2001. May 14. - Chris Abbott in Bromley
The pictures were made by LaLa. The thumbnails were generated by IrfanView.
If you want to, I can send you the original, 1152x864 size pictures in email (about 300KB/picture).
The pictures were made by LaLa. The thumbnails were generated by IrfanView.
If you want to, I can send you the original, 1152x864 size pictures in email (about 300KB/picture).
After a long 7 hour journey I arrived to London Heathrow. The car driver ordered by Chris was there waiting for me at the information desk as promised, holding up the sign "LaLa". My driver was a jolly good fella, and we instantly started to talk about cricket, soccer (when the Hungarian team beat Englad 6:3) and the like on the way. He also brought me inside the town centre a little bit, showing me Covent Garden, the former place of the Crystal Palace, the 2 million pound house bought by Tom Cruise, an ugly business building that "looks like a bowl of shite, really", showed me the huge London Eye from a distance, and so on. I just wish I had my camera with me (which I foolishly left in the trunk in my black bag).
The weather on arrival was overcast, make that very overcast, but otherwise 12-15 C, which is pretty pleasant, except when wind was present, too.
So, this guy brought me to Chris' house (cost: 38 pounds), where Chris greeted me and immediately started to show me a bunch of tracks prepared for BIT Live. But I didn't know where I was, how I was, what time it was - jetlag took over me. Chris strikes me as a guy who is constantly on the move, but he is actually doing things rather than just looking busy!
BTW, on my way to Chris' home I saw that a used small car costs about 5-9k pounds and gas (I mean, petrol) is about 80 penny to the liter (which comes out to about $4.50 per gallon - ouch!).
Then Chris brought me to the guesthouse he reserved for me, which actually looked rather nice. I was on the first floor in a nice room which has its own bathroom. But it didn't have any phone jack, which was disappointing, as it made it harder for me to check my emails. Or rather, impossible. Luckily, though, the room had one of those colorful London guidebooks in it, which I already looked at and will use extensively.
After taking a much needed hot shower, I took a walk to the train station and back to make myself wake up. (Chris took me to the train station before by car so I could get some cash and a Travelcard for tomorrow). The walk took a lot longer than I expected, which showed me that distances in this city are greater than I thought.
At 8pm, Chris picked me up again. We took a quick ride to Staples so he could buy some things, then back to his house. His wife, Tanya was home this time. She is a wonderful Russian lady, very kind and a very good host. She offered us drinks, then late at night a coffee ice cream and stuff. She even gave me that Russian F1 chocolate after I was making a joke about! Unbelievable!
At night I gave some input to Chris and his friend, Boz about the Space Harrier stumper they were working on. Then Chris designed some funny logos for T-shirts to be handed out at BIT Live.
Came back to the guesthouse at midnight. Rather late, and I still had to plan my visit to London tomorrow!
