Shopping and Stuff

You know, when I generally go on London, I don’t have things planned for every day. It’s pretty much whatever I feel like doing. Because, y’know, it’s VACATION.

For various reasons, this trip has been a bit different. I have a lot prebooked and what isn’t booked is planned. Today was the one day I didn’t really have anything booked for – which meant that today DID have a plan: see two plays and buy stuff.

I also let myself sleep in. (Hell, I had a 7:50 train out to Salisbury yesterday morning, so I figured I deserved a bit of an oversleep.) Oh, also: not using the alarm clock. (That was a waste of eight pounds.) Had a little talk with my cell phone which basically involved me forcing it into GMT (and TELLING it what time it was – had to reset the date, too – for some reason, it thought it was 1970 – which is really odd as that’s about 40 years before the phone ever existed.) ANYWAY, cell phone alarm is back on the job, but I slept in till 10.

Enjoyed my free breakfast... Normally, I just grab a yogurt or something, but I ended up booking a hotel room with breakfast included. (There’s a story to that too. Here’s the short version: found a good rate on Orbitz; the hotel does price-matching (actually price-BEATING); so they gave me the same rate, a discount, and a free upgrade. Now, the Orbitz rate happened to include breakfast, so I’ve basically got an amazing deal at a really spiffy hotel AND they feed me. Score!

So, enjoyed my breakfast and went off to the half price ticket booth. I had about 4 shows in mind, and two of them were conveniently available. That’s matinee and evening sorted, then. Had about an hour and half to shop, so I ran over to Covent Garden/Jubilee Market (various handmade crafts and stuff) and, in fairly short order, picked up items for two friends, myself, and my boss. This is very good news – there are only three other gifts I have to get, and I’ve already planned where and when I’ll be getting two of them. (See? Everything is preplanned.)

Ran to the matinee. Very nearly literally. At 2:00, I was in the Covent Garden tube station, and figured it’d take ten minutes (or less) to get back to my hotel, leaving me time to dump all these gifts (one was quite heavy) and maybe take a bathroom break before going to the theatre (walking distance from my hotel) for the 2:30 curtain. Had totally underestimated the crowds at the Covent Garden tube station – took ten minutes just to get down to the damn trains. Jogged to the hotel, opened my room, threw the bag in, closed the door. Very nearly got back in the same elevator. Left the hotel about 10 minutes before curtain with a (hopefully-accurate) mental map of how to get to the theatre – I knew what streets to take, but didn’t quite know how long it would take me. I actually handed my ticket to the usher with about 3 minutes to spare. Very close.

That was a revival of “Blithe Spirit,” and it was quite fun. After the show, I went to a nice little restaurant for some hearty British Grub (steak and mushroom pie – mmmm). Had a leisurely meal, and then walked to the other theatre for my evening show, a musical called “Shoes.”

You know, there are some shows that you think might have been written because of a bar bet. “Shoes” is one of those shows. Somewhere along the line, someone must have said, “Oh yeah? I bet you can’t make a musical about shoes!” It’s basically a dance show (my sister would love it) although there are a few people singing to back up all that dance. And one guy who keeps coming in singing shoe metaphors. Like, “If you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes....” and you think, where is this going? He repeats, “If you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes....” OK, I figure there’s a joke here, but I can’t get to it fast enough. “If you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes … then you’re probably a thief.” That sort of snark pervaded the show. It didn’t take itself seriously – except when it was taking itself TOO seriously, for comic effect. Really enjoyable.

Leaving the theatre, it started to rain. Of course, I had left both rainhat and umbrella in the hotel. Figures. So, I got a bit rained on. Ah well.

Best get to bed now. Plans start early tomorrow. :)

Stonehenge

Hotel charges 10p a MINUTE for internet access (there’s a per day maximum, thank goodness). But this means that I’m back to typing the journal entry before hopping online real quick to post. And it also means you don’t get the awesome Stonehenge pictures until I get back.

And, yes, they are truly awesome. Largely because, for quite a few minutes today, I was the Only Human Being standing inside the stone circle. (I momentarily considered spinning round like Julie Andrews – but although I was the only person in the stone circle, there were some folks watching from outside.)

See, if you plan in advance with the nice people in the English Heritage office, and give them a not-at-all excessive amount of money, you can get “Stone Circle Access” in a group not to exceed 26 people. Either just before, or just after, public viewing closes. (And in public viewing, you’re stuck on the footpath outside the circle, and can’t get near the stones.)

So, I booked for this afternoon at 4:30, hired a driver to pick me up from the Salisbury train station that morning, tour me all around the area, and take me to Stonehenge. When we pulled into the lot at Stonehenge, the security guy leaned in my car window and said, “You must be [my full name here].”

I was surprised at the personal identification. This was later explained when I learned, at about 4:27, that the bookings for Stone Circle Access this afternoon consisted of me and a tour group – so the solo traveller was pretty easy to spot. And then he said, “The group isn’t here yet, but I could let you up by yourself now, if you’d like.”

Um, yes, please. I’d very much like.

And that was pretty much it. Walked up the path, and when I got to the point where the path comes closest to the Circle, another security dude had pulled aside the rope and said, “Welcome.”

There followed about 10 minutes of me silently wandering around the stones. Now, the last time I’d gone to Stonehenge, I was on that outer path with several hundred other folks, and I’d wanted to try to, y’know, RELATE to the stones, which was hard to do with all the talking around me, so I’d cranked up the music on my Walkman (really, YEARS ago) and tried to tune out the others while having my own personal moment with the several-thousand-year-old monument.

This time, the only sound was the wind whipping round (and through) the stones. It was actually pretty noisy, but it seemed fitting. So, I took my time walking around – I could get as close to the stones as I wanted, but had promised not to touch. Security was very cool about this – I came very very close to touching the stones (generally to line up a photo), and nobody shouted out a warning or anything.

So – did I “hear” anything? Did I feel the magnetic pull? Did I (as my driver asked) get beamed up? No. I gotta say, there was no real spiritual connection here. Perhaps it was just the effect of the wind and the overcast sky, but the real feeling I got from the place was that it was a cold and dead shell – as though whatever spirits might’ve inhabited the place have long since died or fled, leaving this empty place behind.

(Come to think of it, I guess that’s something. I mean, I didn’t think, “Just a bunch of stones.”)

The group eventually arrived, with their tour guide. I decided to make a point of keeping my distance from them, so they didn’t think I was trying to “free ride” off their guide when I hadn’t paid for their group. So, I put in my earphones, cranked up my mp3 player …

… and the Rolling Stones come blasting on. (“Sympathy for the Devil.”) Now, there may be something more inappropriate for Stonehenge, but Mick Jagger was high enough on the inappropriate list that I started laughing, and quickly paged through my “album” list to find something that seemed a better fit.

(And thank you, Michael Flatley. For some reason, I had the soundtrack of “Lord of the Dance” with me. Starts with a number called “Cry of the Celts,” which was whole orders of magnitude better for the moment.)

I did shoot a ton of photos. I started going for some unusual angles, figuring that I might as well take advantage of my location, but I realized, pretty early on, that there is probably not an angle on Stonehenge that nobody has shot before. At one point, one of the nice security guys came in and offered to take a pic of me in front of the stones, so I do, in fact, have photographic evidence of my presence inside the Stone Circle. (I also got what I’d thought was a reasonably decent shot of the sun breaking through the clouds in the background – until Security Guy told me that yesterday they’d had an actual SUNSET, and when that happens, it apparently lines up really cool with the stones.) Still, it was pretty darned impressive just being there.

The rest of the day was spent travelling. A lot. We started off in Bath, and came back stopping at … oh hell, let’s just say about 8 different locations along the way. Some medieval stuff and some neolithic stuff. Actually, quite dug the neolithic stuff. There was an excavated burial mound which we could walk into. (It was on top of a little hill – about a ten minute hike to get to the top. I put on my mp3 player for that and it immediately clicked on U2 singing the lyric, “It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain, as you start out the climb...” Sometimes, it just knows.) Inside, I could see stones piled in the same unique way stones were piled in those Stone Age sites I’d seen in Ireland. Apparently, Stone Age Tech was fairly uniform. There was also a small museum (in Avebury) displaying relics (and bones – animal and human) they’d dug up around there. Totally dug the artifacts. I mean, stone age TOOLS – the way these people modified the limited stuff they had (wood, stones, and animal bones, mostly) to be able to use it – to build, to cook, to even DECORATE. That’s astonishing to me. I mean, I think about life in the stone age as being incredibly harsh and difficult – but the fact that people living then made the effort to make utilitarian things PRETTY is just terrific.

Vacation!

Well, it’s been quite the day. And a half. Or two. I sort of lost count.

Actually, although I didn’ t know it at the time, the story begins on Tuesday night, when I was packing. And since I generally procrastinate packing, it was LATE Tuesday night. I made a list, put all the items from the list into packing cubes and folders, and put them all in a suitcase.

Er... not all. They wouldn’t all fit.

Now, I was planning on taking my red suitcase, and putting everything else in my matching red rolling duffel carryon. But it would have been AWFULLY tight. I’d have to wear the wool coat, and there wouldn’t be any room for souvenirs. Or, I could go back in all of the cubes and folders and take LESS stuff. Or I could just take another suitcase. (I have a green one that matches the red one.)

Checked online. Am flying Business Class (yay for points!) and I’m allowed three free checked bags. Fine. Let’s use two of them. It’s after midnight and I don’t want to repack. (I’ve course, I’ve only got two hands, so I have to switch to a backpack for the carryon. But since I’ve got tons of space in the two checked bags, this isn’t a problem.) I throw a few cubes in the green suitcase, and I’m done with it.

I do not pack my travel alarm clock. I’d brought it last time and ended up not using it, since I could use the alarm on my cell phone. So, yes, even though the travel alarm clock takes up, like, no space, I did not bring it.

So, Wednesday morning, get on plane at LAX. Connect at JFK. Arrive at Heathrow the next morning 12 hours later. I’m pretty sure I missed a night’s sleep somewhere in there, but, hey, whatever. London! Yay!!

Go through Passport Control. Go to baggage claim. Green bag is waiting for me.

You see where this is going? I certainly did.

At this point, I considered the contents of the bags. My “bathroom bag” is in the green bag. That’s a plus. So is my wool coat. Another plus. Jeans are in the other bag. So is underwear. Dawns on me that, in future, when taking two bags, it might be a good idea to more EVENLY split up the contents.

The nice people at the desk inform me that my red bag didn’t even make it on the plane in L.A. They put it on the next flight – a direct flight to Heathrow which should arrive at 12:45. It was noon at this point, and I didn’t really have to be anywhere. (Had a masssage appointment at 4, but that was about it.) I decide to wait.

The plane didn’t land until closer to 1:00. The bags didn’t start coming off until about 1:15. My bag was pretty much mid-pack. I get it, and finally get to clear customs and make my way out of Heathrow.

There’s free WiFi on the train out of Heathrow. I crank it up on my phone and check my email. Something odd is going on. My phone, using Wi-Fi and GPS, knows I’m in London. It really does. It even shows my location on the train track in Google maps. But, at the same time, it doesn’t know I’m in London. It thinks I’m in … I don’t know where the hell it thinks I am. It thinks the time is about 4 hours and 20 minutes off. I could understand five hours – it would be thinking I’m still on New York time. But this 20 minutes thing is just bizarre. I don’t know any time zone that has that current time.

(The time zones in my Google calendar app? They’re still in New York time.)

Make a mental note (which, with jet lag, is always a dodgy proposition) to buy an alarm clock in London. This is what I get for not packing my travel alarm, dammit.

Arrive at my central London hotel at 2:00 – I realize I have about an hour before I have to leave and find this massage establishment, assuming I want to take a shower before the massage. And, I mean, I do. I’ve been travelling and it’s only polite. So I quickly remove the cubes and folders from my bags, and put on a change of clothes. I am surprised to discover a “Hello, we pawed through your stuff” card from the TSA in the GREEN bag – that is, the bag that actually made the flight.

Shortly after 3:00, I make my way out of the hotel and hunt down the massage establishment in question. I’d been checking UK Groupon for months until I found one for a massage that I could use (ideally, one that didn’t require a mobile phone number for booking, as I don’t have a British mobile phone). I finally found and booked this one. So, I show up at the spa for my (pre-paid, inexpensive) massage.

You were going to get a whole journal article on the very interesting ways in which Ling beat me up. Also bent me into a variety of positions during the massage. Seriously. Not just “face down” and “flip over,” but “lean on your right side” and “put this leg over here.” I sum up: she moved my body around so much EXTERNALLY, it got things moving INTERNALLY so much that I, er, had to pass gas right there on the table. Twice.

From there, I stopped by a shop to pick up a damn travel alarm clock, got some cash for my travels tomorrow, and (and, again, I condense what was a very long story) wander the streets of London for about an hour while (a) killing time before meeting a friend for dinner; and (b) vainly looking for an internet cafe. I was actually supposed to meet the friend at a cupcake shop, but the shop was closed. Turned out ok, though, as the shop was rather near a restaurant I quite like, and I hadn’t eaten since the flight to Heathrow, so a real meal was definitely welcome. Friend quite liked the restaurant too. I was very pleased to (a) see the friend; (b) get a meal; and (c) actually introduce a local to a good place she’d never eaten at.

Which brings us, more or less, to now. Am nicely ensconced back in my hotel room. (With new alarm clock.) It’s just going on 11:00 now, and I’m pleased I managed to stay awake this late without totally falling apart. (I’ve been very careful on stairs tonight, as, with this state of tiredness, I’ve felt like I might put a foot wrong with unpleasant consequences.) There’s quite a bit of stuff I feel like I should be doing now, but I’m pretty much going to just do a quick weather check, lay out some clothes for tomorrow, and deal with any emails that absolutely cannot wait another day.

Night all.

(In London! Yay!!!)

Boo! Yay! Boo!

I have two DVD players in my living room.

One is the code free DVD player, which I use to play British DVDs.

The other is a DVD-recorder.  (Add some dubbing cables and do the math.)

The other day I had a friend over, and we wanted to watch a British DVD.  But my code free DVD player was dead.  Dead in the "wouldn't turn on" sense.  Completely and utterly crapped out.  Dead.  Dead.  Dead.

I did a bit of research into new ones.  They aren't that pricey, so no big deal.  Didn't order one yet.

We watched an American DVD on the DVD-recorder (which, y'know, can also play.)


She came over again tonight.  We planned to watch the next episode of the American DVD.  Plopped it in the DVD recorder.  Cranked it up.


Six minutes and forty-eight seconds in, the picture froze.  Wouldn't fast forward.  Wouldn't rewind.  Wouldn't stop.  Wouldn't eject.  Wouldn't power off.


I pulled the plug.


I replugged the plug.


Wouldn't power on.


WOULDN'T.  POWER.  ON.


Two DVD players just died on me within the space of a week or so.  Weird.  Wondered if maybe there wasn't something wrong with the power strip.  Tried plugging it in another outlet on the power strip.  For good measure, I tried plugging the code free in another outlet on the power strip.


The code free went on.  Cheerfully.


The DVD recorder would not get out of standby mode.  Nor would it give me my DVD back.


We changed plans and started watching a British DVD on the code free, while I sat on the couch with the DVD recorder, four screwdrivers and a pair of pliers, attempting to free the DVD.  (It wasn't very long into the process that I stopped trying to save the DVD Recorder.  It was a refurb purchased several years ago.  That I got this much use out of it was pretty incredible.  I'm now strictly on a rescue mission for the DVD.)


The technical terms of what went wrong are beyond me, but things were quite unseated in there.  Once I got the DVD out of it, I still had to push and pull (and break) various parts in order to get the tray to glide in and out when forced.  That thing was broke but good.


So, the code free which I thought was broken is now working perfectly.  Replacing the DVD recorder, however, will cost about five times as much.

And speaking of boobs....

(Were we speaking of boobs?)

I just read a random message board post from someone asking if it's ever appropriate (say, in a workplace situation) to compliment a woman on her chest.

Now, the kneejerk reaction here is "no."  (And to knee the jerk...)

And yet.

I was instantly reminded of 1992.  I was clerking for a judge.  Sharing an office (in the judge's chambers) with my co-clerk, Mike.

So, one day, I was sitting my office wearing a sweet Laura Ashley dress. It was a pretty conservative style, but the bodice was kinda tights.  So, here's me, talking with Mike.  I lean back in my chair for a nice stretch and a button on the top of my dress just flies right off, revealing my bra.  I'm mortified.  (And hoping like hell the judge doesn't come in.)  It was one of those dresses that conveniently came with spare buttons tucked into the hem, so I begged a needle and thread off the judge's secretary and got to mending.  Meantime, I haven't said anything to Mike and I couldn't meet his eyes.  Clearly, there's tension in the room and I have no idea how to regain my dignity.  And then he says...

"Nice hooters."

Totally cracked me up.  While in any other situation, it would have been a very wrong thing to say, in this particular situation, it was absolutely the perfect call.  

Just goes to show, there's a time and place for everything.

Tech is Driving Me Crazy

Man, if I end up where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there, it'll be a freakin' miracle.

When I last travelled, I discovered something kind of annoying about Google Calendars -- it wants to be really helpful in a not very good way.  Basically, it adjusts for time zone changes based on where you happen to be.


This is all kinds of stupid.  If I'm going to be in England, and I'm seeing a play at 7:00, I'd like to just put the damn thing in my calendar for 7:00 on the day I'm going to be there.  I'll know I'm on GMT when I'm there, so no real adjustments are necessary.


I didn't realize how helpful Google calendar was, though.  So, I'd put the play in there for 7:00 and by the time I was in England, the Google calendar app on my phone figured, "hey, she put this in there for 7:00 when she was in L.A., so that was 7:00 Pacific Time -- since she's in England now, we've got to shift it 8 hours.  7:00 p.m. Pacific Time is 3:00 a.m. the next morning GMT, so I'll tell her that's when the play is."  Imagine my surprise when I show up in England and have to mentally kick everything back 8 hours to the time I originally set it.


So, this time, I decided to outsmart it.  I discovered that there's a little time zone button I can use when setting events.  So, when I'm typing in my plays for England, I tell Google Calendar that they start at 7:00 p.m. GMT.  They now show up in my calender at 11:00 a.m. -- because I'm in the Pacific zone now -- so I'm pretty darned sure the event will self-correct to 7:00 p.m. when I'm actually in GMT.


Here's the problem:  Daylight Savings kicks in when I'm in England.  Well, no.  American daylight savings kicks in when I'm in England; British Daylight Savings won't kick in for another couple of weeks.  Things seem ok for events happening before this switch occurs, but after ...  what Google Calendar is doing is sorta making my brain explode.


I'm seeing a play at 7:00 p.m. British time post-American switch to GMT.  Like a good little girl, I type that in at 7:00 p.m. GMT.  And it pops up on my screen as noon Pacific.  I open up the event details, and the event details say I have set it for 8:00 GMT.  I edit event details and say, "No, I said 7:00 GMT."  It accepts the change, but when I open the event, it comes up as 8:00 GMT again.


Now, in Google Calendar's convoluted brain, this may be correct.  Because on that day, Pacific Time and GMT will only be 7 hours apart, rather than 8.  So my calendar puts it at noon Pacific, and I guess I just have to hope that when its little brain hits the DST changeover, it'll take care of this.


(It's weird because the DST changeover is automatic for everything in the U.S.  If I'm doing something in California at 4:00 in a couple weeks, it correctly keeps it at 4:00.  It doesn't think, "oh, 4:00 then is 3:00 now, so I should put it at 3:00."  It only makes this adjustment when events are in time zones without DST.)

So, basically, to get it to tell me that I'm seeing something at 7:00 in England, I have to tell it I'm seeing it at 7:00 -- it "corrects" it to 8:00, and I have to hope it will adjust it back.


Theoretically, this should work.  But I have such little faith in its ability to handle this correctly, I'm printing everything out so I'll have actual hard copy evidence of the times in question.


Really.  This would have been so much easier if I could just type in "7:00 dammit, I'll know where I am."

Final Day: Food in a Box

(Aside to Wil:  Don't boys always try to sneak a peek at the girls?)

My FreshDiet delivery has never been so confusing.

Because they allow you to identify an unlimited number of things you won't eat, I've eaten everything they've sent me.  (With the exception of a couple of misdelivered onion slices and cherry tomatoes.)

Last night's delivery, though ... I have issues.

Breakfast is toasted granola with honey almond ricotta cheese.  Like most of their sauces, the ricotta comes in an itty bitty little dressing container.  Like some of their breakfasts (quantity does tend to vary), I've got a huge box of granola.  Way more than there is ricotta for.  Think of an ocean of granola with a ricotta sailboat on it.

I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to add my own milk.  Freshdiet is full service.  If there was supposed to be milk eaten with this granola, it would've come in its own (tiny, I'm sure) container.

I've googled the concept of eating granola dry.  It appears possible, although generally it takes breakfast bar form.  I'm confused, but I'll give it a go.

Lunch is ... OK, here's the thing.  When setting up my dislikes list, I confirmed that I do, indeed, like "tuna."  Of course, I was envisioning a pouch of Starkist.  When they say "tuna," they're envisioning a seared ahi filet.  I'm good with tuna; I'm not good with seared.  (Some years ago, there was a very unfortunate incident with a seared salmon filet, which ended with me driving the ol' porcelain bus.  Since then, I eat all my fish cooked all the way through.)  Now, fresh diet sent me some seared tuna earlier, but it was three tiny pieces in my afternoon snack.  I microwaved it until it was cooked through.  Slightly rubbery, but edible in small quantities.  Today's lunch is a salad -- the only protein on which is some seared (cajun) tuna slices.  I'll try nuking them into submission, but I question the tastiness of said prospect.  (And "cajun" is also a turn-off word for me, although previous cajun items from fresh diet have been remarkably tasteless.)

Dinner is good. (Pork loin with snow peas and sauteed mushrooms.)  

Which brings us to dessert.  Freshdiet encloses a menu with your food -- lets you know what you're getting and how long at which you should reheat various items.  It lists my dessert as "Pistachio crusted chocolate dipped figs."  I am confused by this.  There is no way I would have selected said item -- I would have taken a tiny cookie first.  There is also no way they'd send me said item, as both pistachios and figs are on my "dislikes" list.  I'm pretty peeved about this.  It's my very last food delivery from freshdiet and they screwed up the dessert.  

And then I opened the bag, and saw a little container labelled "chocolate-dipped strawberry" inside.  That's better.