Austin Ziegler (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} halostatue) wrote,@ 2006-07-13 03:03:00 |
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We are the Mods (in the Berliner Sauna)
Vacation rocks so far. Literally. We left on Friday at 23:45 EDT and landed in London around 12:00 UTC Saturday. After landing, we went to the hotel by tube (no sissy Heathrow Express for us experienced travellers), arriving there about 14:30 UTC. We stayed in the Kensington Close just off Kensington High Street and just around the corner from the tube station. The room was small but comfortable and functional with a bath (bonus!). The hotel had a spa/gym attached with a pool for a £5 per person per stay access charge. We napped for a couple of hours and then wandered up to Kensington Church Street and found a nice little restaurant called Café Rouge where we dined nicely. The four of us (AM, her sister Giz, and Giz’s partner Rob) walked down through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace and ended up in a quaint little pub called the Bag o’ Nails. The staff was efficient if with a little less-than-perfect English (like the staff of the Kensington Close, they seemed east-European). I remembered quickly what I hate about English pubs and celebrated about Ontario’s decision to make all public places smoke-free. My clothes stunk.
Sunday, AM and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum where we spent an hour or so looking over the fashion exhibits, then went through the life sciences section of the Museum of National History, just across the way. They had a really neat dinosaur exhibit, of which I have good pictures and may post at some point. We went back to the hotel and swam, and then went to Kensal Green cemetary for a walk through another interesting cemetary (and research for AM’s book) and then going to this godawful pub for a night of godawful football. The staff were friendly, but the food was…disastrous, and I’m being charitable. It was worse for the meat eaters, but the real kicker was the nachos. The guacamole was clearly made by someone who has never had real guacamole. The "salsa" was tomato-sauce based, and the sour cream wasn’t. It was créme fraîche. The house was divided among Italy fans and France fans, and I was there in the middle, completely not giving a shit. Second night of stinking like stale cigarette smoke and getting a bit cross because of it.
On Monday, AM and I wandered down the back way from the Kensington Close where we encountered Mary Austin turning into Freddy Mercury’s old house on Logan Place. Not that I knew who she was until AM, rock trivia chick that she is, explained. I just thought we were talking to a friendly Londoner walking her dog. (Which, in fact we were. It just happened that this Londoner is someone who lives in a famous house that has a door defaced by fans of the man.) AM wanted to walk through Brompton Cemetary (also a setting in her book), so we did. After, we did The Da Vinci Code thing and went to Temple Church and then Westminster Abbey. We came back to the hotel, swam, and went our separate ways. AM to a Who/Rachel Fuller-blogger gathering and I to present at the London Ruby Users Group at Faringdon (which I posted about on my main blog). We mostly packed up on return.
We left London on Tuesday, going back out to Heathrow for our flight to Berlin. We arrived at the hotel around 17:00 CET, and caught the X9 to the Berlin Zoo station (do not ask me to try to produce that in German). We had dinner at a nice place near Savignyplatz, and then decided to walk to the Brandenburg Gate. It was significantly further than we thought, but I thought it was a very good walk. We came back to the hotel (the Econtel on Sömmeringstraße) and called it a night.
On Wednesday, we traipsed around Berlin and went to the Checkpoint Charlie/Wall Museum (fascinating), went to the Judisches Museum (the Jewish Museum), and scouted out where we were supposed to meet some Who fans before the concert. That ended up not working out, but that’s okay.
The concert absolutely rocked. It may be just Pete and Roger, but they can still rock a hall. If you can call the Treptower Arena a hall. Pete said last night, “this place is kind of a hole—but it’s our hole.” He was right. The Arena appeared to be a converted hanger with no ventilation whatsoever. It had to be 35°C with 90% humidity in the Arena last night. But it was “festival” and we managed to get about 7–10m away from the stage. The picture here is 3× zoomed and significantly reduced in size, but damn was the concert great. Absolutely worth the trip. (AM got to meet Rachel Fuller, too, and may be able to finagle something for the Toronto concert when it happens.) Great night all around.
Off to pick up the car and drive around starting today. I’ll be contacting a couple of Rubyists today to see what can happen with scheduling of things, but we’ll be playing things by ear.
Vacation rocks so far. Literally. We left on Friday at 23:45 EDT and landed in London around 12:00 UTC Saturday. After landing, we went to the hotel by tube (no sissy Heathrow Express for us experienced travellers), arriving there about 14:30 UTC. We stayed in the Kensington Close just off Kensington High Street and just around the corner from the tube station. The room was small but comfortable and functional with a bath (bonus!). The hotel had a spa/gym attached with a pool for a £5 per person per stay access charge. We napped for a couple of hours and then wandered up to Kensington Church Street and found a nice little restaurant called Café Rouge where we dined nicely. The four of us (AM, her sister Giz, and Giz’s partner Rob) walked down through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace and ended up in a quaint little pub called the Bag o’ Nails. The staff was efficient if with a little less-than-perfect English (like the staff of the Kensington Close, they seemed east-European). I remembered quickly what I hate about English pubs and celebrated about Ontario’s decision to make all public places smoke-free. My clothes stunk.
Sunday, AM and I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum where we spent an hour or so looking over the fashion exhibits, then went through the life sciences section of the Museum of National History, just across the way. They had a really neat dinosaur exhibit, of which I have good pictures and may post at some point. We went back to the hotel and swam, and then went to Kensal Green cemetary for a walk through another interesting cemetary (and research for AM’s book) and then going to this godawful pub for a night of godawful football. The staff were friendly, but the food was…disastrous, and I’m being charitable. It was worse for the meat eaters, but the real kicker was the nachos. The guacamole was clearly made by someone who has never had real guacamole. The "salsa" was tomato-sauce based, and the sour cream wasn’t. It was créme fraîche. The house was divided among Italy fans and France fans, and I was there in the middle, completely not giving a shit. Second night of stinking like stale cigarette smoke and getting a bit cross because of it.
On Monday, AM and I wandered down the back way from the Kensington Close where we encountered Mary Austin turning into Freddy Mercury’s old house on Logan Place. Not that I knew who she was until AM, rock trivia chick that she is, explained. I just thought we were talking to a friendly Londoner walking her dog. (Which, in fact we were. It just happened that this Londoner is someone who lives in a famous house that has a door defaced by fans of the man.) AM wanted to walk through Brompton Cemetary (also a setting in her book), so we did. After, we did The Da Vinci Code thing and went to Temple Church and then Westminster Abbey. We came back to the hotel, swam, and went our separate ways. AM to a Who/Rachel Fuller-blogger gathering and I to present at the London Ruby Users Group at Faringdon (which I posted about on my main blog). We mostly packed up on return.
We left London on Tuesday, going back out to Heathrow for our flight to Berlin. We arrived at the hotel around 17:00 CET, and caught the X9 to the Berlin Zoo station (do not ask me to try to produce that in German). We had dinner at a nice place near Savignyplatz, and then decided to walk to the Brandenburg Gate. It was significantly further than we thought, but I thought it was a very good walk. We came back to the hotel (the Econtel on Sömmeringstraße) and called it a night.
On Wednesday, we traipsed around Berlin and went to the Checkpoint Charlie/Wall Museum (fascinating), went to the Judisches Museum (the Jewish Museum), and scouted out where we were supposed to meet some Who fans before the concert. That ended up not working out, but that’s okay.
The concert absolutely rocked. It may be just Pete and Roger, but they can still rock a hall. If you can call the Treptower Arena a hall. Pete said last night, “this place is kind of a hole—but it’s our hole.” He was right. The Arena appeared to be a converted hanger with no ventilation whatsoever. It had to be 35°C with 90% humidity in the Arena last night. But it was “festival” and we managed to get about 7–10m away from the stage. The picture here is 3× zoomed and significantly reduced in size, but damn was the concert great. Absolutely worth the trip. (AM got to meet Rachel Fuller, too, and may be able to finagle something for the Toronto concert when it happens.) Great night all around.Off to pick up the car and drive around starting today. I’ll be contacting a couple of Rubyists today to see what can happen with scheduling of things, but we’ll be playing things by ear.
