March 15th
I got up and my legs were pretty tired this morning from the long run yesterday. I took it really easy today. I got to work without incident and spent the day working on the Ireland database. I spent most of the morning going through and calling a bunch of retailers of organic cotton that I had found or that had been given to me. That was moderately successful. I got a few to say that they would register on the database, but most of the companies that I contacted no longer stocked any organic cotton products. So, I whole lot of nothing to begin with. After I got some lunch, I worked the entire afternoon on trying to go and find more companies that sold organic cotton. We have a database of all the wholesale companies that the retailers we have use, so I went through each and everyone of those to try and find some companies in Ireland. That was fairly unsuccessful. We have something like 200 suppliers registered, but I think I only came away with about ten more shops I can look into. I even spent some time on Google seeing what I could turn up and it was not a lot. When I was getting ready to leave, Damien said that they were doing some cleaning tomorrow and wasn’t sure if I should come in or not. That should be interesting.
I got back and proceeded to make myself some dinner. I took some chicken and sautéed that with some garlic and onions and then mixed it with pasta and sauce. I have to say it turned out pretty good. I was impressed with myself at least. I really didn’t have much to do this particular night so I just sort of sat around. The movie Goodfellas was on and I had never seen that before. Bit bloody, but not bad.
Friday, 16 March 2007
Thursday, 15 March 2007
March 14th
March 14th
I got and went for a longish run this morning. I forgot that I was going to need to take Saturday off for travel, so I had to cram some miles in there. Luckily, the weather was really nice so it was really enjoyable. I got back from that, made some lunch and watched the prime minister’s questions on TV while I ate. Those are pretty fun to see. Blair really handles himself very well. I headed out to see if my computer was here yet because Dad had sent me a note with tracking information, and according to that it was in London. I guess I have to fill out some paper work though and send that in before I can get it. That should mean I’ll have my computer back sometime early next week I should think. Hopefully.
Class today was pretty good. We just talked about a bunch of random topics. We were supposed to be discussing a reading, but our teacher didn’t have a chance to get the copies made. We cover stuff that we had talked about in past classes, but that we didn’t have time to get to. Justin had been spending most of those classes lecturing, so we really didn’t get a chance to talk, so this was that chance. After class, I headed out to dinner at a place called Wagamama’s. It’s a noodle bar in the Japanese style and it was really good. I went with a big group of people and it was a good time. Its was really cheap and really quick, so I think I’ll be going back at some point. A bunch of us also went in on a bottle of sake. I liked it. They served it warm, which I was expecting, but I guess I didn’t realize that it would taste so, bready I want to say. Maybe that’s not it, but that’s what I thought of when I had it. I would get it again. After that I made a run to the grocery store. Sainsbury, the place I normally go is going to be closed for about two weeks for renovations, so I wanted to go and get some food to hold me over until then. They also had a bunch of the perishables on sale since they didn’t want to move it I guess. That was nice. After I got that unpacked I went out to the Union pub to watch some sports and hang out. There was friend of one of the guys on the trip who wanted to go out and see what the university life was like, so we headed out there and spent the night there. That was a really good time.
I got and went for a longish run this morning. I forgot that I was going to need to take Saturday off for travel, so I had to cram some miles in there. Luckily, the weather was really nice so it was really enjoyable. I got back from that, made some lunch and watched the prime minister’s questions on TV while I ate. Those are pretty fun to see. Blair really handles himself very well. I headed out to see if my computer was here yet because Dad had sent me a note with tracking information, and according to that it was in London. I guess I have to fill out some paper work though and send that in before I can get it. That should mean I’ll have my computer back sometime early next week I should think. Hopefully.
Class today was pretty good. We just talked about a bunch of random topics. We were supposed to be discussing a reading, but our teacher didn’t have a chance to get the copies made. We cover stuff that we had talked about in past classes, but that we didn’t have time to get to. Justin had been spending most of those classes lecturing, so we really didn’t get a chance to talk, so this was that chance. After class, I headed out to dinner at a place called Wagamama’s. It’s a noodle bar in the Japanese style and it was really good. I went with a big group of people and it was a good time. Its was really cheap and really quick, so I think I’ll be going back at some point. A bunch of us also went in on a bottle of sake. I liked it. They served it warm, which I was expecting, but I guess I didn’t realize that it would taste so, bready I want to say. Maybe that’s not it, but that’s what I thought of when I had it. I would get it again. After that I made a run to the grocery store. Sainsbury, the place I normally go is going to be closed for about two weeks for renovations, so I wanted to go and get some food to hold me over until then. They also had a bunch of the perishables on sale since they didn’t want to move it I guess. That was nice. After I got that unpacked I went out to the Union pub to watch some sports and hang out. There was friend of one of the guys on the trip who wanted to go out and see what the university life was like, so we headed out there and spent the night there. That was a really good time.
Tuesday, 13 March 2007
March 13th
March 13th
I got up for my run this morning and it was pretty brisk. The temperature overnight had sunk pretty low apparently. That really wasn’t that bad though. The radiators have been stuck on for the entire trip, and up until now it really hasn’t been a problem. The weather has been cool enough where we can just keep the windows open and the rooms stays pretty nice. With it getting warmer though, that situation won’t work so well anymore. The rest of the day was still really nice once the sun came out. It’s supposed to be in the 60s all week, which is going to be really nice.
Work today was pretty good. Damien wants to launch a version of the database for Ireland, so he has had me tracking down companies for that. I spent most of the day looking around online for places that sold organic cotton and got a big list going. I then spent a little while in the afternoon calling some of the companies that I found to see if they wanted to be a part of the database. I got a hold of a couple of them and they said they were going to sign up, so we’ll see how that goes.
I got back from work and made myself some dinner. Just something nice and quick so I could get out and do my laundry. I had apparently forgot how much it costs to use the dryer, because I ended up drying all my stuff a lot more than I had intended. I was planning on letting a bunch of the stuff air dry, but now I shouldn’t have to. That won’t be too bad. While I was at Metrogate, I checked my email and got a lot of letters off. I’ve had a lot the last couple of days, which is nice. I really like keeping up with people and this makes it pretty easy. Its good stuff. After laundry is all done, I’m going to head back home and get all my laundry put away. CSI is on tonight, so I think I’ll watch that with some popcorn and just relax. One of my classes was cancelled for tomorrow, so I really don’t have a lot to do. Should be a good day. I hope you’re all having a good week.
I got up for my run this morning and it was pretty brisk. The temperature overnight had sunk pretty low apparently. That really wasn’t that bad though. The radiators have been stuck on for the entire trip, and up until now it really hasn’t been a problem. The weather has been cool enough where we can just keep the windows open and the rooms stays pretty nice. With it getting warmer though, that situation won’t work so well anymore. The rest of the day was still really nice once the sun came out. It’s supposed to be in the 60s all week, which is going to be really nice.
Work today was pretty good. Damien wants to launch a version of the database for Ireland, so he has had me tracking down companies for that. I spent most of the day looking around online for places that sold organic cotton and got a big list going. I then spent a little while in the afternoon calling some of the companies that I found to see if they wanted to be a part of the database. I got a hold of a couple of them and they said they were going to sign up, so we’ll see how that goes.
I got back from work and made myself some dinner. Just something nice and quick so I could get out and do my laundry. I had apparently forgot how much it costs to use the dryer, because I ended up drying all my stuff a lot more than I had intended. I was planning on letting a bunch of the stuff air dry, but now I shouldn’t have to. That won’t be too bad. While I was at Metrogate, I checked my email and got a lot of letters off. I’ve had a lot the last couple of days, which is nice. I really like keeping up with people and this makes it pretty easy. Its good stuff. After laundry is all done, I’m going to head back home and get all my laundry put away. CSI is on tonight, so I think I’ll watch that with some popcorn and just relax. One of my classes was cancelled for tomorrow, so I really don’t have a lot to do. Should be a good day. I hope you’re all having a good week.
Monday, 12 March 2007
March 12th
March 11th
I got and went for my run this morning, and for the first time in a while I really felt like I should be out there running. I was almost completely cleared up and it felt good again. I got back from that and made some lunch and spent some time watching TV with people as they awoke from their slumbers. After a while of that, I headed to Metrogate to get my blog updated and to check my email. I managed to get all that done before I had to go meet my group for a walking tour of part of London. We took the Tube to Hyde Park Corner and started meandering around. We headed past Green Park, to Buckingham Palace, then we went through a bunch of little back streets, through a park, and ended up around the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The walk took us about 3 hours or so, but we could have done it a lot faster. We ended up spending about half an hour standing in St. Jame’s Park looking out on a lake with a bunch of ducks and geese. The flowers were also really starting to bloom, so that was very pretty. We picked a wonderful day to do it too. The temperature was right around 60 degrees, there was no wind, and it was sunny. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. It helped make the run feel really good too.
When we got done with that, we took the Tube back and I spent a while working on my schedule for next semester and just messed around on the internet. I also got a hold of an application for an internship this summer, and I really need to get going on those. I have a couple of places in mind that might work, so we’ll see. If not, I’ll just have to get a job somewhere else this summer to make some money. I got done with that and headed home to do some reading that went along with the walk I took. I was about an hour into that when the Family called and I talked to them for about half an hour. I even got a chance to talk to Hanna for a while, which was pretty nice. After we finished, I went back to reading and got that finished.
After I was all done with that, I went out to the common room and did some writing and watched Grey’s Anatomy of all shows. Its, yeah. Not something I would pick to watch, but it wasn’t bad. The real treat of the night was a movie called Snatch. Its set in London and has all sorts London subculture references and themes in it. It’s a really great movie and a lot of people turned out to see that. The movie and my writing finished up and I went to bed.
March 12th
I got up this morning and went to class to do my group presentation on the walk and reading I had done yesterday. That went pretty well, and I can’t say that I was worried about it. After class, I went with the group I was going to go to Paris with to book our train tickets. We had already booked our hostel, which looked really cool, so this was the last step. We’re leaving really early in the morning, but it saved us about £40, so I’m not going to complain. That turned out to be kind of interesting. We got four of the five tickets booked when the computer system went down and the last person couldn’t get his ticket booked. They tried for the rest of the day, but apparently they didn’t have any luck. He should still be able to make the train, but it sucks for him.
After we finished up there I went to Metrogate with the hope that my computer would be there, no such luck. I checked my email and I had quite a few to respond too. I guess I’ve become popular all of a sudden. That took me a couple of hours and then I went home and tried to book some tickets to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s performance of The Tempest, but it wasn’t looking good. They might be completely sold out already, but I couldn’t get a hold of the actual theatre ticket agency, so I don’t know. I was trying to get tickets for four other people, but I don’t know if that will happen now or not. We’ll have to see.
From there I headed out on my run. It was so amazing. The weather today was as good as yesterdays and the all the trees and plants were really starting to flower. The scent was just incredible. I did an easy lap around the parks, then headed to circuit training at Imperial, and then did another short run. When I got back, almost everyone had gone out. Apparently people were on an ale trail. They would go to a bunch of pubs and at the end they got T-shirt. That really is an American thing. It’s amazing what a free shirt will get people to do. It really is incredible. Well, I made myself some dinner and then headed to Metrogate here to do the email thing again and work on my schedule. I need to email my advisor about a couple of things too, so I’ll do that tonight. I’m going to go back and watch some TV when I’m all done, and I think I’ll call it an early night.
I got and went for my run this morning, and for the first time in a while I really felt like I should be out there running. I was almost completely cleared up and it felt good again. I got back from that and made some lunch and spent some time watching TV with people as they awoke from their slumbers. After a while of that, I headed to Metrogate to get my blog updated and to check my email. I managed to get all that done before I had to go meet my group for a walking tour of part of London. We took the Tube to Hyde Park Corner and started meandering around. We headed past Green Park, to Buckingham Palace, then we went through a bunch of little back streets, through a park, and ended up around the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The walk took us about 3 hours or so, but we could have done it a lot faster. We ended up spending about half an hour standing in St. Jame’s Park looking out on a lake with a bunch of ducks and geese. The flowers were also really starting to bloom, so that was very pretty. We picked a wonderful day to do it too. The temperature was right around 60 degrees, there was no wind, and it was sunny. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. It helped make the run feel really good too.
When we got done with that, we took the Tube back and I spent a while working on my schedule for next semester and just messed around on the internet. I also got a hold of an application for an internship this summer, and I really need to get going on those. I have a couple of places in mind that might work, so we’ll see. If not, I’ll just have to get a job somewhere else this summer to make some money. I got done with that and headed home to do some reading that went along with the walk I took. I was about an hour into that when the Family called and I talked to them for about half an hour. I even got a chance to talk to Hanna for a while, which was pretty nice. After we finished, I went back to reading and got that finished.
After I was all done with that, I went out to the common room and did some writing and watched Grey’s Anatomy of all shows. Its, yeah. Not something I would pick to watch, but it wasn’t bad. The real treat of the night was a movie called Snatch. Its set in London and has all sorts London subculture references and themes in it. It’s a really great movie and a lot of people turned out to see that. The movie and my writing finished up and I went to bed.
March 12th
I got up this morning and went to class to do my group presentation on the walk and reading I had done yesterday. That went pretty well, and I can’t say that I was worried about it. After class, I went with the group I was going to go to Paris with to book our train tickets. We had already booked our hostel, which looked really cool, so this was the last step. We’re leaving really early in the morning, but it saved us about £40, so I’m not going to complain. That turned out to be kind of interesting. We got four of the five tickets booked when the computer system went down and the last person couldn’t get his ticket booked. They tried for the rest of the day, but apparently they didn’t have any luck. He should still be able to make the train, but it sucks for him.
After we finished up there I went to Metrogate with the hope that my computer would be there, no such luck. I checked my email and I had quite a few to respond too. I guess I’ve become popular all of a sudden. That took me a couple of hours and then I went home and tried to book some tickets to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s performance of The Tempest, but it wasn’t looking good. They might be completely sold out already, but I couldn’t get a hold of the actual theatre ticket agency, so I don’t know. I was trying to get tickets for four other people, but I don’t know if that will happen now or not. We’ll have to see.
From there I headed out on my run. It was so amazing. The weather today was as good as yesterdays and the all the trees and plants were really starting to flower. The scent was just incredible. I did an easy lap around the parks, then headed to circuit training at Imperial, and then did another short run. When I got back, almost everyone had gone out. Apparently people were on an ale trail. They would go to a bunch of pubs and at the end they got T-shirt. That really is an American thing. It’s amazing what a free shirt will get people to do. It really is incredible. Well, I made myself some dinner and then headed to Metrogate here to do the email thing again and work on my schedule. I need to email my advisor about a couple of things too, so I’ll do that tonight. I’m going to go back and watch some TV when I’m all done, and I think I’ll call it an early night.
Sunday, 11 March 2007
March 11th
March 7th
I got up for my run today and I was feeling much better. I was still wasn’t feeling a hundred percent, but I really wanted to get out and run. That turned out to be a really good idea actually. That seemed to clear me up right away and I was feeling better the entire day.
The first class today, Ethno, was a lot of fun. We spent about twenty minutes in class finishing up our talk on the Kray twins then we took the Tube to see their old stomping grounds. That was pretty interesting. The East end is a very different place from where I live. First off, it was hit really hard by the Blitz during World War One, so the architecture is very broken up in the sense that is doesn’t have the consistency that my neighbourhood does. There are also a lot of empty spaces where they just never rebuilt and turned into parks. While this is the seedier side of London by a lot of accounts, it really wasn’t that bad. I guess when I think of a high crime area in the States, I think of a nasty intercity place where you just don’t go. Here, there where families walking around and while you could definitely see some of the bad apples, if you will, I wouldn’t mind living there. We also walked by Gilbert and George’s house. There artists that I’m guessing Hanna may have heard of. They have a big exhibit up in the Tate Modern right now. They lived in a group of flats that was worth around million pounds each, right in the middle of this neighbourhood. That is what I really found interesting about this place. There are no stark divisions like you see in the US. Here, the socio-economic status of people just sort of blend together without and really sharp contrasts. At the very end of the tour we stopped at Spitalfield’s Market. It’s a covered market that sells all sorts of cool stuff. I picked up a shirt as we were walking around, King of Rice. I thought it was funny at least.
I got back to the Foundation House about ten minutes before my next class was supposed to start, so I didn’t get a chance to eat. We talked about the plays we had seen and what they meant. I did get a new understanding about the War Next Door, but it really didn’t make me want to like the play any better. If anything, it just sort of turned it into an interesting experiment, but a bad play. We then all tried our hand at writing a scene. The prof gave us three lines that had to be incorporated into as a starting point. It was easier than I thought it would be, but it proved to me once again I really shouldn’t be a creative writer.
After class I came home and made4 myself some dinner. The Patriot was on and a bunch of people were up watching that. I had some the popcorn that was brought out for me, which was really good.
March 8th
I got up for another run this morning and I still feel a lot better. The back of my throat is still a little dry so I’ve been coughing a bit, but I feel fine. Work today was pretty average. I spent almost the entire day trying to get the reader all finished up. I had a bunch of little things left to do like finish up the Index and redo all the page numberings. Nothing really big was left, just a lot of the finishing up stuff. I almost managed to finish it up and I thought only had an hour or so left of stuff to do and I would be done.
After work today was a great time. A group of us were going to see The Lion King on stage. People had gone to pick up ticket while I was at work and they picked up some pretty good seats. I and one other person had seen it and we both recommended that we get seats on the floor because of all the cool costumes and the parade at the beginning of the show. We ended up in the second and third rows. Before the play started though, I had some time to wander. I got off the tube at Covenant Garden and just starting wandering around. I hadn’t seen much of that area so I thought it would be cool to explore. Its supposed to be this cool shopping area, so I thought I might see some interesting things. I was somewhat disappointed. All the shops seem to cater to the yuppie with to much time and money on his or her hands. Maybe if I would have come back on the weekend it would have been better, but there really wasn’t anything I couldn’t see there that I couldn’t find in a mall back home. That and it was really marked up too. I grabbed a bite to eat a couple of blocks away from the actual market then walked in. When I was walking around I saw a little patisserie type place that I though looked good, so I stopped in. It was someone what expensive, but it looked good so I thought why not. My first sign of trouble should have been when the women behind the counter started second guessing my order. The food was pretty lame too. I ended up walking around the area until I found the theatre, but I still had about half and hour before the rest of the group would show up. The theatre was right next to the Thames, so I walked across a bridge and just looked at the city. London is a very pretty city at night. The lights come on and everything seems very nice. Part of that is because you can’t see how dirty it is, but its still nice.
The play itself was amazing. We were within ten feet of the stage and the actors were so close. It was especially great with all the costumes and set pieces there because we could see them so well. We paid quite a bit for the tickets, but it was well worth it. Everyone there seemed to really enjoy it too so that was plus. Once I got back from there, I pretty much just crashed.
March 9th
I got up and ran again today and I’m still felling better. Throat’s still a little raspy, but its not a big deal. Work today was interesting. The stuff with the reader that I thought would take an hour or so to do ended up taking me the entire morning. What happened was that as I started adding elements into the final draft, page number started to change. That meant I had to go through the entire index that I had made and change every single entry. That happened twice. Once there was no way I could get around it since it happened because I was actually adding the index itself and it happened another time when I was finishing up the directory. I had added a few articles that weren’t in the original copy I had and when I added those, it upped the number of pages. Oh well. The rest of the day I helped Damien get some mailings out. There is a world wide conference of some kind, I can’t remember what, and on its agenda is the banning of a pesticide called endosulfide. Pretty nasty stuff. So Damien wanted to get out some recently published literature to the people that would be voting on it. So we stuffed envelopes and got all the mail franked and sent off. We have some more to do next week for members of other PAN groups and NGO’s, but those aren’t real time sensitive so they can wait. After that I started looking up some companies for the database and spent the rest of the day doing that.
It took me a long time to get home tonight and I really don’t know why. The Tube ride just took forever. When I got home, I just sort of settled in for the night. I really didn’t feel like going out so I made some tea and just sat around and watched some TV. I can’t say I really did much at all that night.
March 10th
Today we had to be up and on a bus at 8 in the morning. We were heading to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was an interesting place. The first thing you notice about it however is that its right off the A366, a big road leading out of London. That kind of gives it a tourist trap type fell to be honest, but apparently there is a big project underway to build a tunnel to hide the road and really isolate the spot from view. It really is a quite impressive place to see when you walk around it. The stones are just absolutely massive and some were transported from 200 hundred miles away. Its just nuts. They were even dragged most of the way. The country around it very pretty too. Its nothing but rolling, green hills. Its just a wonderful place.
From there we headed to Bath, famous for its hot springs. There has been a settlement in this area for over two thousand years. The things we came to see was the remains of the posh Roman baths that once stood there. They’re now about 16 feet underground because of all the building and the dirt that haw built up over the last two thousand years or so. They were pretty cool. The most amazing part of all this was that all the plumbing still worked. It had to be cleaned of silt and debris that had built up over the years, but once hat was done it still worked perfectly. I don’t think we’ll be saying that about many of our accomplishments. That was all pretty cool. There were also some frescos left that were pretty nice to look at as well. I even ventured out and tried some of this mystical water. The water from this spring was thought to have healing powers, which is why the population here has persisted. The water was supposed to be really nasty though, foul smelling and having a very peculiar taste. I was kind of disappointed. It tasted just like well water, or really hard water. It was weird that it was hot, but if it had been room temperature it would have been fine. From there we moved on to the Assembly rooms. There were used by the upper class in the city as a place to meet and socialize. There was a ball room, card room and a tea room. There was also a dress room downstairs that I decided to skip. The place was nice, mostly because the architecture was much simpler than the Victorian places that we had visited before. I liked that. I did a quick walk through, then spent the rest of the time colouring finger puppets with a group from the trip, because there really wasn’t much to see there.
We took a long bus ride home, somewhere around four hours I think. The traffic was really bad, which made it even worse. I got some reading I had wanted to do though, so that was nice. When I got back I made some dinner, and then went out to a pub with some people. It was a place called the Seven Stars and it was really nice. It was a small place with nice wooden panelling and just a great little atmosphere. They even had pub cats that were wandering around. That was nifty.
I headed home after that with the intention of going to bed, but Minority Report was on and that drew my attention in. I got stuck watching that then headed to bed.
I got up for my run today and I was feeling much better. I was still wasn’t feeling a hundred percent, but I really wanted to get out and run. That turned out to be a really good idea actually. That seemed to clear me up right away and I was feeling better the entire day.
The first class today, Ethno, was a lot of fun. We spent about twenty minutes in class finishing up our talk on the Kray twins then we took the Tube to see their old stomping grounds. That was pretty interesting. The East end is a very different place from where I live. First off, it was hit really hard by the Blitz during World War One, so the architecture is very broken up in the sense that is doesn’t have the consistency that my neighbourhood does. There are also a lot of empty spaces where they just never rebuilt and turned into parks. While this is the seedier side of London by a lot of accounts, it really wasn’t that bad. I guess when I think of a high crime area in the States, I think of a nasty intercity place where you just don’t go. Here, there where families walking around and while you could definitely see some of the bad apples, if you will, I wouldn’t mind living there. We also walked by Gilbert and George’s house. There artists that I’m guessing Hanna may have heard of. They have a big exhibit up in the Tate Modern right now. They lived in a group of flats that was worth around million pounds each, right in the middle of this neighbourhood. That is what I really found interesting about this place. There are no stark divisions like you see in the US. Here, the socio-economic status of people just sort of blend together without and really sharp contrasts. At the very end of the tour we stopped at Spitalfield’s Market. It’s a covered market that sells all sorts of cool stuff. I picked up a shirt as we were walking around, King of Rice. I thought it was funny at least.
I got back to the Foundation House about ten minutes before my next class was supposed to start, so I didn’t get a chance to eat. We talked about the plays we had seen and what they meant. I did get a new understanding about the War Next Door, but it really didn’t make me want to like the play any better. If anything, it just sort of turned it into an interesting experiment, but a bad play. We then all tried our hand at writing a scene. The prof gave us three lines that had to be incorporated into as a starting point. It was easier than I thought it would be, but it proved to me once again I really shouldn’t be a creative writer.
After class I came home and made4 myself some dinner. The Patriot was on and a bunch of people were up watching that. I had some the popcorn that was brought out for me, which was really good.
March 8th
I got up for another run this morning and I still feel a lot better. The back of my throat is still a little dry so I’ve been coughing a bit, but I feel fine. Work today was pretty average. I spent almost the entire day trying to get the reader all finished up. I had a bunch of little things left to do like finish up the Index and redo all the page numberings. Nothing really big was left, just a lot of the finishing up stuff. I almost managed to finish it up and I thought only had an hour or so left of stuff to do and I would be done.
After work today was a great time. A group of us were going to see The Lion King on stage. People had gone to pick up ticket while I was at work and they picked up some pretty good seats. I and one other person had seen it and we both recommended that we get seats on the floor because of all the cool costumes and the parade at the beginning of the show. We ended up in the second and third rows. Before the play started though, I had some time to wander. I got off the tube at Covenant Garden and just starting wandering around. I hadn’t seen much of that area so I thought it would be cool to explore. Its supposed to be this cool shopping area, so I thought I might see some interesting things. I was somewhat disappointed. All the shops seem to cater to the yuppie with to much time and money on his or her hands. Maybe if I would have come back on the weekend it would have been better, but there really wasn’t anything I couldn’t see there that I couldn’t find in a mall back home. That and it was really marked up too. I grabbed a bite to eat a couple of blocks away from the actual market then walked in. When I was walking around I saw a little patisserie type place that I though looked good, so I stopped in. It was someone what expensive, but it looked good so I thought why not. My first sign of trouble should have been when the women behind the counter started second guessing my order. The food was pretty lame too. I ended up walking around the area until I found the theatre, but I still had about half and hour before the rest of the group would show up. The theatre was right next to the Thames, so I walked across a bridge and just looked at the city. London is a very pretty city at night. The lights come on and everything seems very nice. Part of that is because you can’t see how dirty it is, but its still nice.
The play itself was amazing. We were within ten feet of the stage and the actors were so close. It was especially great with all the costumes and set pieces there because we could see them so well. We paid quite a bit for the tickets, but it was well worth it. Everyone there seemed to really enjoy it too so that was plus. Once I got back from there, I pretty much just crashed.
March 9th
I got up and ran again today and I’m still felling better. Throat’s still a little raspy, but its not a big deal. Work today was interesting. The stuff with the reader that I thought would take an hour or so to do ended up taking me the entire morning. What happened was that as I started adding elements into the final draft, page number started to change. That meant I had to go through the entire index that I had made and change every single entry. That happened twice. Once there was no way I could get around it since it happened because I was actually adding the index itself and it happened another time when I was finishing up the directory. I had added a few articles that weren’t in the original copy I had and when I added those, it upped the number of pages. Oh well. The rest of the day I helped Damien get some mailings out. There is a world wide conference of some kind, I can’t remember what, and on its agenda is the banning of a pesticide called endosulfide. Pretty nasty stuff. So Damien wanted to get out some recently published literature to the people that would be voting on it. So we stuffed envelopes and got all the mail franked and sent off. We have some more to do next week for members of other PAN groups and NGO’s, but those aren’t real time sensitive so they can wait. After that I started looking up some companies for the database and spent the rest of the day doing that.
It took me a long time to get home tonight and I really don’t know why. The Tube ride just took forever. When I got home, I just sort of settled in for the night. I really didn’t feel like going out so I made some tea and just sat around and watched some TV. I can’t say I really did much at all that night.
March 10th
Today we had to be up and on a bus at 8 in the morning. We were heading to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was an interesting place. The first thing you notice about it however is that its right off the A366, a big road leading out of London. That kind of gives it a tourist trap type fell to be honest, but apparently there is a big project underway to build a tunnel to hide the road and really isolate the spot from view. It really is a quite impressive place to see when you walk around it. The stones are just absolutely massive and some were transported from 200 hundred miles away. Its just nuts. They were even dragged most of the way. The country around it very pretty too. Its nothing but rolling, green hills. Its just a wonderful place.
From there we headed to Bath, famous for its hot springs. There has been a settlement in this area for over two thousand years. The things we came to see was the remains of the posh Roman baths that once stood there. They’re now about 16 feet underground because of all the building and the dirt that haw built up over the last two thousand years or so. They were pretty cool. The most amazing part of all this was that all the plumbing still worked. It had to be cleaned of silt and debris that had built up over the years, but once hat was done it still worked perfectly. I don’t think we’ll be saying that about many of our accomplishments. That was all pretty cool. There were also some frescos left that were pretty nice to look at as well. I even ventured out and tried some of this mystical water. The water from this spring was thought to have healing powers, which is why the population here has persisted. The water was supposed to be really nasty though, foul smelling and having a very peculiar taste. I was kind of disappointed. It tasted just like well water, or really hard water. It was weird that it was hot, but if it had been room temperature it would have been fine. From there we moved on to the Assembly rooms. There were used by the upper class in the city as a place to meet and socialize. There was a ball room, card room and a tea room. There was also a dress room downstairs that I decided to skip. The place was nice, mostly because the architecture was much simpler than the Victorian places that we had visited before. I liked that. I did a quick walk through, then spent the rest of the time colouring finger puppets with a group from the trip, because there really wasn’t much to see there.
We took a long bus ride home, somewhere around four hours I think. The traffic was really bad, which made it even worse. I got some reading I had wanted to do though, so that was nice. When I got back I made some dinner, and then went out to a pub with some people. It was a place called the Seven Stars and it was really nice. It was a small place with nice wooden panelling and just a great little atmosphere. They even had pub cats that were wandering around. That was nifty.
I headed home after that with the intention of going to bed, but Minority Report was on and that drew my attention in. I got stuck watching that then headed to bed.
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