Blazers

Yesterday was quite a day. I woke up, turned on the computer, checked ESPN.com, saw that the Blazers got the #1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft and then saw that I had many emails alerting me to the fact that the Blazers got the #1 pick. Unbelievable. I was actually thinking of staying up the night before to track the lottery, but it took place at 3-4am local time, so I thought better of it. I probably would have been evicted from the hotel if I had.

Then, I saw reports that Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert were planning a press conference to announce whether they were staying in the draft. Rumors had Hibbert coming back for sure. I was hoping that both would come back, but hey, with just Big Roy and our incoming freshman, we should be a top 5 team again next year. Bring on the Cougs.

Wrapping up the basketball topic, I decided today to finally change the channel from CNBC to see if I could find coverage of the Colonial golf tournament. No luck, but they are showing some European Tour event and I did find some Greek basketball. Lovely. Now I can watch my favorite all-time golfer - Colin Montgomery and soon watch Sabastian Telfair play alongside his brother in Greece. Maybe I should forget the whole business world and just play Euro basketball. The Greek game is so brutal I'm confident I could be the Earl Boykins of the GBA. However, I've heard that the Greek fans throw stuff at the players so maybe I'll just become Joel Freeland's training partner that way I don't have to leave the UK.

Went to watch the European Cup last night with some of Tiffany's co-workers. While soccer/football is huge here, it's really just men who give a rip. So, of course we left in the 40th minute to grab dinner. I'm not a soccer convert yet so I didn't care, but I would have bet that Liverpool would have won as they seemed to dominate the first 40 minutes. Shows what I know.

Some political news for everyone - the UK just swore it's first sex-changed mayor. That's pretty crazy. Imagine being the person that lost that race. Imagine that in the US.

I'll end on some good news - we're moving out of the hotel tonight. Well it's sort of good. The apartment is OK, but not great. The good - it has a kitchen and laundry and there is a gym on-site. The bad - it's not much bigger than our suite, the furniture is pretty tired, there's no air conditioning (and the tube runs nearby so if we leave the windows open we could be kept awake by the trains) and I'll have to bid adieu to my pals on the hotel staff.

Ciao. - Greg

Pink Martini Show

Thanks to a heads up by my friend Karen, we caught Pink Martini at Roundhouse this Sunday. It was a phenominal show. I must confess, I am not much of a concert goer...I find myself wondering how many songs are left after about the second song, but this concert could have gone on all night and I would have still been dancing. Part of it was the venue...standing room mostly and eveyone on the dance floor. It was really cool and the crowd was really into it.

If you are not familar with PM, they are an eclectic 12 member band from Portland who play songs from the 20's, 30's and 40's from all over the world in a variety of languages. The have a singer, pianist, cellist, violinist, trumpeter, trombonist, bassist, and many more.

I must admit, there was something pretty cool and ironic about going all the way to London to see a Portland band. Whenever they are in Seattle, we seem to be out of town.

It felt like we were really taking advantage of some of the hundreds of cultural opportunites that London has to offer. A great night.

A few ramblings...

• Read today in the paper that Brits are recommended to remove their lawn gnomes when they are selling their homes. The euros are indeed way advanced in their thinking.
• The television here is very different. I've gotta believe that some pub has a DirecTV dish right? How do US athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods get enough exposure to be famous over here if they don't show the sports?
• My conclusions from the late night TV here are twofold. First, the Germans are really into their porn. They have some channel that I believe is advertising porn, but there's no reason to buy because it's all right there. There's an opportunity for a joke about Tommy Verhasselt that I won't take. Second, the Brits like to text and they spend a lot of money playing texting games. So much so that the blond hostess spends about half the time warning people to not over-extend themselves. Crazy.
  
• I've decided to embrace beer during our time in London. At dinner tonight Tiff commented that I've had a beer everyday since we've been here. Let's see how long I can keep the streak alive. I actually like Guinness, but favorites so far may be Fuller's London Pride along with Boddington's (intro'd by the Pannonis) which I haven't found on tap, but I did get a six pack for only $10 at the Sainsbury's Local.

- Greg

Still in the Hotel

So, we're officially into week 2 and we're still in the hotel. I did manage to upgrade us to a suite because I've become drinking pals with the hotel staff.

Here's an image of our rather compact first room and then a few of our more spacious suite.

- Greg

Eating our way through London - updated

Rocket - Tucked away off a side street off of Oxford street, only true Londoners hang out here. Good food and pretty reasonably priced.

Koi - Good sushi in Kensington

Sophie's Steakhouse - A great spot in Earls Court. Great steaks and good service.

Prince Regent - Our neighborhood pub in Kensington. Never lets us down and meets Greg's needs for constant beer and chips

Whole Foods - Yes, they open here at in June. It's not quite like home, but has solid "food court" that Greg and I are at many times a week

Locanda Ottoemezzo - Tucked back in behind Kensington High Street, this is a little Italian gem

Addi's Thai - Great Thai in Earl's Court. Very reasonable.

Awana - Tasty Malaysian in South Kensington

Manicomio - Reasonable Italian on King's Road. Probably best for a glass of wine while taking a break from shopping.

Giovania - Right new to our flat on James St. Good for it's proximity

The Hillgate Pub - Authentic neighborhood pub in Notting Hill. Enjoyed our first "Quiz Night"

Blue Elephant - Tasty Thai at Fullham/Broadway. Beautiful and unique atmosphere

Gourmet Burger Kitchen - Not bad for a chain burger joint. Can be found all over the city

Wagmama Noodles - Fine for a chain noodle shop. Various locations.

Marsala Zone - Great inexpensive Indian in Earl's Court

Rotisserie Jules - Tasty chicken and K friendly! South Kensington.

Oddonos - The best gelatto we've found in the city. In South Kensington.

iSapori - So so Italian in Covent Garde. Speghetti and meatballs were good, bruchetta was not!

Baltic - A great spot for a cocktail and snacks after walking the South Bank or a afternoon at the Tate

Brilliant and Not So Brilliant Things About London

Brilliant

• All the beautiful parks
• How international it is (you hear different languages everywhere on the street)
• How historic everything is
• They call Sprite lemonade
• People dress "smart"
• You see Ferraris and Bentleys parallel parked on the street as though they were a green '97 Honda Accord with Beavers sticker on the rear windshield
• It's a very clean city

Rubbish

• Many parks are private (no outsiders or doodles allowed)
• The concept of good customer service seems to be absent from this society
• Prices - yes, everything is double what it is in the US
• Smoking is allowed in bars and restaurants (until July 1st!)

We Are Here - My first sleepy post

We are here! We arrived on Saturday and checked into the hotel at around 4pm after a nine hour nonstop flight from Seattle. I slept pretty much the whole way much to Greg’s chagrin. We are staying at the NH Hotel on Cromwell in Kensington (Earl's Court) . It is a nice understated hotel that doesn’t try too hard to be hip. It’s pretty reasonable, but not as centrally located as the myhotel Chelsea.

After we checked in, we headed out into the city. After going in one big circle we finally found our way to Chelsea and then to King’s Road. After an early dinner at my favorite Malaysian restaurant, Awana, we walked back to the hotel and crashed at about 10pm.

All was good until about 1:30am when we both awoke to a party going on across the “garden” from our hotel. It wasn’t overly loud, just enough to wake us up. We both read for awhile and were serenaded by a nightingale outside our window who wanted to let us know we were not the only ones up at that hour. Finally at around 5:30, after repacking suitcases and trying multiple times, we were asleep.

We were so asleep that we didn’t wake up until 12:30 in the afternoon. After forcing ourselves out of bed and into the shower, we hit the streets. After about a ten minute walk, we were ready for a pastry and a coffee. We spotted Paul the day before and decided to check it out. Pretty good. We then headed through Hyde Park to our flat. Greg was super excited about the location (whew!) in part because there are so many restaurants listed in that area in the “Food Lovers Guide to London” (Thank you Deepa and Carrie!). In particular, the area north of us has quite a few cute cheese shops, fish mongers, bakeries, etc. After grabbing a quite bite we walked back to the hotel for several games of spite and malice. Later we plotted our day of exploring on a map and it came to almost ten miles - no wonder I was tired!