Hey all:
Hee hee hee... Can you tell I now have a job that actually keeps me busy while at work?! Hence no blogging in the past week.
So London went over all fine and dandy. I got there at 6:30 in the morning and actually had a pretty decent sleep on the bus on the way down. The investment of the day was a £0.50 map of London from McDonalds. It was really detailed, folded up neatly in the pocket and covered a good bit of area. On the reverse side of the map was a map of the tube system and a couple of coupons for greasy McDonalds food. I bypassed them as I'm not too keen on McDonalds. Despite that, a mere 12 hours or so later I found myself happily leaving a McDonalds at Leicester Square with a Munchies McFlurry which I HIGHLY recommend! However, I believe they are available only in Britain. Tough luck, Canucks!
I think one of my favourite parts of London was wandering around in the morning before the city really "woke up". Not too many people were out, the sun was slightly out, (more than it would be throughout the rest of the day,) and people were busy getting their shops ready for the day.
I enquired about getting cheap tix to The Lion King, but the cheapest was about £33 or so. Not that cheap, plus it would have ate up a good chunk of my afternoon.
In a nutshell, since I'm rather pressed for time and leaving for a weekend getaway in a half hour (!), I walked soooooo much and didn't take the tube or bus once! I hit up Buckingham Palace (it was on the way to something else), St James Palace (chez Prince Charles), Picadilly Circus/Street, Regent St and Oxford St (lots of shopping), the theatre district (which I want to box up and move to Charlottetown because I hearted it!), the theatre museum, the Imperial War Museum (wanted the Brits' perspective on WWI/WWII and needed to learn something), walked along the Thames, saw The Maple Leaf (a bar - but didn't go in because I was trying to make it somewhere for 2:00 and then couldn't find it when I went hunting for it afterwards,) and some other stuff. My feet absolutely ached towards the end of the day. I was standing in a bookstore at about 8:00 (I didn't want to venture too far away from the bus stop at that point and risk getting lost) and it took a lot of pride not to plop myself down on the floor and start reading. So I stood and leaned against the wall. In heavenly news, the bookstore had
six floors! However, by that time getting up to the first floor (second floor in Canadian terms) took sooooo much energy so I didn't explore too much. Overall, a very nice day. I pretty much fell asleep on the bus instantly on the way home and had a pretty good sleep! The bus wasn't crowded on either journey and I had my own double seat. Very nice! Also, Shan let me borrow her airplane blow-up pillow and I could tell I was the envy of everyone else ;) I also had my dad's sleeping mask cover eyes thing that he got for free on a plane whic was also very nice.
The following day Shan and I headed to a Chinese New Year show which was quite good! At first it didn't look too promising as there were FOUR decently long speeches made. Then they got to the first dragon dance and it was all entertaining from there. Except tai-chi. I'm sure it's relaxing and stuff to do, but watching it a little bland. Most impressive were the Chinese Acrobats! It kind of reminded me of what a mini, toned-down version of Cirque du Soleil might be like.
So this weekend Anne, Shannon and I are heading west. Unfortunately there is not a gold rush and instead we will be milling about Glasgow and Bothwell Castle =P Anne and I plan on staying the night to take advantage of some of the Weegie nightlife. I think there may also be a rugby game going on today, so I'm sure the drunk weegie men will be out and about in their kilts.
I realise it seems weird to insist that men in skirts are attractive, but they really are! Get a medium-height, somewhat-built, younger Scotsman in some boots, a kilt, and something simple like a rugby shirt and you have your calendar-worthy men for the year.
Three and a half weeks to my interview!!!
In an unrelated note, lacrosse practice was quite good on Thursday night. A lot of the really good people were missing so it seemed like more people got a chance to actually play rather than run around and do nothing. Don't get me wrong, everyone is really nice, but it's a killer-instinct habit - of course you are going to try and get the ball to the better players!
I pulled a muscle last Monday doing something incredibly simple. I believe it was when I was hopping onto the stair master I just kind of twisted my leg or something. It hurt a wee bit, but I pretty much worked through it and it went away. I went running (very very briefly over lunchtime!) on Tuesday and it was fine. Got to spin class on Wednesday and it wasn't overly enjoyable. First my left foot kept cramping up and then my previously pulled muscle started flipping out. I had forgotten about it until that point. It actually wasn't too bad except when we had to "sprint", (go as fast as your legs will flail on minimal resistance,) that it kind of hurt. I almost skipped lacrosse on Thursday but it actually felt rather good to move after sitting down at work all day and basically I couldn't sprint there either and stretched lots before hand. It was sore yesterday morning and still a wee bit tender today, but whatever.
I'm sure that was VERY exciting for you all to read.
In other news, I should hop along here. My bus is leaving for Weegie-land in 25 minutes and I want to stop at a couple of places on the way. (Stop means take pictures of the Edinburgh Castle while the sun is somewhat out.)
Oooh, I can walk to my new job in 23 mins practically. Yay! Yesterday morning I even had time to stop and buy a bottle of water and go to McDonalds for a free bagel.
Buh-bye...