Tardiness, Inconsistencies & Anniversaries

It's been ages since I've posted and although I've wanted to update you all on the many happenings of my life in the UK, I've somehow managed to go 7 months without actually writing a blog post. So in fine form I dedicate this post to a myriad of themes that nicely tie together with my life over the last 7 months.....and my inability to keep you up to date.

I think the first theme of Tardiness speaks for itself in that I obviously am unable to make it to the computer to update my blog. I can comfortably relate this to the wonderful Transport For London system (henceforth to be called TFL). You see, the TFL does a fantastic job of giving one the ability to navigate the city using multiple forms of transportation such as buses, underground tubes, overground trains, and lets not forget the gorgeous Thames River boats. What it cannot do, however, is meet any timeliness it sets for itself when scheduling an arrival time for any of these forms of transportation (somewhat similar to my making commitments to making a blog post). With this concept, I hereby liken my blogging ability to that of the TFL.

The second more vague theme of inconsistencies can be clearly seen by the complete and utter randomness of the dates of my postings. There is no discernible pattern or relative coherence of when my postings occur. For instance, as I craft this post right now, it's 3am and I just can't sleep...probably because of the burning thought that the people around the world haven't seen a post from me and have written me off. This is not the case, however, and I am safe and well, albeit a bit exhausted, tapping away on my keyboard I liken this theme to the appalling rate at which lines (AKA queues) move in this country. I fortunately have one consistent part of my life here, and that is to grab a coffee on my way into work. What I can't understand is that at exactly the same time with the same people working, the same order (Medium skinny white 4 shot americano) and roughly the same number of people in the queue, my order can take anywhere in the range of 2 - 15 minutes. This ABSOLUTELY amazes and confuses to me as I just don't understand how, with no visible factors involved, that the ability for my order to fulfilled for a coffee can vary so much.

My third and final theme for this post is Anniversaries. Today would roughly be the 7 month anniversary of me writing a post (cheers & clapping). What a momentous day for us all. As for the relative translation into my journey here, although it feels like such a short time ago that I left the comfort of my home, friends, and amenities it has actually been roughly over a year since I departed Calgary. To be exact here are a few figures for you:

It has been 377 days since I left Calgary on October 26th 2007. One may even call this 1 year, 11 days.
And if you're really curious....it's also

• 32,572,800 seconds
• 542,880 minutes
• 9048 hours
• 53 weeks (rounded down of course)

With these bits of information, I bid you adieu....until next time.

Joining of two forces - an end of one era and the beginning of another

2 days ago....April fools I might add....EMC announced their desire to acquire Conchango. This is the company that I currently work for in London and have been for only a short period of time. A lot of activity has occurred in those few months. In January Conchango was listed on AIM and this obviously generated a lot of interest. An offer of 23.1 pence which is a 44% premium on the current share price was made by EMC to acquire Conchango. This equates to 42 million pounds (84 million dollars)...which is quite a nice little nest egg for those involved. The details of the deal will take approximately a month of complete.

This is a first for me where a company I've been working for has been acquired...and this one is a doozy. EMC is a massive company with 37,000 employees worldwide and 13 billion in revenues. Needless to say it will be an interesting experience over the next little while.

Race on the Thames

Starting in 1829 and held annually since 1856, the boat race held between Oxford and Cambridge is a site that I probably wont forget for a while. There were an estimated 250,000 people on the banks of the Thames River watching this boat race and I've never seen so many people scream and yell and such an anti-climatic event. 5 of us took our positions at the White Hart 4 hours before the start of the race to ensure we had a spot only to see the boats zip by in a few seconds. Can't say that I didn't enjoy myself though. Weather for the day according to BBC Weather was clears skies, but that definitely didn't hold up. It poured rain for the majority of the day causing train delays throughout London and unruly conditions on the river. This of course led to the slowest race time in 40 years. I must say that it was quite a site seeing fans of both teams cheering like their lives depended on it. If anyone is curious....Oxford won this year.

Carinvale, Easter in Barcelona, and much much more

Well folks, so much has happened since my last post over 6 weeks ago and I'm struggling where to start to try and fill you in. Perhaps I should give you a bit of background on what's caused me to be so tardy on my blog posts. As sad as it is, I must confess that it's been work that has been keeping me away from tippy tappying away on my keyboard to keep you all filled in on my adventures. I'm going to bit the bullet today and try and give you a synopsis without boring you all to death. Here's a quick overview of what I've done so you can choose to close hit the close button on your browser or keep reading.

1) Carnivale in Cologne, Germany
2) Tour of Windsor Castle
3) Adventures of our broken shower
4) Easter long weekend in Barcelona, Spain

Carnival, Germany

At the beginning of February we were cordially invited by our German friends to enjoy the festivities of Carnivale in Cologne. After some quick research and conversations we discovered that this was no normal festival. It required us to purchase costumes and run through the city braving the cold wind and masses of parades that snake through the city.


Exhibit A -

As you can observe here, there was quite a contingent of us visiting Cologne for this event - albeit some of these peeps were locals, but they were definitely going to show us a good time. The theme for a lot of us there was pilots and stewardesses which definitely proved to be a hit among the locals there.

Windsor Castle

Seeing as myself and my friends had been chumming around the UK for a while and we'd been focusing on traveling to far away countries all the time, we decided that it was perhaps time to hit a local site. Thus, the Windsor Castle comes into play. It happened that the Queen and her entourage generally tend to stay there during the weekend, so we had the pleasure of being in the vicinity of her while we took the tour. We all felt quite regal. What can i say about Windsor Castle.....it's a giant castle....and the Queen lives there. I'd love to have a one for myself but I can't imagine what the heating bill would be for it so I've decided to scratch that off my list of goals to achieve.

Broken Shower

Perhaps the most amusing event that has occurred in the time we've been here is trying to get our shower fixed. As some of you may have seen either in previous posts our boiler has blown which took about 5 weeks to fix after which the water would constantly go from scalding hot to freezing cold. As you can imagine this proved to be an uncomfortable experience after a while. Taking our luck into account, this of course led to the entire shower breaking preventing us to turn it off....what can I say....it's just something i've gotta laugh at to prevent myself from going insane. Just to wrap this whole issue up though, we finally had a plumber come in and replace the whole shower unit and we now officially have a working shower that has a constant temperature.

Barcelona

A group us decided to take a nice long 4 day break in the Spain over the Easter holidays....something we all needed after a stint of working extremely hard to meet the demands of our work commitments. For 4 wonderful days we ate amazing food, saw some wonderful sights and sat around with great company. Considering it was still early in the tourist season we had some great weather for all but one of the days which proved to quite helpful in lifting our spirits. We enjoyed the sun the Cafe con leches at several little bistro's throughout our trip. I must say that Spaniards just know how to relax. We all fell right into the schedule of sleeping in and not eating dinner until 10:30 or 11:00 at night. Never was anyone in a rush to get anywhere or do anything specific which created the perfect environment to recharge before we got back in the fray of the London lifestyle.
We even took the time to catch a Barcelona football game which turned out to be quite a high scoring game. This, we found out after the fact, was due to Barcelona playing the 2nd worse team in the league. I got to see my first penalty kick though which was quite exciting!

.....and the hot water returns

Although a bit behind, here's the update on our boiler and hot water. After waiting a total of 5 excrutiating weeks we are finally a household with hot water again. It only took multiple phone calls to the plumber, complaints to the insurance company, phone calls to the landlord, 2 delivery attempts of the required parts, and my flat mate to work from home in order to get it done....doesn't seem that bad does it? Discovering that is was only a small piece of rubber material that caused this whole ordeal was definitley an annoyance. The shear size of this whole operation makes me pray that we don't ever have another issue with the flat.....that's when the dishwasher broke. Perhaps a story for another day. I'm happy we have hot water and it's nice to have a warm shower in the morning.

What we take for granted

It's been ages since I last posted and for that I apologize. With all the new changes and the Christmas holidays things have been a bit hectic. I had the great pleasure of visiting a good friend of mine in Austria for Christmas and after a short visit there I hopped on a plane to San Francisco to visit my sisters as well as the rest of my family who flew in from a few different places. A whirlwind tour, but amazing nonetheless.

Now that I'm back into my somewhat regular London routine, I've had time to realize how many different things are compared to back home. Nothing different in a bad way....just different. As of late I've noticed one thing in particular, and that is, it's really quite difficult to get things fixed here in London. Last week our boiler broke down and unfortunately myself and my flat mates have been stuck with having cold showers until we can sort out someone coming and doing a few repairs. Fortunately we have insurance on our boiler.....unfortunately it falls under "5 day a week" service during normal business hours. This of course means when the three of us are at work. Over the last week we tried to sort out how one of us could stay home until someone came and fixed it. On top of that, they can't even give you a ball park time that the engineer would come for the repair leaving us to wait for the entire day at home. We could get lucky and someone could show up early in the day, alternatively, we could wait the whole day only to have the engineer show up in the evening. Needless to say we're in between a rock and hard place.

Now comes the solution. Connor has a co-worker who has a friend (pretty far removed from someone we directly know of course) who is currently doing his dissertation and not working. We've collectively offered to pay this kind individual to sit at our house for the day, play our Wii, and watch our satellite TV while he waits for the savior of boilers to come and fix our hot water situation. After a week of without hot water and cold showers, I'd pay to have someone come in a put a new boiler in. Friday is the day so wish me luck that when I come home there is hot water running through the pipes!

Stay tuned to hear how it went!

100 metre dash

Everyone at one point or another has had to make a mad dash to catch a bus, make it to an appointment, catch a cab, make it the bathroom before you soil yourself. In my opinion if you’re running you’re probably geared with remotely proper shoes to do this. At the very least you’re wearing flat enough shoes so you’re not putting yourself in the awkward situation of bailing in public and fear injuring or making a complete fool of yourself. That being said, I imagine there are a few “daredevils” in the world that could care less what they’re wearing or if they injure themselves for that matter. Following my daily path of walking over the Southwark Bridge on my way to the Tube station after work you get a wide range of travelers. Those in their work digs finishing a solid day of work, those on their bikes making the trek home, runners trying to get in a bit of exercise before they eat their greasy Fish ‘n Chips…..and then you’ve got a few gems who don’t fall into any category and leave your confused and holding your breath. I had a couple of joggers putt past at a fairly leisurely pace, and I’ve got to admire these folks. At the same time I hear the familiar sound of Londoners high heels coming up behind. Oddly though, it wasn’t the normal rhythm of a walk. It was of a machine gun. This lady came tearing by me like she was going out of style. This lady was running like she was trying to break the 100m dash world record and all the while wearing high heel boots. Not only that, but she maneuvered around the runner ahead of me who was geared up in proper running shoes.

My question to all you females out there who wear high heel shoes.... how on earth are you able to bust out into a fully fledged run with shoes where the heel is balancing on little more than a half inch of surface area. I’m fairly certain there are physics rules that are being broken here. I have a feeling that Newton is turning in his grave.

Wii @ Wardo Avene

We at Wardo Avenue are the proud owners of brand new Nintendo Wii. Was it a good idea?….I’m not sure, but more importantly, does it really matter? It is true that our world has been inundated with laziness that is only perpetuated by video game consoles and the ever expanding use of the internet. I haven’t owned a console in ages but ironically enough my last console was a Nintendo so it’s quite fitting that I’ve continued the trend. I’ll admit that we’ve been keeping an eye out for available Wii’s seeing as they’re a hot commodity right now and very hard to come by. When we made a random call to Zavvi and discovered they had a shipment coming in the adventure began. We threw on our coats and we were off to the store. The Zavvi salespeople had smirks on their faces as a myriad of people were mulling around having the discovered the same information about the Wii shipment…..and finally the word came. They shipment had arrived and we were the proud owners of brand new Nintendo Wii. That’s how it all began and this is how it progressed. The games are interactive and truly do make you move to dig that tennis ball, or go for that upper cut in the boxing ring. I’ll admit, it’s nothing like the real physical activity but it comes in at a close 17th place (with 1st – 16th being actually forms of physical activity).

This obviously only applies to the sports games….but as you can see we’ve also picked up the infamous Guitar Hero III which also has been difficult to come by. How it all panned out for us I’m not sure but needless to say the rendition of Dance Dance Revolution in the form of flittering fingers on a fake guitar is extremely addictive. I’ve battled a virtual Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine as well as Guns N’Roses’ SLASH and inevitably come out victorious…albeit on the Easy setting. Practice makes perfect.

I also understand the warnings that are heeded my Nintendo about ensuring adequate space between players when negotiating two players game. All I have to say that Jeff’s arm is gonna hurt for while after our vicious tennis match.

Playing chicken on the sidewalks of London

If there's one thing I learned today, it's that it doesn't matter how small you around, if get a good solid elbow shot to the kidney you're going down. I'm not small fella but after I tried playing chicken on a sidewalk in London against a small woman whom I was sure was no bigger than 5'4" I realised error in my ways. She wanted to get by me, she was in a rush, and she had WAY better technique than I did. It was pretty much a sharp jab with her elbow to my torso and she was gone. I didn't even know what happen to me. Now, I'm on jerk, and I would have gladly moved half way if she had done the same, but this happened way to quick for me to react. For some reason I feel like she had been gunning for me 20 feet earlier. She found her target, locked on, and then like a smart bomb with laser guiding, took me out of her equation of trying to get to her destination. I'm in the process of searching online for an armour plated vest to protect the kidneys for the next time this happens.

Table Footy

I had my first opportunity to play a little 2 on 2 table footy with a few of my Conchango peers. I needed a break from work, they needed an extra play, it was a match made in heaven. Now I'm no table football pro or foosball as us North Americans are going to call it up I had a few moves up my sleeve. Here are some examples of moves I pulled.....



...yep, that's all me....I didn't just go onto YouTube and steal someone else video and claim it as mine.

I Spy with my Little Eye

This week I played the role of the classic tourist, the local shopper, and the embattled Londoner.

Phase 1 – Tourist

My roommate (henceforth called my flat mate) had his parents visiting from Calgary so we had decided it was a good day to be tourists. Now my flat mates parents have visited London in the past so they've already done quite a few of the attractions so our choices were somewhat constrained. What they haven't done was the London Eye and Westminister Abbey so that was what was on our docket for the day. We hopped on the tube on our way to a stroll over the bridge to the Southbank where the Eye holds its residence. A behemoth of a structure that was built in 2000, and was conceived as a metaphor to represent the turning of the century, towers over the Thames River and can been seen from over 40km in every direction. Needless to say, although it impressive in size and quite smart in designed, the thought that ran through my head was "…how is it that I'm going to enjoy myself on a over-sized Ferris Wheel". Well, I've got to admit to being quite wrong in this situation. It was definitely entertaining. Be able to finally see London from above as opposed to seeing it from the tube stop names rushing by as I rode the London Underground was quite refreshing.

Just a few interesting facts about the Eye:

1. Each rotation of the 424m circumference wheel takes 30min….that translates into it travelling 26cm per second, 0.9km/hr which apparently is twice as fast as tortoise in heat trying to run down it's mate in a lighting fast sprint.


2. The Eye was 7 years in the making before its completion date


3. Maximum capacity of 800 people per rotation which is the equivalent of 11 full double-decker buses

After walking off the rolling capsule, we made our way over to Westminister Abbey. Now, there is far too much history to for me to even start to talk about but you'll get the idea if I tell you that I we must have visited at least 60 coffins of royalty and honored individuals who lie there. It was definitely a beautiful site and it's quite impressive that they continue to hold services there. After a solid day out in the city and checking out the sites in the somewhat bitterly cold weather (there's no comparison to the Canadian weather reports I'm getting over here) we had a bite to eat at restaurant right off of Trafalgar square then made our way home for the day

Phase 2 – Local Shopper

Sunday turned out to be a low key day where I took the opportunity to sleep in and have a pretty satisfying breakfast. After a relaxing morning of staring out of the window at the torrential rain pour that dissipated as quickly as it appeared, which happened to be surprisingly quickly, I made my way to Sloan Square to visit my friend Karen. We had a long satisfying coffee sitting in comfy chairs at a coffee shop…and then we were off to check out the shops. I must say the style here is far more exciting then back home. It's sad to say, but my best casual gear makes me look like I live in a refrigerator box down an alley way…not that can't find stylish homeless folk, but you get the drift. Fat Face, White Stuff, Ted Baker, Pink are just some of the essential shops down here. Style also changes extremely quickly here. I wouldn't be surprised if the items I bought were out of date by the time I walked out of the door…but at least I'll look like a stylish homeless person. Karen and I also had the opportunity to witness a double-decker bus side swipe a BMW parked on the side of the road as it rounded a corner. I have to give full credit to the bus drivers here because I'm not sure how they don't hit cars more often with the streets being so impressively narrow. I would be highly concerned I couldn't get a normal sized car down these roads, yet the bus drivers here have consistently gotten me to my destinations unscathed. Poor BMW that definitely took the brunt of the force, and poor bus driver who was probably marking off in his calendar how many days he'd made it without destroying a parked car.

Phase 3 – Embattled Londoner

After all of the events of the weekend, I was hoping to get a little break from the fray of the Monday morning tube ride…which was a pipe dream of course. Fortunately I had been warned of the rush hour tube rides from a friend of mine back in Calgary so I was prepared to what was necessary to get on the tube in the morning…and it goes something like this. Get a solid grip with both hands on something inside the tube car (preferably something bolted to the inside and not someone standing on the inside), Pull with the necessary force to get the majority of your body on the inside of the closing doors, As the doors are about the crush your body, suck in and push the mass of people inside an inch or two further to clear the doors. Voila, you're inside the tube. One word of advice if you're in a similar position…don't leave your hands anywhere near the doors…it hurts to have them crushed – just a little nugget for those of you who are as bright as I am.

Music to My Ears

I've had the fortunate opportunity to explore the music scene here in London and there is no doubt that every artist has some sort of venue booked for their next show. A couple of weeks ago I hit up the David Gray concert at the Roundhouse, which I must say is a fantastic venue. Intimate, fantastic acoustics, and a great location. Mix that with a great artist and you have the makings of an a perfect evening of music. This week I had Interpol on the docket up at Alexandria Palace and I can only say good things about them. They are a band I'll have to see again.

Last week I had my first experience of puppets on a stage....yes, that's right...puppets. I went to the musical Avenue Q (a spoof on Sesame street) which definitely entertained me. It aired on a the crude side and is probably not the for the light hearted, and it was definitely an "Adults Only" show.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

I discovered something quite important the other day....newspapers DO NOT make a good alternative to umbrellas. I found myself without an umbrella in the middle of storm and with a 15 min walk ahead of me. At first I figured it wouldn't be that bad but the size of London raindrops definitely are something to be reckoned with. I would have imagined that making a quick run for it with the newspaper over my head for a bit of protection at the time, however, once I made back home I realized I was still soaked from head to toe, rain dripping down my neck and into my shirt and to top it all off newspaper ink had streamed down my wrist and into my sleeve leaving the headline of the Financial Times soaking into my shirt. That is how I discovered that newspapers DO NOT make good umbrellas.

The fat lady was singing...

Myself and a group of friend hit up Her Majesty's theatre to see who's been causing all the commotion there....apparently the mystery has been solved and it was the Phantom of the Opera. He caused such a ruckus with with bold yet soothing voice, and he caused so many problems for the wonderful couple Christine and Raoul.

It was a great show in an extremely old theatre which I'd have to say was a experience for my first musical production in London. Although I had to tuck my body into a tight little ball to fit into the seats, knowing that the theatre has been around since 1897 definitely makes it alright.

Unfortunately you aren't able to take pictures in the theatre during the show, otherwise I would have blinded the Phantom with my flash to get a small memory for myself.

Hmmmm.....that's a pigeon

When traipsing through the Tube station and getting ready to hop on the arriving tube, one may worry about getting accosted or attacked by some would be robber....well, in my case it was a pigeon. The attack was vicious and relentless and I'm quite happy to have made it with very little than a bit of emotional damage. I didn't see the attack coming as the pigeon had done a wonderful job of hiding under the seat and under a copy of the London Paper. I guess the idea of me potentially invading its territory had apparently set this vicious beast into a frenzy. Thankfully the next stop arrived and my strong defenses proved to much for the pigeon and with one last gift of droppings on my shoulder it escaped. I now know not to be worried about someone brandishing, perhaps a weapon, rather those damn pigeons.