huntblog

Hablo Espanol
I think I walked about 50km today.

Dave and I woke up and went for a walk to see if we could find breakfast. The menu looked like this to us: ñçñªºº¨ pö¨fë Wbväl = $50
so we asked the guy whjat he recommended and got that. It turned out to be a salami sandwich. It was ok for quick eats. After that we spent like an hour looking for an electronic translator. I found one finally at this dingy little shop for like 60 euro, which is about 90 bucks. It does spanish to english and also french and italian and german. Pretty pro, but it doesn´t have a lot of words. It has all the basics, but I am still unable to say "you are teh sux" or "noob, you cannot guard me".

We then strolled down some pretty alleys and got the best gelato ever (totally going back tomorrow) and then made our way down to the harbour. It then started raining so we left and walked back up the hill to the hotel. Along the way we got uber thirsty so we found a bar and had a drink. The guy filled my vodka and orange at a ratio of 1:1 which was a bit whack. While sitting at the bar we were made aware of a massage place next door, so we walked in and booked in for a half hour massage each. I have to say it was totally pro. My feet were really sore from walking all day so I got them and my legs worked to the bone. It felt good and painful at the same time.

I floated out of the massage place and back up to the hotel. We freshened up and caught a train to dinner. I had to use my spanish skills so find the restaurant we were after. Apparently dudes like antonio banderes and che guevara and yoko ono ate at this paella (oily rice with meat) place so we thought it would do for us too. Along the way to the restaurant we ran into some skaters, so i videoed them for a while. They were pretty good.

After asking for directions twice, and walking in the wrong direction a bit we found the restaurant. We got bread and paella. It was a good feed. I don´t see what the fuss is about, but apparntly this place has been open for like 150 years, so we had to try it. We ended up really full to the point of uncomfortableness, and went for a walk to try to burn some of those calories away (plz 2 b lending me abmaster some1?). We walked through some weird lane and ended up at a university that had basketball courts. I´d like to say I erred on the side of caution and walked by leaving the basketball for a day when I was less stuffed full of paella, but NAY! I fearlessly challenged some schoolkids to a game of streetball (only africa and south america to go!). They were pretty good for kids. Awesome footwork. The older guy was called david and the other guy didn´t speak english so I didn´t catch his name. It was fun playing with those guys, they were champs. Dave made himself sick filling in when one of the dudes had to go home early :(

We caught the train back to the hotel, and I am really sore and need sleep. Fun day tho. I am satisfied, but feel like I could sleep for about 4 days happily.

posted by hunt @ 9:55 PM 1 comments  

polsk
Today was cool. Dave and I were late for a meeting in the afternoon, but it went pretty well. Afterwards we stopped in at a pub and had some chicken tikka masala. The pub had a special going that was 2 meals for like 7 `pounds. We were celebrating how good value it was until we converted it into aussie dollars. It works out to be about $7.50 or something, so then we were a bit more like "oh, that´s ok I guess".

Later on charmaine came over and we went to a polish vodka bar. They had 150 different types of vodka :/ we had a few drinks and then went to this mexican restaurant in a small alley. It was cool. They had a band of mexican dudes playing all the cliche hits like la bamba and the macarina. Got to sleep pretty late.

The next day we checked out of our hotel and went to the airport. I think I had my wallet stolen in the newsagents. It certainly isn´ñt on my person any more, so the rest of the day was spent trying to cancel my visa in spain. My hotel room is ok. It´s small but nioce. The best thing ever is that they have stax of basketball on tv over here. It´s rediculous. I saw some guy called marc gasol playing in the spaish euroleague. I wonder if he is related to pau?

Well, not much more to report. Spain is cool, and I need to go see it, so more updates later.

posted by hunt @ 7:15 PM 0 comments  

business as usual
Dave and I had two business meetings today, so our day was pretty booked up. I spent the morning ironing my shirt (or trying to) and eating another "lovely" breakfast from the hotel. I put lovely in quotes because it is such an english word. For those taking notes at home, this is journalling at its finest.

Dave and I headed out to london transport, our first meeting of the day. We met the lady we were demoing to and she took us towards this meeting room. Through the window I could see a table surrounded by all these massive black dudes in suits. I was totally intimidated and starting to feel like I was going to get dunked on or something, when at the last minute we turned and ended up in an empty room. I was relieved.

The meeting went well. We just showed them the software and told them they needed it and answered questions. It was great.

Afterwards we caught a double decker bus (woot) to the next meeting. That was in the sticks big time. It was kinda near windsor castle for those who are geography nerds... or with an atlas handy. The train ride there took about an hour and fifteen minutes.

We had a nice lunch in windsor of calzone, before meeting number 2 which was also good. It went for ages though.

After the meetings I met up with khanh (uni friend) and charmaine (school friend) to go out and have dinner and socialise. Suprisingly, mendel (uni friend) and daphne (uni friend) were also there, so it was like a night out in sydney, but it was colder and the pubs were more dank. Actually the pubs are about the same dankness... they feel different in some way though.

We got dodgey chinese for dinner and then went to a pub with a tree in the middle of it. I got home late and my suit probably smells of smoke.

posted by hunt @ 7:55 PM 0 comments  

la la la london still.
Well, today I spent a lot of time sleeping.

I woke up at about 7:30am and had the free breakfast provided by the hotel. Oh man it is so sweet. Mainly because i asked for hot chocolate and they gave me a whole pot to drink at my leisure. They also had pastries and cereal and stuff.

After that dave and I went to brick lane on nathan's advice to go and get some indian food. We chose a place called "brick lane spice" or something, and got the lunch special. It wasn't very special. The food was ok, but it went straight through both of us, so we had to go back to our hotels to get rid of our lunch :P

After that I pretty much just did some work for work on the computer and then went to sleep about 8pm. It was a very chilled day. Dave was talking about taking the train to paris, but we were way too time constricted and tired to think about doing that.

posted by hunt @ 7:51 PM 0 comments  

I'm in london still.
Well I got on a plane at 4:30pm sydney time and arrived at london 6:00am london time, which i think is about 7:00pm sydney time. We stopped over in hong kong, which gave me an opportunity to get some sweet ass noodle soup.

After some squabbling about how best to get into inner london, my travelling companion dave, and myself hopped on the tube, and ended up at russel square. It took us a bit of walking lost, and a very short cab ride to find our hotel.

After a nutritious subway lunch (3 subs for 10 pounds - or 23 dollars for those not in england), we called charmaine and waited for her to come and take us out and about the town. I had an awesome hot bath in my massive and very swish hotel room, while i waited. I swear the ceilings in this place are about 12ft high.

Charmaine rocked up about 2pm, and I met her boyfriend barrie. He is a really cool and friendly guy. Charmaine took us out to some places that i recognised form playing monopoly. Trafalgar square was ok. I'd been there before as a young laddie but I didn't remmeber how large and phallic the memorial was. It made me feel like a powerful manly man seeing something so large and penis shaped (not).

I said goodbye to those punks about 5:30pm and went off to catch my trains and buses out to watford to go to soul survivor church. I got lost on the way there and ended up having a stroll through watford. It was pro. I asked for directions and ran down to soul survivor to catch the start. I was juuuuust in time, but very sweaty and tired from jetlag. After some nice worshipping we had the sermon and embarassingly I fell asleep. I woke up and everyone was singing and people were being prayed for. I was pretty sad that I couldn't stay awake, and embarrassed.

After the service I spoke to a few people, and said hi to mike pillavachi, and then caught the train home with this chick from soul survivor. She is going to email me the sermon so I can hear the last bit of it that I was asleep for.

I slept pretty well that night, after being up for pretty much 36 hours with only 5 hours sleep on the plane, and about 20 mins sleep at soul survivor :(

posted by hunt @ 7:37 PM 0 comments