London

After my time in Dublin, I spent four days in London before heading home. I'd been to London a number of times before, but not in a few years, so it was surprising how quickly I could drop into "London mode". Which is kind of like "New York mode" with tube lines instead of subway lines.

I spent my first two nights in Earl's Court and my next two nights down the road in Chelsea, which was really central to everything I wanted to do. And I managed to squeeze a lot into those three days: a round of golf at Addington Park in Croydon, the Fulham-Portsmouth match at Craven Cottage, a Handsome Furs gig at the Fly (which turned out to not happen), a movie ("Control") at Fulham Broadway, and lots of museums and libraries and meeting up with friends. More photos at flickr.

Earl's Court has lots of Aussies and Kiwis, who were both upset with their countries being eliminated from the Rugby World Cup last weekend. People in Britain like to preface their sports with definite articles ("the rugby", "the football", etc.) and I found myself doing that as soon as I arrived. I wanted to watch the MLB playoffs, so I asked if there were pubs in London where I could watch "the baseball". I spent my formative years in a former crown colony, so "lift" and "queue" are second nature to me, but it's always nice to pick up more Brit-slang. My friend Sarah picked up a lot during her short time here, like using "crap" as an adjective (as in, "we've had a crap summer").

After a few days in Dublin, London seemed like a really big city. It's a nice place to visit for a while, but also a nice place to leave, mostly because everything is so expensive. When I was walking to the match at Fulham, I saw some listings in an estate agent's window, and thought those prices weren't too bad until I realized that those two bedroom houses were half a million pounds (a million bucks) each, not half a million bucks each. I don't think I could afford that.