London (part 4): Monday, 28th July 2008

On Monday I originally planned to visit the British Library next to King’s Cross Station, but I thought the weather was too nice (hot, but still nice) to stay indoors. So I bought a day pass once again and went to Westminster once more. The Abbey Shop was open, so I could buy the things I wanted and thus could complete Hai_dis birthday present (Yes, I know giving hints like that is a bit mean *g*). I even got stuck in front of a big screen, which showed the original broadcast of the coronation ceremony of Elizabeth II in 1952. She had to wear four different layers of robes in the end! And a little Prince Charles was peaking over a railing the whole time : -)

After a last visit (and long recreational break) at St. James Park, I happened to watch the Change of the Horse Guards at Whitehall. All these ceremonies are so foreign to me, why do they still do that? In the way they do? I have no clue. A last stroll past Trafalgar Square, a last visit to Leicester Square and a last very nice lunch at Chiquito, topped with a delicious dessert. Tons of calories, pure fat and sugar, but still…. “small donuts, dusted in sugar and cinnamon, served with pots of chocolate fudge sauce and maple syrup for dipping.” Called churros and absolutely yummy!

The journey to Standstead was a smooth one and I reached the airport much too early. Thank god in one of the stores I found a great new book from an author I really like: Bill Bryson - “Shakespeare: The World as a Stage” (how fitting for this trip) And so I could sit down with a Starbucks coffee and read and block out the crowds and the sights of this uncomfortable, crowed, clearly designed for low budget airlines airport.

I was dreading the journey from Düsseldorf airport to my hometown, over an hour on train during these temperatures and a suitcase in tow. Bro2 agreed to pick me up at the station, when I asked him via text message from London. Imagine my huge surprise, when I turned on my phone after the landing, to read his offer to pick me up at the airport instead. Yay! It meant I had to wait at the airport for about 45 minutes, but that was more than ok as I needed to eat something anyway. And  after dinner I had just ordered my 3rd Starbucks coffee of the day, when he already arrived to pick me up. Perfect timing and a very nice and relaxing end to a great and exciting trip…

London (part 3): Sunday, 27th July 2008

On Sunday I finally left my jacket at the hotel *g* and my first stop was Shakespeare’s Globe a reconstruction from the 16th century’s theatre.

London (part 2): Saturday, 26th July 2008

Grabbing a coffee at Starbucks and getting on the tube around 09.00 AM became sort of routine for the next couple of days. With coffee in hand I visited platform 9 3/4, it was King’s Cross after all.

London (part 1): Friday 25th July 2008

I came up with the London travel plan a couple of weeks ago, when I realized, that I have read quite a few novels set in London (either historical or contemporary), but actually had no idea of the city anymore. I’ve been there on a class trip in 1992 and I remember a lot of the trip, but not much of the city. This had to change and I think with this trip I managed to get a good overall impression, I’ve got some sort of idea where different landmarks are located and just got a feeling of the city. So I can proudly say: “Mission accomplished!”

I wanted to write a rather short post about the trip in a “Been there, done that” sort of way. But I’m incapable of keeping it short. I’m a rambler I know. At least I try to not do this too meticulous… And I have to split this into four different posts, otherwise it’s going to be much too long. Every entry will be too long anyway and although they are more or less written, I probably only will put up the first (two). Sorting, uploading and tagging the photos took too much time already…

Batman - The Dark Knight

I think I might have watched the first Batman movie in the early 90s. Maybe not at the movies, but on video or TV later. I’m not sure though. But looking at the cast and the plotline I think I might remember it. I don’t really remember anything of any other Batman movie, so I guess I definitely haven’t watched those. Not on TV, DVD and certainly not at the movie theatre. I remember trailers and photos of the cast in their costumes like Catwoman, the Pinguin, Mr. Freeze, but they were all over the media, so I know about the movies without having seen them.
I probably would never have watched this new Batman movie if it hadn’t been for Heath Ledger. As the movie was already in the theatres in London I was determined to watch it there and I did, although the ticket prizes did shock me. Ok, it was Saturday but 14,50 £ (18,4 EUR / 13 $) for a movie ticket? And it wasn’t even the most expensive section. But it was the Odeon at Leicester Square. And it was a vacation, so who cares about the money?

Unreliable weather forecasts….

… sort of suck. Although they obviously just got the locations wrong. The light / heavy / thundery showers did happen after all. Here. And not in London. Which was fine by me, except for the fact that I unnecessesarily carried around my small umbrella in my bag every day. At least I was clever enough to don my jacket after two days, because I never wore it and it just took up too much space in my bag. But I’m not complaining, not at all, because I’m really glad that London didn’t got the flood that obviously hit parts of my home region.

Anyway I had a great (and very sweaty) time in London and I’m too tired to catch up with all my mails, journals, news, fanfics, twitter and online stuff. I will just skim over most of it and do the thorough reading at work tomorrow :-) I really should have taken another day off to relax after that trip.  And of course there will be a post (and pictures) from this weekend sometime later this week as well…

London Calling… finally :-)

For the last couple of days I thought of April, when I checked the BBC 5-days forecast for London. It changed about twice a day and ranged from light rain showers to sunshine to heavy showers. And that was just the forecast for Friday. It seems they’ve finally figured it out now, because the forecast stayed the same for the last 12 hours or so. And unfortunately every other forecast service practically forecasts something similar:

I guess it’s going to be typical (=rainy) London experience.

Friday: light showers
Saturday: thundery showers
Sunday: sunny (Yay!)
Monday: heavy showers

Every day around 25 °C, which means there is no way I’m taking my weatherproof Jack Wolfskin jacket, It’s a great jacket for rain and wind and everything, but not when it’s around 25 °C. An umbrella has to do the trick or I’ll just have to hop from sightseeing site to café to next site to Virgin Mega Store to another site… with help of the tube and just don’t to much walking and strolling around.

Or maybe the forecast might change again within the next 12 hours :-) At least I won’t be missing perfect summer days in Germany as it’s going to be a lot like the weather in London I guess.

So, this is me offically checking out till Monday Nigh…

Edit at 11.15 PM: BBC now forecasts light showers on Friday and Saturday, heavy showers on Sunday and Monday. WTF ?!?!? I  can only hope that this forecast will change again tomorrow, just like every one did during this week. Or even more hope that the weather just won’t act like the BBC told it to do :-)

Whiling Away Time with the Killers Top 10

I’m a master in whiling away my time. I planned to do a couple of things yesterday afternoon, but of course I just did a very few of them. Re-Reading “Lightning Strikes Twice” is just so time-consuming. And addictive and I guess it will be in the next couple of days as well.
I decided to not go to work today, because there is no way that the really loud re-construction in the building with my temp office will be finished already And it’s just impossible to work when there is loud screeching and or hammering from the drills and jackhammers all around the office. I can’t talk on the phone, I can’t concentrate and the apruptly stop and start of the noise is nervwrecking. At least my nerves were wrecked after only 20 minutes and a cellphone call I had to answer out on the yard, where there still was noise from some re-construction stuff on the other parts of the building. So I just set up call forwarding to my cellphone and left.
I definitely have to go in tomorrow though to check the mail before I leave for my short London trip. As there isn’t anything urgent to work on at the moment it’s not a big problem to stay at home and I could use the time at home to be productive and… well, if I didn’t have to restrain myself from compiling another “to-do-today” list and instead just start doing it!

Anyway at least finally is here my Killers Top10. And it took me about an hour to figure out the flash player / addblock conflict on my firefox. Talking about whiling away time….

Miscellaneous, 2008/07/20

It’s mid-July and I’m sitting at home wearing extra warm socks, T-shirt and a fleece jacket. Yes, and pants of course, the point is: It’s the middle of this freaking summer season and I’m freezing. I refuse to turn on the heating though. Thank god the forecast for the end of next week is slightly better, about 25 °C and no rain. I hope this doesn’t change until then, because I don’t want to spend 4 days in a rainy London. Although that would probably would be a typical London experience :)

The London trip wasn’t foremost on my mind for the last few weeks, but then I got my credit card bill for June with all the advance expenses for the London Pass etc and I was in travel mood again. I spent two hours last night to work on my detailed plan and I’m afraid it’s still too ambitious. I might just get too stressed after the first two days and spend the rest of the trip relaxing in one of the many parks and or café. Anyway I’ll probably need another week off work to recover from that trip…

°°°°

Besides planning the London trip I was busy with some other stuff as well this weekend. I finally completed the Energy 2 term paper and already mailed it off for grading. I wanted to finish this and the one for the Climate Change class before I leave for London and I’m happy I managed to achieve at least 50% of that goal. There is no way the other paper will be complete within the next four days as I haven’t even started writing it. I looked into some stuff and made some notes but besides that… nothing. Nichts. Niente. Ingenting…

I also was busy cleaning up some of my disk space on my computer, which always takes much more time as expected, doesn’t it? I have to admit that the time consuming task was to complete the Grey’s music collection (or at least find out which songs are still missing), when I found some of the songs in my music download folder. And to complete that collection I had to skim through some Grey’s episodes to find and listen to the songs on the show…

Talking about music: Last.fm has got a new layout. And I really really like it. Very neat and stylish.

Random four…

Last week I took a picture with my cellphone and wanted to post it here. And a couple of days later another one. I never got around to do so and it all wasn’t really important and there wasn’t much to say anyway. Today I took a third picture and as three is an odd number, I took a fourth and here they are, a totally random collection of the past week.