My head is kind of stuffed up and I'm really tired. My eyes hurt. My throat feels restricted. My mouth is dry and my lips are chappy. None of this inspires me to blog my heart out today. I think I might even have a heart condition. My heart is too big. I love too much.
LO
VE,
er/uk
One thing that usually keeps me from eating a decent breakfast is time. The other is convenience. Both appear to be solved by my as-of-this-Saturday-at-15.00 occupation of my new flat on Bacon Street, off Brick Lane.
On my way to work I'll not be able to bypass the Brick Lane Beigel Bakery.
This isn't what you'd expect from a bagel purchased in the States -- add it to the long list of seemingly essential comfort foods that the English and greater Continental neighbo(u)rs manage only to interpret (hamburgers, pizza) -- but they're still fresh-baked and delicious. I think I'll eat one every morning.
(Gibraltar/Granada/Malaga)
Dear diary,
Good trip. Highlights were:
1. Standing on the top of the Rock of Gibraltar and seeing Morocco and Spain, the Atlantic, the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. And a monkey.
2. Fending off said monkey from an attempted burgle of my backpack. Monkeys might be cute but they are also shameless thieves.
3. Discovering that Gibraltar is some sort of bizarre tax haven so most of its inhabitants are poker players. And that it's the Tijuana of La Linea (Spain) in that everyone stumbles over the border each weekend for the cheap tax-free booze and shopping.
4. Granada. The city is fantastic. If you're going to Spain your itinerary should be San Sebastian (which I haven't been to yet), Barcelona, Granada, Sevilla. I could see the snow covered mountains of the Sierra Nevadas from the Alhambra, which is the coolest castle ever. Also saw gypsy Flamenco one night. In a cave.
5. Turkish massage in El Hammam in Malaga. I've always been a fan of hot water and steam. It's just a hobby I guess. I paid for a 15 minute massage and it lasted for 70. I'll forget about the part where my backside was on display for the people wandering past.
Bad trip. Forgettables were:
1. Mild weather. It never got above 19 degrees. Celsius. And I'm still no good at the conversion. It was far superior to London of late, but I had hoped for sweating of the 22-30 degree kind.
2. Sleeping arrangements. The question is always going to be whether I should overpay for a private hotel room or overpay for a 12 bed hostel. I'll still take the hostel for now since it probably means free internet and maybe a piece of toast in the morning. And the characters found in these places have tons of potential. One guy told me that Granada is superior to Sevilla because of the food and because the people there are more diverse (they aren't all Korean). At this point I realized he was evaluating the city based only on the hostel. He chose to stay in that evening.
3. My return flight from Malaga. British Airways: you failed me. I paid extra for what I thought was a reliable flight and you delayed me by 3 hours and returned me into London's periphery at 2am, from where I was forced to wait for a night bus, which connected to another night bus, which connected to me walking in the cold for the last mile.
4. Mi espanish is no bueno. Pretty Spanish girls insisted on talking to me even though I could only respond with one word answers or at the best a non-conjugated verb. Usually in combination with a grunt or two and maybe some hand signals.
5. Me kind of having a sore throat now. I think it's because I went through 3 seasons this weekend.
I had the following problems:
1. Cold.
2. Homeless.
3. Pale.
4. Monolingual.
So I booked a trip to Spain for the weekend. Gibraltar on Friday (a.k.a. Today, and ok yeah that's technically still the UK), Granada on Saturday, Malaga on Sunday.
Gibberish, by the way, comes from the special blend of English and Spanish spoken by the residents of Gibraltar.
Back on Tuesday.
Oh and I forgot to wish my nephew Jeremy Happy Birthday yesterday. He turned the big 3-point-0. Happy Birthday J-Dog.
As I mentioned yesterday, I think I found a flat. And I'm more excited about it than I made it sound.
Why?
Location.Location.Location.
It's at the top of Brick Lane, the bottom of which is full of Indian/Bengali curry houses. As you head north you escape delicious and affordable curry and arrive at coffee houses, a Swedish diner and apparently London's best "Beigal" shop. Then there's my place. Keep heading north and you'll get to Bethnal Green Road and Shoreditch, which is a Brooklyn-ey area where all the cool kids hang out. Lots of good food and music and ... pretty girls.
If you go in a different direction from the flat you'll walk through Spitalfields market, which is a classic English market surrounded by boutique stores and great breakfast and brunch spots. Keep walking and you're in the City, which is where I work. So I can walk to work in 20 minutes. Or bike in 10. Or skateboard in 30 (it would actually take me longer because I don't know how to do it).
Hopefully moving in next Sunday and I've got plenty of room for houseguests, announced or otherwise.
There's a giant picture of Bruce Lee on the wall that comes with the place.
First a recession and now this: Arsenal's 9 year dominance of Tottenham came to an embarrassing but temporary end last night.
Berbatov didn't score. If he would've I'd have been a little worried that some of my charm and good luck wore off on him. And to those who were wondering -- that conversation from the earlier blog was 100% true and transcripted verbatim. In hindsight I should've probably injured him somehow.
Whatever.
I think I found a flat. Woo.
This is interesting: www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza
Makes sense, and I dig these kinds of socio-economical analyses a la Freakonomics. Anyone read it?
African Cup of Nations kicked off this past weekend. I've got a plate of noodles bet on one of Ivory Coast, Mali or Sudan winning.
Hopefully this is on the tele in the States. If you're not a big soccer/football fan, this may be the tournament that finally wins you over. Wide open, attacking style, poor defending, shiny shoes, brightly colored jerseys, drums, some corruption but not nearly as much as the Cricket World Cup or NBA.
Give it a chance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Cup_Of_Nations.
Go on Sudan!
Last night I went to Mahiki, which is a chic West End club that the Princes frequent. To get in on a weekend, all you have to do is spend a minimum 500 squids on the night.
While there I ran into Dimitar Berbatov. Here is the conversation that ensued:
Eric: ...last week I went to this Bulgarian club in New York. There were lasers.
Dimitar Berbatov: Why are you telling me this?
Eric: You're Bulgarian, right?
Dimitar Berbatov: Yes. How do you know that?
Eric: You're Berbatov.
Eric walks away.
My brother crushed my high score in TravelerIQ no less than 3 times this weekend. So he's either smarter or has better hand/eye coordination or just memorized the big cities in Russia, China and India.
Here's another fun geography test. It's called "How many countries can you name in five minutes?" The name pretty much explains it.
Hi Super Nintendo Chalmers! I'm learning.
Delightful, stunning, modern, superb, lovely, stylish, chic, neutral, bright, spacious, well proportioned, unique, secure, residential.
Converted warehouse, riverside location, off street parking, shared garden, communal rooftop deck, integrated kitchen, gym, sauna, jacuzzi, private patio.
My flat fell through last minute. I'm coming to a couch near you.
It's happened to all of us -- you're on the Tube heading to the west end for a meeting, you pick up a discarded newspaper, start reading the movie reviews and a little snippet catches your eye. And that snippet includes the phrases "great film", "beautifully shot", "the opening scene is arguably the single most remarkable shot of the year", "filmed in the North Mexican Mennonite community", "all actors are Mennonites" and "the language is Low German".
And then in the afternoon when you have some free time you remember to look it up and find the movie's website: www.silent-light.co.uk.
It's definitely legit -- won the Jury Prize at Cannes last year -- and there's tons of randomness on Mennonites including some anecdotes from the head of the London Mennonite Centre.
It's playing in London; I might have to go check it out given my recent movie-watching binge and love of all things Mennonite.
Be sure to read some of the reviews and watch the trailer.
When I was in New York someone told me I look like Adrian Brody. I'll add that to my celeb lookalike list, which currently includes:
1. "a young" Harry Connick Jr.
2. "a young" Christopher Walken
3. Steve McManaman
4. Richard Ashcroft
5. Matthew McConaughey
6. Bob Dylan
I was once backstage at a G. Love concert and someone was positive I was his drummer. When I was on Spring Break I told a girl I was John Mayer and my friend Mark Miller was my lead guitarist. Mind you -- this is before anyone else knew John Mayer. They believed us, and probably still think they met John Mayer and his lead guitarist.
My friend Brad Miller is a dead ringer for Chris Kattan. This has been refuted by Brad.
My friend Brad Hoffman claims to be a dead ringer for Hugh Jackman. This has been refuted many people.
In the three weeks since I left town, I completely forgot what it was like to live in London. And it actually didn't feel like I lived here at all when I was wandering the streets of Goshen, New York or Charlottesville, respectively. Or Chicago or Philadelphia. Or Goshen again. Respectively.
But now that I'm back it seems like I still belong. Except that I don't have a flat -- which is something I didn't really think about all too much until I was on the plane back. I got off the plane, rushed through immigration/customs, grabbed my checked luggage, jumped on the Heathrow Express, rode back into town and... realized I didn't know where I was going because I didn't have anywhere to go.
So I came to the office.
I oftentimes dress like one, but this week I'm really a hobo. Or pikie. Brad Miller once wrote a Top 20 Things To Love About Gypsies list. People thought it was generally very funny unless they were from anywhere in Europe, in which case they were just offended.
Hello friends.
So "yesterday" I wrapped up last year from a blogging perspective (221 blogs in 2007). "Today" I'll highlight some other 2007 stats and also take a look at your performance as readers.
I've been asked a few times over the past weeks whether I got to travel much outside of London. Loyal readers of my blog know that I did quite a lot, but I was still interested in running some stats.
Here's my 2007 geographic chronology:
Charlottesville Pasadena San Diego Tijuana Charlottesville New York Charlottesville Goshen London Edinburgh London Dublin London Reading London Valencia London Charlottesville Harrisonburg London Bath London Faro Lagos lbufeira London Madrid London Amsterdam London Charlottesville London Frankfurt London Athens London Dorset London Salzburg Munich Salzburg London Genoa Cinque Terra Florence Siena Rome London Rotterdam London Paris Geneva London Copenhagen Dublin Galway Derry Belfast London Amsterdam Aalsmeer Zeist Utrecht London Paris Deauville Trouville London Goshen South Bend Chicago Goshen New York
That's a total of 14 countries (US, Mexico, UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland, Denmark). I took approximately 50 flights. I rode the train 20 times. I learned karate.
And here's how you did:
er/uk site statistics:
