Advertisement
Published: February 4th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Phone Booth
Everything was in place for the perfect picture, then Tara farted Mind the Gap
Mind the Gap- A Comprehensive Guide to All My Thoughts In and About London
Getting to London only furthered the nightmare that became travelling on planes, trains, boats and taxis. It took us 52 hours and cost about a $1000 to get from Rome to London, but we finally made it. I’d go over how awful and hellish it was, but instead I will only speak of two highlights, first and foremost travelling on ferries in the mediteranian is sweet as pie. They have resturants, bars, casinos, rooms with showers, and a movie theatre. The second highlight is my uncovering of the biggest conspiracy concerning the vatican since the Da Vinci Code. On our train from Paris to London, I swera I saw the pope on the train, dressed in civilian clothes. Now I know most of you think this isn’t possible, but even Tara will confirm this man was a dead ringer for the pope. I’m on to you Benidict.
The age old question has surfaced again after spending half a day in London. The question is this; do people know they smell when they smell? I have, on occasion, be quite ripe with
Photo 14
You have arrived at Brixton station, "Mind the Gap." funk, but I know that I stink when I stink. I’m not sure that people in London are aware that they smell, maybe because there are so many people who are in the same stink boat, that you can’t tell that you’re the stinky one. The three questions of 2009 are; do you smell, when does the next deathpool start, and when will Cheney and Rumsfeld go to jail for crimes against humanity?
I’ll Be Your Server Today, Go Fuck Yourself
England is home to the worst customer service in the world. No matter where you go, you are pretty much assured that you will receive shitty service. We met up with Danger Bob and Corey (so nice to see friends) and hit a few tourist spots and then headed to a pub to eat. We were surprised that the first two bars we went to were literally out of all the food we attempted to order. Then the real kicker, is that out of the 4 types of beers we tried to order, they were out of those. It was 3pm and the pubs were out of food and beer. It was a quite shocking event to
Texas Flag
I know they supported George Bush, but this is ridiculous experience. I could understand one or two things, but they seemed to have no beer or food in stock in two different places! We finally found a pub that had food, but we were again shocked to be yelled at by our waitress, denied having our food made they way we wanted and served warm beer. Now most people would tell you that warm beer is common in London, but this stuff was like bathwater warm. I did find that many beers were served warm here. I was also unable to find one that I liked. It was fustrating to taste a beer knowing that it would be so much more enjoyable if it were cold. All in all I felt bad for a lot of our servers and bartenders, they are treated like 2nd class citizens and if I was in their position, I’d probably act like a dickhead too.
There is a simple explination for all of this. See in most places in Europe you don’t tip, but there is either a cover charge at the reasturant, you tip a little or the staff is paid very well and it off sets the tipping. In Ireland without
tips, I actually made more than I did at the Banshee with tips. In England however, working at the bar or as a waiter is basically like working at McDonalds. You are treated as a 2nd class citizen. You get paid shit, make no tips and the locals are assholes to the workers, in return you give the lousiest service known to man. Basically if you’re a service worker in England, you’re a walking terd.
There are two things you won’t find in England, first is a sense of humor over Princess Diana jokes and the second is trashcans, or rubbish containers as they are known here. Due to the IRA bombings of old and current concerns over terrorist putting bombs in them in public areas, you will rarely find trashcans anywhere. It’s funny to watch people as they finish their drinks or food and just toss their trash on the ground, knowing that the vast army of garbage cleaner workers will be by to pick it up soon. It was weird to me to eat a bag of chips and just throw the bag onto a pile of trash that had been buidling up next to a store
Sad Sign
The scary part is that these signs are premade because it happens often. wall.
FOOTBALL
I noticed here in London there isn’t racist graffitti in the bathrooms, instead it’s all soccer trash talk. Fuck your team, no fuck your team kind of trash talk. Life is football here, as in many places around Europe, but here, the trash talking is large and alive. I wore my Manchester United scarf just about everywhere I went, and just about everywhere I went in London I caught shittalk for wearing it. Being someone who loves attention, I had a lot of fun trash talking back. The people become even more surprised when they realize I’m an American who likes soccer and they’re surprise gave me the trash talking advantage. And just so were all clear, only in England and Portugal did I hear people call soccer, “football,” and I barely heard that. Most of the time people just called soccer, soccer.
In Rome Tara had presented me with Manchester United tickets at Old Trafford stadium in Manchester in North England. We headed out to Thrifty car rental in Chelsea only to discover the car rental place closed and a man sitting at the Thrifty rental desk refusing to talk to us and
Photo 7
Take me home, Macnhester road, to a place, i call my home, to old trafford, to see you United answer our questions. Obviously if you are in the office of the business, sitting at the desk on the phone, you fucking have some clue as to why they are not open and do not have our rental. As I stood at the door asking the guy if he realized he was a fucking idiot and asking him to admit, I lost a little faith in people and humanity, but I did my best to not let it ruin my day. Within the hour and thanks to Hertz we were on our way to Manchester United. So everyone knows, England signs are in miles not kilometers (united my ass). We got on the freeway and all cheered knowing that it would only take 2 hours to get to Manchester. 4 and a half hours later it still had not sunk in that we were not running on kilometers.
We arrived in Manchester and found the stadium and parking with ease. Facing the possibilty of freezing to death while enjoying the match we bundled up and made our way to the hotel to get our tickets. I felt like a 5 year old kid again as I walked up the
ramp and saw the white seats that formed MANCHESTER UNITED slowly spell the name out as they came into view. I’ve been to Qualcom, all the bay area stadiums, and Invesco Field and nothing compares to the size and intimacy of Old Trafford. The place really does feel magical in every moment experienced there. The game went by so fast, but we got to see almost every player I had hoped to see, including Rafeal, Ronaldo, Rooney and Berbatov. The real treat was getting a chance to see Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs play because they won’t be playing for too many more years and they are fixtures on the team and have been for so long. We didn’t freeze to death and it was just so much fun, I can’t even tell you. We even learned some of the songs by the time we left. The best part was standing there chanting and taking in the game after a Man U 1-0 win and having the event staff telling us like 10 times that we had to go home. We took a few thousand more pictures and bought a Man U flag that we waved the whole way back
to the car. It was by far the best sporting experience I’ve ever had and I doubt it will ever be topped.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.302s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 11; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0543s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
anonymous
non-member comment
It's NAMBLA with an N!