My blog needs and enema
Sorry for the "backup" in blog postings. I've been lazy, busy, away from the computer, etc. Here's as much as I can remember from the +1 week. also, the site is having some difficulties and wont let me add pictures right now...check back later for pics. enjoy:
Thursday July 20
i met up with my dad's cousin's son who lives here in england. he doesnt quite live in central london--in fact he live a 30 min tube ride north of here. he lives in the same city i spent 2 weeks in last summer on my jewish program trip. that means he lives in jewville. he let me choose where we were going to eat for dinner and i was feelin some more shwarma so we went to the same old shwarma place. believe it or not, those fuckers ran out of shwarma. i was pissed. the waitress could barely speak english and i had a hard time deciding on what else to get. i got a lamb shishlik--not so good. anyway, after dinner we split and met up with one of his friends who was having a lil going away thing in some pub. she met some guy and is moving to amsterdam for the next few months. so, she invited a whole bunch of her friends to this pub called "the free mason's arms" in hendon. the big attraction about this place is that it has a great outdoor garden for patrons. the problem is that its in a residential area so they kick everyone out of the garden at 1030 and force you to their front patio which becomes rather chaotic.
but before we were thrown into the zoo, philip introduced me to a bunch of his friends. they were nice people for the most part, but it was hard to relate to these folks. they were all pretty much 15 years older than i and english. there wasnt much to talk about. there was one chick and her brother who have some distant relatives that live in great neck, but that conversation didnt have much fuel as i didnt know who their family is and they're not even close to my age. i met one of philip's persian friends who was such a FOB. such a typical persian obssessed with money and bitches (i guess thats most guys, but with a persian accent its a persian thing). i got pretty bored by the end of the night and was looking forward to getting the F out of there.
Friday July 21
This was the last day of my internship. for the last time, i showed up to work in my trainers, denim, and sport top. i thought this would be a fun, relaxing day where i could talk to people and say my goodbyes and such. but you all should know better. my boss wasn't even there--she was on "holiday." my supervisor, the guy who i was working directly for all summer was in a training session all day, but before he left for the conference room he graciously dumped like 4 different assignments on me that he knew would take me all day. so i got to fuck around at the desk all day finishing up some projects he gave me. i dont think that they understand that was exactly what i was looking for since the begining of the internship. i can't believe they waited till the very last day to actually give me work. that pissed me off. i finally realized that they do trust me with work, they just weren't prepared and didnt give me any.
anywho, i stayed in the office till about 530 that day (one of my latest days at work) and said my goodbyes to whomever wasnt on "holiday" and actually working. my boss came out of the training to say goodbye, but it was no big deal. i wasn't given the gracious treatment that some of my friends got (some of them were taken out to lunch, dinner, for drinks, given a pen, and in the case for 4 of them, they were given a bottle of champange and/or offered a job for next year.) I got a "it was nice to meet you and thank you for all your help." only one woman who is the sales and operations director (someone i never worked with, but only met once offered me a job back with them next summer [i wonder how sincere she was considering she doesnt know me]. she also offered to put in a good word for me with the Hong Kong office if i wanted).
bitches
Saturday July 22
I cant remember what i did the night before, but i do know that i caught up on some major sleep this morning. i didnt wake up until 1130 of 12 and it felt good. matt called me and told me to mee up with him to go out for the day. i quickly grabbed all my belongings and moved back into my old room which was finally dry. i had enough of this 11th floor bullshit (despite the fan and great view).
after this, i met up with matt and jeff (matt's younger brother) and we went to this food market called borough market (i think). it was pretty cool. there were an endless number of booths and stands, and lots of different things to see/eat. i started with a berry blaster smothies (blackberries, strawberries, rasberries, mango juice, and other good stuff : )) next i had a really weak falafel. i really didnt eat much else, but we walked around alot. after a while i said forget this and ate more. i split a spanish omlett with matt but it was only okay. my buddy at school, dave rotenberg, makes a MUCH better one. after all this we saw some dude eating a crazy good sandwhich and we had to have one. we ran around from various stands to collect the ingridients. we bought a cibatta roll from one place, fresh tomatoes from another, and fresh buffalo mozzerella from another. it was delicious!!
we came back to my place because matt and jeff wanted to catch up on episodes of entourage that i've been getting from my friends here on the trip who have other friends who send it to them from the states (ah, piracy :) ). when we walked in i was trying to confirm with the reception that i was done with room 1130, and was ready to move back to rom 105. while i was telling the lady about this, i over heard the manager dude next to her say over the phone that he was going to resolve this doubling booking issue and find out who's occupying both rooms 1130 & 105. i interrupted him and said that i was the person he was looking for. he was really caught off guard, but immediately showed his desparation and told me he needed me to to choose of of the two rooms. he apparently hadn't heard that i was already decided on one of them, but instead i took this opportunity for my own advantage. i told him that i have a problem with both rooms and would need help in order to choose one. to make a long story short, i had been holding out long enough and found a great opportunity--i got to move back to 105 and got the security guard's fan out of it too. ah--sweet, sweet revenge : )
let me interject here with a little back story...when i got moved up to the 11th floor i complained that it was too hot. the desk attendant said that i could borrow the office's fan at night, but i'd have to promise to bring it back in the morning. i thought that was reasonable and agreed. over the next few nights i came back after that nice guy's shift was over, so i had to convince the night guards that i had this "set in stone agreement" that could be assigned to them as well. the first night i tried this i quickly figured out which security guard was the nice&stupid one, and which was the one who would give me problems. i was able to convince the dumb one, but the mean one was rather confused at what happened when i walked away w/ his precious fan. the next night i faced some opposition from the mean guy because he "needs the fan to blow the air conditioning from the backroom to the front desk." in the end i got it anyway because i threatened to report it to the management. the following night was exciting. i waited for the asshole to be on the phone to request the fan from the dumb one. i got the fan and the mean guy saw what was going on. he hung up his phone call and i ran--literally--upstairs. about 10 minutes later i was getting phone calls to my room (mind you this is past midnight). i kept on pretending i couldn't hear the person on the other end. eventually i just unplugged the phone. about 20 minutes later i heard a knocking at the door. the security guard was on the otherside demanding the fan. i told him i was given express consent by management to have the fan as long as i wanted. he threatened to call the building manager right now and ask if that was true. i called his bluff and invited him to make the call. of course, nothing happened and i had a nice cool night. now everytime i see him, he sneers, and i smile : )
Sunday July 23
This was a very chill day. the highlight to note is lunch. sunil took us to this authentic thai food place. it was new to me and tasted good. i got a spicy green curry noodle dish and a guava mango drink <--best part.
Monday July 24
Much to describe here: the morning started off with breakfast around 10. i chilled out until class at 2. when i got there i sat next to some jew named adam from columbia university. we bullshited for a while and then met some other american dude from University of Miami (Gabe). during our break from class the three of us went to the on campus bar and grabbed some pints--nice kids. our professor is a funny english dude who cracks ridiculous jokes (usually intellecutal ones, but still very funny if you know what he's talking about). our TA is some german dude named Felix. fortunately we dont have to buy any books--everything is provided for by the school in course packs.
for those of you who don't know what i'm studying, i'm taking a class called "World in Collision: International Politics from the end of the Cold War to the War on Terror." its been a pretty good class that has given me a lot of insight into American, European, and Asian political, economic, militaristic, and cultural history leading up to the state of affairs in the world today.
after class scott and i met up over an late lunch to discuss some aepi business. if i gave you one guess where we went, i bet you'd know it was ultimate burger. much progess was achieved and we set up a lot of disucssion for further review...
later that night i met up with matt, jeff, and two girls from our high school who were backpacking through europe and made a stop in london. they were dying to have indian food so matt found one online and i met up with them. i must say he found the most random, obscure place. according to the online review it's suppose to be a very popular and great indian place. for one, i found it nearly impossible to find. the roads didn't intersect the way the map said they would...the building numbers were in no consecutive order either. i got to the place much sooner than the rest of them and found out that it was way too over priced and absolutly dead. when matt/jeff got there, we decided to walk around and find a different place. we saw a bunch of other restaurants, but he insisted on indian. i voted for the one place that had legit indian people working there. i figured they'd know best how to make their own food, u know? it ended up being a great place. when i opened the menu the first thing i saw was something called rogan josh--i immediately decided that was what i had to get. it was some spicy lamb based dish that was f'in amazing. after dinner we walked around and tried to find a bar or something to chill in. at the begining of our walk we saw lots of gays. there was one place we thought about going into, but then soo (one of the traveling girls) said it looks like there are a lot of guys there. i had to point out "that's becuase its a gay bar."
All in all, a goodnight
Tuesday July 25
Today hosted our first classroom discussion session. i thought this would be rather excited as it would be an opportunity to meet people from all over the world and hear their opinions. unfortunately, i quickly learned that most of those fuckers are american. the international people are from south korea, spain, columbia, sudan, brazil, and the netherlands. some of these internationals will speak, but infrequently and do not voice very bold statements. this does not serve for the best experience, but it is what it is. for our inter-class period between the discussion and our lecture which takes place later in the day, gabe and i went to the Ye Old Cock Inn for lunch. this is not a gay bar, but just a gastropub (pub that also serves food). i took the recommendation of the inn-keeper and got the half roast chicken w/ vegetables. excellent. i also enjoyed a nice pint of stella artois.
on our walk back from lunch, gabe and i saw a protest held by 2 palestinian woman and an old british lady. they were up in arms about palestinians who are british residents that are being detained at guantanamo bay. i had to take this opportunity, in herbie's honor, to give them a hard time. i played dumb and asked them a geography question. i told them that i was unfamiliar with the historical nature of the geography in the region and asked them "where is palestine? i didn't realize that it was a defined state." she went on a fuckin rampage describing how it belongs to them, blah blah blah, and then said "after WWII the world decided to give it back to the jews." i asked her how could they "give it back" if it didnt belong to them in the first place. she just had a retarded look on her face as if i crushed her world. so instead i asked another question. "i thought palestinians were just a bunch of people displaced from other countries in the region like syria, jordan, lebanon, etc." they said, "no, no no. the palestinians are their own people who moved into those countries." yeah, right! herbie would have been so proud (he's a staunch "make the palestinians look like assholes" supporter).
after all the non-sense that took place there and in lecture, i took the afternoon to veg out. i read my homework like a good nerd and then met up with matt and his lil bro again for dinner. this time we went to some italian place. it was pretty good. we shared a liter of the house white wine to cool down as it was a rather warm night. and i had penne al la vodka for the first time in months. it was good.
Wednesday July 26
Class this morning was status quo as described above. nothing drastically different happened. for lunch gabe and i hit up a place called "Guido's." it was funny. i had some kind of grilled spicy chicken panini. good stuff. that afternoon i decided it might be nice to go and read in a park--so i did. i had a goodtime until it started to drizzle so i headed back home to finish my class reading, which as been getting pretty interesting. its nice to back to my old nerdy habits of actually doing my work rather than scheming the system like i used to do.
that night matt called me up and said that his boss needs him to check out some local restaurant to see if its good enough for his boss to take the department out for drinks and maybe food the following weekend. matt was also instructed to take a friend, so i tagged along of course (free drinks/food). i thought it was going to be some posh place and shit so i got all decked out in a suit and whatnot. i made my way up to king's cross station (near matt's office) with his lil brother who also tagged along. we had some trouble finding the place, but had even more trouble getting service. the manager said that they just opened up their kitchen days ago and were still testing things out. at first he completely refused service but matt knew what he was doing and told the guy that his boss sent him and was potentially going to spend lots of money there. all of a sudden the guy's demenor changed and he invited us to have a drink at the bar until he could sort all this out. we started w/ beers and then moved on to their extensive and unique cocktail menu. the first drink we had some some tequilla based drink w/ pomegrante syrup and juice, as well as orange flower water, with a twist. probably the best drink of the night. we ordered from the limited menu at this point and moved to a regular table in the restaurant. the next set of drinks was a mai tai's which are traditionally girly drinks, but the manager assured us that the bartender added his own special touch that made them really good for anyone. he was right. now the food arrived. i got my rump steak--i was afriad to get what matt ordered: hangar steak. the manager said that it had to be served raw otherwise it would be no good. i never had a raw steak before and was reluctant. both meats turned out to be absolutely delicious. we also got a side of white coleslaw and a baked sweet potato. all the food was half price because the restaurant was still testing this out--but this was irrelavent to us becuase we weren't paying for it anyway. after dinner we really induldged: we each smoked a cigar that they had bought earlier in the week and had some strong after dinner drinks. at first the idea was to have brandy and cigars, but instead matt and jeff got a tobacco infused burbon and i, in adam's honor (my friend adam from babson), got a glass of cognac. it was damn strong, buti enjoyed everydrop of the nostalgia.
Thursday July 27
today in class we experiences our first clash among students and i guess you could stay between countries. the brazillian kid shit all over america and gabe mopped it up and threw it back in his face. it was damn funny. not much else to say about that...
also, i spoke with cousin david who made me realize that i have to make it up to manchester soon (i.e. this weekend). i spent the night finding a train to manchester for tomorrow. i eventually got something for around 60 pounds. i was to leave around 3 on friday, but come back rather early on sunday b/c i already had plans w/ matt to do tea at the ritz. so i had to book a train back at 11 am (the only train that would come back direct)
Friday July 28
today there was no lecture, only classroom based discussion. it flew by and i came back to the room to pack. before i left for Euston station, i chilled w/ liz and gave her advice for her trip to venice. on my way to the station i had to eat and of course i went the equivalent of Beverly Hills 90210's "peach pit" or Saved By the Bell's "the max," ultimate burger. it was again, fantastic.
i eventually made my way to the train station and cooled down with a magnificent burger king vanilla milkshake. but when it came time to get on the train itself, things got heated up again. as soon as the platform was announced it was like rush hour at penn station when the great neck train is announced. people were running like mad for the train. i figured out that probably meant its hard to get seats. it was! i caught a seat in the "quite zone" which i rationalized as a good thing because a lil peace would be nice while travelling. but of course things dont work out that simply. i ended up having some siah sit next to me with her infant. she mom was making baby noises the whole way. the rest of the train car was loud--on their cell phones, telling jokes, etc. i started to flip out when the lazy was breast feeding her baby inches away from me. next she was burping her baby with the baby facing me! i was so scared the little bugger was going to blow chunks on me. fortunately, i'm not that unlucky.
i finally made it to manchester and jumped in the car with david. we first headed to a pub w/ some outdoor seating. we grabbed some nachos and beer. it was glorious, i had my first heineken in months--2 pints nonetheless. next we went to his house so i could drop my shit off and chill for a little bit. we had to pick up his grandma on the way to his uncle's house--where we were going for shabbat dinner. she was brutal. she was persian jewish grandma to the max. i'm having a hard time deciding if she was as bad as my grandma. i was offered so much damn food and asked all the basic questions about who's kid am i, if i want food, how long i'm staying in london, and if i want more food. wowser!
we eventually made it out of there and off to david's dad's brother's house. it was a beautiful house with backyard fountains, fish, and frogs. i met a bunch of his outspoken cousins. one of whom when asked by grandma "do you have a girlfriend" he responsed "don't worry about me...david is busy with a bunch of siahs." it was damn hilarious. dinner progressed well. i was given the honor of doing hamotzi. i didnt care as i wanted to get it done so i could eat gormeh sabzi and tah-dig. wow, fuckin good.
after dinner we just went back to his house to chill. i knew he was exhusted and i didnt want him to feel obligated to take me out. i felt bad.
Saturday July 29
i fell asleep the night before with all the windows shut and the drapes open. in effect, i woke up in a greenhouse. it was partches, hot, and cooked. it was not good especially because i woke up with this sun at 830 or something. i got up and opened the windows and went back to bed.
david had some work to do this morning, but we came back and picked me up around noon. we made a trip to the mall and started at selfridge's (huge department store). of course we went straight for the sale area and i bought an england football jerzy for 6 pounds (orginally 40). after that we went to the portuguese chicken place and i got some good spicy chicken and a portuguese beer. david "fancied" a movie so we went to see pirates of the carribbean II--it was pretty good. i think i missed out on some of the funny parts that alluded to the first one, but i recommend it nevertheless. after the movies david got tired of shopping pretty quickly so we split and went back home. he needed a nap.
that night we went to the city center and oddly started out at the strip club called "long legs" (http://www.long-legs.co.uk/) . i noticed many differences about strip clubs in london in comparison to one in the US (david mentioned that is rare to find a strip club with a pole in it--this one happened to have one. think about it...what are you gonna do to tip the girl? throw a pound at her?? ouch!!). also, the chicks come up to you and immediately offer you a lap dance. i remember back in the US they try to establish a relationship with you, incite interest, show off the product a lil bit (basic american sales strategy), and then ask you if you want a lap dance. very pushy girls. this one ugly one asked me and i said, "whoa, slow down there. arent you going to bullshit with me for a few minutes first or something?" she said, "if you get a dance we can talk afterwards." what a dumb whore, i dont want to talk to you after the fact. anyway, david got a dance pretty quickly. the amazing thing about lap dances here is that there is no private room or area... you just sit down wherever in the place--among the rest of the patrons--and get your dance. this leads to a great deal of freeloading, especially becuase they get completely naked here for lap dances. another big difference is that they barely touch you. in the US it is very common for them to rub their ass ass over you and rub your chest, arms and other part too (if you're lucky). just a lot of teasing here. david wanted to get some dinner before i got a lap dance, but i told him not to worry about that. we got our hands stamped and decided we could come back later if we wanted. we went to a chinese place for dinner and i was pretty drunk b/c i kept pounding beers while dave was getting a dance (i wanted the dancers to look good before i got one). the chinese place was crazy. we literally got out food w/in 3 minutes of ordering. i was flipping out. it was okay, not so good, but whatever.
after this we went around and cruised some bars. nothing too good. lots of old people in the air conditioned bars, and the rest of the places were either too fucking hot or just dead (this is still pretty early in the night--around 1030/11ish). so, instead,we went back to the strip club around 1145/12. i ended up getting 3 lap dances, but they were all teases. in retrospect, not the best use of my money, but memorable nonetheless. i tried to buy david a lap dance from the tall siah but she was giving me a hard time. i handed her the money and asked her to go over to dave, but she said that i'd have to tell him to come over to her. i said then its not a suprise, she's like "no, no it'll still be good." i told her to give me my money back. she did, but asked if i wanted one. i laughed in her face. another difference i noted about the strip clubs here is that they don't wear shoes during their pole dances. very odd--normally they wear glass heeled shoes or something. weird.
after all our fun at the strip club we went back home and i passed the F out.
Sunday July 30
we woke up not too late in the morning considering i had and 11:11 train. i finished packing and we headed out for the city center again for breakfast and to walk around. we ate at an outdoor french place-pretty good food. then we walked around market street. i think it would have been a really fun place to check out if it wasnt so early in the morning and if at least one shop was open. instead, we just got out exercise and i caught a slightly earlier train. this time it was too cold, but at least it was quite.
i got back and went shopping for souveneers and gifts for people. but the real highlight was that night: Tea at the Ritz. for one night matt, jeff, gabe, and i were "international ballers" (as gabe would say). we paid some dough, but got treated like kings. gabe and i got there on time, but matt and jeff were running late. we started off with cocktails while chillin on some comfortable couches and admired the rich folks that walked by, the grandiose guilding room, and pianist who played some mean sinatra beats. i had a mohito, but i think gabe made the best move by getting a long island iced tea. he's justification was "we came to the ritz for tea, didn't we?" the best part about it was endless kettle cooked chips and mixed nuts (as in free re-fills--do you have any idea how uncommon that is in europe?)
the two brothers showed up and we started our wasp escapade. they started us off with some ill champange and then brought out pastries, scones, and sandwhiches. throughout the night we had two different kinds of tea (english and jasmine). the food on the table was also free refills (baller!). the whole time i tried to be wasp-y and use everyone's full first name, chastise them for not using manners, and tried to talk about how we were going to improve the status of our country club's ethnic "diversity."it was pretty tight.
posted by joshuaneman@gmail.com at 1:41 PM
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