East Grinstead and London

I spent this last week with a friend named Emilie in a place called East Grinstead which neighbors London. While there, I hung around the pubs, played poker, watched Battlestar Galactica (season 3) and visited London (of course). Emilie is also the first scientologist I've ever come to know, which has been strange in itself (but i try to be respectful and have an open mind). I've wanted to find work and was looking for help in Emilie, who has much more experience travelling having been all over the world, but things didn't go quite as I'd hoped. She had a couple ideas I will look into but couldn't at the time because she didn't really have internet access. And so, the basic lesson I think I have to learn here is to stop relying on people... you've got to do things yourself. Although I do think people are my strength and I'm all about meeting new peeps and networking, it is superficial 80% of the time. Picking grapes in France... fell through. Greece... fell through... Working here...? I may soon have to return to Italy and start over but this time with a little more ardour.

As for London, well London is a pretty cool place. There are a lot of double-decker busses around and old-looking taxi's. It's very expensive in London, but so is England in general when your currency is only half of theirs. A cup of coffee is $4. A beer at the bar is $8 -$12. The weather was also cloudy and awful, so most of my pictures weren't really coming out.

While in London I visited Buckingham palace but was unable to be the annoying foreigner who goes up and pokes the fuzzy-headed, toy soldier looking guys (you know damn-well I would've!) West Minster, which is their house of Parliament and the home of Big Ben was probably my favorite. We also went on a cheap sight-seeing boat tour and saw lots of cool architecture like some egg-shaped building called The Cigar, London Bridge and Tower Bridge. London Bridge looks like crap and is often mistaken for Tower Bridge which is the grand-looking thing posted above. St. Paul's Cathedral is pretty cool, as is Baker St. and Notting Hill. We saw a lot of cool areas, ate fish and chips and all that jazz.