Part 2 of 2

The second joke told to me by a homeless man for a £1 contribution is not acceptable for posting. It wasn't even really offensive but still -- does the world need another joke mocking the overweight?

I say no.

Part 1 of 2

What do you call a Spaniard with no car?

Carlos

(if you're not laughing, try pronouncing Carlos -- Car-less)

Ok now I get it.

Boat Race 2.0

It's strange to see the second occurrences of annual events here. Today was The Boat Race, which I went to (and wrote about) last year. This year Oxford won. I decided to stay in.

The English events I missed last time around but hope to make an appearance at this year include Wimbledon and The Royal Ascot ... maybe even Glastonbury if I can get a ticket.

Right, I'm going to go eat some Frosties. A hug.  

Piturs

I went into this church and looked at some holy person's well-preserved pinkie finger:



Bulgaria: "Handicap accessible since the revolution!"



Black Sea. More gray:



Your dogs and guns are not welcome here (at a breakfast diner):

This is a random graveyard for helicopters and fighter jets and tanks and things:

Bulgarian people don't need to eat (they are fueled by their hatred of the Soviet Union), but when they do, they often go to see Ronald MakgoHa^gc:

Sunrise over Plovdiv. I was the only one awake at this hour. And for the next several hours because apparently Bulgarians don't wake up until 8 or 9am, and my awesome Soviet-era fireproof overnight train arrived at 5:30am:

I woke up from a nap, the bus was coming to a stop. I said, slowly, and in that annoying phrasing that Americans use when they're trying to make people understand a language they don't speak: "Is airport?" Some people nodded. I got off the bus and this is what I saw:

That's a double rainbow people. Look closely. Let's love each other more starting now.

Wagamama

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you and can't believe you're 40 already.

More on Bulgaria

Two transport related incidents that left me feeling concerned in Bulgaria:

1. On the flight there I picked up a copy of Air Bulgaria's bilingual inflight magazine (aptly named "The Inflight Magazine"), where I noticed this letter to the editor:

In Inflight Magazine Issue 45 I was pleased to discover the photos and features in your magazine on master Peter Deunov, the Rila Mountain and the White Brotherhood. I'm glad that an editor... who works for such a prestigious magazine ... has decided to focus on what should be of concern to us all if we are to preserve our unique spiritual, cultural and historical heritage.

Best regards,
Andrei Griva - Chair of the Managing Committee of the White Brotherhood

2. The second anecdote occurred while waiting for my 11:04 (23:04 to the European Brotherhood) night train from Varna to Plovdiv. I was on the internet trying to figure out how much a ticket would cost (upgrade to 1st class = $3!; upgrade to sleeping cabin = $5!; upgrade to business class sleeping cabin = $2.50!). I googled something like "bulgaria overnight train" which led me to this charming article. But don't worry Mom, it happened forever ago -- all the way back at the end of February!

So before I went to sleep under my warm soviet wool blanket I practiced opening the window a few times. I also made the decision to sleep in the middle bunk in order to give me easiest access to the window. And I also sent myself an email noting that I was on the train so that my body could be quickly identified.

That's travel savvy.

Taking back the blog

So I left for a few days there, and it seems like the only people who noticed were spammers. Well I'm reclaiming my blog now spammers! Go waste your life making tedious and awkward comments on someone else's blog (my friend Brad Miller's blog is a good target as he seems to be on sabbatical -- the only thing he blogs about anymore is how he never blogs anymore.)

Onto a roundup of my recent journeys:

Cannes/Nice/Monte Carlo were pretty great. Nice weather, beautiful surroundings. Also prohibitively expensive and I was participating in the most exhausting conference on earth. But a little sunshine will get me through most hardships.

Apart from sun the other main theme of Southern France was: Russians. There were thousands of them in Cannes for the conference. I got one to admit she has wrestled a grizzly bear ("ok yes, but it was just a little one"). Russians are adorable.

My tour of Bulgaria (Sofia/Varna/Plovdiv) wrapped up yesterday. It was the furthest east I've ever been, and it was great because I had completely forgotten what the 1980s were like. Now I remember: there was lots of denim (even denim vests and black denim); there was lots of big hair; people put ketchup and mustard on their pizza; a pint of beer costed 30 cents; and I couldn't read. I'm not positive about the ketchup and mustard but everything else was such a throwback that if they were doing it in Bulgaria yesterday we must've been doing it in the States in the 80s.

As for not being able to read ... I was only temporarily illiterate because everything in Bulgaria is written in Cryllic. This made things difficult, because I can't look at a Cyrllic word and form a word with my mouth. The maps they give to the 5 tourists who visit Bulgaria during seasons other than summer give phonemic orthographies of the words (thanks Rick!), but since those pronunciations don't match street signs it didn't do me much good.

Things were extremely cheap there. Like cheaper than Mexico. And everyone was strangely lethargic. Yesterday in Plovdiv no one even bothered to wake up until 9am -- 3 and a half hours after I arrived in the city via the overnight train. As long as they have a steady supply of cigarettes they will not bother you.

I'll post some pics in the coming days.

Where in BFE is Bulgaria?

Oh, there it is.



Happy Easter! And Happy Easter Monday [holiday] for my friends in the UK.

I'm leaving you

Got to catch a train to Paris, a plane to Cannes, a train back to Paris, a train back to London, a plane to Sofia, and a plane back to London.

That shouldn't take me any longer than 14 days. But hey -- maybe I'll make a surprise post sometime in the middle! Or maybe I won't.

Good afternoon!

The day-after-birthday edition of er/uk woke up at 2pm.

My kin

Today the blog turns 1.

Remember the first post? It was adorable: http://er-uk.blogspot.com/2007/03/some-context-timeline-of-important.html

It's my birthday too but whatev.

Sibling rivalry

Leave it to my brother to take up an old hobby of mine, and ... do a much better job at it than I ever did (check out the photography credit and photo links).

Well done brother.

And to the rest of you -- never stop following your dreams or those of your older siblings. You are the world, you are the children: www.youtube.com/watch?v=36w-CyqCO1A&feature=bz302.

Never forget that.

Anniversary

I know I'm turning into my dad when I say things like: "Remember what we were doing/where we were x years ago today?"

So dad, this one's for you.

One year ago was my first full day in Londontown. I boarded an Air India flight in South Bend with 4 checked bags and 2 carry-ons last March 4. I'll not be flying Air India again but that's a different story. I arrived into Heathrow the next morning and took a $150 taxi ride to the Chelsea Cloisters in South Kensington. After a quick nap I came to work. At the time my colleague Oliver was the sole employee of our UK office. The office has since grown to 5 and we've moved to a bigger office; we're expanding and moving again in April. I moved from South Kensington to Angel and then most recently to Shoreditch. This blog's one year anniversary is coming up in a few days. It was a good year. Great year actually.

To summarize how you contributed, let's take a look at my guestbook:

With me
Anisa
Alan
Alex (2x)
Ashley
Ashok
Conor
Glenn
Julie
Kara
Lorraine
Matt
Nate
Nathan
Sang
Travis
Anyone else I missed who came to visit or at least stopped through for work or otherwise

Against me
Everyone else including most of my college friends
The Man

Don't let The Man keep you down.

A famous result

2-0 to the Arsenal. At the San Siro (AC Milan) where no English team has ever triumphed before. Makes me want to sing that really great Arsenal song:

Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal.
Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal.
Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal.
Arsenal.... ARSENAL!

Or that other great Arsenal song:

And it's Arsenal. Arsenal FC! We're by far the greatest team, the world has ever seen...
and it's Arsenal ... (repeat as necessary)

I don't like the second one as much because several other teams sing exactly the same tune but substitute their team's name. Which is ridiculous. While Arsenal actually have a claim to being the world's greatest team, depending on the day and form, Aston Villa clearly does not.

Biggie-sized super duper Tuesday

I'm going to make this the last day to vote on the above poll. If Barack can win either Ohio and Texas + the er/uk poll I reckon that's enough to get him the nomination.

Just think of all things he's done for you lately: www.barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com.

I need to invent something or break a record

Possible records to attempt breaking:

Fastest hand clapping: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNXElmEUIJo
Fastest stamping: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKlv-Ps-ug0
Fastest speed stacking: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNG3sgk02Lc

I was going to try for longest slam dunk, but my friend Brad has a head start on me. The fact that he can pass for Asian (in addition to numerous other nationalities) seems to give him a slight advantage.

As for inventing something, I would've redone the umbrella but apparently there are more patents for umbrellas than almost anything else.

Sunday

Much less eventful than Friday night/Saturday morning. Thankfully.

Bought some skinny jeans and splurged on a cardigan. Even writing the second-half of that sentence is difficult. 

One for the ages I think

I like for parties to be epic. But there's a limit. For example: I'd never choose to pass a kidney stone during the latter hours of my own party just for the story.

I think I expected about 30 people to show up for our flatwarming. I got to that number by adding up the number of people I know here and adding 25. My flatmate Annie made lots of food (I helped peel carrots and slice up cheese). Given our street, there were more pork-related canapes then you'd probably expect at a comparable party anywhere else. We devoted a room to Twister. We made other preparations. I wasn't worried about the venue. We have a great flat in a great area. I was only mildly worried about the music -- it's tough to find a soundtrack that graces American (hippity-hop, indie) and European (techno, electronica) sensibilities.

Things started well enough and by the time it hit midnight we had probably welcomed 50-60 people. The food was a success. Bacon-wrapped dates should be required party food. The water balloons were blessedly discarded outside at those foolish enough to kick a football around in the dark of our building's shared green. I was on the receiving end of one or two and returned the favo(u)r several times. At one point I threw one at someone standing in the doorway. Essentially I threw a water balloon into my own flat. Thankfully Maurice stayed in the way.

In hindsight maybe that flurry of activity jarred something loose. When I came back inside something didn't feel right. And no matter how much I tried to ignore it by chitchatting and distracting myself, it was a feeling I knew. Eventually I had to resign myself to my body's unbelievably poor timing and check into the bathroom for an indeterminate and painful stay on the floor. I foolishly chose the one with no lock, which meant that in addition to writhing away in the dirtiest of all places in the house -- the floor of the bathroom in and around the toilet -- I also had to keep my feet firmly planted on the door and battle party dwellers waiting for the loo, who could only assume that someone was doing something much more devious than surviving the male pain-equivalent to childbirth minus the subsequent joy and miracle of offspring.

Based on my prior experiences I didn't have much hope of rejoining the party -- I just hoped it would be over in several hours and not end up being one of those jaggedy type stones you see pictures of on the internet if you google that sort of thing, which can take weeks to pass.

But whether it was practice, determination or just luck that I emerged from one of my darkest struggles only an hour or two later I don't know. I passed out from the pain, and when I woke up I was fine, save for a little soreness. So I was back at the party until the last guest left at 6am. After that Annie and I wandered down to the Beigel Shop and indulged in a late night favorite, the Salted Beef Beigel, and a Saturday morning favorite, the Guardian Weekend Edition.

Good party. Below is a picture of the primary antagonist:

Coming in a close second was our upstairs Irish neighbo(u)r who took exception to our football banging into his car at 2:30am.