It's been a few days since the last entry...I've got a lot of typing to do.
The trip so far has been great, and I'm finally starting to get the hang of London time. Work has been great, we've accomplished a lot on this trip. It's exciting since I usually am not involved with this stage of a project like this, and I feel that this project I am providing more value than I typically do.
Wednesday night a bunch of people from the client went out to a local pub for a bit. We had a great time joking about soccer and talking about company politics. Some of the English football teams were playing that night, so there was a lot of ribbing going on. It's an interesting thing about English football, there is no one popular team for Londoners...there are almost as many favorite teams as soccer fans. It's not like a US city, such as Denver, where the most popular team is the Broncos. Even people who grew up in London are fans of teams across the country. Anyways, after a bit we headed over to a Curry House (i.e., Indian Food back in the US) for some great food. It was a late night and we didn't finish eating until around 11PM. Good times all around though.
Thursday was an intense day of meetings with the client--we stayed in a conference room from 10AM to 6:30PM and pounded out the details of the project. It was a lot of fun getting that much accomplished in one day, and I think we left making the client very pleased with our work. After we finished, I headed off to Trafalgar square to meet James, a guy living in London who I met through a political email discussion group I am involved with. James was a great host. We headed off a few blocks away to a Japanese noodle house and chatted for a while over dinner. Josh is Jewish but attended Anglican school for many years growing up, so we had some great discussions. After dinner we headed to a gentleman's club...no, NOT like the ones in the US. It's a unique concept, I'd never heard of this in the US...Josh pays a yearly fee to be a member...kinda like a bar/club with membership fees. We walked around to a few places and walked through some very old London markets, which was pretty cool. By the way, if you live in the UK and want to buy electronics online, check out James' business at http://www.steelcube.com.
This morning I woke up a little tired from staying out late the night before. I was ready to go by 9 since I was meeting up with my client contact who also traveled over from the US. We took the Tube under the Thames and headed to the London Eye, which is a ferris wheel on steroids located right on the banks of the Thames. I'll be honest, I was pretty skeptical going into this, I thought it would be dumb. A lot of Londoners recommended it, and I thought it would be okay, enough to give it a shot, but thought it would be, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson "Good, but not great". Jay and I got there when it opened and only had two other people in our car (the cars can probably hold around 20 people, I'm guessing). The Eye travels slow...one revolution in 30 minutes. I tell you, I was glad I was wrong on this one. The view from the Eye is incredible...it's right across the Thames from the government buildings (how cool is the House of Parliament building? sorry America, the Congress building is boring), close to St. Paul's cathedral. WIth it going so slow you have time to take everything in. We were blessed with great lighting for pictures, I can't wait to post the photos.
After we went on the Eye I went off to find a hotel, since the hotel that my company was paying for was close to 300 quid a night. The first time I was in London with my friend Boges, we stayed around Victoria station, and I remembered that there were some decent hotels around there. I went into a hotel and asked for two nights and they sent me to a sister-hotel with availability, called "The Winchester". I'm waiting for zombies to storm the place tonight, but I've got some peanuts and a shotgun that works, so I should be good.
After this, I met up with my friend Jay again for lunch, at the Bombay Brasserie, which is close to the Gloucester tube station. The place is pretty famous and I have to admit, a little bit of a tourist trap. But good service, excellent food, and I have to admit that I liked the motif. Jay and I both thought that it would be pretty cool for dinner when it is all lit up inside.
After we stuffed ourselves with curry, Jay--who is a big chronometer fanatic--wanted to head out to the Maritime Museum in Greenwich to check out some chronometers (read, mechanical movement clocks). We took a 1.5 hour ride out to the East of London to check it out. The train ride was pretty cool since we got to see a diverse range of neighborhoods, including Canary Wharf. I had heard about the huge real estate development, and it was cool to ride the train through the area. There are some huge buildings out there for large companies...quite suprising, but it makes sense for them.
The Maritime Museum was definitely worth the trip, especially since I was able to see the Greenwich Observatory, which is the line for GMT. The chronometers were very interesting, I knew nothing about them, and found out that they were very important for maritime navigation. I made it up the hill to the Observatory just as they were closing the gate, and was let in just before closing down. I snapped a few pictures of the GMT line, which reminded me of the Four Corners in the southwest US...except there were trees. After we finished checking out Greenwich, we headed home.
So that brings me up to the moment....I am off to Oxford tomorrow and then back to London in the evening. Sunday afternoon I leave back home, which will be regrettable. I am very much enjoying my time here, and am not looking forward to it ending.
Till next time...