LONDONERS!!! - The Savonarolan Invasion Begins

Brief observations:
Marmite - much better than I expected
"quite good" - not a high compliment? wha?
TV - less prudish = awesome
cellphones - ripping my hair out over how endlessly complicated this is (not an observation on Britain per se, though - I've never had one at all before).
food - absolutely no complaints so far. I just don't understand the stereotype...yet.

Other things

Took several curious photographs of a poster in Northfields station of a dodo bird. Specifically of its beak, which, if you see it while the bird itself is blocked (as I first did coming down the tube), looks positively like a way-too-detailed drawing of a phallus.

Wore a pair of Wellingtons for the first time in my life today.

Please airlift me some US>UK power adapters. Seriously. Well, at least tell me where on god's green and rainy earth I can find one. Just one, I'm begging!

Taking four pieces of baggage on the tube alone = not fun at all.

With luck I'll have a bank account by Monday.

i recommend the Heathrow Express to Paddington as opposed to the tube tho. actually i have never used it, but it looks fabulous.

Sam Smiths...hmm...I guess I'll have to try that at an upcoming FAP. I just tried Broadside (sp?) ale today at a nice 14th century(!) pub up in...Hertfordshire, Wheat-something I think.

Didn't really take in Northfields, steve, aside from the tube platform, but if it gives jel a kick, most happy then.

welcome to london, by the way! are you here for a while, or just a visit?

Welcome to London.

Latest updates/observations -

Rough day today; came down with a rather bad cold that I found out, upon talking to her this evening over the phone, has also infected my gf back home. And her whole family. (Ouch.) Nonetheless, I felt it more important to keep my excursion plans for the day and went with a neighbor down to Docklands and thereabouts. Certainly didn't do my cold well, but I'm glad I suffered through it nonetheless, because it was worth it.

Brief visit to the NFT to look around; I'll have to catch the Elephant premiere here later this month, as I missed the week it was in Baltimore. Stopped for a pint in Wether...damn, I'm just not good with names here. I believe it was a pint of Old Bob, which was decent but a bit too bitter aftertaste for my satisfaction. Oh, and later a salt beef sandwich, which I think I found out is similar to corned beef, if not the same. Wait, I ate beef? Oh, well...too late now. Docklands was good, but the day wasn't very nice out now, was it? A quick stop at the Tate Modern, where the weather art installation blew me away (and made me feel warmer). Great work there, and I discovered the great uses of monofrequency light. I will definitely be using that in a future film project - everything looked black and white with a pale yellow tint; I don't think I've ever seen anything through the naked eye in monochrome before.

Not much more to tell, as I slept through most of the rest of the day. Shall be going back to sleep shortly as well. Hopefully I'll hold up better tomorrow.

!!!!!

You're on my old manor, so to speak. Are we talking High Barnet or the borough of Barnet?

mmmmm broadside. adnams finest.

Observation of the day
Tangential to all this is what I find the most unconsciously unsettling, I think - different brands of things. Obviously brands commonly found in America aren't here - and even then you can usually find something close enough and familiar, but then I get to feeling guilty that I'm just playing things safe and not really making any attempt at adapting. So for the moment I have this strange feeling in that I really have no idea what the brands are over here for the more mundane things, and oftentimes the differences, while only literally nominal, make me less confident in the item. I really ought to overcome that, I suppose; it's not that I distrust things from over here, it's just that I feel overwhelmingly lost in an alternate universe, so I instinctively flinch at them. I guess time and gradual exposure to adverts and things will change all that. I hope so.

Observations for today - I really need to find an affordable calling card. Right now I seem to have found Alpha Blue, which I am told is reasonable, except that any savings seemed to be cancelled out by the fact that my only reliable phone line is my mobile, and that ups the rates back up if I call using it. Surely there is a cheaper way to call the US, or must I be tethered to a landline for this to make sense?

I'm adjusting decently well, I think. I've started to stop thinking about prices in dollar equivalents, because it just drives one crazy. I decide that if the number would look right in dollars, it looks alright in pounds.

Found a flatshare in Manor House, which is nice b/c it is right on the border of Zone 2 and 3, so I can just get a Zones 1 and 2 pass - plus it's on the Piccadilly line, so a ten minute walk to the station and a twenty minute ride to Covent Garden and I'm set. And Turkish grocers all around are nice as far as shopping hours and prices go.

While searching for flatshares, I originally was concerned about finding a place with broadband, but most people actually seemed amused that I was even asking...I guess it's not as rampant over here. I pretty much gave up on finding it and a decent flatshare with cool people at a reasonable price - I'll just do my high-powered stuff on the school wireless connection...once I get my Airport card.

I need to get a small attache case and possibly a small backpack - where is the best place to buy these things?

I'm moving into the Manor House flat today and tomorrow and I have a lot of dirty clothes. I guess my adventures sans dryer begin...

Oh, and I have totally been taking advantage of the NFT. I get in free if there are empty seats for any non-special event show. I probably see, on a week's average, a movie per night there. Aside from my Hitchcock boxset of DVDs I brought with me, every film I've seen since I've gotten here has been viewed on the big screen. Then again, this reminds me that I need to find a decently priced region-code-free DVD player...arg...

and i think that they have a lot more region-free DVD players here. argos is good for cheap stuff like that.

there's several luggage shops on charing cross road just south of tottenham court road station. haven't ever bought anything at any of them, but have walked past on many occasions.

Argos? I'll have a look. Aren't the shops around those places expensive, though? I don't need anything special - just a relatively local place (or widespread chain) that will give me simple items like those for simple (for London) prices. Also, I think I'm going to have to buy a set of sheets and pillows...would I get these at the same place? Is there anywhere where I can consolidate my shopping a bit?

Sorry for the barrage of q's, but I really appreciate the help I've gotten here so far! And many gold ducats to whoever on ILX showed me to the world of MoveFlat on a previous thread months and months ago...

they have electronics and luggage and sheets and clothes and batteries and even US/UK plug adaptors, which i just discovered.

i seriously doubt if you'll be able to get a pay-monthly plan without jumping through a lot of hoops and/or spending a lot of money. even though i was here for school AND working, i couldn't get a pay-monthly phone until i'd been here for more than a year and already had a credit card (which i had to have a bank account for 1 year to get) and i still had to put like £100 as a deposit.

and the luggage shops on charing X are pretty cheap, i think. that's not the posh end of oxford street, and you can find a bargain. you might also take a walk down seven sisters road towards holloway road, since there's lots of weird little shops along there (especially towards the holloway end) that probably sell inexpensive bags and other household necessities.

as far as calling the states, i just tend to call people and have them call me back, since it's cheaper. also might be worth looking at internet phones, if you're getting broadband at your place.

Thanks again for the tips Colette! I'll have to buy you a drink at the next FAP. (/xpost)

Hmm...didn't think about street markets. I guess I'll have to see if I can deal with Argos first.

Weird that your housing search plowed up people who were not au fait with broadband.

x-post

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DC3MW/ref=br_lf_ce_2/026-1364989-6865221

Jesus! It's gone down to £30! Man, was that a wasted extra tenner I paid for it before Christmas. Still, it does just what it says on the tin ,and it's pretty frickin' cheap whichever way you look at it.

Belated welcomes also! Hurrah, another member for the North London ILX Massive. We must show those filthy south-of-the-river types the error of their ways.

If you're talking about the Tracer in London thread, that might've been me. How many pints does a gold ducat buy these days?

Any case, flat had a collective need for an Ikea run, so that sorted out the basic and immediate domestic issues of things like bedding, lights, etc. Oh, and Swedish meatball cravings...

Still undecided on DVD issues. Definitely need multiregion and multiformat (NTSC and PAL dual compatible). Don't want to spend mucho. I'll follow the tips as above, but problems often are that salespeople often simply don't know if the players can do multiregion (or sometimes what multiregion is - Yipes!). Still playing around here. Split about whether to buy a VHS, as again, I'd want a multiformat player, but most of those cost easily three figures, which is too much to pay for a consumer-usage VHS, multiformat or not.

Otherwise, I'd say I'm in good as far as the rest of my life is going for the moment. Now I have to start doing mundane things like cooking again.

Not having broadband isn't so bad, actually. It streamlines my Internet time (less wandering for wandering's sake), although it does keep me off of ILX a lot more than I wish it did. Sadly, this is probably for the better (schedule/work-wise, anyway) - I need to be better about my time-management. I'm still going to pop in as much as I can, though. And I'm getting an Airport card for my PB, so soon I'll have wireless broadband access at school and cafes and such. So that's not too bad!

Alright, must sleep. Have photo shoot tomorrow.

Bum bag - £square root of -1 (Toby to thread, obv)

Oyster Cards, A4 paper, degrees Celsius, stone weight, and tea & biscuits (to name just a few of you) - I missed you guys!