29 June 2005 Wednesday

Well, I have been in London for about 11 days now.  Hard to believe.  For the most part I have adjusted to life here pretty quickly.  I've met some fun people all around the world at the places I've stayed.  On Monday morning I moved into a single room down the street from the first place I was in.  Everyone seems really nice there, and it's fairly clean, at least as clean as can be expected.  The bathrooms are nicer than the first place and I love having my own space.  I was finally able to unpack all my stuff and find things.  It feels better, more settled, to no longer be living out of a suitcase.

I have actually been pretty busy here, which is good.  I was a little worried about meeting people and not having any friends (I know, I know that I pretty much will talk with anyone, but it doesn't keep me from worrying!).  As it is I have met some wonderful people from all around the world.  Particularly Australia, New Zealand, Canada (our friendly neighbors to the north), South Africa and there is the most adorable girl from Japan at my house right now. 

Last night I was so lucky to spend the evening with Rocio (my girlfriend from St. Thomas).  She was just passing through London on a class she was taking on her way back to the US.  In fact by now she should be on her way there and home by the time most of you read this.  We had so much fun!  I met her at her hotel near Paddington Station and we went up to Baker Street for dinner.  What an experience.  You know that the Brits love to hire Americans and Australians for service positions because British people have horrible customer service skills.  Well, we experienced it first hand.  There was a little confusion with our order.  We ordered a half a bottle of wine and our waitress misunderstood and brought us a whole bottle.  The problem probably could have been remedied if we had said something right away, but we thought that maybe they give us a whole bottle and we are only supposed to drink half, that it is a ploy to charge us for a whole bottle.  So we just kept it and only drank half, following?  Anyway, of course when our bill came we had been charged for the whole bottle, so I reminded her we had only ordered a half and only drank a half.  Well, the manager came over and yelled at us and told us that because I hadn't ordered an entree (just an appetizer, but I wanted it as my entree) only one of us should have been drinking (which she claims is the law, but I have never heard anything like that and you would think that if I just wanted a drink and would pay for it that no one would care).  Anyway, we finally got it straightened out, and I felt so bad for our poor waitress, because she was a sweetheart and I'm sure it's a hard job, but seriously, who reprimands their customers!  It should have been the waitresses responsibility to tell us up front that if we were both going to have a glass of wine we had to order entrees, but I think that crabby manager just made it up because she was mad about the wine.  Hmm.

From there we stopped and bought dessert at a Tesco (a supermarket chain), some carmelly sweet things that Ro loves.  Then we tubed (can you use tube as a verb?  I think so, to tube = to take the underground/subway) down to Tower Bridge.  Walked across the Bridge wherein we had a debate about the age of the bridge and whether or not dead bodies were thrown under it during the 17th century.  As the bridge wasn't built until the 18th or 19th centuries (I'm not sure exactly, so I will get back to you on it) I maintain that dead bodies were not thrown from under it, but Rocio will continue to believe whatever she wants so I don't think it matters what I think, even if it is the truth. 

Across the river Thames (pronounced Tems for reasons unknown) and we walked down to the modern day London Bridge where the discovery was made that the London Bridge was the only bridge across the Thames until 1750, thus no bridge could have existed where the current Tower Bridge is until at least 1750 and no dead bodies.  This is the point in the story where things get really good.  Rocio wanted to see the Globe theatre, although it was raining intermittenly and it's really not much to see from the outside, we set off.  On the way we met quite a character.  You know it was like 10:00 at night in Central London and we are of course getting lost because this city is impossible to not be lost in and we come upon this galleon (yes a smallish sailing ship) docked down by the river.  Now this isn't a site you see everyday so we stop to investigate.  Pretty soon this British man comes up and begins to chat with us.  Well, at first it's a little odd, but then we just realize he's a friendly man.  Turns out he's an entrepreneur who owns a chain of tanning salons in London.  He said if I want a job, just give him a call and he gave me his number because they like to hire American and Australians because as we know they have the best customer service skills.

3:56 AM - 6/29/2005 - post comment

happy 4th

Hi Kari!
Wow sounds like you're settling in pretty well! Congrats on your job! How fun for you to have met up with your friend from StT! Thought I would wish you a happy 4th from the states! I'm getting ready to go to the diabetes camp this week, and I'm really excited for what I and the kids will learn! I'm also excited to be out of the hospital. It's been fun and challenging so far, but I miss being outside b/c I freeze in the hospital! I drank chicken broth one day when it was like 90 outside cuz I was so cold in there! M-town is pretty fun I bike most places and see what it has to offer. Last week I gave a diabetes ed in spanish without an interpreter, I did one with an interpreter but this time I did not think there was time and I went over the spanish handouts as best I could and he seemed to understand. IT was my way cool moment of the week! Love to hear from you and hope you're having a great day! Love you!! Renee "Sha-Nae-Nae":)

Anonymous - 10:31 AM - 7/2/2005