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.

I love Edinburgh

There, I said it. Leeds sucks. Edinburgh rocks.

Last weekend I went up to Edinburgh to visit my old roommate Chris from San Francisco.
My friend Jeremy came up from London - his company sent him to UK for work for a few months as well, so we decided to check out Edinburgh together. He came up to Leeds on friday night, we hung around the infamous Corn Exchange, and took the train the next morning.

aside: Trains rock. I understand US is big and we like our cars, but it'd be sooooo nice to have train service. Fast. Reliable. Read while someone else drives. Convenient. I could go on.
And you get to meet nice English girls on the train that tell you stories about "houses" in their public school "just like Harry Potter, really" and comment on their pastry: "Lovely, isn't it"?

Anyway, Edinburgh is awesome. As Chris put it, it has "interesting topology" - it's multilevel, there are a lot of sub-basement apartments, bridges and streest are intersecting. Very much a multi-level city.

Reminds me a lot of San Francisco. All the houses are Edwardian, bay windows, water, hills.
All around good times.

Oh, and of course, i had "haggis" - the traditional Scottish meal of "chopped sheep intesting wrapped in sheep stomach". Delicious and a lot less disgusting than it sounds.

I took lots of pictures, and so did Jeremy.

Drink the Plank

I wouldn't call Leeds a student town, but it definitely is a bar town.
So naturally, being "russian" and all, i found mysefl a nice neighbourhood vodka bar - Revolution.
It's actually a chain, which makes it less cool, but I doubt it'd be visiting other locations.

They even serve vodka nad pickles! almost "russian-style".

And now to break some stereotypes: i'd say brits drink more than russian. Without naming any names, let's say I have a friend that participated in the following:
This would be a 30-shot plank of vodka, with 5 different flavors. I'll do the math for you - that'd be 8.5 shots per person when you have 4 people.
Yep. Tasty. Naturally, with flavors like "vanilla" and "strawberry", that was "too sissy", so we had a few more to chase it. Like "chili" flavor. If you ever have indigestion or problem with vomiting on demand - that's the vodka to drink. Goes well with napkins, since the taste in your mouth is so rank you end up eating a few just to try to get rid of it. That sure was entertaining to us and the others at the bar...

I have to give it to them - everybody showed up at work bright and early the next day, w/out incident. I guess one can train for anything...

Would you like some business?

Walking the 100 yards from the office to the hotel at night is always fun. One night 2 reasonably dressed women (it really is cold outside) approached me and asked whether i "wanted some business".
Huh? what business? i'm just getting out of work, you want me to work again? no way dude, i'm getting my drink!
So i was polite and just ignored them. Turn to my friend P. with a silent "what's wrong with these crazy british people?" look on my face, at which point he just starts laughing. Conversation ensues:
P: these are hookers
Me: no way dude
P: want to bet?
Me: ah, no thanks, i don't want to go to jail, i'm on a tourist visa

Turns out that my office is right in the middle of the "red light district". Or more like it's on the one block that's all there is to the red light district of Leeds.
Naturally, i didn't know that.
However, i was later told that the record was some guy getting propositions 8 times (!) on the 2-block walk it takes to get from the hotel to the office.

Corn Exchange

So i'm now in Leeds, located in West Yorkshire. It's about 2.5 hours from London, in the middle of the country. I'd say it's exactly what you'd expect in a "small provincial English town" (someone's definitely going to flame for this).

Leeds has a storied history of a manufacturing town, a great University of Leeds, fabulous shopping and so on. It's known as "gateway to the Dales" - a big national park. Sounds great, doesn't it? I may be biased, but coming from both San Francisco and most recently New York it appears a little small and boring. It's the same as the kiss of death when you are describing a guy to a potential date: "he has a nice personality". Just like St. Louis Mo, which is "gateway to the west", Leeds is a great place to live if you are already married, or are a college student set on spending more time drinking than studying.

So, first impressions of Leeds - very cute. Old buildings. Cars driving on "wrong side" of the road. Giant double-decker buses hugging the curb (I bought emergency insurance. One of these things is bound to run me over some day).

Since I don't have a car, I walk around for transportation. The city centre is fairly small, it's about a 10x6 block. You can get walk the entire "downtown" in about half an hour.

Which, of course, brings us to the "Corn Exchange".
It's a giant building (shopping mall) on one side of town where most of the bars and clubs are.
Anywhere you go, you end up at the Corn Exchange. For the first few days, my coworkers and I walked around in circles, trying to find a particular bar, and would always end up at the Corn Exchange.
The hilarity would be that no matter where we went, it would always be near the Corn Exchange. Anything. All directions began with "go to the Corn Exchange and turn X...".
Naturally, all the streets are crooked, so it worked out well - i live about 2 blocks from it, work another block from it, and all the bars really are next to it.

So yeah, Corn Exchange. I'll never forget you....

Jet-Setting lifestyle

I needed to get to Leeds on Monday Jan 9th.
The weekend before, i had to be in St. Louis for my grandfather's 85th birthday party. Naturally, there are no direct flights from St. Louis to Leeds, so imagine my lovely itinerary:
friday night: JFK-->STL
sunday morning: STL-->Newark.
Take the train from Newark to Penn Station, come home for 2 hours, have some tea, get a new set of bags and take the train to JFK.
Which brings us to next section:
JFK-->London Heathrow, at which point it's 7am Monday morning in UK but still only 1am in NY.

Here's the upside of the jet-setting life: an acquintance I met while traveling in Russia 2 years ago was flying out of Heathrow to St. Petersburg at the same time.

We met up, had some tea, and parted ways - she took a flight to St. Petersburg and I went to Leeds.

I love elaborate plans. Arranging this was fun.

Going to Leeds for work

Well, after a short and exciting stint in NY where my job didn't pan out, i got a short-term project in Leeds, UK.
This becomes an second annual British Commonwealth country work-visit. Perhaps I should make this a habit. Maybe next year I can go to Australia or British Virgin Islands.

Anyway, i'll do my best to post the entertaining stories that always seem to happen to me during such trips.