Hotel Nicole, pt 6

Can I claim hotel-ness while staying at someone else's house? Maybe that should read Hotel Dan...

So yeah, my hostel-ity has continued, despite me being homeless. Mike Leung traveled thru London, and after missing a flight to Hamburg needed a place to stay for a night before heading off to Bangladesh. Well-traveled, that he is.



With such a quick stopover, all we had time for was pints in the evening and a good hearty english breakfast the following morning, before getting Leung back to Heathrow -- wouldn't want to miss the flight to Bangladesh, after all...

Hotel Nicole, pt 5

Kris and his cousin Maciek have been here the past few days. Kris is on his way back to Calgary -- but for how long?!?! -- after a summer slumming it in Geneva and Germany and Poland and Spain and Rome and Paris and yes I realize I'm mixing cities and countries. Maciek is finishing up a stint working in a Fish and Chips shop in a touristy town in South England, and is heading back to Poland to finish his degree.

Obviously, we've spent much of the evenings here in various pubs, which have sadly proved disapointing. The guys arrived from Poland Sunday night, and we couldn't find an open pub despite being in Waterloo at 1030pm.

And last night, we met up in Soho at a Slug and Lettuce pub for a few drinks with Mike Bowerman (just arrived to do is MA in some finance shiznit) and two Canadian girls Kris knows, Kat and Lauren. (How Kris knows more people in this city is beyond me.)

We were booted from that pub promptly and rudely at 11pm. We found another with a closing time of midnight... and got rather rudely herded from that one, too, as soon as the hour struck, leaving Kris and Mike to chug their Guinness. Terrible.

Thankfully, they have had one nice pub experience, at our local, which has the sweetest, most perfect English lady bartender in the world -- not to mention a very impressive selection of beer.

Not only does this lady -- whose name I shamefully have never asked -- know her beer, she's eager to let you sample them before you buy. Pair that with a sweet but sharp sense of humour, and a willingness to ignore the clock when 11pm approaches, and yeah, I think she wins my bartender of the year award. In the very least, she managed to salvage some of the UK's pub reputation...

Hotel Nicole, pt 4

Peter and Garth are here (I just heard the recurring sound of one of them knocking my ridiculously-impossible-to-make-work shower curtain rod to the ground again).

On the first night, I took them to Brick Lane -- favourite of all my visitors -- and yesterday night had dinner in the Crypt near Trafalgar Square before heading out to Hoxton for some live music.

Today we're heading off to Stratford-Upon-Avon for some hot Shakespeare action (or is that hot Patrick Stewart action, Natalie?) and coming back to London tomorrow for some more hot Shakespeare action at the reconstructed Globe on the Southbank.

Then they leave, and later that evening, Kris arrives, in Hotel Nicole, pt 5: the Return of Kotarski!

Hotel Nicole, pt3

Matt Oakes stopped thru last night, on his way back to Calgary from Spain (after touring Germany, World-Cup style) with Kris, et al, for the past few weeks.

Matt Oakes! And my ugly wallpaper!

In the few years since I've seen Matt, he's become a property mogul and rather amazingly lives around the corner from DarNat/Tony. Calgary might be growing, but it's still a small town...

Then again, at times, so is London. Matt's flight was supposed to arrive at Luton airport about 5:40pm. I figured it'd take him a couple hours to get to my place, but when 9pm came around, I started to get concerned. I knew he had my cell number and all that, but was getting a bit anxious -- until my flatmate Peter comes back from the shop around the corner... with Matt.

Apparently, Matt got to my building, but couldn't find my flat (it is a weird building). He had no change to make a phone call, so walked back to the main street, went into a shop and tried to buy a phone card. Peter overheard Matt's discussion/argument with the inane shop clerk, and somehow deduced -- by his accent, I suppose -- that Matt was Canadian.

Figuring there could only be one Canadian on our street, Peter asked: Hey, are you looking for Nicole? Which must have totally blown Matt's mind...

Anyway, we went to the pub and talked about the Calgary property market and German efficiency, among other things. And then this morning, after spending half an hour trying to catch the tube to Victoria (delays due to signal failures, as usual), he was off home again...

So who's next at Hotel Nicole? Could it be you? Nah... doubt it.

Hotel Nicole, pt2

Yesterday, 3/4 of my family arrived (parents, and the younger sister) for a visit in London... which means I'm camping again, only this time, it's in the living room, because they've taken over my lovely bedroom. Sigh...

I met them yesterday post-work in Trafalgar Square, and we wandered around, had a pub dinner on the Southbank, took a convoluted bus route (oops...) to Oxford Street and Regents Street, and then walked around Picadilly Circus and down to Leisceter Square...

...where everyone's favourite actor, the midgety Scientologist Tom Cruise was working the crowd ahead of the premiere of Mission: Impossible 3. We didn't get to see him with our own eyes; he and his adoring fans were behind tall security fences. We had to watch on a big screen, which is probably good -- who knows, maybe Tommy boy is like the Medusa of Scientology... you look at him directly and start to worship L Ron Hubbard? Or maybe they were worried Cruise would try to escape their Scientologist clutches? Naah...

A very nice man tried to lift me up on his shoulders... you can imagine how well that worked out. I suppose it's a good thing people think I weigh less than I do, but yeah, he could have really hurt himself.