{"id":419,"date":"2010-12-06T08:14:38","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T16:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/?p=419"},"modified":"2010-12-09T08:21:50","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T16:21:50","slug":"across-the-pond-day-2-happy-cold-tired-and-tired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/across-the-pond-day-2-happy-cold-tired-and-tired\/","title":{"rendered":"Across the Pond: Day 2, Happy, Cold, Tired and Tired"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I arrived<\/a> in London. Ready for my first day of work in the UK, I had called in the hotel’s concierge for a prompt 7am wake up call. Somewhere along the line, they decided I had no idea what I was talking about and I really should wake up at 4am. And boy did they follow through. This was no “automatic wake up call” from some computer script. No, sir. They called three times, determined I would be ready for the day ahead.<\/p>\n

An hour or so later, I gave up my futile hope I might actually get some more sleep and decided to be productive. By productive, of course, I meant trying out video chat with people back home, for whom it wasn’t even bedtime yet.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, determined to be ready for work on time, I stopped by the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Unsure of the normal procedure here, I assumed it was “complimentary” like back home and nothing challenged that perception. They did ask for my room number, for sure, but otherwise it was a normal, however very English, buffet style hotel breakfast of eggs, meat, breads, cereals and fruit. <\/p>\n

I left for work feeling good. I’d been awake for quite a while, the hotel provided a shuttle (avoiding the aimless wandering of the day before) and I was well ahead of schedule. Honestly, work went quite well also. Everyone I met was competent (!!!), we outlined what needed to happen and the day ended productively. <\/p>\n

Leaving work, however, I realized how amazingly tired I was. At this point I felt like it was at least four hours later than it actually was and by the time I got back to my hotel I was almost ready for bed. Freezing cold, by the way, because I’d decided to walk and save money. At least this time I made it in one go.<\/p>\n

Hanging around the hotel, I decided to relax for a while and mess around on the internet. I checked into all the normal social media sites I couldn’t access while at work and finally realized, an hour or two later, that playing on the internet is not the same as sleep and I was not getting any less tired. Also, the hotel room, while not exactly “cold”, was not<\/i> warm despite setting the thermostat to 24C\/75F degrees.<\/p>\n

The day before I had stumbled back into town, gotten food and stumbled home. That wasn’t going to fly tonight. After all, I was in London! This was not a time to “hang out” at the hotel. After some quick internet research, I was going to Leicester Square!<\/p>\n

Not wanting to be any colder than I already was, I caught a cab to the tube station. When I got to Leicester Square… it was awesome! Bright lights, dozens of restaurants, theaters, musicals and more (much more) lit up the streets. I walked for a while, enjoying everything despite the cold when I decided to check out the Trocadero. <\/p>\n

The Trocadero is an interesting thing. It’s like an arcade, casino and carnival thrown together in a labyrinthian architecture with a few bars and a bowling alley thrown in. It spans a city block or so, mostly underground and goes up and down at least five stories. The use of escalators and displaced stairways meant that however you got up to a level would not be the same way you got back down. Also, there was an entire area that looked like a parking garage dedicated to break dancing. It took me at least an hour to find my way back out to the street.<\/p>\n

Having escaped The Labyrinth, I needed some food. I found a pub, distinguishable by the exact same architecture, paint and sign font that every other tourist pub in London uses. After debating hanging out in the bar first, I headed upstairs to the dining area and immediately ordered some bangers and mash. I was slightly disappointed that the menu didn’t call them<\/i> bangers and mash, but what can you do?<\/p>\n

My lust for adventure momentarily satiated and realizing that now I was falling-asleep-tired, I headed back to the hotel. The entire trip one-way took about a half hour on the tube and I caught a cab at the end. At last, sleep.<\/p>\n

Oh, and that breakfast? 17 pounds. Yeah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day Two in London. First day on the job! My hotel decides they know my sleep schedule better than I do and after work I explore a bit of the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[166,164,162,167,40,168,163,277,270,280,165],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-business","tag-canary-wharf","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-fun","tag-leicester-square","tag-london","tag-personal","tag-tech","tag-travel","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chaotickingdoms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}