Advertisement
Published: June 19th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Hello!
I've spent the last month studying for my final exams and working part time at the pub. I finished my last exam on May 14, and since then I've been working full time, saving a bit of money for my upcoming adventure through central Europe.
My exams went pretty well, but I was very glad to be done. In the one engineering exam I had I messed up the easy question which everyone got, but I got the hard question which noone else got, so I guess it balances out. At the beginning of May we had ten straight days of absolutely stunning weather - clear blue skies and twenty five degrees. I was eating dinner on the balcony every night, running in the park (which was crammed every day), and walking the streets of London in shorts, a t-shirt and sunglasses. It was amazing. Unfortunately the day of my last exam it rained, and it's been pretty crappy since. Today is really nice though.
A couple of days after I finished my exams, Louise (who I stayed with in Lyon) came to visit. On the first morning we were woken up early by the fire alarm
which was particulaly unpleasant. We sat that out in a coffee shop, and then went to Tower Hill (near the City of London) for a walking tour. We saw the Tower of London, Tower bridge, London bridge and the city of London. The tour was entertaining, itwas interesting to hear about the blitz and how the bomb shelters (often the tube stations) brought together the different classes in London and helped break down some barriers.
That night I took Dad's advice and we went to the Comedy Store - a club in Leicester Square near Picadilly Circus. It was really good - definitely far better than the comedy I saw in Times Square in New York. We saw four acts, and the MC who did some skits and improvs between the acts. The MC was possibly the funniest of all of them, but he had some tight competition. One of the comedians was Canadian and the rest were British.
On Sunday morning we woke up to some pretty decent weather, so we went to the Marylebone farmers market and bought some really good food - rocket, goats cheese, cherry tomatoes and beautiful crusty bread, and then we sat
by the lake at Regent's park and ate it. We even had the sun come out for us! (for about fifteen minutes...) That night we went to a pub and had a traditional english roast, and then saw a movie.
On Monday we went to the British Museum and then the National Gallery - both of which I had already seen but it was good to have another look around. We were disappointed that the Madonna of the Rocks was missing for restoration or something. Shame. That night we went to a pub in Soho called the Spice of Life, and we played at their open mic night. I've played their once before and it's a really nice place - very intimate and some really high quality acts. I played guitar and Louise and I both sang, we did two Damien Rice songs - "9 Crimes" and "Volcano". It was good fun and we got to see some really good musicians - we even had some interest! A lady from a music venue gave us the number of her manger and said we should call to organise a gig. I think I won't have time here, but it was
nice to have a fan - even if we were only playing covers.
The next morning we went to Camden market where we got hassled by mildly offensive merchants. Camden is the "alternative" part of London, so there are a lot of hippies and punks and such. The markets are cool though - Louise enjoyed it. After that we had a bit of a radical shift in setting and went to South Kensington, where we saw some very posh buildings and maids cleaning the massive hallways of London's elite. We walked to Harrod's, had a look around and then bought some nice meat and bread from their food section (to supplement our remaining ingredients from our previous picnic), and went to Hyde park to eat it. It was the first time I had been to Hyde park and it was really nice. They have an equestrian track around it. The word "pretentious" came up several times in conversation that day. At night we went to see the musical Les Miserables in Soho. It was great, all the songs reminded me so much of my childhood. I found it a bit hard to follow the storyline though - I was
glad to have Louise there to explain it to me. I found myself drifting off a few times... I think I'm not really a "musical theatre" person. It was fun though. And the lead guy had an amazing voice.
Louise left on Wednesday morning and I went back to work after my five days off. Working full time has been ok, I've been doing a bit of reading, planning my travels and tying up various loose ends (stupid Centrelink...).
On the way back from work yesterday, I was quite pleased with myself, I had a Friday night off and the pub around the corner was having an invites only "dry run" after their refurb, so I was going for a free meal and drinks. On the way I was accosted by a Scientology man outside their office on Tottenham Court Road. I walk past this office every time I go to or from work, so I've been asked to "take a free stress test" several times. I've been meaning to the whole time I've been here out of sheer curiousity, but have always been too busy or not in the mood (I'm always late for work...). So this
Tour Guide
At the Tower of London time i thought I'd do it. My friend Tamar tried it once, and they hooked her uo to some stupid gauge thing and then told her she had no stress and she walked away. I suppose they thought she wasn't the type to be brainwashed.
I went into the building which was very modern (turns out scam religions are a bit of a money spinner), and then went into a screening room with one other guy. The movie lasted 30 minutes (this is so you feel like you've invested in it) and was so ridiculous. I actually laughed out loud several times. The basic gist was that a guy get's paralysed below the waste in a football injury, and is treated by evil psychiatrists who want to perform "psychosurgery" on him. He reads the scientology book - "Dianetics - the evolution of a science", and then suddenly stands up and starts jumping around and get's dressed and gets in his car and drives away. Very scientific. The evil psychiatrists (who say that his inability to walk is caused by sexual repression and anger towards his father) say angrily "that book could put us out of business". The movie was very high budget and all the actors were extremely good looking (except for the psychiatrists...).
After the movie a lady walked in and said "and here it is", presenting a copy of the book wrapped in plastic. I told her that I don't think I will get much out of it, and she said it's "only seven pounds". This is called lowballing - first you just watch a movie, then you just buy a seven pound book, and this continues until you're paying tens of thousands of pounds for a "self improvement course" to contribute towards Tom Cruise's seriously deluded lifestyle. Needless to say, I didn't buy the book.
Scumbags. Good yarn though.
Ok well I hope everyone is well.
Love Renan.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0753s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb