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So, the wedding went off pretty well without a hitch.   The time up north on the beach was quite relaxing as well.   Lollapalooza was amazing though really tiring.  Both Flogging Molly and NIN were just as awesome as I was expecting, and NIN even seemed to exceed my expectations a bit.

Unfortunately I’m still slightly MIA; It’s moving time.  Over the next week I’ll be moving from my current apartment in Okemos to a house in East Lansing on the corner of Lake Lansing and Abbot.    To hold you over till I have time again, here are my pictures from Lollapalooza:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/waltflanagan/sets/72157606560819962/

Videos will be up soon also.

Be back once we have internet at the new house.

Day 5

1:50 pm GMT

Today when I met courtney I found out that her wallet had disappeared at some point between yesterday afternoon and today.  She doesn’t recall using it since 2 and her bag has been pretty secure the whole time.  Luckily she had mostly traveller’s checks, so it’s not a complete disaster.

After dealing with contacting amex about replacement checks, we headed over to the London Aquarium.  It was nice, though much smaller than expected.  The exhibits they had were pretty cool though. They had two gigantic tanks representing life in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  Those were pretty badass.  Easily over a million gallons, though I’m terrible at estimating volume

Currently we are finishing up lunch at a place called Pizza Express by the waterloo bridge.  Its a nice place with really good pizza and they seem to havea  large selection of wine.  I think i’ve seen these elsewhere, so it looks like a decent chain restaurant.  After this we’re off to the imperial war museum.  I’ve heard good things.

5:15pm GMT

The sky looks like rain, but I don’t think it’s going to.  This is the first sign of weather we’ve had so far during the trip.  I just felt a single drop of rain and I think that’s basically all we’ll get out of these menacing clouds;  A drop here and there just to keep up wondering.

The Imperial War Museum was pretty awesome.  It mostly consisted of WWI and II exhibits and a large exhibit about D-Day.  (There was also a holocaust exhibit, but we skipped it)  There were tons of old uniforms from both sides of the war, as well as equipment and weapons.  It was all set up in time periods, so it was neat to progress through the years as things developed and see what changed.  There were also two large cannons from a battleship mounted in the front lawn.  neat.

Not sure what the plan is now, probably dinner soon, then some sort of beer.  Maybe more wandering around London tnight in a different area of town than last night.  Being that neither of us knows the city, planning is hard.

6:35 pm GMT

Another meal of store-bought sandwiches.  These seem to actually be the best option after a day of walking all over the city.  Filling, cheap, and easy on the stomach.  A nap would be nice before hitting the town and drinking.

I think the feelings of homesickness have really been feelings of being lost and alone without control.  The things that have happened so far to make the trip less awesome (stolen ipod/wallet etc.) have been glaring examples of how not in control we are here.  Back home I basically have everything in my life under control.  My car lets me go where-ever, I know where things are.  Here though, I have control over what i’m carrying and that is it. This has had a bit of negative impact on attempting a little social sky-diving here.  I’ve tended much more to remain introverted because my brain has been a bit frazzled.

9:00pm GMT

Drinking at Vic Naylor’s now, the pub that played a large roll in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  For the future, I need to do more research about cult stuff like that that might have happened where ever I’m going.  A movie tour would be awesome with friends.

Day 4

Started off the day with toast/peanut butter from a cafe along the street.  Found a random park to sit and eat it in along the way to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal Society of Surgeons.  The museum is dedicated to showing the anatomical collection of John Hunter.  There was a hell of a lot of weird specimens in there at at times it seemed like i was in  a Ripley’s Believe it or not museum.  A neat part about it for the computer scientist in me was that they had the left half of Charles Babbage‘s brain there.

After that, we headed over to trefalgar square.  Once there we noticed it’s right in front of the national gallery, so we stopped in to see it first.  Wasn’t incredibly exciting, but it was pretty neat to see all the paintings from those big name artists.

Once we got bored of the gallery, we headed out to the square to sit by the fountains and just chill out.  (There was a lot of sitting and chillin in parks etc. on this trip.  tons of places to do it in London also, all really nice)  The sun has been playing hide & seek while out here, so it hasn’t been a consistent temperature, which is getting annoying.

Something just happened to me which hasn’t happened in a long time (probably because im no longer walking amongst hundreds of students back and forth to class anymore).  A guy came up and asked if I would go to heaven if i died. I said ‘no,’ he asked if i’d like to.  Another ‘no.’  Then he just moved on to the next group and started his schpiel over again. Too bad, I would have liked a good discussion.

(Not included in my journal:  After Trefalgar square, we headed over to see Buckingham Palace.  We couldn’t find any guards with funny hats to dance in front of though.  Oh well.  Probably just too late in the day.

After that we went out to try to find dinner, and I started seeing a pattern with all the Pubs in the city starting at around 4:30.  They would fill up and start overflowing into the streets.  People in this town really take drinking seriously and start it as soon as possible after work.  Probably because all the pubs close at 11 and the liquor stores stop selling alcohol then too.

That night for entertainment, we decided to take advantage of the lax drinking laws and grab a couple 22′s and wander the streets of London.  We ended up in a park right near Tower Bridge (pictured above).  There were quite a lot of other groups of people there doing the same.  It was one of the highlights of the trip.)

Day 3

5:30 pm GMT

Felt like shit this morning. Got out of bed around 5 am to get some water and check the time on my ipod. Apparently I must have not concealed my bag enough, cause a few hours later I woke back up and it was stolen. Son of a bitch. ( I’m pretty sure it was stolen by this french douchebag that was loud and drunk the night before) The annoying part is that travelling, i.e. waiting for planes, trains, and ferries, will be boring as hell. I could care less about the price tag.

Around 11:30 core and I headed out to Camden Town. Tons of shops lined along the sidewalk. Various side streets also filled with shops. (Mostly tattoo/piercing places and touristy places). There was a huge clothing market with tons of clothes i would never wear. Giant tourist clusterfuck.

After that we got some obligatory Fish & Chips. It’s pretty overrated. Checked that off my list of things to do.

After food we hoofed it over to the London Zoo. It’s a pretty big zoo with tons to see. We missed half of it because we got there at 3 and it closed at 5:30. (yea, 2.5 hours and we still didnt get all of it). I’m not too disappointed though because my legs and feet are hating me.

Now we’re resting in Reagent’s Park. This place is HUGE. We’re up in one corner of it and I can’t see the other end.

No Idea about plans for tonight. Probably more drinking somewhere. This time more food/water beforehand though.

Reflection:

That day I felt pretty violated in the morning. It was the first time i’ve ever had anything stolen that was worth much. I managed to shrug it off for the most part, luckily. It did add a bit off an off feeling to the day though and I didn’t have as much fun exploring as I should have. This was only the first encounter we would have with theivery though. The trip wouldnt have been the learning experience it was without this though. I’ll be much much more prepared when travelling in the future.

Day 2. Again, commentarry in (parentheses).

9:00 am GMT (Hostel Lobby)

Finally all checked into the hostel. Have a bed with a curtain. Yay, privacy! Apparently my phone doesn’t want to work here, even though I have a supposedly “international phone rental” from verizon. It’s operating in “emergency only” mode. WTF is that? Found Core without it luckily. Now I’m just waiting for her to come down to the lobby to explore the city.

10:15 am GMT (Panzo, cafe)

Walked around town a bit, then headed over towards Westminster Abbey. (We took the tube over towards Westminter, and right as we emerged from the stairs we were greeted with Big Ben.) Decided on food before sightseeing, so we wandered off and found a small cafe. Looks like a chain sort of thing. Panzo- Monck Street 15

6:10 pm GMT (Bed at hostel)

Long day of walking all around London. (We decided against going into Westminster Abbey because it was like 15 pounds for admission. $30 is a bit much to see a church.) Went to the Tate Modern art museum. Not as amazing as I’d heard. Basically like all the other modern art museums I’ve been to, but it’s in London. There seemed to be a lot more non-english speakers than english speakers in there too. (There were a few neat minimalist and contemporary art exhibits, but I’ve come to realize that the genre “modern art” isn’t exactly my cup of tea.)

Just met two of the girls in my room before I took a short nap. Holly and Christie (le, ine?). Seem like nice girls, though I didn’t get much info from them. (Later i found out that one is a hairdresser and the other a student.)

I also discovered that there is only one outlet in the entire room for 12 people. There are some lamp/powerstrip things attached to the side of my bunk, but the cords for the bunks arent even plugged in, so there is no power. Other than that, not too many gripes about the hostel so far. Except that the layout is too fucking confusing. There are probably about 8 random doors between the lobby and my room and the hallways are really skinny. Combine that with crazy twisting halls and it will likely be a rough time getting back to my room after the pubs.

I’m really starting to miss the internet. Not being able to look up where things are or what there is to do is going to get really annoying. Also, I want to be able to update everyone with whats going on here and post the pictures I’ve taken without having to pay $2 for 30 min at a kiosk. Combine that with being in a completely foreign city in a completely foreign country and not knowing anyone, and I’m having a rather acute feeling of powerlessness.

(In my journal I recorded the pubs we visited and the beer I drank. I will omit that here and move those all to their own post.)

Reflections: The first full day in London was quite the experience. I started feeling a bit homesick, mainly because I was WAY outside my comfort zone. I’m usually a rather shy person and like keeping to myself, but doing that here would just doom the trip to suck. After the first day and a good night’s sleep, the homesickness began to subside, but a few more problems came up during the trip to not let that feeling of powerlessness and discomfort I mentioned completely subside.

5:30 am CST

(at the airport) Got about 3 hours of sleep last night. Luckily I woke up on my own, since the alarm clock was absurdly quiet.

6:00 am CST

In the plane FINALLY. Taxiing out to the Runway. One stop in DC, then off to London. Fuck travelling, srsly.

8:50 am EST

Landed and quickly got off the plane. The plane to london had already started boarding, so I hurried over there and got on. I’ll be damned if I get stuck somewhere again. Now just waiting for takeoff. They have video screens in the headrests. About 7 hours until I’m in London, only 11 hours late.

7:10 pm GMT -1

Only an hour and a half left in the flight. I managed to sleep for what I think was about 3 hours, but I can never really tell on planes. The stewardess nearly missed me for lunch/dinner? I had to get out of my seat and track her down for my food. Am i seeing a theme for this trip? The map function on this video screen is pretty nifty. Not only does it show location, but also airspeed, altitude, ambient air temperature, and distance travelled/remaining, which is nice since my GPS doesn’t seem to get a signal in the plane.

9:30ish pm GMT

Landing now. Always fascinated by crushed pop bottles due to pressure changes.

(Reflections): Travel days are pretty much just lame. I went to sleep shortly after getting to the hostel. Nothing to see here folks, move along. These are not the droids you’re looking for.

Journal Entry:  (clarification and missing info in parens)

May 5th 8:30 EST

(After finding out that my flight would be an hour and a half late leaving Lansing and I was basically guaranteed to miss my connecting flight)

Stuck here in the airport waiting for my flight to Chicago to spend the night there.  Get to leave for london at 6am and get there at 10pm.  One more advantage of carryon luggage.  Next time, get 2nd to last flight of the day.

10:15 CST

They put me up in the Crowne Plaza in Chicago.  Bellied up to the bar currently.  Hopefully this will help me get some sleep even though I have to be up at 3:30 to get back to the airport on time for my flight.  It’s a relatively nice hotel, though I’d prefer the 10 hours in London I’ll be missing.  As it is right now, I’ll get 4ish hours of sleep then back to the airport.  The hotel is not quite the adventure of sleeping in the airport, but it will definitely be more comfortable.

Of course I had mentioned today that my travels so far have gone off without a hitch.  I knew it was going to catch up with me.  At least i managed to get both a free meal and a free hotel from the airline for this.  Oh snap, just got some free pretzels to go with my beer.  If the beer weren’t $6 per glass I might be persuaded to get another. (little did I know that $6 per glass is about what i’d be paying the whole trip)

Pictures from Day 1 are here on Flickr

(Reflections):  I’m not one to believe in any sortr of cosmic connection between events, but were I a less skeptical person I might have though this were an omen for the rest of the trip.  It’s never good to start off on the wrong foot and it tends to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth.  Overall, the first day was especially stressful since it was my first time out of the country alone and without a plan.  Looking back though, it was an amazing exercise of stepping outside my comfort zone.  The next step will have to be visiting somewhere with a language barrier.  Can’t say that I’m looking forward to that stress, but it’s not an experience I’m going to let pass me by.

After a few days of being home and going back to work, I’m starting to get back into the groove of things here.  Not in the “oh I’m getting stuck in a rut” kinda way, but more of a “mmm, the nice comforts of the places I’m used to” kinda way.  Sleeping in my own bed and seeing my usual surroundings are quite welcome after two weeks of being abroad.

Though the trip was awesome, I was quite a bit more stressed and on edge on the road than I usually am at home.  Not knowing where anything is or what I was going to spend my time doing added a bit of stress on top of the fact that I was already sleeping in a strange place and surrounded by no one I knew.  Nothing to the extent that it ruined the trip, but I sure am relieved to be home again.

Since being home I’ve been asked 23454983 times how the trip was.  At first I didn’t have anything other to say that “good” or “pretty fun” because I was still a zombie slave of jetlag.  After a day or so I was finally able to relay a bit more info on the trip, but still nothing very entertaining to those listening, I’m sure.  It’s taken a good 4 days for the real experience of the trip to congeal.  Up until now, the whole trip had been a bit of a blur.  Luckily throughout the time I was there I kept a relatively detailed journal about what I did while over there so I can look back and formulate stories to tell and recall details of places I visited.

Half of the reason why it has taken me so long to be able to tell coherent stories is probably because it has taken my brain that long to switch gears back to the routines of home and out of “holy crap I’m in a strange city and I have no idea what I’m doing” mode.  For the most part I took the lead as ‘tour guide’ for the both of us (my friend Courtney and I).  Though this was a bit frustrating at times, it was still enjoyable and I feel I know the city much better than had I taken the ‘back seat’ for exploring (if there is a back seat when it comes to walking upwards of 5 miles a day all over the streets of London).

Instead of posting a summary of the whole trip on my blog, my plan is to post my day-to-day entries from my travelling journal so that you guys can basically relive the trip through what I wrote down.  I haven’t decided yet if I want to post chunks of a few days at a time, or post them day-by-day.  Suggestions?  If you reeaaallly want a summary, come see me in person, I can give you the gist of it in anywhere for 2 minutes to 45.

For now I’m going to head off and start typing all these pages in, expect to see the beginning of the journal entries in a few days. (Though given that the weekend is fast approaching and there is a bachelor party to attend ‘a few days’ will most likely mean Tuesday.)

So I made it back to the states alive and intact. Just a quick update here as I’m planning on chunking y written journal from the trip into entries for the blog. They’ll be both a glimpse of what happened day to day along with review and commentary by me looking back on the trip.

London was hella expensive as expected. Though I did not expect having my laptop stolen or missing a connecting flight and having the start of the trip delayed by 11 hours. Luckily those were basically the worst points of the trip, everything else was pretty amazing. Work starts again tomorrow, and I have a haircut to get to and cuban cigars to smoke between now and then. So I’m off to get those things done.

All-in-all, it looks like the initial cost of this trip is going to be roughly $1100. 600 for the plane tickets, 275 for 7 nights in a london hostel, $200 for 5 nights in a dublin hostel. Unfortunately it’s looking like food for the trip may end up costing more than housing… wtf? A whole week of eating out in one of the most expensive cities in the world. On top of that, the dollar is just getting weaker and weaker.

That reminds me…. i need to actually go buy some money soon.

After a bit of research I figured out how to use an SD card with my tomtom. This means that I can actually fit maps of the UK and ireland on it for my trip. The only question left is do i actually want to take it with me. I am aiming to fit everything into one backpack and messenger bag for the whole trip. This is all inclusive. Clothes, gadgets, snacks, everything.

The gadget list is looking to consist of only my GPS, Camera, Ipod, and my travel phone. Quite a lot lighter than any of my other trips inside the US.

Overall, I’ve managed to pack everything into my backpack an messenger bag.  The list includes:

3 Pair of pants

3 T-Shirts

2 Long sleeve thermals

2 Pair of Magic Underwear (moisture wicking, odor and bacteria resistant, super comfortable, dries in 1-2 hours)

3 Pair of socks

1 Marmot Precip jacket (3 ounces, waterproof, fold up to fit in a pocket)

1 pair of sandals

2 Books

Gadgets listed above + power chargers

Anything else I might need can easily be bought while there.  This includes toothbrush, soap, etc.

My flight leaves tomorrow at 8:30 from Lansing.  From there its off to Chicago to get on a 777 for the 8 hours trip to Heathrow.  I have a little over 28 hours left in Michigan.  Now time to find something to do to pass the time.  GTA4 is looking like it should do a good job at that.