Bodhi Bum

It’s a grey, chilly summer day here in Jolly old England, and I’m sitting here in Hyde Park parked out on the grass by the Serpentine river watching the good people of London slowly filtering into the park for their Sunday morning stroll. Just another normal, lazy Sunday in London as the city seems to be getting back to normal. You’d never think there was any anything out of the ordinary, save for the occasional police car doing their rounds through the park. Now the Tube stations, that’s another story. I woke up early this morning and went to Paddington station just up the street from my hotel for my usual morning tea on the upper balcony. And there you find groups of police armed with machine guns doing the rounds. I took a stop by Edgeware Road tube station, which is just around the corner from my movie rental shop, and you would never know that seven people got blown to bits there not three weeks before. The station is open and busy as ever.

So I’m now back in London after completing my short little three week contract in Germany and the UK. Last I wrote, I was resident in Heilbronn, Germany, a cute little Bavarian town with some beautiful architecture and even better Beer Gardens. On the 20th I caught the plane from Stuttgart back to Heathrow, and then onwards to Newcastle. Now Newcastle is on the North East coast of England, just below the Scottish border and about an hour south of Edinborough. It’s a big city with the reputation for being a crazy party city. It was ranked in the top 10 party cities in the world. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons I didn’t get to check out the nightlife so I guess I missed out. We were actually based in North Tyneside, which is about a half hour north of Newcastle. The hotel they put us in was a new hotel called the Village Hotel, which was pretty crap all around. I got stuck in a tiny closet of a room while the other guys got the suites (no idea why). But the fact that it was a business hotel serving the local industrial estate, miles from civilization, meant we were stuck there eating at their restaurant and drinking in their pub the whole 10 days.

Last week in Newcastle was “Tall Ships Week”, which was essentially a race of most of the world’s largest sailing ships. Newcastle was one of the stops on the race, which started in Ireland, went to France, on to Newcastle, then ended in Norway. Saturday I headed down to Newcastle to the river to see the tall ships, but it was too early and only two had arrived. One was a Russian ship, which turned out to be the tallest Tall ship in the world. And the other was a Thai ship. The rest of the day was spent exploring their Art Museum, converted from an old riverside flour mill, and exploring the inside of a few of the local historic pubs (and the local famous Newcastle Brown ale).

Tuesday night the client took us down to the river to see the Tall Ships parade, but as usual in the UK we saw more of the pub than of the ships. I brought my camera, but the only time I saw the ships was when they passed by the window of the pub. We finished the night with a nice dinner at an Italian place by the river.

So the week came and went and we finally wrapped up the work Friday, gave the client closing meeting and headed for the airport. Everyone went their separate ways back home, and me, for lack of anywhere better to go, flew to London. I’ve got another four week contract which is not specific to any site, so I can do the work from my hotel room, wherever in the world I choose to be. I was considering heading back to Thailand to spend the month working from there, but as my condo still isn’t complete there isn’t much point. Despite people blowing themselves up on public transport, I’ve gotta stick around London and scope out my next project. And try to not get blown up myself in the meantime.