szombat, június 09, 2012
Walk on the Wild Side
Saturday is family day! I went out to Alphabet City (where they ran out of numbers and call Avenues A/B/C) to visit my aunt and my cousin (+her son and husband). I found the place easily, it's in a lot more laid back neighborhood as I've seen thus far in Manhattan: in the East Village. It has smaller buildings with a couple of stories each, the trademark wrought iron fire escapes, small public gardens scattered between the houses - it's pretty nice. Unfortunately my aunt's apartment building is being renovated so the surrounding area is a bit of a construction zone, but the apartment itself is already finished so it looks lovely. When my cousin and co. arrived with the little one has fallen asleep on their way, so we decided to go out to the NYC BBQ Block Party just the 3 of us, leaving the Granny home with the baby. So we walked quite a bit from ABCity to Madison Square where already loads of people were queuing up for dozens of different types of barbecue. We tried some varieties of pork and beef, all roasted on open flame or charcoal, and they reached from OK to pretty good, so it was worth it as well. We finished it up with a pint (and with some friends of the husband, visiting Silicon Valley developers), and by the time we walked by the Square again it was completely filled up. We just decided to leave it as is and walked back on a different route to my aunts. The little one was already up and has already enjoyed Granny reading one of the Hungarian story books I brought alongs as a present. He was a bit scared in the beginning of the new "bacsi" (he speaks Hungarian!), but he loosened up after a while and even gave me his pet Flying Monkey to play with. After a while we decided to go over to the High Line (a derelict high rise railway converted into a public part) for a stroll, which was loads of fun! The area is great, the park being elevated a couple of meters above the roads and continuing between the buildings of the West Village - it's really unique and nice. It's littered with modern art sculptures donated to lighten up the place a bit, and musicians and small cafes have already found their place here. Our outing was only broken by the coming rain, so we said our good byes - but also agreeing on a next time to meet.
In the evening I couldn't just stay at home, so I went to check out the "tramway"leading to Roosevelt Island, which essentially is a cablecar similar to the larger ones one can see along ski pistes. It goes up quite high just to go down again on the side of the island (a 5 minute ride), and provides a nice view of the city as well - for the same price as a subway ticket. The island itself is nothing special, a residental are with luxury apartments, but it hosts one of the most serene places you could find in such a big city: a completely empty baseball greens. I took one of the benches there to have my dinner sandwich and enjoyed the whirr of the city rushing by with noone in sight. I guess a couple of stars must have been visible as well - a nice timeout from the Manhattan lifestyle.
Then, it was only taking the tramway back, not finding a good looking pub in the neighborhood, and falling asleep quickly after a feet-eating day.
M.
péntek, június 08, 2012
Strawberry Fields Forever
No, I did not have a hangover and woke up at 5:45 after getting home at 1 AM. Apparently jet lag and booze don't mix well :) This kinda set the mood for the day, after some not-so-good eggs & bacon bagel I was only ready for a salad for lunch. There was a place nearby where you can select some basic greens and a set of toppings (salmon, eggs, olives, etc) which they basically grind up for you, add a hint of your favourite dressing and you're done! As the weather was nice we just sat outside to enjoy the sun and the salad.
The day moved on at glacial speed, and as it finished I set out for my next quest - the Central Park at night. Again, I did not judge the distances well, so I walked up until about 1/3 of the park only, but it was worth it: I saw so many fireflies! At first, I though it was just a streetlight reflecting on my glasses, but then I saw the little bugs flying around. There were so many! And their light was strong too, a nice fluorescent green. One of them even came up close, and it was pretty big, about the size of a nicely grown wasp back at home.
After I left the bugs to do whatever bugs do I walked up to the Strawberry Fields park, which has a nice "Imagine" mosaic in the middle (not the best thing to make pictures of in the dark). I also saw the Dakota House from across the road but it didn't look anything special so I did not cross. The one strange thing about the park is that it's forbidden to smoke or drink alcohol there, so it's completely different compared to what you'd see at home in the City Park or Margaret Island. I'm sure both ways have an advantage...
After a bit more walking I stepped out of the park to check out the neighbouring streets to the west, but they didn't have much to offer but luxury apartments, so I took the subway home.
All in all, not bad way to finish off a week if you want to do it outside of a bar :)
M
The day moved on at glacial speed, and as it finished I set out for my next quest - the Central Park at night. Again, I did not judge the distances well, so I walked up until about 1/3 of the park only, but it was worth it: I saw so many fireflies! At first, I though it was just a streetlight reflecting on my glasses, but then I saw the little bugs flying around. There were so many! And their light was strong too, a nice fluorescent green. One of them even came up close, and it was pretty big, about the size of a nicely grown wasp back at home.
After I left the bugs to do whatever bugs do I walked up to the Strawberry Fields park, which has a nice "Imagine" mosaic in the middle (not the best thing to make pictures of in the dark). I also saw the Dakota House from across the road but it didn't look anything special so I did not cross. The one strange thing about the park is that it's forbidden to smoke or drink alcohol there, so it's completely different compared to what you'd see at home in the City Park or Margaret Island. I'm sure both ways have an advantage...
After a bit more walking I stepped out of the park to check out the neighbouring streets to the west, but they didn't have much to offer but luxury apartments, so I took the subway home.
All in all, not bad way to finish off a week if you want to do it outside of a bar :)
M
Thirsty Thursday
The good thing about Thursdays and visits to other offices is that they tend to go out for drinks with the visitors. On this lucky week, they even took us out for lunch to a burger place on Hells Kitchen, or 9th Ave if you so prefer. It was a smallish place, so our team just filled it up completely, but still they managed to bring us our burgers at a good place. The food was quite good, I had a bbq burger with some of the best double-fried chips outside of Belgium :) I also tried a root beer with it, which certainly is an acquired taste, but it's not that bad :) One of the guys was wolfing down his food at such an amazing pace and with such enthusiasm, we could only laugh - especially in the ended where he put the dot on the i by pulling down a big chocolate shake with considerable difficulties. Not fine dining, but definitely fun dining, in such childish company :)
After a day riddelod with meetings in the evening we went out for a couple of pints to the Mean Fiddler, an Irish-themed place. BTW, a US pint is a bit less than a the usual Hungarian 0.5l, as opposed to the UK pint, which is a bit more than that - anyhow, a pint is a pint! I got my taste of some Samuel Adams lager, quite good, and also some Smithwicks, which is a beer by the Guinness brewery - not as good as their main show. While we were there, one of the many TV screens in the bar showed a programme about Hungarian football, mostly about Puskas and the Puskas Academy of present day. I was surprised, but the colleagues didn't really believe when I explained why I just stopped listening to them for a moment :) OK, possible not the most interesting thing ever, but quite a coincidence. After a while the place started crowding up with people playing beer pong and waiting for the karaoke night, so some of us decided to leave for another place. This turned out to be a somewhat fancy wine place, where we had a California Cabernet Sauvignon with a special selection of Swiss, Italian and French cheeses. All this stuff had the taste and the place even after numbing our palate with those beers before, so all in all it was a good evening. Well, if you don't count the walk back home, I mis-estimated the distance so I had a nice, sobering stroll on the streets of midnight New York.
Did I ever wake up and did I have a hangover? More about that soon! :D
M
szerda, június 06, 2012
Psychadelikatessen
Freshly up in the right timezone the hunt for breakfast began. I coulnd't care less about the pricy hotel breakfast, so after the usual quick morning rituals I headed out via Park Avenue for a change. That's apparently one of the poshier parts of the city, as I could have bought more Louis Vuitton bags and Ferraris than bagels. Which, in the end, I did not buy (neither one), but went for a bacon and egg sandwich, choosing from a selection of bacon and egg sandwiches in a barely open Pret a Manger. The day went well, including the lunch at Toasties (House Special, hot Pastrami with cheddar and coleslaw in a "Hero" bread) and the following biiig presentation. I held this for the whole NY team some 20 people, so I guess only 2 falling asleep should be kinda OK :) One of the sleepers is a guy remarkably reminiscent of Hugh Laurie, minus the walking stick and the demeanor, which is kinda funny. The only other plan for the day was the evening lunch with Hungarian colleagues out here in the city, which was started in a bit undecided manner - where should we go? We had an attempt on "The healthiest food on Earth" served in a Mexican restaurant, but they have a no alcohol policy so we skipped, and ended up at a hummus place, which served beer for our pleasure in addition to the "amazing fish" (their words - it was actually 6/10). It turned out that one of the guys in the group came at the same time, on the same planes as I did... Which came as a lesser surprise than realizing that the girl behind me at the immigration queue was indeed one London colleague, who incidentally got the desk next to me in the office. So kids, if you see someone you think you know from somewhere, you probably do :) The dinner ended not too late, so we walked back with the "same plane"-colleague... to the same hotel :) Fortunately it turned out that he does not have the same room as I do :) And now, turning the room's stereo to 11 listening to The Dear Hunter, there's nothing else to do but wait for sleep! M
kedd, június 05, 2012
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
hétfő, június 04, 2012
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
csütörtök, július 22, 2010
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 :) )
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 :) )
vasárnap, július 18, 2010
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.
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.
szombat, július 17, 2010
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)
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)
péntek, november 30, 2007
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.
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.
kedd, november 27, 2007
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.
M.
szerda, november 21, 2007
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.
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.
hétfő, november 19, 2007
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.
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.
vasárnap, november 18, 2007
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.
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.
péntek, november 16, 2007
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.
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.
csütörtök, november 15, 2007
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.
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.
szerda, november 14, 2007
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.
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.
kedd, november 13, 2007
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.
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.
hétfő, november 12, 2007
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.
Pictures
Map
M.
vasárnap, november 11, 2007
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.
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.
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