city skyline, museum, duvets, lemon lime and bitters and a London survival kit

What do all these things have in common? They're all in this blog post!

There's a lot of information in it, some of it useful, some of it is just musings that may make you think that I like the look of my own typing. but I'm not going to apologise, because you can just skip the text and look at the photos if you like, or you can read on - it's your choice :D. I've also embedded a lot of links into words, so whenever you see blue text you can click on it for more info.

also, as always, the photographs on here are reduced in size and quality. if you'd like a larger (more suitable for printing off) version of any of them, just send us an e-mail and we'll send you the larger better version.

First up we had a few seconds of sun on the weekend so I took the opportunity to take some photos out the bedroom window. These are all shot standing in approximately the one spot, leaning out our window.



As you can see, We've got an excellent view of the city skyline. it's really a beautiful place view. the distinctive cone-shaped building is 30 st mary Axe. affectionately known as "the Gherkin" or occasionally "The Crystal Phallus" in parody of the Crystal Palace build during the world expo of 1851.

British Museum

Also on the weekend, Debbie and I went to the British Museum . here are some photos we took there:



The big chunk of rock at the start is the Rosetta stone possibly the most famous chunk of rock there is. Debbie took two photos of the great court and I made an attempt at joining them together to make a pseudo panoramic view, but it obviously doesn't do it justice. it's quite spectacular. there's a better photo on the wikipedia entry linked to the museum.

so in preparation for our new house, yesterday I went out and bought a Duvet:


for all you aussies who are curious, I'm going to tell you about my duvet buying experience. I know it sounds extremely mundane, but you always hear about the tourist destinations and attractions, and never about where to buy groceries and every day stuff. so here it is:

there's a company called Marks and Spencer who seem to be the British equivalent of Myer. so I caught the tube to Bond street and went to a nearby M&S. there are heaps of them around, but I'd never actually gotten off the tube at bond street before so I thought I'd give it a go this time. on the third floor there's a whole bedding section with marks and Spencer brand bedding mostly. all the Duvets (I had to force myself to start saying Duvet rather than Doona...) have "TOG" ratings to tell you how warm they are. basically it goes like this as per wikipedia: Lightweight summer duvet: 4.5 tog, Spring/Autumn weight duvet: 9.0 - 10.5 tog, Winter weight duvet: 12.0 - 13.5 tog. I bought a polyester "all seasons" set. which is one 4.5 and one 9 duvet. the idea is that in summer you use the 4.5, in Autumn and spring you use the 9 and winter you combine them to make 13.5 togs of snuggly goodness. of course, if you're Debbie and I, Debbie uses the 9 and I use the 4.5 for most of the year and we buy a second one for me when winter comes. the duvets were 7' by 8' and cost £85 and I also bought some pillows, bringing the total cost to £115. the Hungarian goose down ones were obviously quite a bit more expensive.

So then naturally I went down the escalators to pay. the checkout was quite a way from the doors and hidden behind racks of clothing. Normally in Australia, the checkout ladies either put your product in a bag or tape a bag to the outside of the box to say you've purchased the item. this lady said that they didn't have a bag big enough "is that ok?" and just handed me a receipt. on the way out I walked past two door guards who were chatting about something and didn't notice me at all, let alone check to see that I wasn't walking out of the store with stolen merchandise. Debbie also has had a similar experience when shopping for groceries. she had purchased her food and walked to the door. she expected the doorman to want to see inside her (very large) purse, and sort of asked expectantly "do you want to look in my bag". the guy gave her a strange look and said "why would I want to do that!?!" Debbie explained that the practice was common in Australia to reduce the amount of stolen goods and the guy indignantly explained back that "we're in the UK and we don't look in people's bags". it kind of shocks me really. we're used to people assuming that we're stealing something if we're carrying a backpack in a shop. Anyway, as I walked out of the marks and spencer, I could just picture people stealing duvets and selling them on the international bed linen black market... obviously in league with the cradle robbers who deal in smaller sheets and blankets.


Essentials guide to London

bear with me here:
Quite a while (years) ago I read a book on management that talked about the business boom in Japan in the aftermath of WWII. one of the western business experts commented to his japanese counterpart that he had noticed an oddity in people's learning curves. what he had noticed after long experience was that the initial learning or understanding would continue at a fast pace for a certain period and then plateau. then followed a period of no learning where the person would be seemingly unable to learn more about the particular subject. after this period learning would restart and continue at a faster pace than the initial curve. He had consistently recognised the the time taken to get to the second learning curve was approximately 3 years and wondered if the japanese guy had noticed anything similar. The japanese Business person said that he had definitely noticed something similar, although it was his theory that it took 7 years.

I've noticed the same thing continually. When taking on something new, there's a period where you absorb information quickly. then you hit a stage where you think you know it all. then after a while you need to get a bit humble, admit that you don't know it all and then the real learning will start. This is evidenced by teenagers knowing everything, university graduates knowing everything, people new to the workforce knowing everything, people who have just read a book on public speaking thinking they should become a professional public speaker, people who read a book on carpentry who then go and make a mess of their kitchen. I've also noticed it time and time again in my involvement in the hobby lockpicking community. within 6 months of my learning, I had aspirations to write a how-to (despite the plethora of guides out there already). a year after that I looked back, realised how little I knew and laughed at the other people new to the subject writing how-to's... a while back (years) , I also wrote a guide on how to write PL/SQL, which strangely enough was actually useful to the people that I was working with. this was well before I had even thought of getting my Oracle Certification. how little I knew.

The reason I explain all of this is, today I came to the realisation that I know everything there is to know about living in London and I should write a guide for those less fortunate individuals who would absolutely have no idea about how to survive here. After slapping myself in the face a couple of times, I complemented myself on recognising the learning plateau and resigned myself to wait for the second, more thorough curve.

I just thought you should know the reason why I'm not going to bore you with an "everything you ever need to know about london" essay.

However I will offer this:

Andrew and Debbie's London Essentials kit for those coming to London for a month or so:

These are the things that we found very useful or wish we had from the start. no condescending know-it-all guide stuff here, just a be prepared list.



A fold out Map of central London: Free from most hotel foyers.
This little map is very very good. it has clearly marked street names and points the way to good restaurants and theatres. there's a tube map on the back if you need it also. if you have nothing else, take this everywhere.

a Tube map: Free from any tube station
this pocket sized thing will be invaluable. it looks complicated at first, but it's really quite simple to follow. just know that sometimes it's faster to walk between stations than it is to catch a tube.

Oyster Card: this is the cheapest way to get around London on public transport. if you're going to be here for a week or more, get yourselves one of these. the basic Idea is you swipe your card across a reader at the start and end of your journey if you travel by tube and only at the start if you travel by bus. you can load up pay-as-you-go credit on it or you can buy a weekly for however many zones you will be traveling. the second option is better as you can travel as many times as you want within the zones you have chosen. 3 zones (from the centre of the city to balham where we will be living) is £27.60 for a week.

Bottled STILL water. 70p

Buy still water. if you're going to be walking lots, you'll want still water, not sparkling. sparkling water is far more popular over here than it is in Aus and they sell them side by side so it's easy to pick up the stomach cramp inducing sparkling water by accident.

A Prepaid Sim card: £5
We picked up two vodaphone sim cards. one of us pays £5 per month and we both get unlimited free calls to each others mobile. very very useful. Take your mobile from Australia. it will work over here - all you have to do is stick your sim card in and activate it. you can then buy extra credit whenever you want. lingo note: they call it a "top up" here, not a "recharge" as they do in australia. (same goes when you want to "top up" your expired oyster card.)

Camera:
so you can take embarrassing shots of yourself in the mirror.

GOOD walking shoes:
sure, you may look good in those high heels or trendy suede slip on's but you'll be hating them after a days walking around. sure, you may look like a tourist with your sneakers, fold-out map, camera around your neck, backpack on your back and bottled water, but that's because you are one. I recommend leaving 2-3 days worth of beard on your face for good measure. as an added advantage, you're less likely to get robbed because you look like a poor backpacker.

Tissues:
it's occasionally cold, windy and wet. just bring tissues (wet hand wipes would go down well also, although not essential).

breath mints:
after your complete english breakfast, you can walk around all day with your breath smelling like bacon or you can carry breath mints.

Mobile phone charger:
don't forget to bring this from Australia

Conversion plugs:
it's handy to buy one or two of these before you come, but you can also get them here so it's not that critical. if you want to keep using your phone and charging your camera, you'll need them eventually.

Notebook:
not so essential, but good to have

Pen:
a notebook is fairly useless without one of these.

an A to Z or something similar:
your fold out tourist map will only take you so far. if you want to go exploring outside the central area, you'll want an A to Z street directory. there are other brands with different formats and different sizes but I prefer this one. most of it is taken up by street names and only about 1/3 of it is actual maps, but if you need to find a street, it's either google maps or your trusty A to Z. I generally don't go out without it now.

a Debit card:
not essential, but very useful. it's a trivial thing to set up a UK bank account with HSBC before you come over, you can then transfer over however much money you want to spend and have a local debit card to use. they have different card readers over here and will often look at you funny when you give them an aussie credit card which doesn't have the electronic chip in it. HSBC will also extend you £500 credit and give you a credit card if you want that facility. try to get a card that hasn't had the numbers and name blacked out for my privacy.


hair Straighteners:
uh..... how did those get in there? Debbie insists they're an essential London Survival tool......

The Times:
all over the place in London, you'll find that people stand on corners and shove local newspapers in your face as you walk past. you'll also find that towards the end of the day a considerable fire hazard of these builds up on vacant seats in the tube. while they're mildly interesting if you want to find out what drug addicted singer Amy winehouse is up to or want to read about how the rolling stones (aren't they dead yet?) defied a smoking ban and lit up on stage at the millennium dome, these newspapers are absolutely worthless if you want to find out anything important about the world.

I highly recommend The Times as a good paper. at only 60p you'll get some good information about what's going on in the world of finance and banking and other dry, but important subjects. over the past few days, there's been quite a pithy commentary on the latest unfoldings of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that's hitting the financial industry etc.

that's it! this is pretty much all you need. although I forgot to include the photo of the backpack you need to carry it all in.


just as a random comment: no one knows what a lemon lime and bitters is here.... they look at you funny and say "what was that?" we've tried it about 3 or 4 times. the only luck we had was with a french barman who said "I haven't heard of it, but it sounds like you want lemonade, a fresh lime and juice with some bitters?" we nearly jumped for joy.