London in Pictures

I took like 400 pictures when I was in London, and well, most of them sucked.  Why?  Because the weather blew and I have no idea how to take good pictures when I’m getting rained on. 

I also hate posting pictures of just random shit – so I figured I’d post the most blog-relevant pictures I had.  So that means no touchy-feely pics of GF and I looking all lovey-dovey while standing in front of some random tourist spot.

These are the 1st beers we drank in London, approximately 1 hour after landing.  Mmmm mmmm good!
 

I took this picture at Buroughs Market because I had no fucking clue what it meant, but it sounds good eh?  Well, the sign doesn’t lie – those posh bangers were delish!

 

The 1 briefly nice day we had. 

 

 The Brits protest the Iraq War too – with Westminster Abbey in the background.

 

 Apparently, the “Face of the Enemy in Kabul” is a Star Wars Alien

 

 Screw Bin Laden, get the Afgani Alien!!

 

Gargoyles at Westminster Abbey like the taste of acid rain.

 

Plan a war and then pray afterward.  Kind of Ironic eh?

 

Apparently they don’t want me to sit here, eh?  I thought they only did this kind of thing for pigeons… 

 

 Nothing funny here, just Tower Bridge in the background

 

Loo of the year award, brought to you by the “BTA” – British Toilet Association.  Seriously.  Who pays these people?  What was the award presentation like?  Was there a ceremonial flushing?

 

 Cool piece of art at the British Museum.  Those are old decaying animal carcasses making those shadows.

 

Ahh wonderful!  Old Egyptian relics and a gold statue of Kate Moss showing off her v-jay in the same room.  Somehow this makes sense.   

 

 I want to be able to park my car like this.

 

 More beer.  Nothing more to say than that.  Oh, that’s “Tribute: Premium Cornish Ale” on the left… and yes, it was f’n great.

 

Ice Cream Gelato sundae at Harrod’s.  One of the best sundae’s I’ve ever had – especially since it cost about $18.  Seriously!

 

 Last rose of the season in front of St. Pauls

 

Changing of the Guard in front of Buckingham Palace.

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Well, there ya go.  My Our London trip in pictures, which I hope wasn’t too boring for y’all.

Since I was on vacation, I took a break from the whole bitter/angry thing….. but now that I’m back in the US – you can expect a return to my normal ranting self.

Parting Shots From London

Leaving London is like breaking up with a girlfriend.  You spend a lot of time with your friends joking about how whacko she is, but secretly you miss some of her good qualities.

We’re leaving in just a few short hours, so here are some parting thoughts on London.

• They don’t have any trash here… just rubbish.  The words work equally well, and I can’t help but snicker everytime I hear a Brit say it.  There’s just something very wussy about using the word rubbish.
• When you leave, you don’t go to the “exit” – you go to the “Way Out.”  Somehow this makes a lot more sense.
• The Brits like to use the word lovely a lot… just not in relation to people.  The drink and food I had last night were lovely.  The pub we went to was lovely.  I took a lovely crap last night.
• They have public urinals ON THE STREET.  Literally.  I was walking through Soho at night, and I see a bunch of guys taking a piss right there in front of me…..
• Oh, and those urinals are the most foul smelling things ever
• It’s nearly impossible to get any veggies here.  Apparently only poor people eat vegetables, so they aren’t offered anywhere… or if they are, they look at you oddly if you order them.  So…. apparently they don’t want to seem poor.
• At the same time, it’s considered very pretentious to have braces… so if someone has them, they are probably really rich…. which is why so many brits have crazy bad teeth.  What’s up with them not wanting to seem poor or rich? 
• London is an American girls dream city.  Lots of men who have sexy accents and dress very well.
• London is an American guys hell.  Lots of women who sound like cheap hookers and dress similarly.  What the hell????  GF totally agrees with me on both points.
• The Brits over-communicate about what’s going on in their subway system.  You might hear something like this: “Announcement.  The current status of the underground is good.  All lines are running well, except for the Central line, as there is a person stuck under a rail car at the Queensbury Station.”
• Some chick grabbed my ass last night while I was standing a street corner, while next to GF.  I was shocked the first time, but even MORE shocked when she did it again.  I looked over and she snickered and smiled at me and said “ooops.”  I think she was missing 4 teeth.

Ok.  That’s enough for now.  We’re off to go buy some crappy souvenirs for all of our friends!

I Get Moist in London

London is where God’s spittle lands.  Why do I say this?  Because I’m continually getting wet, no matter what I do.  I’m not a super religious kind of guy, but I’m thinking that God and Mother Nature must have an evil sense of humor when it comes to this place.  Of course, that’s what I get for booking a London vacation in November…

So, here are some highlights of our last full day in the city.

• Our Russian Mafia hotel is still living up to the name.  We had the breakfast here for the first time this morning, and we needed a translator for our first server.  She only understood 2 words of english: Yes and No.
• We went to St Paul’s Cathedral, which is truly one of the most beautiful cathedrals I’ve ever been in.  Breathtaking.  It also has this cool thing called the “Whispering Gallery” – which is basically a walkway up in the dome above the cathedral.  The reason they call it that, is because of the physics of the layout.  Basically, if there is anyone talking at any place in the dome, you can hear it, as if they were pretty much right next to you.  I had fun listening into a conversation of 2 people who were about 40 feet away on the other side of the dome, and didn’t quite understand the concept of what was going on.  Unfortunately they weren’t having a really juicy conversation.  When GF came over to my spot, I made sure we had an extra loud conversation about poop.

Photograph: J. Salmoral

• I got to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  It was all pomp and circumstance and serious and stuff.  Lots of exact marching and huffing and puffing (though sadly no wolves or houses blew down).  Well…. it was all serious and pretentious right up until the Queen’s marching band starting playing a medley of songs from Grease.  I’m not sure “Summer Nights” (which talks about how much a girl puts out) is exactly appropriate background music while the guards are changing, but that’s just me.  We left shortly thereafter, and I swear I thought I heard them start into some Coldplay….

• I can’t seem to get any f’n tap water.  All I want is tap water.  Why is it at restaurants here I have to BEG them to bring me tap water.  I order it…. I wait.  I order it….. I wait.  It became a joke to see how many times I had to ask before I would get it.  I never took less than 3 requests to finally get it.  What up London?  Don’t be such a tap water hater!

So there are your highlights (lowlights?) for our last full day in London.  We’re coming back tomorrow night, and I’ll be sure to post some worthwhile pictures up here….

London Sex, I think

Faster, faster! I willed the train, thinking only of the crispy beef dripping clad Adonis that would soon be mine. 

The touch of my tender lips on its succulent golden flesh racing through my mind, bringing me closer to chip ecstasy with every turn of the wheels. 

Come on! Faster! I demanded breathlessly.

This was an advertisement that I saw today in the tube in London.  What was it advertising?:

Potato Chips.

But not JUST potato chips, McCain’s Potato Chips.  No, not that McCain.

And if this is how the Brits like to describe their potato chips, you can see why they kicked the Puritans out of the country.

London Toilets Suck

Being in London is basically like being in the US, except that people speak funny, have weird hair styles, and somehow changed the rules of fashion to make it ok for men to wear skinny jeans.  I took some pictures, but unfortunately I forgot the cable to download pics off my camera, so something off of google images will just have to due:

NO no no no NO! This is NOT ok.  This is NOT acceptable.  There is no reason I always have to get this good of a view of men’s packages on the street.   This is not what I want to constantly see. NO!!!

I’m sorry, I just had to vent about this.

So, I hate really long and drawn out travel blogs, and so, I’m going to give you just the highlights of things that I think you’ll find interesting.

• It’s 12:53am right now and someone is shooting off fireworks right outside my window.  I’m not talking crappy-ass fireworks, I’m talking 4th of July quality fireworks.  Based upon what I’ve learned about the Brits lack of taste, I’m going to assume that they are celebrating my blog writing ability.
• The hotel we are staying at is run by the Russian Mafia.  I can’t confirm this, other than everyone else staying/working here is Russian, and they look at us really funny.
• I’ve seen a 1-legged pigeon.  This was a big deal on some other DC blogs a while back, and I just want to get the word out.  Perhaps its a genetic thing, or perhaps the DC pigeons went on vacation.  If I had 1 leg and was constantly begging for food, I’d probably want a vacation too.
• We had food at a very neighborhoody British Pub for lunch.  When we walked in, it was like Cheers.  Everyone turned around and looked at us… but instead of saying “Noooooorm!” it was more “Who the fuck are you?” haha
• So, tipping over here is sort of weird.  For food, tipping isn’t necessarily expected, but when I paid for dinner, an “Optional Service Charge” was added to the tab.  Except it was never an option – they just added it on. 
• I had a beer called Verboden Vrucht.  It’s Belgian.  It also has 8.8% alcohol.  I was feeling gooooooooooood after drinking it.
• I ate a great cupcake place called Hummingbird Cupcakes.  I had one that had vanilla creamcheese icing on it, and a dark chocolate bottom that had little bits of dark chocolate spread throughout it.  Holy shit it was good.  Best cupcake I’ve had in a long while.
• I also learned, if you are a single guy in London – GO TO HUMMINGBIRD CUPCAKES!  I walked in with GF, and the whole place was filled with attractive women.  I’d say 25 women, and 2 guys (including myself).
• I cannot flush any of the fricken toilets in this country.  I swear, in every public bathroom, I try like 5 times to flush the toilets and they never do.  Either I have bad luck and keep picking broken toilets, or I’m a moron.  I’m leaning toward the moron side of things.
• Speaking of toilets, today I walked into another public bathroom at a hotel, and the urinal setup was unlike anything I have seen before.  There was a step right before where the urinals are.  The thing is, there was no one else in the bathroom, so I wasn’t sure if you stand on the step, or it’s a separator and you stand behind it.  I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, so I just went to the closest stall (and of course, couldn’t get the dang toilet to flush! ARGH!)
• More speaking of toilets – the bathroom in our hotel room is freakin TINY.  So tiny, that in order to sit on the toilet, you have to turn sideways just to get by the toilet paper dispenser… I now know what a sardine must feel like when it’s pooping.

Ok, it’s 1am now and I’m getting up early to go on a walking tour of all the foodie areas of London.

Screw You England!

Welcome to Day 1 of “ToBlogOr pisses people off: The International Edition” (also known as my London travel blog).

You may or may not have known this, but GF and I have been planning on taking a week vacation to London for a while.  Exciting stuff eh?  Well, for me it is!  I’ve never been to England, so spending a week in London is going to give me a chance to experience all the wonderful sights including: Big Ben, Parliment, Buckingham Palace, Clouds, Rain, Fog, and Soccer Hooligans. 

We boarded a plane at 10:10pm on Wednesday evening for the red-eye, and if the flight was any predictor of the upcoming trip, well, then we’re gonna be in trouble.

Within 20 minutes of being on board, I had already offended at least 1 of the flight attendants.

Just after take-off, he had come by to ask if we needed an immigration forms.  Being that GF has vehicular narcolepsy (defined as: whenever she gets into any moving vehicle, she immediately passes out.  Moving vehicles include, but are not limited to: cars, trucks, trains, planes, bicycles, and carousels.)  she was completely passed out within 30 seconds of the plane moving.  Being that I’m a super great boyfriend and didn’t want to wake her up – I stayed quiet and just held up 2 fingers, when the flight attendant came by, to let him know that we needed 2 forms.

This is where the problems began.  Why? 

The moment I held up my fingers, he started laughing.

Apparently I told him to fuck off.

Not us, but you get the point.

Whoops. 

Apparently, depending on the way you hold your hand, you can either say the number 2, or “fuck off.” 

Well, there you go.  At the rate I’m going, by the weekend we’ll either be jailed, or deported.

We’ve since landed successfully and made it to our russian mafia hotel.

But that’s a story for another day.