I love the fact this place has its own bar. I've been sipping beer since about 11, with Vivienne and Jimmy, who are two of my roommates. Strangely, Vivienne isn't really Vivienne. She's Sally or something like that, but she's moving from Italy to London to make a new life for herself, and I guess a new name's part of the package.

You really do meet the most interesting people when you travel.

I met up with Jimmy and ol' Viv in the bar tonight and shortly after I caught up with them, Vivienne invited two other women to join us. Lily is a Brazilian from Sao Paulo, and Elena is Swiss-Italian. Both of them are beautiful, I must say. Elena could be a model--she has the looks and the twig-thin build for it. And she gave me my first-ever test in the Italian kiss goodbye thing. I failed.

Lily, on the other hand. Oh boy. Perhaps not as classicly pretty as Elena, but still.

Okay. I'm bragging about meeting pretty women tonight. I'll admit that. But I'm also getting their names down in writing because I have pictures of them, and since I doubt I'll
7:36:31 PM    comment []

Well, I'm here, finally. Here's a little test. If you're reading this, send me an e-mail to let me know. I'm curious whether this does any good for anyone but me.

So, my flights went pretty well. The trip from Indy to O'Hare was about as flawless as I might have hoped. The trip to Heathrow was good, too. British Air now has seatback video throughout its 777 fleet, so that helped while away the time, especially since sleep was so hard to come by. We were able to watch a real-time model of where the plane was throughout the trip, the miles and hours left until Heathrow, the altitude and ground speed, and so on. That was pretty cool, if you find geeky things cool.

My seatmates from O'Hare to Heathrow were interesting and nice. Both were meeting connecting flights--he to Saudi Arabia and she to Cairo. That's a lot of travel on top of a flight from Chicago to London. I don't envy them.

After retrieving my luggage at Heathrow, it was a piece of piss to jump on Heathrow Express for Paddington Station. Quick, too. 15 minutes instead of the hour or so you'd expect to spend on the Underground. I then caught a series of tube trains to my hostel...

...which is interesting in itself. It's been described as Blade Runner come to earth, and if you recall how rundown and seedy some of the settings were in that film, I'd agree. What they really mean, though, is the future-chic the movie puts forth. The hostel certainly is rundown and seedy. But the beds and bathrooms are clean, and that's all that really matters. The staff is friendly and helpful, which is also nice.

And there's, so far, two women in my room. This hostel only offers mixed-sex rooms. Which should be interesting for me tonight, since I forgot to bring my jammies. Heh. Well, it's not worth being embarrassed over.

Ye, gods. One problem with my lack of sleep last night: I can't hold open my eyes now. And I'm supposed to see Hamlet tonight. Wonder how well that will work out. I considered a nap, but I figured there was a better-than-even chance I'd sleep straight through the play and awaken sometime around noon tomorrow.

My thoughts are losing coherence. It's a wonder my thoughts ever had coherence.

11:47:19 AM    comment []