London music

My room is all packed up, the boys are at The 300, and I'm bored with no TV, iPod, or book (because they are all packed up).
If I ever forget what it felt like to live in London, I'll just go to a restaurant where they treat me like shit, and listen to these songs:
Girls Aloud: Something Kind of Oooh
Fedde Le Grand: Put Your Hands Up For Detroit
If I can't find either of those, I'll just play something with a techno beat.

The Brits LOVE these songs. And they love listening to them at obscene volumes. Thanks to MP3 players, this country will, most likely, be deaf in 20 years.

To the lady on the tube

I'm very sorry that I accidentally stepped on your foot when the tube lurched. However, that doesn't give you the right to purposefully hit me on the leg. What are you? 5 years old?

All good things must come to an end

I am officially retired from London Starbucks! Good God, does it feel wonderful. Let's take a minute to remember all of the things that I won't miss:
Double espresso macchiato lady who insists on us filling up her short cup, all the way to the top, but refuses to pay for, or even call it a latte.
The random dead mice that we found in the couch cushions.
The manual espresso machine. I think I gave myself some bad finger joints because of that thing.
The crazy lady who spat at herself and muttered to the air.

I will miss the girls that I worked with, though. They started off shakey in my book, but I ended up liking them a lot.

Now I'm in my last few days as a Londoner. As I type, I'm waiting for someone to come see my room and hopefully, sign a lease so I can get my deposit back (long story, very boring).
I have seen all of the London 1001 paintings that I have to see before I die. I have been to plays. I have been on day trips to the country. I have seen the tourist trap things. I have been to the markets. I think I have 'done' London pretty well.
I'll be sad to leave it all behind, but I also really excited about going home, seeing my dog, having cable TV, and having my own bathroom.

London fashion

While I'm sitting here in front of the computer, I should get this out of my system.
London is not fashionable. It is certainly trendy. The older generations all dress nicely, mostly in dark colors, but nothing 'fashionable.' The 13-27 year old females, however, are terrible. They all wear one of two outfits: a)tight jeans tucked into knee high boots with a blousy maternity top, lots of scarves, and enormous sunglasses or b)black footless leggings with ballet flats, the same maternity tops, lots of scarves and enormous sunglasses. If the girl is purse-carrying age, she carries a brightly colored leather suitcase-like bag with lots of flaps. 70% of the girls who wear this are semi-cute with good enough figures. Only 7% look good in this.

One if by land, two if by sea

(At least, that's the number of people who get sick by that mode of transport)

Just returned from Ireland and it was great.
Long story short, there wasn't a way to get back to the airport from Gallway so we had to rent a car. At the rental car place, the guy there hooked us up with a B&B that was the same price as the hostel we were planning on staying at. That gets a thumbs up.
Food is super expensive in Gallway. I had a baked potato one night with various toppings for €10. That's a lot. That's like paying $25 for one Mexican entre. Thumbs down. Because of the prices, we tempered our appetites with MacDonalds. Boooo to culture.

We took a ferry over to the Aran Islands. This is the ride where Joe and I got sick. Frank managed to keep his sea legs (or at the very least, he kept his breakfast), but it was rough. I wish I could have taken a picture of the enormous waves that we tipping us back and forth. If you looked out one window, all that you could see was ocean, and through the other window, it was all sky. Big thumbs down there. Aran Islands are beautiful. They inspired me to be active again! We rented bikes and rode around for the whole day, discovering bones on beaches (I'm not kidding!), playing with the lonesome horses, and getting blown away by the fierce winds.

Thumbs up for horses. The islands were covered in white washed houses with bright red doors and brown thatched roofes, just like I hoped. Riding the bikes was the best way to see everything because they were so flat that it didn't take much effort, but we were able to decide how long we stayed places. Thumbs up for no tour groups. We hiked up to some cliffs while we were there and they were so gorgeous. No railings meant that we could sit on the ledge and watch the ocean beneath us. Surreal. Thumbs way up.
The final day we drove that rental car. Scary, let me tell you. Not only was it a manual, but Ireland drives on the wrong side of the road. Joe had to figure out the wrong side thing, in addition to the transmission being flip-flopped. First gear is furthest away from the driver. Very strange, but oddly fun. Thumbs way up. Frank was sorta sick and had lost his voice, which meant I had to navigate. Me navigating a nervous Joe was interesting. On some stretches of road, Frank sat up front and I stayed in the back, which prompted me to get sick. Thumbs down.
The weirdest part of the trip was Joe's backpack. When we were getting our checked bags, Joe's had been opened and he quickly discovered his granola bars were missing. I assumed that customs had searched it and food wasn't allowed in. When we got on the bus to town, he learned that my library book and his bathroom things were also gone. I checked with the airport to see if they had turned up lost, but while there were many other lost items, none of our were there. A strange collection to steal, but that's the only option left. Thumbs down.
That leaves Ireland with three thumbs which is more than I have so it must be good.
Now its back to work and trip planning. Six weeks is a lot to plan. We're getting there, slowly but surely. Seven more days of work. Yahooo.

Edinburgh

I'm getting lazy about this blog thing.
Last weekend, we went to Edinburgh. Took two much needed days off of work and then trained it to Scotland. A girl that Frank used to work with, Ericha, came with us, as did her husband, John. They are a few years older than us and act like they are 50 (they took naps every day) but it was nice to have some different company.
The hostel we stayed in was amazing. Literally, look out the window and there's the castle. Actually, everything in Edinburgh looks like it could be a castle. We visited the museum (where I crossed off a few more 'must see before you die' paintings), explored the castle (£12 that really wasn't worth it--the crown jewels are about as impressive as my jewelry collection), and then took a day trip up to Loch Ness. None of us saw the monster, but we decided that the countryside was beautiful. Oh! And I went on a hike! There's a volcano in the middle of Edinburgh called Arthur's Seat that we diced to hike to the very top of. I took pictures of myself at the top so that people would believe that I spent time in nature. Amazingly, I didn't even whine much. What was my motivation? Frank promised to write me an epic song if I climbed to the top with them. I've yet to hear it performed, but Joe says its quite good. We all decided that Scotland was gorgeous and we would love to go back sometime.
Now I'm back in London, back to disliking my job. Today we finalized some of our Europe trip plans and as of now, our schedule is as follows:
April 2-4: Aix-en-Provence, France
April 5-6: Switzerland (most likely, Geneva)
April 7-8: Cologne, Germany (Frank has a friend there who we will meet up with)
April 9-13: Paris (Frank's aunts will be in Paris at that time, too)
April 14-15: Amsterdam (My old roommate lives there)
April 16-18: Berlin
April 19-20: Prague
April 21-22: Budapest
April 23-24: Vienna
April 25-27: Venice
April 28-29: Verona
April 30-May 2: Florence
May 3: Pisa
May 4-6: Rome
May 7: Amalfi
May 8: travel day to get to Greece
May 9-10: Corfu
May 11-14: Athens
May 15: back to London
May 16: back to Seattle!

I'm excited about all of the traveling I'll be doing, a little nervous about all of the money I'll be spending, and kinda sad to be leaving a city that I have a love-hate relationship with. I'm sure I'll cry when I leave, but then, I cry at everything.
Anyone know any amazing things to do in any of those places?
Also, two discoveries: one of the guys who lives with us used to be the voice of the bad guy in Power Rangers. I'm living with a celebrity. I'm also living with a middle aged crazy man who just moved in and has long conversations on the public phone that should really be done in private. Frank and I think he was just left by his wife.
This weekend I'm off to Ireland!
I'm too lazy to upload pictures onto the internet, so I'll have to have a big picture party when I get back to the US of A.