Going to Nepal in a few hours

Very excited. this will be fun.

Current question: Shave or not shave before flying Qatar "We are Arab" Airways?
Try to blend in (not shave) or look respectable (shave)?
The "Should i wear a giant bling star of david" got answered - the answer is no...

Staying with a friend whose house is right across from the russian embassy. gave a 'very scary oath' not to cross the street and talk to them. apparently, not allowed to cause an international incident.

I don't speak English

There've been a few times during this trip when I realized that I actually don't speak English. Or at least don't understand English. Or maybe it's just that I don't understand Yorkshire English, aka "northern"

Case in point today: Walking down the "shopping" street, buying some stuff for the trip to Nepal. Walk past a parked white van with a guy and a girl sitting in it. Motions me to come over - I figure he's lost and wants to ask for directions
guy: blah blah chit-chat, where are you from?
me: from the states
guy: mumble mumble want mumble mumble?
me: huh?
guy: would you mumble buy mumble (gun??) mumble camcorder mumble mumble?

The girl in the passenger seat is starting to laugh

me (incredulous): you want me to buy a gun and a camcorder?
guy (very defensive): no mate, I don't sell guns
me: well, dude, I don't buy camcorders....
Meanwhile, the chick is laughing out loud, I say good bye and walk away.

I still don't know what that was all about. Guess I don't really speak English.

Toli does Amsterdam

Second trip to Amsterdam: first one was right after college with all the imaginable stereotypes: flea-bag hostel, coffee shop visits and a fellow traveler mostly strung out on drugs (not rama).

Second-time around, very different. A lot colder, a lot less coffee-shops and a lot less gawking at "hookers" and "freaks". Turns out living in SF, going to burning man and passing hookers on the way back from work every night in Leeds really opens your horizons.

Anyway, lessons learned: don't travel to Europe when it's cold. It's just not fun. No matter how picturesque or beautiful or interesting the architecture is, you don't really want to walk around in the blithering cold (esp. if you are a moron that forgot his scarf and a hat at home).

And since i wasn't into "doing the coffee shop thing" or buying hard drugs off the street, and was too museumed-out to see a row of Van Goughs or other Renaissance painters, I think that this trip to Amsterdam may have been "wasted" on me. It was really nice to walk around though and gawk at tourists, have a drink at the original Supperclub and leave w/out having a friend being chased by little green men b/c he ate the wrong shrooms.

Adventure in London

Went to London again this weekend to escape Leeds.
Jeremy was kind enough to let me stay at his apt while he was away, so it worked out well - I got to wake up in a real apt instead of a hotel room. It's hard to describe the feeling of waking up in an apt instead of a hotel - if you've never spent a month living in a hotel, you won't understand. It was awesome.

I had a great time hanging out with Anchal - we saw a flamenco show at Saddler Theatre, and I had my first dinner with her and her sister. good times.

I then met up with Rick and Tamara (friends from Stanford) - haven't seen them in a while, it was great to catch up. Took a double-decker bus home, went up to Jeremy's apt and tried to open the door.

Which brings me to the "adventure" part: the door wouldn't open. My thought process:
- am i in the right building?
- check
- right apt?
- check.

Turns out the real-estate lady that was showing the apt (since jeremy's moving out) did the "sensible" thing and locked the deadbolt at the bottom of the door, to which i (naturally) didn't have a key.

so pop quiz: it's 1:30am in the morning in London, what do you do?
Naturally, i tried to break in - there was a ladder going up to the roof but the roof was locked. Scaling up/down a few stories wasn't very appealing anyway, it started to rain and the windows were locked. Not that i didn't try, though. scouted the backard, tried goign up, but since i'm not a real rock climber and don't have good insurance, that wasn't really an option. nor did i want to end up in jail. I called up the # on the Faron Sutaria real estate agency sign outside, left a pleading voicemail and wrote it off - they weren't going to call back in forseeable future.

Faced with a night of walking around london, sleeping on the stairs (or gutter), i took the "grown-up approach" and got a room in a b&b across the street. so the short-term problem was solved.

Naturally, real estate offices are closed on Sundays - so i'm still faced with the fact that all my stuff is in Jeremy's place, i have to catch a train back to Leeds in the evening but i can't go to work w/out my laptop. And jeremy's out of the country for a week. Fun fun fun.
Thankfully, i got a hold of Marjorie - jeremy's neighbour, who lent me some much needed emotional support and let me hang out in her apt while i sorted things out.

Went up to the "letting office" - naturally, it's closed. Went next door to Foxton's which was open, severely disappointed the agents there since they thought i was going to rent something. Unfortunately, they don't hang out with the neighbouring real estate agents, so they couldn't help. very nice though, they tried.

All i really needed was a "hook" - a way to get to any Faron Sutaria agent that could get me the lady that had the keys and locked the apt. You could see the desks from the street windows - but none of them had any visible business cards on them. I've seen enough spy movies, but takign a picture of the barely-vsiible card and enhancing it requires either a photo lab, or at least a laptop. which i had, but it was in jeremy's apt. catch-22.

Long story shorter - I got "on the horn" and called up both Anchal and Tamara, the only other people i knew in London. Tamara was awesome - loooked up a list of all the #s for Faron Sutaria she could find.

From there, it was just a matter of luck and good old social engineering. After a few misses, a call to "corporate services" resulted in some random person (possibly even a janitor) picking up a phone, getting me a # of some real estate agent that dealt with Jeremy's apt.
Naturally, she was out of town, but she got through tosomeone else (in the middle of her brunch with parents) that eventually drove down to the office and got the keys and unlocked the deadbolt.

So, halfway into sunday problem was solved, and i'm now eternally grateful to the unknown Faron Sutaria people, along with Marjorie, Tamara and Anchal.

So afterwards i went sightseeing and straddled the meredian in Greenwhich.

One-Month anniversary

Today was my one-month anniversary of staying at the Hilton.
Maybe i'll get a commemorative pen or something...

Magic Roundabout

As you probably know, Brits have roundabouts instead of stop signs and stop lights. Rather confusing, especially coupled with the whole "drive on other side of the road", but fairly efficient.

Unless, of course, you go crazy and have 5 roundabouts in one: the "Magic Roundabout" in Swindon.



I went through it last weekend on the way to Bath, and let's just say it was definitely confusing and i'm glad i wasn't driving.
You should see more pics on the site, but here's the "very useful" sign on approach.

Anal business traveler: Hotel room review

Ordinarily, i think i don't complain much (or maybe i do?). And i like to think that i deal with limitations and little annoying problems well.

However, when you are on the road for 1.5 months living in a hotel room, all the little things start adding up.

So here's my list of gripes about the Hilton I'm staying at. Damn that design class I took at Stanford!

For the record, i'm lazy, the hotel is only 3 minutes from work, i'm getting the "hilton points" so i'm not moving. but i can still complain.

Quick Summary: whoever designed the room was a total idiot, moron, and never stayed in the room or took a shower in the bathroom. There, I'm done.

There are 2 sets of rooms - the "remodeled" and "old". Old is dingy, but at least better designed.

Moving on:

1. Each room has only 1 spare plug. you use that for your laptop, cell phone charger and tea kettle. Eh, hello? Have these people not discovered electricity yet?
2. In "remodeled" rooms, the tea kettle takes up 2 out of 4 drawers. what a waste.
3. the wardrobe near the door is tiny and shallow, the hanging rod is positioned facing you so you can at most hang 4-5 items.
   
4. Breakfast buffet is 18GBP!! That's the best $33 toast i've ever had
5. Internet is 15GBP/day. That's about $10/hour, since i'd only maybe use it for 2 hours..
   
6. The pool is L-shaped. But the sauna is nice.
7. Sheets have weird stains on them. Good thing i take out my contacts before i go to sleep so i can't see anything.
   
8. Staff: not very attentive to details. I'd check out and leave my luggage with concierge when i traveled around on weekends, and every time i came back on sunday they assured me my suitcase was waiting for me in the room but it never happened. I have no problems getting it myself, but why promise that it'd be there?
   
9. Ligthing in the "remodeld" rooms is retarded - the overhead "room light" is only at the front entrance, you have to walk to the end of the room to turn on an additional lamp.
10. Bathroom counter is "designer shaped", which looks nice but cuts down on useful amount of counter space. Where do i put my 12 kinds of moisturizer?
    
11. Faucet is really strange - you have to turn the hot/cold water knobs 3-4 complete rotations until any water comes out. But at least it's better than the usual british sink which has 2 separate faucets for hot/cold water. In new houses!
    
12. Interestingly, the tub doesn't have any convenient place to put the long cylindrical shampoo/gel/conditioner that they give you.
13. And my favourite: Shower curtains are very light and always cling to you when you take a shower. That way, you won't have to put "please place curtain in tub" stickers all over the place - if it didn't stick to my ass, i wouldn't take it out!

There, i'm done.

Overall, it seems that whoever designed the bathroom never actually took a shower in it - none of these poor design decisions are a big deal, but they are so obvious to notice and add up to a fairly frustrating experience overall.

Toli takes a Bath

This weekend a coworker was very gracious to offer me to stay with him and show me around Bath.

Bath is beautiful. The entire city dates back to when the Romans hiked around Europe - Bath has been around since at least 4 AD!

Aside from the magnificent abbey, there are plenty of examples of beautiful Georgian architecture - the Royal Crescent, various buildings, etc. This is exactly what I expected a 'proper' English town to look like - small cobblestone streets, old buildings, pubs, fishmongers, the usual.

Of course, no proper english weekend is complete without watching a game of rugby in a pub. This was a an opening weekend for the "Six Nations Tour" - England vs. Wales. Great game, England one, celebrations ensued. Unlike soccer though, no cars or people were harmed during the celebrations. I watched the game in my "russian vodka room" bar (it's a big UK chain) Revolution, which is now sporting a "2 russian brides for £6" sign.

The weekend was rounded out nicely by driving through the misty rolling hills of the bucolic English countryside and seeing Lacock. Insert your own dirty joke here, while you are at it.

While Bath is where the "city" scenes are filmed for the Jane Austen-period movies, Lacock is the "pastoral countryside". Apparently, that's where photography was invented as well.

Which brings me to architecture: apparently the reason why Tudor houses have a slightly wider and overhanging 2nd storey is to allow people to dump their "chamber pots" on the ground from the windows. Good thing they've retrofitted the houses with real toilets by the time i showed up.
Overall, very pretty weekend.

Oh, and I finally know where the stereotype of "english food sucks" comes from - try the "english breakfast". not pretty.

London!

Last weekend i went to London - Jeremy was gracious enough to let me crash on his couch for the weekend.
London is definitely awesome. Definitely cosmopolitan - I think more than San Francisco, and possibly even more than New York.
I had a whirlwind tour - I arrived friday night, met up with Jeremy and an old friend Anchal who used to work in San Francisco. After dinner Jeremy took me on a walking tour of all the major attractions: Piccadilly Circus, Chinatown, (real) Soho, etc.

The next day was more of the same - Camden Market which reminded me a lot of the Haight Street in San Francisco, but with much better shopping . In fact, if i had an infinite amount of money, that's exactly where i'd shop for Burnign Man outfits - the Cyberdog store rocks.

I saw a lot, but i feel that i spent more time riding the tube than seeing the city. We would jump in the tube, surface somewhere, look around, jump back in, go somewhere else, look around, repeat. So my knowledge of London is fairly spotty - i have no idea wher ethings are in relationship to each other, but i know how to get there by tube!

Saturday night, of course, we had the ultimate "london experience": go eat (very) expensive (and bad) food at Meza (never eat there. their paella is basically rice-a-roni with meat thrown on top. i cook better than that), with an evening capped off at a "members-only" club.
Ironically, all the bars in UK used to close at 11pm, and it's only recently that they relaxed the liquor laws to allow places to serve alcohol later. So London has a ton of "private" clubs where you pay a huge annual fee, and can sit at the bar and drink expensive drinks later than usual. Naturally, Jeremy is well-connected so we went to one - it was entertaining.
Truthfully, the menu itself was a work of art - every drink had a little back story to it, with a history of a drink and who created it - very cool. And of course, the dance club downstairs was entertaining - we kept playing the "guess which girl is an escort" game. Which really is only a slight variation on the game i played at a Leeds bar the night before, where I chatted with some girls that ended up beign strippers. And who says that Leeds is a boring town?

anyway, london rocks. very pretty architecture, nice people, and beautfiul parks. if you visit in the winter, bring a warm coat and a hat. it's damn cold.

Naturally, both Jeremy and I took pictures.