September 8 London Proper

Upon entering My Place Hotel I was surprised to see that it was more reminiscent of Motel 6 on the strip than a 4 seasons, what do you expect though, it's a package deal, and I needed to save money. The room was nice, bed was firm with lots of pillows. The bathroom was cramped, and the toilet and sink controls were on the opposite side as opposed to the ones in America. There is a refrigerator, safe and tv, but the tv wasn't working very well, every channel had static, but I didn't come here to watch TV. After I unpacked a bit, I decided to go for a walk, feeling jet lagged I was only going to take a short one. First the necessities! I stopped by the corner market to get some water for later tonight. It was a small store, kinda like a 7 eleven meets a fresh and easy. Down the way was the tube station, I picked up a Oyster card (London Transportation) to navigate through the city, but I have a feeling I will be mainly walking. I then decided that I didn't to rely strictly on wifi, so I picked up a track phone and a sim card. It was rather In-expensive, and the minutes were 4p compared to $1.50-$3.00 American on the iPhone. Heading back to the room, I realized that people are not that friendly here, I was say "good afternoon" or " hello" and people just kept walking, not even a smile when I smiled at them, go figure, fuck it. After dropping off my shit, I came back down to have a smoke. Out front of the hotel, I ran into this old lady named Dorthey. She was awesome, she was 87 years old, had a beard and stash thicker than mine, and a serious case of osteo... . She asked me for a smoke, so I gave her the rest of my pack, she went on to tell me how nice Americans are, and how rude the English are. She had lived down the street for over 20 years, and believed the world was ending soon. She was just plain awesome! She talked to me for a half an hour, telling me about when she was young, about the war, her kids (who haven't see her in 15 years), grandkids, her parents, God she talked about everything! Dorothy went on her way, and I went on a longer walk. The weather wasn't to good, so I only walked about 2 miles and decided to turn around. As I was about half way back, it started pouring rain, moving with traffic, I made it to the closest pub I could find, to get out of the rain, but mainly for a Guinness. The pub was cool, about 5 people in there, and no servers. The bartender was no where to be found, so I copped a squat and browsed the menu. I was hungry, and there was a shit load of good food, but I wanted to sample food all around, so I just decided on an app. I went up to the bar, ordered a Guinness and fish cakes from the bartender, and struck up some conversation. The bartender asked me where I was from what I did for work, the usual stuff, I answered, he was mildly disinterested and thanked me, and walked to the other end of the bar, and I went back to my table. The rain subsided, and I started walking back to the hotel. I figured, well where would be a great place to meet people and strike up conversation, "Starbucks", right? Nope! I got there sat down with my pad and pen, my latte, and looked around, smiled and said hello to people, but nope no conversation, WTF!!! Whatever, I enjoyed my latte, and started walking around more. As I was walking I saw lots of cool places, of which I will post the pics later. I ran into Dorothy again, this time she told me she wished she was younger, that I was a looker! I smiled and bid her farewell, and went back to the room. I was tired and wanted to pass out, had a big day tomorrow so I crashed.

Just woke up it's 4 am, wanted to update, have a smoke, then back to bed, night all, more tomorrow.