Welcome to the Lodge!

They DO Trick or Treat Here...

I was misled - and caught unprepared. Five adorable little trick-or-treaters at my door whilst I was suffering through the assembling of a little drawer unit, and me with no candy. I swore I would never be the Scrooge (Halloween must have them too...) without candy. So I asked them to come back in 5 - ran to the store and spent 10 pounds on Kit-Kats. Luckily, they did actually come back and laughed when I said "Told ya I'd come through!" and plopped the candy bars in. Somehow, the cute little British accents make the children seem more sweet than the U.S. greedy candy grubbers.
Now, however, there's a helicopter hovering overhead, as it has for the past 10 minutes, shining one of those long floodlights and moving around...like it's chasing a robber or rapist or something. A little nerve-wracking, but the spotlight's been pointed around Madonna's place, so I'm not too concerned as yet.

The weekend has been relatively chill, following a whirlwind of about 10 days prior to that which was basically revolving around Red Sox, Passports, business suits, travel, polite small talk, and pretending to look interested in real estate presentations. I'm pleased to report that my passport is fuller (4 stamps on Tuesday alone - Prague, Munich, Stockholm, and London), and I am not due to leave the UK again until Nov. 20 when I board a plane for Boston! Some travel within England - to Cambridge and Brighton, if you can believe it (Not the 'real' ones, though ;)
but nothing major. Or overnight :) Even I am getting quite tired of hauling the little wheelie bag around. Plus, this line has been floating in my brain for going on a week now:

Monday at dusk, on a motorway on the outskirts of Prague, she nearly lost her life as Wully Bully played on the Skoda radio.

Lesson Learned: only take the nicer looking VW taxis with the credit card logos on the side in Prague.

Still, the week ahead is busy - attending a full-day seminar Monday and Tuesday, long-awaited trip to Ikea tomorrow night (YAY! With a mini-van! I'm buying a couch!), plus associated business lunches and drinks and dinners. Apparently, schmoozing is a big part of my job description here...not quite sure what I'm after - or, rather, I know what information I need, but I don't know how to get this out of people here. Apparently, business is more subtle or something. I dunno. I'm just eating on the company card.

Friday, my friend Alys comes to visit for the weekend - it's Guy Fawkes day on Friday - apparently he was some Catholic Traitor who got caught and was drawn and quartered with his body parts sent througout England about 400 years ago. They celebrate the stalled coup by burning effigies of him every 5 November and having bonfires (hence the Bonfire night in Bridget Jones - thus far my main go-to source for knowledge of British culture). On the 6 Nov. (saturday), we're going with Alexis to Battersea Park to see a big fireworks display - which I love!

Alys has never been to London before, so I figure we will hit the gamut of sites that I'm aware of: Portobello Road on Saturday, Speaker's Corner and a stroll through Hyde Park on Sunday, maybe some changing of the guard, the London Eye, or a museum, and perhaps, Camden Market. Which brings me to this: aside from these obvious tourist haunts (add in Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar, and the Tower of London), I spent a good chunk of a gorgeous Saturday with a bunch of energy but no place to channel it. Couldn't think of anything to do. In London.

Tired of shopping, and walking 'round the parks and hoods and high streets...too restless and nice out for a museum or movie (inside stuff)..."When a Man tires of London, He Tires of Life", right? Oy. So I finally hopped a bus, got out at a random location about 2 miles further out from my flat, in Holland Park, and walked for ages - down to a Homebase (kind of like Lowe's but smaller - I thought it would be more homey), through Earl's Court, and then up to Kensington High Street, and then cut back across Kensington Gardens, around the Serpentine and back through Hyde Park on home. At least I used up a bit of that energy...fell asleep during the broadcast of the English Patient, one of my favorites, by 10 pm.

It seems there should be other stuff to report...maybe it's time for the bullet point portion that Abby appreciates so much...

* the movie Van Helsing sucks. such that the suckiness outweighs the brief glimpse of Hugh Jackman's bare chest (it was close though). Note: this movie may be better when high or drunk.
* got a library card
* am ignoring studying (i.e. reading about 100 pages of boring international global real estate papers) again - feels like grad school.
* someone has impaled a jack-o-lantern on the gate outside my flat - creepy, but I like it.
* I inadvertently received for free/shoplifted a $250 all-in-one printer/scanner/copier today from PC World. I did not officially realize this until I got home (even though I suspected the total bill was low, but there was a flat screen monitor and a lot of other stuff, so maybe a discount, etc...), but I didn't challenge the total at the register, and I did hold the box up and the dude scanned it, so I don't know what went wrong, but I almost feel bad about it, but not quite. Plus, it'd be a real pain in the ass to get back to the store as you need a car...
* just so you know, the rest of the world is laughing at us - not in a ha-ha way, but in disbelief, that the election is as close as it is. i've been told that non-US who claim that they don't hate Americans, just Bush are merely trying to be polite. I am quite afraid what might happen if/when he wins again. I get an angry pit in my stomach just thinking about it, so...

That's all folks!

And, hey, someone comment or something - just a "Hey!" or "This sucks" or "You're going to hell for stealing that printer" or "I stubbed my toe" - something so that I know you're out there!

posted by kelly @ 31.10.04