was quite nice, this business quarter is quite amazing with all these new and tall buildings.
I was the first one getting my ID card, seemingly the others just did not bother enough to ask what they should do to get theirs :) Kevin, my mentor - project manager (or Buddy, in MS lingo) arrived a bit late to get me to my desk. It's in a huge room with a lot of desks, there's place for about 200 people. Kevin was kind enough to help me find the local AmEx office to get some cash, and also he invited me for a tasty muffin and a coffee. He showed me around in the office, introduced me to zillions of people, and told me a few things about his position and how his team works. He's 30 at most, and he is a very friendly guy, and even he himself wants to dismiss any formalities - this seems quite general with the IT staff here. Basically everyone is encouraged to do whatever suits his own professional development best, and the actual project is almost just second in line behind that. This friendly atmosphere is also part of being an "Associate" of the Firm, not just an employee among thousands. So far I like this concept, though I am aware that this probably ain't the Holy Grail either :)
So back to my story ;) Lunch was again on Kevin, he took me and a Hungarian colleague from the MS graduate program to a new restaurant nearby - I had some very tasty pork cutlets, and Kevin also seemed to enjoy his fish meal. After lunch it was work and introductions again, and even though I faced a few problems which make my current seemingly very short assignment a lot longer than I expected, I don't feel uncomfortable with all this. I finished work at 6, went to the Tesco nearby to get something for dinner and breakfast, and then I joined two Hungarian colleagues for a small trip around the city. We took the Jubilee Line Underground to King's Cross & St. Pancras - the latter is an amazing red-brick building, I will have to go back in daylight later. Then we took a walk (and a beer) to Russell Square, and then a bus near the London Eye. I tried to take some pictures, but my camera is not that well suited for night photography. The Eye, the Parliament, the Big Ben - they are all very, very nice, again I will have to visit them in daylight. After this 2-3 hours long trip we took the Jubilee Line again to get home... all in all, it was very nice, I'm sure I will see a lot of beautiful things here :)
The traffic and the people are nothing special, not counting of course the traditional cabs and doubledeckers - which are of course all driving on the wrong side of the road :) Not so easy to get used to it, at each crossing I remind myself that I have to pay attention to this but concentrating on it makes it even more difficult :)
For the travels we used the so-called Oyster Card, which is basically a prepaid travelcard in London. On each trip you have to hold this card next to a proximity sensor - on buses the fare gets deducted immediately, on the underground you have to check out as well at the end of the trip so the fare gets calculated based on the zones you crossed. The system works pretty well, especially because the daily maximized cost is even lower than the price of a normal day ticket, so it's actually worth using it. Season tickets work more or less the same, but I don't think I would travel enough for say, weekly tickets to be worth their price.
Oh okay, I know this post is a bit mixed up, but it's late and I tried to squeeze in everything :)

Thanks for reading me!
M.

London reporting in

It's almost midnight in a slightly different time zone than usual... Today in the morning I had a pair of presentations about how I should go about being a new employee, and at 2:20pm I left for the airport. There, I spent an hour in the business lounge - my first time ever :) It was not that special but they had free drinks and cookies. Afterwards I (and ~10 colleagues) boarded flight MA614 to London - my first business class travel ever :) It was quite nice, they took my coat, served nice wines and an amazingly rich meal - something I will have to make a photo of on my trip home. I had some assorted cheese, chicken with potatoes & stuff, some more spicier chicken and a tiramisu. Oh, and while I also helped the people sitting next to me to open their bag of mixed nuts (it was basically bolted shut...). They were an elderly couple, not my colleagues of course. They were visiting their son and his family in Budapest - they have a family tradition BTW, of marrying at the age of 37 and having the first child at 41 :) That would make the husband of the couple 82, and he was in a remarkably good health for his age ... he told me he learned to fly a plane before WW2 on the very same Gatwick airport we landed in London... :) They were very nice people, we had a good chat, so it was a good flight. On the airport after a loooooong walk on the corridors we got our bags and were awaited by a minibus, which took us to our apartments. It was not a quick process, and not without mistakes - I misread my address and tried to enter No.11 in a completely different building :) But eventually I got to my (really) own apartment, which is HUGE! At least as big as my flat at home... No problems so far, I have an internet connection as well, though it costs a lot of GBP... After settling I went out with 2 guys for a beer... my first pair of Guinesses in the UK! And now it's time for some pictures and a very good nights sleep :) I will get back to you very soon, so come back and read me :)

Pictures
Map


M.

Back in the World of Adventures!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's that time of year again, I'm going for a training trip with my new employer - this time I'll haunt the streets of London for a few weeks. So fasten your seatbelts, start up your RSS-reader engines, and join me on the joyride! :)

I'll be seeing you all!
M.

Goodbye Blue Sky

This is the last entry I am posting from the beautiful city of Berlin, Germany.
There might be one or two more about this coming weekend, but after that, it's over. Blogging was never really part of my toolset, it just made it easier for me to tell "everyone" how my time goes here in these far off lands. So now that I will meet "everyone" regularly again, the need is gone, and thus the update frequency will be most probably 0 posts every month :) But if I post anything, that will of course be something completely different.

Oh well, these were probably the best 5 months of my life, in one way or the other - thank you for allowing me to share my experiences with you. It was great while it lasted.

So long, goodbye!
M.

Pictures of an Exhibition

It would have been stylish to finish this in 50 posts :) But since this is the 51th, I have to find new goals in my life :)
So, yesterday evening I visited the Old National Gallery on the Museum Island, using the free entry on Thursdays for the second time. My main goal was to see a few Parisian impressionist pictures, as I by reading Van Gogh's biography by Irving Stone I really got in the mood of this style. I know, it's stupid to like paintings based on what's written about them :) But as Van Gogh met several of these guys during his days in Paris, and described the differences between and the typical style of each of them, I really wanted to see what he was talking about :) (The book is based on Vincent's letters to his brother Theo, so it's more or less okay to consider the words in the book his own words :) )
So. I've visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam before, and I am aware that I don't really like Vincent's style of painting, but I remember some pictures by contemporary painters that I liked. But now I needed a refresh of my memories :)
The museum itself is quite small, it took about 2 hours to see everything inside, including reading every label and studying every picture I've found interesting. Most of it is of course dedicated to German 19th century artists, with some amazingly detailed huge canvases, mostly on the royal family or some military-related event.
There are also some sculptures from that era, one of which really amazed me...It was exactly the same figure as one sculpture in the gardens of Sanssouci! Just this one was marble, and the other one was bronze. Here are the photos for comparison :)

So, now for the impressionists: there was only one room with their pictures, a few canvases from Manet, Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh and Renoir, and a few Rodin sculptures, including a copy or study of his most famous 'The Thinker'. The colours and painting style these people used is really amazing, some canvases have lines that could have been drawn by 5 year olds but colours that take a special mind to come up with. The painting I liked the most was 'Summer' by Renoir, it just looked so real and displayed that exact moment so well...An amazing picture, looks a lot better in real life than on this small image :)
I guess it would be better if I did not lack the words necessary to describe art... :) But still, this was a good visit. Tomorrow I will try to go to one modern art museum too, showing some Picasso and Munch canvases. I hope I will have the time on my last full day here.
M.

Thursday afternoon

I think I neglected this blog for too long :) I posted one backdated entry for 13.02. and also one for last Friday. These were of course written on their respective days, so not much cheating is included :)
This weekend was a good one, I had friends around and we had a good time in a few pubs around Berlin :) We visited and exhibition on the LOTR movies, which was just great, with all the details on the special effects used, the concept art, and all the clothes, masks and other gear from the movie. I spent a lot more time there than my friends, but they were kind enough to have a beer and wait for me while I was sucking up information :) In the evenings, we beat each other and everyone around in foosball, and well, had a lot of generic fun :)
Monday was just a slow day, Tuesday was a day of an IMAX Safari movie (the fishes were a lot better...), Wednesday was just sitting at home, Thursday is just the interim period between 2 projects at work and hopefully visiting a museum in the evening, and Friday will be my last working day Berlin. Want some heartache? I sure got a lot to spare of that...Saturday evening/night we'll have a farewell party, so at least it will be a glorious end :) I wonder how I'll get up Sunday morning to catch the plane :)

Ok, no more days to talk about! Off to work then :)
M.

Moving pictures

El laberinto del fauno - this was the movie I watched this evening. It's a Guillermo del Toro movie, who's probably not the most famous director around. The movie is not completely unlike The Fall, as both have a young girl as a heroine and both movies unfold as the girl dreams them up. The main difference is that the Labyrinth is a very, very dark movie, full of pain, hopelessness and despair. Some of the images are also quite disturbing, and I did not feel the need to include such scenes to keep the tension up. And of course the movie was in Spanish, with English subtitles (I was expecting German subtitles, now that would have been interesting :) ). I was glad to notice that I did not forget all my Spanish, but without the subs I would have been almost completely lost. Most sentences I was only able to reconstruct after reading the translation. I think the main problem with my Spanish understanding skills, that it takes a lot of time to consume a sentence - I guess I should improve this. Speaking and writing is a completely different matter, right now I am quite hopeless in this field :)
But anyhow, the movie was very good, with good acting again - I guess we'll hear the name of the young actress who played Ofelia in the movie (Ivana Baquero). The movie is nominated in 6 categories at this year's Academy Awards, it'll be interesting how many it gets and in categories. Of course at the time I'll post this entry, written on Friday evening, the Oscar ceremony will be already over.

(Update: Das Leben der Anderen got the Oscar for best foreign movie, and it deserved it, too. I think El Laberinto got one for best mask & special effects.)

Erm, my mind keeps wandering. I should rest before the coming tiring last-weekend-in-Berlin party :)
Take care,
M.