Back from London
Nov. 29th, 2006 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiI planned to get off the computer an hour ago - spending only half an hour dealing with the most vital email... I failed, clearly. Catchup from London travel is a killer.
But I figured "what's another 10 minutes?" and thought I'd write a rare post.
OK... 10 things seems quick and easy...
10 Things I Liked about Visiting London:
1 - Meeting up with Immodesty and Andrew again - it was even more fun than our first meeting. How awesome is that?
2 - Club class on British Air - a surprise present from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
new_man's sister and her neighbor. Wow. Beyond my wildest dreams. New_man thought I would refuse to get off the plane. With food and programmable chairs who needs real life?
3 - The funkyness of walking on the south side of the Thames - the walk from Waterloo to the Globe was like walking from movie set to movie set as various eras of London architecture butted against each other in a patchwork of wierd pathways and interesting visions that changes with every step.
4 - Seeing favorite artifacts at the Indian V&A exhibit and discovering new ones. They had 4 of the favorite SCA_India Mughal miniatures on display and some 17th century tent hangins I had not noticed before.
5 - Reading on the first engineering efforts at the Museum of Science and discovering that engineers have always been beyond quirky - one of the first people to hold the title "engineer" styled himself a medieval knight with a funny name in his personal correspondence. Sound like anyone you know? :)
6 - Cornish pasties on streetcorners. Yum.
7 - Tube passes that don't require me to even open my purse, much less fumble for anything - they could be "swiped" by proximity.
8 - Lots of tea. I have come to appreciate tea in a way that was previously lost on me.
9 - Electric kettles - those things are freaking amazing.
10 - The museum of natural history - the museum itself is such an architectural thing of beauty that it vied with the cool subject matter.
That's in no particular order. There's definitely more, but I'm being terse.
Also in no particular order...
10 Things I Like about Returning to the US:
1 - Toilets that flush like they mean it. Even a water-saving American toilet can kick the ass of a British toilet most of the time.
2 - Whatever mechanism it is that mixes hot and cold water to make lukewarm water - something missing in many British faucets.
3 - Hotels that have drip coffee makers, not instant coffee packets.
4 - The ability to be wireless more often.
5 - Shorter steps on stairways. (look, my hips are better but not perfect)
6 - Being able to leave the city relatively easily (we have the distance, they have the history) and with no serious thought.
7 - Cheaper stuff. All stuff. Or, maybe, a salary that covers my stuff-needs. I get the feeling that if I lived in London, my salary for the same job would not get me as much stuff as I can have here.
8 - Newer stuff. British technology is still a bit behind or more expensive than US technology. And the bathrooms and appliances usually seem way older.
9 - Not being marked as a foreigner just for smiling (I have the biggest dumb-ass American grin...)
10 - Home is where the heart is. Friends, family, my own comfy bed, all the cool stuff that I love in Boston - well, you just can't put a price on that.
OK, the last one is awful shlocky, but I wanted 10 and it kept coming to mind...
Did you know that if someone jumps onto the tracks in the Tube the "this train has been delayed" announcements actually tell you what happened? No polite evasion or lie - they just say "There was a person on the tracks" or something similar. Not gross ("a human was smooshed into oblivion by a hurtling train") and not overly vague ("there has been an unproductive human/train encounter") - but pretty much a "dude, someone leaped in front of the train, this is not something our staff could have prevented". Although one tube stop did have a glassed in track with panels that opened only when a train's doors were positioned there. I bet that one doesn't have jumper problems.
This is all first hand insight, I'm so totally not making this up.
But I figured "what's another 10 minutes?" and thought I'd write a rare post.
OK... 10 things seems quick and easy...
10 Things I Liked about Visiting London:
1 - Meeting up with Immodesty and Andrew again - it was even more fun than our first meeting. How awesome is that?
2 - Club class on British Air - a surprise present from
new_man's sister and her neighbor. Wow. Beyond my wildest dreams. New_man thought I would refuse to get off the plane. With food and programmable chairs who needs real life?3 - The funkyness of walking on the south side of the Thames - the walk from Waterloo to the Globe was like walking from movie set to movie set as various eras of London architecture butted against each other in a patchwork of wierd pathways and interesting visions that changes with every step.
4 - Seeing favorite artifacts at the Indian V&A exhibit and discovering new ones. They had 4 of the favorite SCA_India Mughal miniatures on display and some 17th century tent hangins I had not noticed before.
5 - Reading on the first engineering efforts at the Museum of Science and discovering that engineers have always been beyond quirky - one of the first people to hold the title "engineer" styled himself a medieval knight with a funny name in his personal correspondence. Sound like anyone you know? :)
6 - Cornish pasties on streetcorners. Yum.
7 - Tube passes that don't require me to even open my purse, much less fumble for anything - they could be "swiped" by proximity.
8 - Lots of tea. I have come to appreciate tea in a way that was previously lost on me.
9 - Electric kettles - those things are freaking amazing.
10 - The museum of natural history - the museum itself is such an architectural thing of beauty that it vied with the cool subject matter.
That's in no particular order. There's definitely more, but I'm being terse.
Also in no particular order...
10 Things I Like about Returning to the US:
1 - Toilets that flush like they mean it. Even a water-saving American toilet can kick the ass of a British toilet most of the time.
2 - Whatever mechanism it is that mixes hot and cold water to make lukewarm water - something missing in many British faucets.
3 - Hotels that have drip coffee makers, not instant coffee packets.
4 - The ability to be wireless more often.
5 - Shorter steps on stairways. (look, my hips are better but not perfect)
6 - Being able to leave the city relatively easily (we have the distance, they have the history) and with no serious thought.
7 - Cheaper stuff. All stuff. Or, maybe, a salary that covers my stuff-needs. I get the feeling that if I lived in London, my salary for the same job would not get me as much stuff as I can have here.
8 - Newer stuff. British technology is still a bit behind or more expensive than US technology. And the bathrooms and appliances usually seem way older.
9 - Not being marked as a foreigner just for smiling (I have the biggest dumb-ass American grin...)
10 - Home is where the heart is. Friends, family, my own comfy bed, all the cool stuff that I love in Boston - well, you just can't put a price on that.
OK, the last one is awful shlocky, but I wanted 10 and it kept coming to mind...
Did you know that if someone jumps onto the tracks in the Tube the "this train has been delayed" announcements actually tell you what happened? No polite evasion or lie - they just say "There was a person on the tracks" or something similar. Not gross ("a human was smooshed into oblivion by a hurtling train") and not overly vague ("there has been an unproductive human/train encounter") - but pretty much a "dude, someone leaped in front of the train, this is not something our staff could have prevented". Although one tube stop did have a glassed in track with panels that opened only when a train's doors were positioned there. I bet that one doesn't have jumper problems.
This is all first hand insight, I'm so totally not making this up.