London - Day 2

Last night was kind of rough in the sleep department as I expected. Amy and I both woke up around 2 or 3 this morning for no reason and stayed awake for an hour, then finally woke up around 10 or 11 but I could have slept into the afternoon if I didn't force myself up. The 7 hour time change is pretty brutal.

Anna mentioned that all I talk about on here is food, but I am a gastronomic enthusiast so I can't help it. This morning we walked to a Portuguese cafe around the corner from Anna's house and ate a "proper English breakfast." I put that in quotes because Amy and I ordered the vegetarian version that had fried mushrooms instead of sausage and bacon. The egg, beans, potatoes, tomato, and toast where still there. Although I will still probably try to eat it again in the totally legit way, it will more than likely not happen until we swing back to London again at the end of our trip. I couldn't eat something like that regularly.




After breakfast, Anna found out that she needed to go work for her dad in the early afternoon, so we headed down to Liverpool station on the "tube" and stopped at her dad's cheese shop to say hello. He was a really nice fellow and gave Amy and I some sandwiches for lunch. We had a brief conversation about economics and the G20 summit happening in a couple days and brought to our attention that London might end up having rioting and some other craziness happen tomorrow and Wednesday, so we are going to try and avoid that all together. Jon recommended visiting Greenwich so we might take a boat ride there.



Anna showed us around east London for a bit before she went to work, and then Amy and I were on our own. We stopped at a cafe on a random street and sat outside since the weather here has been really pleasant. Amy and I decided from there to head to the British Museum, so we headed back to the subway and headed that way. The museums in London are pretty much all free, and the British Museum was absolutely amazing. We were there until it closed and saw a bunch of mummies, and thousands of pieces of artifacts from all over the world and pretty much every point in history. Amy's most anticipated thing to see was the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone (for anyone who doesn't know) is a large stone tablet that was taken from Egypt by the French and then the English that has an inscription written in hieroglyphics and the more modern Egyptian language demotic, as well as classical Greek. This allowed for the translation of the once mysterious heiroglyphic language to finally happen.

I was sad to find out after leaving the museum that the picture I took of the Rosetta Stone on my camera was deleted, but thankfully we took a short goofy video that has it. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:




We saw so many other amazing things and I could go on about it forever, but long story short, go if you can.


This is me in the "Life and Death" room (for Greg. haha)


This is Amy in the GIANT "Enlightenment" room.

The museum closed just as we were heading into the last exhibit (Greek sculptures) so we turned around and headed back out to a park and sat on a bench for a while and then decided to go to the London Bridge. We actually went to the tower bridge though...

The subway is INSANE during rush hour, so we were a bit overwhelmed by the river of people that seemed to sweep us up against our will and carry us into the train which was packed like a can of sardines. Thankfully we only ended up on the wrong train once and we were just going the wrong way. We finally got to the bridge, and were in awe of how awesome it is.



We noticed that a lot of people jog along the Thames river walk with backpacks. Is running home from work customary? It doesn't look like much fun. The architecture along the Thames is very interesting. I am looking forward to hopefully seeing more if we go on a boat ride tomorrow.

It's almost 1am here, and I don't feel tired at all, but I am going to force myself to go to sleep so that I don't sleep through the day tomorrow.

Good luck to me.

London - Day 1 - Part 2

So, last I left off we were getting ready to head out and wander around for a while and then go out for the main event, which I will get to.

We hadn't really eaten anything since our mediocre breakfast on the flight which consisted of a very small danish and an apple sauce and yogurt that we had to eat with a spork, so the first plan of action was to find something to eat. We decided to walk to Camden town and get some street food because I am obsessed with Anthony Bourdain and he eats street food like nobody's business. Anna took us to the Camden Locks and we decided to pick up some Morrocan. I got lamb and veggies with rice which was very good and only £4.

After lunch we walked around some more and looked at the Locks and rode on a double decker bus. Anna has been a really good tour guide and we have really enjoyed London.









Later in the evening Anna took us to the Phoenix Theatre bar which was a pub that I was taken to when Fear Before played London in 2005. It was incredibly strange to be there again because the memories of that night were really vivid. We met a few of Anna's friends who were all very nice and we talked about the US and traveling and all the usual things you talk about with foreigners.

Something I discovered was that in England if you've had a beer and you feel like you want more, but you don't feel like you want another pint, or you just don't happen to have enough money for one, you can buy a half pint, and they give it to you in an actual half pint glass. I need to get a photo of this at some point, but I couldn't last night because I didn't want to be weird.

After the Phoenix we headed off to the event of the night which was an Erotic Poetry reading that Anna's friend's friend was putting on. It was in the basement of a red walled, somewhat fancy bar and the place was completely packed with people. Surprisingly the poetry wasn't as uncomfortable as I expected it to be, but there were a handful of poems that I had to bite my lip from laughing out loud. Thankfully a couple of Anna's friends were equally as immature about it as I was so I didn't feel too out of place.



We watched two of the three sections of the reading and decided to head back to Anna's and head to sleep as both Amy and I barely slept on the plane.

The weather here is pretty much exactly the same as at home. Pretty warm and enjoyable, but the added bonus (in our opinion) of the gloominess and occasional rain. I might need to buy a light jacket here or something that is better than the hoodie I brought.

I am going to try and get Amy to post as well, so that we both get a good amount of thoughts on this thing.

Cheers!

London - Day 1 - Part 1

We made it!

After a pretty bearable 8.5 hr flight from Denver to London, we landed at noon London time. Amy and I have both traveled a lot so we thought that we would be passing through immigration pretty quickly. Little did we know that the simple fact that I hadn't printed a hard copy of our flight itinerary would send us into a tailspin of problems because according to the immigration officer she had no proof that we were going to be leaving and therefore interrogated us about every single detail of why we were here, who we know, their contact info, how we met them, the last time we saw them and talked to them, which landmarks we wanted to see, how much cash we had on us, how much was in our bank accounts, how much credit we had on our credit cards, etc. Needless to say we became a little worried that she kept asking questions and asked for more and more information and not seeming like she would let us in.



So, after getting scolded for not having our plans here planned enough we were finally allowed into England. Amy and I were very tired and the train ride to Paddington station was a bit edgy and weird. After we got into the station our friend Anna met up with us and we rested for a bit and got coffee (or glass bottled water in my case). Then we hopped on a double decker bus and rode to Camden where Anna lives.

I am happy to have made it here safely. We are getting ready to go out and do things and stuff.

Cheers.

Sitting around waiting to leave.

The few hours I normally have to kill before heading to the airport usually give me too much time to think. Today is also Zach's last day in Denver, and I am really happy that we get to hang out and go to the airport together. It will make me feel a lot better about everything.

We leave Denver tonight at 8pm and get into London tomorrow at noon. Direct flights are great.

Saturday!

I need to buy socks and I need to do some laundry.

I think we are going to be doing some laundry after we eat brunch at ROOT DOWN!!! I know that so far I have talked about eating a lot, and I think it's funny how the big taboo thing to do on social networking platforms is to talk about what you're eating, but I don't care. Root Down is great.

We're leaving tomorrow night. I am excited, but I can feel the involuntary anxiety starting to knot up inside of me. Kinda sucks.

Word.

TGIF

Friday's at the Vinyl Collective office are always pretty fun. It's the one day a week that we all go out to lunch at one of our many favorite restaurants. Today is Los Cabos which is a delicious Peruvian joint downtown. I highly recommend it. It still hasn't really hit me yet that we are going to Europe in a few days.

70 Hours and Counting.

Hello!

I set up this blog so that we can have some sort of vessel to place all of our memories and experiences from our travels in general. My specific motivation however is a trip we are taking to the UK and Europe in a little less than 3 days.



As I type this I am going on 9 hours of being inside my apartment while a brutal and somewhat unseasonal blizzard tears through Denver. I can't help but feel nervous that it could somehow affect our ability to get out on our flight even though it is supposed to be sunny and gradually warmer up until our flight Sunday night. Either way it isn't so awesome outside. I absolutely need to work tomorrow so I can get enough hours to pay for rent when I get back.

Good times indeed.

Tomorrow night some of us are going to Great Divide brewery for a cask aged beer release party.