Saturday: Cycling and Visitors

This Saturday is going to be quite eventful.

First (well, second really), Mike is coming to visit London. He's coming in Saturday afternoon and staying with us for a bit before heading off to the rest of Europe.

Before that, I'm going to be cycling in a race Saturday just outside of London. It's going to be a complete catastrophe I'm sure, but as long as I don't come in last, I will consider it a huge success.

Thanksgiving, British Style

So, as far as we can tell, the British don't celebrate thanksgiving. Originally, we thought about getting together with our 2 american friends and cooking a traditional meal. But, factoring in the alarming price of food in London, the fact that our kitchen is about the size of a matchbox, and the fact that it just takes way too much effort in general, we decided to go out to eat instead.

Quite a few american-themed restaurants were offering "traditional thanksgiving" dinners this week, but they were averaging around £35 per person for the meal alone. For those of you not up on the ridiculous $ to £ exchange rate, that's over $70 per person. Now, I do love turkey, but I don't think I $70 love turkey, especially since they weren't going to have my favorite part of a thanksgiving day meal- the from-the-can cranberry sauce.

So, eliminating going out to eat as well, we decided to just give up on the idea in general and go get some traditional british food for our traditional thanksgiving day dinner. I had fish and chips, Bobby had shephard's pie, and our american friends had equally traditional british fare (aka taking meat and putting it into a pie or pudding).

So that was our Thanksgiving, and probably a new tradition for the duration of our stay in the UK.

Laura got a mobile (finally)

Just in case you need to get ahold of me, my mobile number is +44 79 443 74170

Laura has arrived

After a long trans-atlantic haul, Laura has landed in London. Hopefully she'll have some fun plane-related anecdotes to share with all of you.

T-Minus 8 Hours to Laura

Laura should be on a layover in JFK at the moment, so in just a few hours she'll be landing in Heathrow.

As you might be able to tell, I've changed the title. Maybe with a little encouragement Laura will start posting about her adventures in London as well.

Time for bed so I can go pick her up in the morning.

Guy Fawkes Night

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November...

Right, so today is technically Guy Fawkes Night (or Bonfire Night), but the celebrations were mostly this past weekend.

The first thing I did to celebrate was to watch V for Vendetta again, to get into the mood. However, this fantastic movie has completely thrown off my view about what Bonfire night is all about. I assumed that since it was named after Guy Fawkes, that we were actually celebrating his attempt to overthrow the government (viva la revolution and all that jazz). Apparently I wasn't really clued into the fact that they burn Guy Fawkes in effigy at the celebration (which you normally wouldn't do if you're pro-Fawkes I guess).

So, it turns out that this is a celebration of the fact that they foiled the Gunpowder Plot. Damn!

However, I'm sticking with my original decision. When I celebrate the 5th of November, I'm celebrating the attempt to blow up Parliament! And when they say "God save the King" at the end of the rhyme, I'm going to say it with a distinctly sarcastic tone... so take that!

(Quick trivia: Guy Fawkes is where calling men "guys" comes from... now you can impress all your friends.)

So, I ended up going to a celebration at Victoria Park that was pretty sweet. There wasn't an actual bonfire, but the 100-foot tall burning skeleton of Guy Fawkes was quite excellent. And they had some of the best fireworks that I've seen in quite some time. About every 10 minutes they would have a flurry of fireworks that everyone assumed was the finale, and we would all clap and cheer... and then they kept going with more. Seriously, this happened at least 3 times.

I got a few good pictures of the fireworks and carnival area (and lots of shaky blurry pictures as well).

The big skeleton was moving around and lit a fuse that caused the Parliament tower/rocket ship thing to light on fire and shoot up into the air. We definitely need some flaming skeletons added to the 4th of July celebrations in the US. It's bound to be a winner.

Also, I am eagerly awaiting Laura's arrival in 4 days! And also eagerly cleaning the flat so she doesn't think I'm a total slob (or any more of a slob than she already realizes).

Booyah!

I'd just like to point out that I'm totally kicking Mike's butt for number of blog posts this year. Although, to be fair, his are a lot cooler... and have crazy characters in most of them.

But still... I've only been going since April. Take that Mike!

Low Speed Broadband

So, for about two weeks before I left for the US, my internet started slowing down considerably. And right before I left, I was having to restart the modem about every 5 minutes to keep online.

A few days ago I called BT, my telephone provider, since I have DSL for internet. I noticed that my landline phone sounded very crackily (it's a technical term). They said I had to plug in a corded telephone, not the cordless one I was using, and do some extra tests before they send somebody out. Well, I got lazy, didn't want to buy a new phone, and just left it alone.

I finally got around to calling Virgin (broadband provider) to see what was going on. I spoke with a very helpful guy on the tech support line who told me that my phone line was total crap. His little diagnostic test said that while my line was supposed to be running at 6 Mbps, it was actually running at 0.3 Mbps, barely dial-up speed. Hooray!

So I borrowed a phone from the lady above me and tested the phone line. Still crappy. Luckily, it should be all cleared up on Saturday when BT sends out a repair guy to my flat.

Only two more days of miserably internet to deal with.