2001-12-30 - 10:44 p.m. people are strange Another lovely day in London...a photo of the beautiful interior of the British Museum will grace this page soon as it was where I spent the bulk of my day. (NOTE: photo added 1/5/01) As I was walking back to my homebase from the tube, I had a few thoughts about this trip and my stay in London overall: 1. Fries are chips. And chips are crisps. And cookies are biscuits (so what the hell are southern style biscuits and gravy called here anyway???) The latter point, about cookies being called "biscuits" was driven home for me on Christmas night, while watching the East Enders or some other soap with the extended family I'm visiting here (not my extended family, my friend's extended family.) The 3-year-old I'd been playing with all day quite sternly reprimanded me for my faux pas and gave me the correct terminology. Too bad he went to bed before we started playing charades. He could've been helpful. 2. Hot and cold water come out of different taps. This means you might, if you were me, burn your hands with boiling hot water when you haven't had your first cup of tea in the morning and are trying to wash up a bit to make yourself presentable. 3. The English are tea pushers. And this is a good thing. For one thing, having a cup of tea thrust into your hands first thing in the morning, before you've made yourself presentable, prevents you from having the perils described in #2 above befall you. I have loved having tea for years now. I've discovered I drink it correctly too -- without sugar but with milk. I've had tea (frequently including little sandwiches with things such as butter and tuna or tapas or baked treats) every day I've been here. It's going to be hard to break the habit of breakfast at 9:30, lunch or tea at 5:30 and dinner at 9 once I return to SF... 4. Closing time is for real. A bar, by definition, is a pub with live music. This allows it to stay open later than a pub. A pub must have its last call at 11:00 p.m. This means that from then onward the bartender walks around and screams at you to finish your pint and get the hell out. I thought the folks I was staying with were putting me on about this. Right up until I had to try to suck down an entire pint of John Smith's ale in less than 3 minutes with a pissed London bartender yelling at me. For the record, I left a good third of that beer there... Despite these oddities (mind you, I realize they are only oddities to a resident of California such as myself), I am having a lovely time here. Now, where are all those cute boys I keep hearing about? ;-) I hope a few turn up at the pub tomorrow night, especially if what I hear about New Year's Eve in London pubs is true...stay tuned for more details. any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09