Europe

[Alcibiades]

Gorgeous weather today in London, better than any In the whole Midwest all spring it seems. Did a lot of walking today, pretty tired. Almost no sleep on the plane last night.  Did some sight-seeing today, saw buckingham palace and Hyde park, ate some fish and chips at a pub downtown area?  Was neat.

Plan on doing some more sightseeing tomorrow most of the day. Might do one of those tour bus things.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Alci, if there is decent weather tomorrow, try one of my favourite days out.

You go down to Westminster pier (nr the houses of Parliament) and catch a ferry to Greenwich. On arrival at Greenwich you can visit the old observatory, the Queen's House, the national Maritime museum and/or the Cutty Sark................then get drunk at one of the many good pubs there 

[Admiral Yi]

Tricky, would you happen to know if Cutty Sark has any particular meaning?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Never thought about it till you asked Yi 

Wikipedia has this to say :

"She was named after Cutty Sark (Scots: a short chemise or undergarment[6]), the nickname of the fictional character Nannie Dee in Robert Burns' 1791 poem Tam o' Shanter. She is also represented as Nannie Dee by the ship's figurehead, a stark white carving of a bare-breasted woman with long black hair holding a gray horse's tail in her hand. In the poem she wore a linen sark that she had been given as a child, which explains why it was cutty, or in other words far too short, for her. The erotic sight of her dancing in such a short undergarment caused Tam to cry out "Weel done, Cutty-sark", which subsequently became a well known catchphrase."

How very risque 

[Admiral Yi]

Those Scots really know how to party.

[mongers]

I got to Speakers Corner by 1.30pm, but didn't manage to catch you guys' maybe around 4/6th July when the other Languishites are about.

[Alcibiades]

Yeah, thought you said you'd be there around 1130 so we hung around a bit but we were gone by 12.   Yeah, definitely would be cool to catch you guys around 4-5 July, fly out early early morning of the 6th.

In Paris now, the first 2 nights weren't very good, the hostel I stay at sucked, impossible to meet people and no wifi in conjunction with being very far away from anything, besides little Tehran.  Not fun.

Tonight should be better, last night in Paris, seems like we have a pretty nice hostel for tonight.  Already has free wifi, hah.

Tomorrow night is Amsterdam, have two nights booked already, but Saturday is completely full just about everywhere, so we're going to have to wing it somehow.

For Sunday Koln, be there until Wednesday and then on to Berlin.  If any of you are around these places would love to meet you. 


P.S.  None of you Belgians ever got back to me. 

[Brazen]

ate some fish and chips at a pub downtown area?  Was neat.

Oh yeah, I know the one

Central London doesn't have a "downtown". Where were you? City? West End? Bloomsbury? Belgravia? Can you remember the pub name?

When Alci's back how about heading to the East End for a curry like we did with Berky to see the Other Side?

[Admiral Yi]

ate some fish and chips at a pub downtown area?  Was neat.

Oh yeah, I know the one

He's talking about  the other one.

[Oexmelin]

In Paris now, the first 2 nights weren't very good, the hostel I stay at sucked, impossible to meet people and no wifi in conjunction with being very far away from anything, besides little Tehran.  Not fun.

Where was that? Little Tehran?

I had good experiences at the MIJE: http://www.mije.com/

[Alcibiades]

The restaurant was near the 'new scotland yards' I believe, south of the london armory a bit.

The hostel in Paris was des olympiades or what not, off the 4 line in 'northern paris' right next to the simplon station, if that means anything to anyone.

Off to Amsterdam tonight, going to check out the catacombs before we head off at 1700.

[Duque de Bragança]

The hostel in Paris was des olympiades or what not, off the 4 line in 'northern paris' right next to the simplon station, if that means anything to anyone.

The Simplon area used to be Little Serbia There's a Serbian church as a matter of fact.
Not exactly Little Tehran more like Casbah but then the bobo neighborhood of Montmartre is quite close but almost an enclave in that arrondissement.
The hostels recommended by Oex are in much nicer areas indeed and not that expensive.