london
moved over to becks and fede’s!!! they moved only a month after i left barna so it’ll be good to catch up :) they live not too far from the tube and only 2 min from camden by bus so it’s also a great location to be.
apparently london’s become a bit dodgy because of the gang wars. people are getting mugged and stabbed…sounds a bit familiar to me :p although i never once felt threatened under any circumstances but i guess i usually feel alright. i can’t think of the last time i felt scared of a place.
besides gorging myself with food i felt i’ve missed, i went to a couple of good drinking spots. all bar one in covent garden and gordon’s wine bar in embankment are both chill spots. i went to gordon’s with lee (my good friend who i spent a couple of weeks with in el bolson) as a local’s recommendation. he apparently has been going there for the last 5+ years! it’s a really cool celler-like place with low ceilings and old furniture. just be sure to get there early! early is like17h in enlgnad….not 22h south american time.
london election party
a friend called down from bristol where he is studying to attend some election parties. with dan here and staying with us, we had a mini-barcelona reunion!
around midnight we went to the king’s college bar to partake in the festivities. geez i can’t believe how excited these kids were! SCREAMING at the television as results were displayed by counties. the huge room (which resembled an university common area/cafeteria with a huge bar) overlooking the thames river was decorated in flags of the united kingdom and upcoming world cup posters. not much else to it.
people were actually wearing the colors of their preferred party! every so often screaming would turn into chants, and then song. i think the brits have a song for everything. it’s like i was at a futbol match.
we went home because it was getting pretty ridiculous;at 3AM the results were still unclear. hung parliament it is.
london
i love london! real super markets once again. real as in american sized ones with proper aisles for everything; 20 kinds of bread; 50 kinds of crisps; 100 kinds of drink….you get the point. lots of cheap food at restaurants since many offer 2×1 deals for breakfast/lunch. oooh and sushi, how i missed you so. the take-away sushi places are my favorite! ok maybe i just missed food…
it’s so cold here! stupid me was ofcourse wearing flip flops since it was warm during the day. i forgot may is still cold in some countries.
stayed with a friend in THE DORMS of kings college over in finchley. these were supposed to be the crappy ones, but these students obviously hadn’t seen some of their american counterparts. her room WITH HER OWN SINK AND CLOSET was the same size as the ones my friends were squeezed into with 2 OTHER PEOPLE! maids once a week as well. geez.
ENGLAND london
i FINALLY made it to london! i went to visit my friend chris, who i met with enda and randall in la paz…and like the 10th person i have seen from my south america trip. good times. despite everyone telling me how expensive things are, i was not ready for it. for example: my twenty pound (so 40 FREAKIN DOLLAR) mexican restaurant bill for three beef tacos and my share of a pitcher of margarita! how i miss my $1.75 tres hermanos tacos. anyway, all the restaurants we hit up were so delicious and it was good to eat something other than bocadillos and eggs.
we basically did all the “london” sight seeing in one day, and it was efficient and enough for me. i figure i have to be back here for my flight out, so if i missed something i will catch it later. the weather was crappy overcast-typical london according to chris. but it was kinda perfect for running around the city without getting too cold or hot. we walked through some parks ( i thinkst. james´s…since it was by buckingham palace) and then down by the river to see big ben…and i finally felt like i was in london when i saw the parliament building! we even checked out the tate modern and viewed an exhibition by some french artist named louise bourgeois…and basically got my share of museums for the next five years.
this was nfl weekend since the dolphins played the giants in the first regular season game played outside america. i would have wanted to go if it were any other team…but the dolphins? the game was at wembley and was shown on skysports…but that meant i had to listen to the skysports commentators. lame. made me miss my espn…and tnt…and hilarious and most times irrelevant comments by charles barkley. in the underground we saw a lot of people who were going to the game, wearing jerseys repping practically every team. this was cool to see-gotta support your boys! go seahawks!
SCOTLAND edinburgh
we took the megabus to edinburgh for the weekend…which only cost us about 5 pounds each! magabus is a low cost busline that runs between cities, and is similar to easyjet/ryanair on ground…which means sometime the same route might only cost a pound!
there was so much to see, and although small, edinburgh definitely caters to tourists. we had good times on princes street and george street (the rat pack piano bar is a must!), and we even tried some haggis at a scottish place on the royal mile! liam had a whole meal of it and i had a bite..which was enough for me. thinking about eating a whole plate where the main ingredients are sheep heart, liver, and lungs boiled in it’s stomach makes me gag. so back to the sites…with my favorite was the view from “the mound,” where you can see the castle and scott monument. we didn’t go into the castle because it was 11 pounds to get in, but now i wish we had. sad. i should just sucked it up and paid.
we stayed at argyle backpackers, which is up the street from ”the meadows” (a big park in the middle of the city). i lied being a bit outside of everything, because it gave us a chance to walk through parts of the town we would have otherwise missed. make reservations at http://www.argyle-backpackers.co.uk/index.htm!
since it was the rugby world cup, we caught the argentina-south africa game…and i was sad to see argentina lose. i also learned that the last thing most irish and scottish want to see is england win at anything. so, it was better for south africa to win because they had a better chance of beating the english in the final. (which they did!) basically, the english and the americans are kinda in the same boat and have a bad rep around the globe.
SCOTLAND aberdeen
i LOVE scotland. it is really chill here, and the greenery and fresh air is amazing! reminds me a bit of home. aberdeen was a nice surprise, since it is NOT a shithole like everyone said it was. i stepped off the plane and immediately felt like i could actually breathe…which was a nice change from the shit air of barça. ugh.
liam (a friend from the pub who is attending uni here) picked me up at the airport, and off we were to start our scotland trip! first stop: the town of aberdeen and the university. (founded in 1495!) most of the buildings are pretty short-i would say six stories max. i really like this about the campus and nearby neighborhoods, since it gives the area a small-town feeling.
i was kinda scared to stay at the guys´place because i imagined houses like the u-district. but liam and his friends might keep things in order more than some girls´! they have a chore list that is kinda followed. for example, a couple of people usually cook dinner, and then others take turns doing the dishes for EVERYONE. wtf. i have never heard of such a thing. who wants to do dishes that have been lying around? aberdeen uni boys. kind of outrageous, actually.