Davin Greenwell

it being the last day i spend in london until december, i want to sum up my experience here. the first few days i had friends guiding me around, showing me stuff and it was awesome. i saw some pretty rad things!
but it was not until today that i did some real exploring. the tag excursion doesn’t count because i didn’t find anything. you’re supposed to find stuff when you explore, right? yeah. okay, well, i’ll use that definition for now. it’s what i mean.
i took the tubes to covent garden and went straight to plastic fantastic. i spent about 2 hours in there listening to records, probably at least 500 records. it was a lot. there were many records to listen to there and some very helpful staff. i bought 4 records for them, all superb elite buys. after leaving plastic fantastic, i decided to wander in the direction that i figured oxford st / oxford circus was. i had read on The InterWeb that there was this most kromulent strip of road where both Virgin and HMV situated their flagship stores. indeed, i did find this place. these were the biggest music stores i had ever been in. completely huge. not like costco or anything. i mean, that would be awesome, but it would be hard to fit that kind of space into the locations you want your music store to be (ie: already high traffic, which means high property cost). uh, so but anyway, maybe they were each half the size of a costco. which is still [censored] huge! i bought 3 double CD’s (Chilled Euphoria and Deep and Chilled Euphora, both mixed by Red Jerry, and Painted On Silence, mixed by the mighty Parks and Wilson) from Virgin, and one double 12″ (Garbage – Breaking Up The Girl – Timo Maas and Brothers in Rhythm remixes) from HMV.
after shopping for music, i decided i would walk to regent park. and so i did. it took about an hour or so because i stopped lots to take pictures. i got there and spent another hour and a half taking pictures and wandering around.. it was just gorgeous today. if there is one thing i have to say about london .. it is that their parks are just awesome. london is quite a nice city because of that. i walked into camden town from there and that was that, but all in all i did about 5-6 hours of walking and exploring today. i look forward to doing more the next time i come back!

for some reason i am finding the tube really easy to get around on — more so than the bus. i had a fun and rather full day today.
i went into the tubes.
i went in search of the elusive Tag Records, which is apparently sasha and digweed’s favorite record store here in London. the information i had for the location must have been old, however, as when i finally found the place (it was on a road that was on none of the street maps), it was empty and the phone number didn’t work either. bizarre! that’s too underground!
afterwards i took the tubes to meet up with emily and corinne. emily headed back to prague (or praha, as they say) and i went back into the tubes to go meet up with lee (aka canadian ice) and the End Of The World pub. awww yeah, we were in da pub with a bit more than fifty pence. i spent a rather quick hour and a half with lee and then was back in the tubes to go meet dale andersen. we had japanese beer and japanese food and it was really quite good. then we headed back into the tubes into Greenwich (of GMT fame) and i checked out his music production studio. man, bajwa and dale andersen make some good music, and i received several of their new tracks tonight. i haven’t been able to do any record shopping in London but I don’t even mind because the music that i received from dale is better than most records that i hear in the stores. after that i went back into the tubes and here i am again!

so i have decided that i am not going to post any pictures while on this trip. i am going to try and fit it all on the 2 x 256 meg flash cards and 1 32 meg card, though i really think that’s pushing it. i have deleted a tonne of rad pictures but taken even more gooder ones. the thing about taking pictures on this trip that is even if i take a great picture, it’s going to have to be deleted if it is not discernably from here in the UK or something that could not be seen anywhere else. i can take macro shots of picket fence tops in victoria. heh.
so i am toootally jealous of people who have f-stops higher than 8 on cameras now. now that i know what an f-stop is. why is it called an f-stop anyway? focus stop? hmmm.. time to do some research.
or not! i am on IRC right now and krishen found the answer:

astHome: http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-575.html
astHome: f means the ‘f-stop’ or the focal length of the camera lens the numbers denote the range of focus from the subject you are photographing… the larger the number the more in focus the objects in the foreground and the background will be… for example the number 16 will mean that the objects in the far background will be in focus… conversely, a number two will mean the background will be blurry (while your subject will be in focus)

so anyways..
..about london..
i am staying with my cousin michelle. she lives in camden town which is a rather insane part of london on the weekend. there’s a market here which attracts what would appear to be half of london each saturday and sunday. i have never seen this many people. jeebus!
i met up with emily and met her friend corinne yesterday. we went to a house party but i was overtired and eventually retired before everyone else. today emily showed me some of the sights to see in London, but while doing this she got me really stoked on seeing Prague. we saw the usual bits today — Thames River, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the gigantic ferris wheel, Trafalgar Square, and that big art exhibition. quite a day! after we went to corinne’s where a bunch of us hung out for the evening. corinne’s spanish boyfriend havier made us some fantastic spanish cuisine and i caught the last tube back here. this is the first time i have had unlimited time to do a post, so i am doing it! i have written most of the postcards already and still have some blank ones .. so if you want a postcard .. reply to that post below!

canadian ice – the video.
(note the dancing dj)
scotland was fantastic. aberdeen is like being inside a giant castle. everything is made out of granite. it’s really something else.
if you want a post card, reply to the previous post!
london in the a.m.!

okay. here it is. i have been thinking about doing this, so now i am going to.
next week, i am sending out postcards from london to my friends. but i have decided to send out postcards to my blogreaders as well, all 3 of them! so if you want me to mail you a hand-written postcard, email me your mailing address and leave a comment on this post saying that you’ve emailed me. i get a lot of junkmail so you’ll have to commen to make sure i check my email for a message from you if i am not familiar with your email address!
pretty easy for a post card, eh?
ps: i wont be offended if you don’t want a post card. but they are pretty cool to receive. cooler than email! (don’t tell strongbad)
kaaaaah-raaaaazy!

just a sec, i gotta go!
a few minutes ago i was the first customer of a new quality record shop here in Manchester that has only been open for a week!
neat! more later,
aberdeen tomorrow,
london on saturday!

i am fairly well settled in here now. i do like England a lot! i had a bit of an experience last night at a club, but i’ll save that for another post.
none of the phone numbers that my mom gave me for my relatives here work but all my friends seem to have working phones. pssssssssst, laurence, get off the internet so i can phone you!
plans for London are falling in to place and it looks like i can navigate here even when in a state of nonbrilliance. fantastic! my camera is operating with 2 batteries so i’m not missing any photos (although i didn’t bring my camera with me last night.. on purpose).
this will turn back into a photoblog when i return.. for now, it is a travelblog! i will bore you to tears with my pictures when i get back. this website will be the digital film projector that your friends bore you with when they invite you to their house for a ‘bbq.’ haha!

the flight over was amazing. so cool.
we took off from Vancouver at around 9:30. our flight path took us on a curve up over northern alberta and past the north west territories and hudson’s bay. since the sun was setting, it was on the horizon and it almost got dark by 10:30, but by around that time, we were far enough north that it was still light out. we went further north and it got lighter. when we passed over greenland, the sun moved from the horizon back into the sky. the sunset was the sunrise. whoah!
we landed in rainy manchester. and .. i am here.
so, initially, for me, without being anywhere besides malls and towns in the day time and houses for tea, i would say the biggest differences between victoria and the uk are:

• the traffic / road signs (they’re much better for traffic navigation)
• all buildings (virtually) are made out of brick (as opposed to wood)
• everybody drives on the left side of the road!
• 8 hours..it’s only 1 pm back in victoria right now. crazy!

it’s definitely neat to be here. most of my exposure to the images of the UK have been from PBS, and i associate PBS with fundraising. so every time i go around a street corner or hear someone say something witty or conclusive in a british accent, i half expect to see someone with a telephone asking for money. really.
okay, i am just jetlagged and tired. but i really do think these things!
happy canada day!