London
April 28, 2008
I took off, hurriedly, from the office at shortly past 11am on Friday. The plan was to pick up Lori, go for a quick lunch, and then drive to Stockholm/Arlanda airport, a 2.5 hour drive. The flight to London City Airport was to leave at 4:20, so we had time - but not loads of it. The drive went fine though,without much traffic surprisingly enough, but I guess we beat the Friday rush hour by just a tiny margin.
We made the BRILLIANT move of checking in online before we left and only taking carry-on luggage, so once we were at the terminal, there was no waiting in line whatsoever - which rocks. I hate airport lines. I hate the people in airport lines. They hate me back, I presume, and quite frankly, we’re all just best off if I don’t stand in them. Having lost my precious Star Alliance Gold membership, the one that lets me check in at the Business Class counter, online check-in and carry-on luggage is the next best thing. If not better.
After an uneventful flight, albeit it an hour delayed, we got on the short train to Tower Hill, which was just a short walk from the hotel where we stayed. While in transit between the airport and the hotel, we learned that Debi - Dakota-xx in the forums - had given me the wrong phone number to her cell phone, but the owner of the wrong number kindly texted me back, “U TEXTED WRONG NUMBER.” Met up with Debi and Joe (Debi’s husband, the one who held the camera in the above picture) in their hotel room, waited a short while for Tracy and Tenbob to show up, and then went to the hotel restaurant for a late dinner.
Now, my headache started when on the flight. It had been a long week, and I guess I was tired and had been slightly stressed during the day. I had to leave work in the middle of something (hurriedly trying to finish it before I left, but failed and had to very quickly improvise and leave instructions for some coworkers on how they could continue on what I didn’t have time to finish) and then worrying ever so slightly about the drive to the airport. Also, were out late on Thursday night and didn’t pack until we got home, so nagging feeling that I had forgotten something - which I had; camera, noise cancelling headphones and painkillers.
All-in-all, a fairly stressful day and it ended with me going 11 hours without eating or drinking, by the time we sat down for dinner. I guess it all caught up with me and I was simply exhausted and very nauseous as a result when food was finally served. I had one tiny bite of a pretty expensive chicken before making my excuses and going upstairs to crash in the bed. I made sure, while explaining that I had to call it a night, to point out that I wasn’t normally this quiet. Lori thought it was funny that I was fretting about the idea that people might mistake me for shy.
The next morning, Lori gets up at 7:30 and heads down for breakfast alone, while I sleep for another hour. Once I get down, there’s still no sight of the other four but I presumed they had hit the pubs after I went to bed (an assumption that, needless to say, was correct) and that they might not be all too energetic in the morning. We meet up, all of us now, Chris (Dorkus Malorkus), Irexes with wife (Anne) and the six of us already there, outside of the hotel at about 11:30am and the weather was BEAUTIFUL! Perfect day, about 20 degrees centigrade, barely a cloud on the sky, and we head off to a nearby pub for lunch.
Lunch is over with pretty quickly, and as quickly, I discover that in terms of meeting relative strangers that I’ve so far only known through text-only communication online, I had hit the jackpot. These were all nice people, funny and relaxed to be around with. Having met online acquaintances in real-life before, I know that this is not something you can really expect, much less a group as fun to be around as this one.
While the three present moderators (Dorkus Malorkus, Rex and Dakota) take my suggestion of randomly banning someone under consideration (I suggested Lo-Dog) just because they could, we headed out of the pub and walked across the street to the Tower of London. The guided tour took about an hour, and we spent about another hour strolling around and checking out the crown jewels and the armory, before we felt the ever-so-familiar sensory overload that inevitably comes when you’re spending time in a museum looking at too many old things at once. I had an acute case of it in the Vatican museums; this was not quite as bad but it was getting there. There are only so many swords, pikes, cannons and full plate armors that I can look at before I get a bit weary.
Once outside, we circled up and stood silent for a few moments, all of us waiting for someone else to suggest what to do next.
Tenbob said the immortal words.
“Go for a pint, then?”
…
We headed for Covent Garden later in the afternoon, with the basic idea of strolling around and eventually find a place to have dinner. The restaurant we settled for (sort of randomly, what else) ended up being quite possibly the restaurant with the weirdest decor I’ve seen. And I’ve travelled to a lot of countries and seen a lot of places. The principle design idea, as far as we could gather, was “opera,” complete with velvet curtains and small balconies, musical instruments books and vases lining the walls and niches, colorful paintings lining the walls, and… Well, there was apparently very explicit paintings in the women’s bathroom. Lori took pictures using my cell phone, but they didn’t turn out that great so the details are kinda lost. I’ll see about posting them later.
After seeing Chris off (he had to make a train back home), we made a stop at a pub near Leicester Square that had the benefit of eight seats available next to each other, but the drawback of very loud music. Now, for a personal reflection.
I’m a decent English speaker. I’ve always been pretty good at languages, but living with an American woman for five years - and we only speak English to each other - has propelled me from “okay” to “could probably pass for an American if not put under very intense scrutiny.” But there’s something to be said about that, and it’s this: I can speak fluently, because I can choose which words I want to use. I don’t have anywhere near the vocabulary of a native speaker, and definitely not instantly accessible to me. If I’m reading a text, there are very few words that I don’t know what they mean, but reading them and hearing them are a different matter, especially when they’re delivered at a fast-paced conversational speed. Still, I have virtually no problems understanding and participating in a conversation - with Americans.
And so I want to apologize to the gang that participated. I spent a decent amount of the night smiling and nodding, not particularly following what was going on. I wasn’t really sure what the proper etiquette would be, but I figured that,
a) I don’t want to have to ask Tenbob to repeat everything he said three times just for my sake, when he’s in the middle of a story and everyone else is following and enjoying it, and
b) I don’t want to sit with a blank stare on my face, because that might lead others to think I was uninterested or in a bad mood.
So I smiled and nodded. Laughed at times where it seemed appropriate. And desperately tried to keep up with the conversation. That must have made me seem weird at several times during the evening, especially when I notice that I’m suddenly addressed and expected to react to something. I smiled and nodded and secretly crossed my fingers for that to be an appropriate response and that I wasn’t just asked how often I had been to England before.
We left the noisy bar after a couple of rounds and headed back to the hotel bar, which would allow people to drop off in case they got tired (at least two of us weren’t feeling great) without having to get on the underground by themselves on a Saturday night. Sitting in the hotel bar until it closed, and a little while still after that, we talked, laughed, and laughed some more.
I won’t give you samples of the conversation (but go ahead and assume we were talking about you), except for two parts:
1. We toasted to not being professional poker players and staying that way, and
2. We decided to make it an annual event.
I don’t know how big my chances of getting there next year will be, given that I’ll hopefully be the proud father of a 6 month old by then, but if there’s a way, I’ll try to find it.
So, to Debi, Joe, Liam, Tracy, Chris, Paul and Anne: Thanks for coming to meet us! I had a blast and can’t wait to do it again. This time, I’ll perhaps try to watch some Irish movies without subtitling to see if that’ll prime me for more than just smiling and nodding.
/FP
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