Monday, March 27, 2006

A good week

The day started out with an 8 AM final in my organic chemistry class, then Josh was kind enough to skip some classes and drive me an hour and a half south to SeaTac. Then, a 50 minute flight to Vancouver where I spent an hour sipping a gin and coke with some duty-free liquor I snagged (bought) back in the states and watching the Simpsons. Best layover ever.
Anna picked me up at Heathrow and we jumped on the tube. We headed back to her flat only long enough to dump off my luggage, then we headed out to London to see the sights. We first went to Parliament so I could see Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and the building where she worked. Parliament was a very good lookin' building; it was almost a shame to see it blown up later in the week (in a movie, for those of you who haven't seen V for Vendetta). Lots of gold, lots of statues, and a very ornate outside. I have to admit that if I lived in London and was dirt poor, maybe I wouldn't mind so much if someone blew the thing up.
After that, my memory gets a little hazy, but at some point we had dinner with Ms. Elaine and Mr. Gene, then we headed back to the flat where I was kept up until 2 AM by Anna's flatmate because it was her 21st birthday. Bad times, especially since I had been up since 8 AM the previous day. 6 AM roles around, and we jump up and head to the train station to catch the Chunnel to Paris. It's not as exciting as you might think, taking a train under the ocean. There are fields, then it's dark for about 30 minutes, then there are fields again.
In Paris, we met up with a couple of Anna's friends who helped us find our hotel, which was right across the river from the Eiffel Tower. A few metro stops later and after realizing that even French streets are ostentatious, we found our hotel but our room wasn't ready yet, even though it was 3 PM. I guess that's what a 30 hour work week gets you. We left our bags there and did some sight-seeing, including a church, some French students protesting, and, of course, you have to see the red-light district of any city you happen to be in.
After being approached by a French police officer and answering his questions with blank stares while huddling outside a theatre for warmth, we made it back to the hotel at about 1 AM and collapsed. We drew the curtains and relished the thought of getting a full night's sleep. Later, we woke up. The room was still dark from the curtains. We found a clock. 3 PM. Shit. We hustled out and saw what we could with so little time left and night approaching. We saw the Louvre, but only from the outside because it closed at 5. We did make it to Notre Dame, though. I thought Parliament and parts of London were ornate and grand, but they have nothing on Paris. It was way too much to take in with just a couple of days. Hopefully I can go back someday, learn some conversational French, and see everything again.
The next morning we made it back to London via the Chunnel. Anna went to work, and the rest of the day we just took it easy. On Tuesday, we went to St. Paul's cathedral--built by, designed by, and the resting place of Christopher Wren--but they wanted way too much money to wander around inside, so we just looked around the outside. We went to the Tate Britain and saw the Gothic Nightmares exhibit, which was very interesting and creepy.
Wednesday, we went to the Tower of London, which was awesome, and we went on a tour of Highgate Cemetery. Well, a tour of the east side. The west side was where Marx was buried, but we didn't feel like paying twice to see one cemetery. Anyway, the side we saw was really cool, and had some obscure but kind of famous people, like the guy who founded the YMCA and Michael Faraday. The cemetery was founded in Victorian times, which was evident from the fact that it was very overgrown and at the oldest part, the path was strewn with volcanic glass. That's right, they paved the cemetery path in obsidian. How awesome is that? Pretty awesome, I'd say.
Thursday and Friday Anna had to work all day, so I wandered around London on my own. Thursday I went back to the Tower and had some Starbucks, then I went to the Tate Modern and saw some "art." The highlights were seeing Monet's Water Lilies and Dali's Lobster Phone, both for very different reasons. There was also a very strange exhibit in the main floor of the museum, which used to be a power station, that looked like a bunch of stacked sugar cubes. I couldn't help but be reminded of a video game level, though. I was trying to figure out how to push the boxes together so I could jump from stack to stack and make it across. *Photography was allowed on this level, obviously*
Friday, I went to the British Museum and saw lots of old and shiny things. They have the largest Egyptian collection outside of Egypt, so there were a lot of mummies and bones, which creeped me out a little. There were also a few rooms dedicated to Asian, Arabic, African, Native American, and Babylon. Pretty interesting, and you can't beat a free museum. Right at the entrance, there was a huge covered area with a large reading room in the middle, apparently where Marx penned Das Kapital. Yep, so there ya go. Museums are free, but churches charge you a fortune.
Friday night, we had one last bash at a local pub, where it happened to be karaoke night. I could tell that a few of the singers couldn't actually speak English very well by the trademark way they would interject gibberish instead of words, but keep it consistent with the melody (Dane, I imagine you've encountered this a lot). I also splurged on a £10 Cuban cigar, which was oh-so-smooth, and even got Anna to take a few puffs. I washed it down with Guinness, which does definitely get better the closer you get to Dublin.Saturday, Anna escorted me to the airport and I flew home. Air Canada was nice enough to give me a couple of beers for the flight back, too. Good times.

*For more pictures, visit the London and Paris photo sets on my Flickr*

Thursday, March 23, 2006

V for Victorian

Yeah, I know not putting many pictures up here until I get home is a copout, but what can you do? I just don't feel like wrestling with the pictures right now, so I just posted a few to Flickr. Ok, fine, here's the Starbucks I went to this morning, right next to the Tower of London.

For some reason the British don't believe in cream, so it's milk or nothing in your coffee. Literally, you order it either black or white. Crazy.

We saw V for Vendetta last night, and I agree that it was awesome. Not sure how I feel about the end, though, but a good movie for sure. Also, it was awesome to see while in London because they were very faithful to local scenery, including the tube station right by Parliament. Twas quite creepy.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Back in London

Paris was a trip. Craziness. Full of French people. Stunning and ornate. I'll write more when I figure out how to describe it. I'll also put some photos on Flickr soon, as I think that they would best describe my experience here. Not now, though. I'm going to watch some Lost while waiting for Anna to get off work. Then, most likely some Indian food (and I'm trying to work out a time with her to see V for Vendetta. I found a local theater where it's playing! Theatres here are expensive, but I think it would be worth it, judging from Josh's review).

Monday, March 13, 2006

Horrible moments in history: Braden's Finals

Low points in my finals career:

Spring, 2004.
Wake up 20 minutes after the final started, fight traffic on 112th, and arrive with an hour left to take the final. Fortunately, Vanison is a god among men, so it took me about half an hour to finish it. Come home, realize my clothes are on inside out.

Winter, 2005.
At the beginning of my general chemistry final, the low battery light comes on my graphing calculator. 49 questions to go. Not looking good. I make it, but only by doing a lot of multiplying/division by hand.

Winter, 2006.
Biostats final at 3:30. Kickin ass, done studying by noon, mess around and do other work until I leave for school. After a slow walk on a wonderfully sunny day, I realize I left my 4 pages of notes at home under my keyboard. The point of notes in this class is that there are too many long, complicated formulas to memorize, so we can write them down and bring them in on the tests. I talk to the teacher, tell him I left my notes at home, try to have pathetic expression on face.
"Hmm, you should probably go get them."
"Yeah, um, I live a 30 minute walk away from campus. One way."
"Better hustle then."
I guess I don't know what I expected him to say. I guess I expected him to think of something I didn't. So, I ran home (halfway, actually, then walked breathlessly the rest), grabbed my notes, and made it back with an hour to go. And I'm fighting a cold. I thought that walking to school everyday might put me in good shape, but I assure you it doesn't. Anyway, that sucked ass. I still finished before some people, which freaked me out and now I'm sure I did something wrong. I must have missed a page. Bah.
At least I got off work hella early. I'm not someone that uses hella a lot, so you know it must have been pretty early. That rocks, though, because my legs are freakin' killing me and I'm tired as all hell.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Review: Paranoia Agent

The Netflix recommendation system showed itself to be pretty trustworthy with this 4-disk anime series. If you liked Perfect Blue, you would most likely also find Paranoia Agent enjoyable. First, it has the kind of opening that you don't mind watching before each episode; great song, great visuals. Then, each episode follows the stories of different characters, sometimes linking them up (yes, one of those). It's entertaining at the beginning, entertaining and confusing in the middle, and the final episode doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it ties everything together and wraps up the series quite nicely.
So, liking it really just depends on what you usually look for. If you like a good story, good direction, and excellent style you'll probably like this anime. If you are pretty stuck on believability, I don't know why you are watching anime in the first place.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Braden and the Poo Factory


Tuesday my water quality class took a field trip. First, we went to the water processing plant which takes water from Lake Whatcom and distributes it to all the college students and old people in the area. According to my water quality professor, the algae in the lake produces organic compounds in the summer which arne't filtered out that give the water an odor, which some locals described as "earthy" and "musty." Ok, good to know.
Here is our guide Bill showing us what they use to filter the water. As you can see, it's basically a giant Britta filter with anthracite coal at the top (Brittas actually use charcoal) and coarse gravel at the bottom. This seems a little backwards, but after a filter is clogged with the crap that's filtered out, they run water through it backwards at a high rate and it stratifies everything, as seen here. Clever, no? The dirty water looks kind of like the chocolate stream from a certain chocolate factory and just like that stream, swimming in it is bad. The waste water is pumped through 60 inch pipes directly to the waste water treatment plant, where we went next!

Time to guess what this stuff is. Here's a hint: those yellow specks are corn, and there's a lot of rice in there, and, OH, some beans. Gross. I have a close up picture, but I'm still trying to scrub it from my memory. I'll let you guys enjoy this instead. Zoom in at your own risk. Any-dang-way, our tour guide was really funny. He was wearing cowboy boots, chewing gum, and making jokes about his ex-wife. It seems that the personalities of our tour guides really fit where they worked. Pretty funny, if you ask me.
There were only a few rooms that really stank, and for the most part it wasn't too bad. Looking at these, I ask myself why I took so many pictures of poo. Trust me, I'm not posting the worst stuff. Maybe I'll put it on my Flickr someday.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Urine in wine

I didn't really have any strong feelings towards the Sex Pistols one way or another, but then I read the note they sent to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when they were almost inducted. Ok, now they rock.
In other news, I've been delivering pizza for 5 years. Tonight, a girl FINALLY answered the door in her underwear. I think this means I can quit now.