Not A Square To Spare In The Pub's Toilets

Again, it's really late (2:45am) so I want to make this as quick as possible. I've noticed that Google gets the times I write posts terribly wrong, so I'll try to keep that in mind.

This morning we slept until 12:30. It gives you bad feelings to waste a morning in London. I don't recommend it...except we were very jetlagged.

Around 1/1:30 we went to Sainsbury's, which is a city grocery store. City grocery shopping in the states is overwhelming enough. I'm just glad that my first out-of-country grocery shopping experience was English-speaking, or else I would have been in over my head. The place was too busy to manuever around in. I miss wide isles that don't have business people scurrying to the queue up and get out with their one sandwich for lunch. Then carrying home a weeks worth of groceries for seven blocks is no fun either. I suppose the only bad thing about it was that we were trying to actually grocery shop at a store that everyone else treats as a convenience store. I hope I don't make it sound worse than it is. It was just...a very new experience.

(added/edited at 10:30am Friday)
Taking a shower in my bathroom is very strange. There's no separator from the rest of the room other than a two foot wide pane of glass at the end with the spout. Also, the water smells funny in my opinion. As if it has extra chemicals...which means there's probably minerals left in the water that they don't leave in in the states or something.

I have no idea how to use the washing machine. We didn't find it until the second day because it's in one of the kitchen cabinets. Also, I think it is both a washer AND a dryer, because there's only one barrel.

The kitchen feels small, and the refrigerator looks just like the other cabinets. The flat gets very hot because it doesn't have air conditioning (which I've learned most places in the UK don't). Strange...it makes them seem behind the times, but I guess they figure it rarely gets hot enough here. I can't open windows easily because there's no screen so the bugs would fly in. Also my street is very loud and next to offices, which is odd because I can look right in at people working in the mornings. Lastly, I still haven't figured out how to turn on the "tele."

Starbucks is ridiculously expensive here. Basically, it looks like the same price a drink is in the US is the price here...except coverted into pounds. The price listing for a mocha was 3.5...which means I'd be paying $7 for a mocha. No thank you.

-We wondered all around looking for the tube station at the Tower of London. Once we found it Julia bought us unlimited "oyster cards" for the week, which scan as you walk in. No swiping like in New York. It's a neat technology, and it works through plastic cases. Very convenient.

Leicester square is busy and overwhelming. Don't go there if you don't like crowded sidewalks. We walked through the theatre district, Trafaulgar Square, and had a brief stint in the National Portrait Gallery. It's cool the museums here are free. I wonder what amount of taxes allows that to happen.

After Trafaulgar we walked to St. James Park. I was getting very tired by then and needed food badly (we found out later). Of course...the park is MASSIVE and surrounded by residential stuff, not restaurants. So I walked through the whole thing and then through a posh neighborhood where all we found were restaurants that cost 27.50 pound for an entree (too ridiculous). Finally, after a ridiculous amount of walking, we found a place called Albert's Pub (or maybe it was called Alister's...I can't remember) where I almost expired on the table unlil I downed a latte and an apple pie. (The apple pie came with custard...which I expected to be frozen like at Culvers...No, it had pudding on the side.)

The bathroom at the restaurant was bad news. It was in the basement, smelled bad, and was completely out of toilet paper in every stall (and only had a hand dryer, so no paper towels). Blast! It was an awful experience.

After we ate dinner, Julia was suffering from a headache. It was really funny because she went up to a guy who worked at the pub and was like, "Do you know where I can buy a Tylonol?" He looked at her funny. Then she said, "Like a Motrine?" Finally I chimed in and said "Medicine for headaches." He understood that and said "Oh! Headache pills." So we meander the streets to a small convenience store where all of the medicine had different names! If you are brand loyal to a particular medicine, make sure you bring plenty if you travel to the UK or else you might need to buy a substitute.

So I had plans to hang out with my friend Pat tonight, which never happened. Our cab driver was very helpful to find us the pub I was supposed to meet him at, but no one had heard of it. He literally was asking people off the streets and even went into a different pub, which we told him was unnecessary but sweet of him. So, in the end, he drove us back to our flat. On the way, he gave me opinions of attractions in London. The cab drivers here are so helpful and nice! And they must make a good living too because both I've had so far have mentioned they have several children and that they vacation in Spain and Greece. A final funny thing was when I told the cab driver I have three to four months off for summer every year. He was floored and said "What do the parents do with their kids for so long?" Apparently in the UK they get about six weeks.

Final note, I read this in an email forward my mom sent and thought it was funny: Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

Cheers!