London: Surveying and skating in Jolly Old! Summer 2014: June 2014

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Day 50 6/28/14 (Denmark and beyond!)

So I traveled to Denmark to see Kasper, whom I met in Nicaragua, and I saw him at the airport. It has been amazing since I arrived here. We drove around and checked out this one mall/supermarket and got a bunch of good food. We also drove around and saw the schnapps factory with his girlfriend and ate a bunch of snap peas. We then went to a cocktail party much later after making burritos and had a really good time at the party and slept outside on the owner’s couches at 2:40 AM (when it was getting light out) and then woke up at 10 AM and ate cherries off their tree and had breakfast (on Sunday 6/29/14). Overall has been wicked fun! Loved England, but the weather is looking to be nicer in Denmark. Another thing is that there is a decent exchange rate at 5 khroner to the dollar so most meals at Burger King cost normal American prices. Saw some cool buildings and even have had some great brews! Gotta run! Sunday has been good too and we are going skating later!

Getting on the plane in Amsterdam (from the tarmac)

Looking at the harbor from a bus station in Aalborg

Cherries!

Danish countryside on the way back to Aalborg from the party

The train station

One of the kings!

A defender of the peace and the mayor's office

Part of a restaurant near a bus station

but Danish!

Gotta love the old buildings and walkways

Waiting for the plane

Day 49 6/27/14 (Beast mode through breakfast, skating Hyde Park, throwing down in Hyde Park, letters pictures and The Giraffe, the London Friday Night Skate, leaving London)

The day started off at 9 AM for breakfast (which was really actually around 9:30 AM), and Shoop and I went down there and feasted on sausages, eggs, pastries, OJ, hash browns and other good foods. I had about 2 plates of food and was utterly stuffed. It was okay as I was planning to go into Hyde Park to go skating. Since yesterday we had proofread most of the paper for both advisors comments on the final draft (to fix formatting and other minor changes) and we had then submitted it, we still had to fill out and sign the e-cdr (basically submitting our final project and signing that we did this for X credits at WPI etc). So Shoop and I got the e-cdr files and then went to Shockey’s to print them out and sign them. After signing them we had finally finished IQP!!!!!!! EVERYTHING IS DONE FOR THAT! WOOT! Now the only thing that remains is to get the grade back, although I have high hopes for it. After the e-cdr Shoop went off to several different museum exhibitions around town and I walked to Hyde Park to skate around there. I skate around the entire Park for about 3 hours and even helped one newbie on blades to start skating. After that I skated back to the hotel and dodged people on the main streets around London. It was a blast. I then showered and walked over to meet Peter and Will for a letters photo (wearing our Fraternity letter shirts) and then we had Shoop join us for a few more. We then ate at the Giraffe (a restaurant nearby to Russell Square station). I had potstickers and this good chicken rodeo burger and then had to run to the station to jump on the Piccadilly line to get to the corner of Hyde Park (conveniently there is a tube stop right there). This was to meet up with the other skaters for the London Friday Night Skate. This group consists of a bunch of skaters (mainly inliners) who have skate around the streets of London on Friday nights, Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. As part of the group, there are “marshals” who stop traffic and make sure the route is safe for the large pack of around 100 people skating on the main roads. This was totally epic! We got to skate 11 miles around on the surface streets and it was beautiful weather outside. Overall everyone did pretty good in terms of speed and I was one of three people on quads out of the group (1 guy was marshal though). WE skated the first half in an hour and then took a break and skated the rest. One of the best parts was when I shot the duck down one of the steeper hills and shot past many of the people. The whole experience was definitely worth it and was the most fun I had in London (perhaps in most of IQP too). I had to tube back to the hotel and quickly pack. Then it was off to the airport on the Piccadilly line. I arrived at the airport at 12 AM for my 6 AM flight (as there weren’t any tubes after 12 AM until 6 AM). So I then derped around in the airport for 6 hours. I tried to sleep a bit, but it didn’t really happen. I did repack my one checked bag to be under 50 lbs and printed my boarding pass. Bought a ton of food at Café Nero too. Eventually made it through security after the Nazi lady at the airlines made me change my bag to fit in the stupid carry-on bag container. Ended up meeting a couple of bros heading to South Africa to longboard and talked to them all about it. They made me check my backpack into the belly of the plane in Heathrow at the gate and then went I arrived in Aalborg, they had lost both of my checked bags so I had nothing besides my phone and Brazil jacket (and passport). It was interesting. Luckily Kasper was at the airport and helped me fill out all the forms to get them to send my bags to here ASAP and they arrived today (6/29/14). So I was only without bags for a day. Overall good trip and really loved IQP work! Had a blast working with my teammates and loved working with Shoop and having him become my bro!

Friday morning feast

Morris!

At Hyde Park

Another long skating stretch at Hyde Park

Kennsington Palace

More of the park around the SW corner

Three expensive cars for 1! (Ferrarri, Roller in the back and a Bentley)!

The waterfront at Hyde Park

More water

Next to the chairs on the lawn part of the park

The rodeo burger

The LFNS group

Spinning cubes dude

Day 48 6/26/14 (FRENCH TOAST, catching the train, proofreading, dinner with the teams, skating (inside too)!)

I woke up early at around 930 or so when I had my alarm set for 9:45 AM. I then had the last two piece of French toast from when I had made the toast the other day. These pieces were absolutely delicious. I then had a few more small items to pack, but nothing too major (as I had done most of it before sleeping the night before). I washed everything (dishes) that I had used and then waited as everyone else was packing. It was a really chill morning. I did knock on doors of my bros to wake them up and get any other folders, clipboards or project supplies that I needed to take to Matt (to give to Katy later). After I took the box over and handed in my dorms keys I came back and everyone was basically packed although Nick was still working on a few small items. The mini-bus showed up at around 10:50 AM to take us down to Foregate for our 11:24 train. We arrived at the station early and had no issues waiting for the train. I even got to see one of the robotics and computer science guy in the lab with the 3D printer on campus (as he was getting off the train to go to work). Apparently even Emma tried to meet me at the station (Nick said he saw her), but I didn’t go downstairs to see her, so we didn’t see each other that day. The train ride was pretty uneventful (as we traveled to Birmingham first and then to London Euston station). In London Euston we got off the train and hooved it to the Thistle hotel. The reception staff still seemed to be as disgruntled and peeved at us as the first time we checked in the place. Shoop and I had a room on the fifth floor. After dropping stuff in the rooms we basically chilled for a while and I even grabbed a nap. At around 6:50 PM or so we walked over to the apartments where the London project teams were staying and met up with the rest of the group to head to the Marquis Cornwallis hotel/pub/restaurant. It was a really chill time there as well. We had a menu we could pick different dishes off of and I ordered a burger and a caramel salted tart for dessert. The food took quite some time to arrive as several other large groups were in the room too. It was okay food, although the burger was disproportionally sized to the £11 it cost. The tart was really good and it came with ice cream. After about 9 PM I really wanted to head skating (as I had brought my skates) so I busted out from place over to Russell Square station to grab the tube down to Vauxhall’s Roller Disco (“The Renaissance Rooms”) skating rink. I swear that inside of the station I just missed the escalators to the tube when I was scanning around the train station, so I walked around outside to get to the other Russell Square corner station where I had to jump the train to King’s Cross stop and then grab the Victoria line down to Vauxhall. Once I got on the Victoria line everything was fine and it took around 20 minutes or so to get down to Vauxhall. The rink was only about 5 minutes’ walk from the station and I walked up and got frisked and searched by the doorwoman. I then paid the £7.50 admission and the £3 to check both of my bags. The Roller Disco is a really nice facility. Basically you enter and there is seating and the skate rental room with a bar on the right. The first of two skating floors is in the room with the skate rentals and then behind the DJ booth is the second rink tucked away in another room. There are also steps leading to the other rink from the first floor and you can easily make the jump from one floor to the other at speed (who did that? Certainly not me). Both rooms had different atmospheres to them as the one had a more advanced vibe with a reverse direction while the other floor (in the first room) seemed to be for beginners. Overall the floors were rather nice and were both wooden. They were decently small however and I always felt like I had to turn right as I was getting up to speed. I did meet several friendly folks there who loved skating including this chick who I was learning some jam footwork from. As the session went from 8 PM to 12 AM, I only got around two hours of skating in from 10 ish until 12. Towards the end of the night at around 11:40 PM they had a speed skate with just the advanced skaters only and we did a backward line skate where all the peeps held one arm and we skating backwards. It was an absolute blast and I loved every second of it. The best part about having the bars in rinks is that they have to give out free water. At this rink they did it in a pitcher form where there was a continuously filled water pitcher (and I would drink about half of it coming off the floor). After the session one of the skate guard ladies said she really liked my style of skating and was really enthusiastic to chat. I then busted off to the train station to grab the tube back and went to bed.

Entrance to the rink

The front hall of Vauxhall's Roller Disco

The main floor

The second floor (reverse direction)

The bar next to the main floor

FRENCH TOAST!

Day 47 6/25/14 (Presenting, finishing the report, packing, celebrating, trampolining)

We all wanted to get to the office around 10 AM to practice our final presentation since the first one was at 12 PM. I was up around 9 AM and had my French toast (2 slices) for breakfast. It was one of the better breakfasts I have had here as the toast was utterly delicious. At the office we worked on the report and then practiced our presentation. We also stepped through the slides in outline form to get comfortable with the different slides. At around 11:50 AM we walked over to the conference room with our advisors (Shockey and Ruiz), Katy and several other staff members. There were about 12 people watching our presentation including: Katy, Peng, Paul, Shockey, Ruiz, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the University, a City Council member and several other people involved in sustainability. Our presentation went really well and was around 23 minutes. The group even laughed at several of our jokes and asked some great questions. We really nailed it on this presentation though. After this we chatted for around 30 minutes before heading to the cafeteria for some food. I had literally no money on me so I had to borrow £2.50 from Shoop to buy some yogurt, Doritos and a banana (lunch of champions there). After lunch we derped around and were nearly late for our 2 PM presentation at the housing forum inside of Guild Hall. We grabbed the mini-bus there from the university and made it there right about 2 PM. Once there we were rushed into the big council chamber. We walked into a room where the curtains were drawn and it looked a bit like the war room from the Pentagon. Once in there we had to assist the IT guy to get the PowerPoint loaded onto the computer. At first the meeting started while Shoop and I were trying to get things up and running. At one point the whole surge strip even flipped the fuse for the outlet we were using (and all the power died)! After we changed outlets and finally got all the PowerPoints up we realized that another “10 minute” presentation had to go before ours. This “10 minute” one turned into half an hour and was absolutely horrid. It was a mixture between spoken pre-recorded narration and awkward music cuts including a cut to “Our House” by Madness (to be fair the presentation was on providing good housing for the homeless). The part that made the PowerPoint terrible was the fact they tried to squeeze a novel on each slide. The graphics were almost impossible to read as well. There were hard copies of the slides available, but apparently even those were not readable either. Either way it finally ended and we had the chance to present after Katy and Peng gave us a “30 second” intro. It was context about the Energize Worcester program. Then it was our time and I started off with an enthusiastic “hello!” and then started our presentation. I think everyone was shocked a bit to have the energy level suddenly raised. We then proceeded to crush our presentation (aka nailed it!) despite me derping and skipping one slide ahead by accidently clicking the mouse. We even opened the room up a bit and got a few chuckles and laughs and smiles. There was a sense of tension in the room as the political environment had just changed with the elections and everyone was nervous. After the presentation we received a few questions and the group seemed to be generally pretty enthusiastic about our work. We then explored Guild Hall with Stefan, Nick, Ruiz, Shockey and Peng. After a number of photos of us in our suits, we left for the cathedral and got some photos in there as well (As Ruiz had purchased a photo pass). After the cathedral we headed toward the train station again and dropped off both professors. At his point we were basically done with the day and walked back to the university in our suits. We changed and then I packed a little in the afternoon. It wasn’t too long before we had to go meet Katy and Shania in town at the Diglis hotel (one of the pricier pub/hotel places right along the river. At the Diglis we drank one pitcher of Pimms (lemonade and vodka or some other alcohol) before Nick and Stefan showed up and then we finished another with them there. The mixture was 3 parts lemonade to 1 part alcohol so it was really diluted. The top of the mixture also had a number of different cut up fruits. We kept waiting for Peng to join us, but we later learned from him that a bird had nailed him on his shirt and pants and thus was just going home for the day. So we never got to say goodbye to Peng and thank him one last time. After a couple hours at the Diglis, we traveled to Katy’s house and had a vegetarian BBQ there with lots of veggie chicken and meat-free foods. We also had a good amount of cider there. The best part had to be the trampoline that had been set into the ground. So I practiced my jumps and learned a few moves from Shania (Katy’s daughter). The first time I went to do a front flip I landed directly on my face. I did improve and eventually nail it though. We chilled at Katy’s house until around 11 PM and then decided to go to Bushwackers to get some dancing in. Once at Bushwackers, Nick and I had two tequila shots (where you have to lick salt off of your hand after the shot and then eat a lemon). It wasn’t that great of a time there so I left around 1 AM and walked back alone. Back at the flat I just packed the rest of my clothes and then Nick showed up around 2 ish and he was really gone. Eventually we did end up watching last night’s John Stewart and Stephan Colbert. About halfway through the Colbert episode, Shoop and Stefan showed up and we all chatted for a bit before going to be around 330 AM.

Presenting in Guild Hall at the Housing forum

In the upper part of Guild Hall

Looks like I need to pack...

The Diglis!

The Severn!

Pimms!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Day 46 6/24/14 (Early morning skype, “I’m in too deep” on the paper, we survived!?, chic-AWN and salmon)

Since Shockey and Ruiz wanted to skype with us at 9:45 AM to see our presentation. Shoop and I were there at 8:50 AM and started getting ready for the presentation. After a few minutes of prep we tried doing the presentation and it was 26 minutes long. With a presentation that long we only got 1 time through before the skype. Due to a number of technical difficulties with the internet on both ends of the conversation and computers we had to try and call Shockey and Ruiz several times throughout our presentation to reestablish the call. We did get through about 3/4^thsof our presentation before they had to run to actual final presentations of other teams in London. They thought we were doing pretty good however. After working on revising the ppt during the morning, we started in on proofreading the draft. I didn’t get too far into the draft before we all realized we were starving and broke for lunch. Lunch was good as I got to read a letter from Emma and enjoy a mugshot of creamy chicken flavor and chicken nuggets. After lunch we went HARD on paper proofreading. We started at page 1 and went to page 123. It took all afternoon from 2 to 7 PM. By the end of it we were all a bit loopy, but we FINALLY FINISHED THE FINAL DRAFT. Basically this means Shockey and Ruiz look over the whole document before telling us to submit the draft. After that we stumbled back to the flat to start making dinner. I even got to have Emma come over and eat some of the last salmon and chicken that I had. I even managed to make the chicken quite well too! We will be doing a practice run of the presentation for the night and then going to bed. We have two final presentations tomorrow and then we ARE DONE! PARTTTTTTTTYYYYYYYYYY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Or at least packing time haha). Talk to you guys tomorrow!

The letter!

Chicken, salmon and spaghetti!

Day 45 6/23/14 (starting late, working all day, MAJOR PROOF READING)

So the day was pretty standard I suppose. Wake up at like 9. Be in the office by 10. We then basically worked all day on the paper revisions from Ruiz. We then got to work on our PowerPoint a bit and finally got most of our presentation done. It was a long day and we still didn’t finish proofreading the paper. We worked until 5 PM and then Emma and I went a park on the way to Perdiswell golf course. It was a cool park and we had dinner there (pulled pork, rotini, tomatoes, corn and nuts), quiche, lots of these little cocktail pastries and Victoria sponge cake (thanks for the correction Emma). It was a chill dinner and then we derped around in the park going to the different exercise stations around the park. These are basically like a leg press, chin up bar, air walk station and others (each stationed a bit apart from the last). It was a blast going around to the many places and I even got to show off my epic failure at pull ups to a bunch of rugby players. I have to say my favorite station had to be the air walk station where I felt like I was running at top speed and had so much fun. After that I had a text from Shoop that Shockey wanted to skype us at 9:45 AM the next day to hear our presentation. Thus we had to modify our timetable and try to be in the office by 9 AM instead of 10 as we were planning. The rest of the night was rather low key.

Pasta from the other day

Oregon trees at the park

Dinner!

Morris!

A quick view on the way home from the race course

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Day 44 6/22/14 (Late start, FRENCH TOAST!!!, soccer, chilling with teh bros)

After I eventually woke up and decided to start the day (after 12 PM), I realized that Emma had not ever had French Toast before! WTF?! Anyways so I had to change that. I went to Asda with her and we bought thick white toast, canned corn, milk, eggs and cinnamon. We then walked back to my flat and I mixed up stuff for French Toast. It was also prospective day here at the University and it was a bustling campus when I first arrived at around 1 PM. I have never made French Toast before in my life (apart from dipping in the bread and then cooking it (never actually mixing it). So I looked up a simple recipe and used the eggs and a whole CUP of MILK! (Wow French Toast uses a lot of milk for only 4 slices). Anyways I added copious amount of cinnamon and then cooked it up! (I let the toast soak up the mixture out of the huge baking pan from Marceli). I only managed to get 4 slices out of the mixture, but it was some of the best French Toast I have ever had! It was so so so so good, especially with the Canadian Maple syrup (I even think Emma really liked it too). After that we chilled for a bit and then the bros wanted to play some soccer outside and we did. It was pretty chill and really hot out. After all of that we are just chilling as it is around 5 PM and we are not going to be working on the paper today. Hopefully some COD later with my team!

Dinner at Emma's

Too many garden ornaments

Makin' FRENCH TOAST

FRENCH TOAST!!!!!!

Day 43 6/21/14 (Little sleep, letters photos, Malvern & the Hills (without eyes), Riddock)

Most of the morning continued from Friday night and skating, but I eventually arrived around on campus at 8 AM and passed out until 11:15 AM or so. I then got up and had some food and met Nick and Shoop in the kitchen in letters. We were going to go with Stefan and get a letters picture over at the cathedral, but Stefan didn’t want to come. So the three of us walked to the Cathedral and tried to go up to the top tower, but it was closed because there was a service going on. We then tried to get a photo in the center garden and then took several outside by the River Severn as well. We then decided to go to Malvern as a group (Nick decided to tag along as well). We then jumped on the train there (for only £5.50 for there and back) and it took about 15 minutes to arrive at Great Malvern. It was a short ride because Malvern was only about 10 miles away. We wanted to bike there, but it would have been terribly exhausting after walking around the hills all afternoon. We arrived at around 2 PM or so and started walking up. The entire small town is built around the hills, so there are a number of driveways and other roads that just head upwards. We walked and walked and walked for a very long time and then finally found a trail that led up to the top of the peak! Once we arrived on the peaks it really didn’t matter if we walked up the trail anymore as it was just grassy everywhere so we could walk where ever we wanted to. It was a really phenomenal view of the whole area (Malvern and even Worcester!) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even tried to Rocky up to the top peak, but I only made it about halfway up before I was too exhausted. There were mountain bikers who would make it all the way up to the top. LEGS OF STEEL! Amazing to see that and I bet they were grannie gearing up the whole way. We walked around the top for quite some time and got a good set of photos of the top. I even stood on the monument to the surveyors and got some panoramas. The one peak was around 1300 feet up. After walking around to the different peaks we walked down again to go to the Unicorn (one of the local pubs). We had seen the Unicorn back on Google Maps back in ID2050 and had wanted to head over there and find it since then. At the Unicorn we grabbed a pint of Strongbow and watched the first half of the match between Argentina and Iran (which Argentina won, but Iran played a rock defense for the first 90 minutes). The pint was actually quite cheap at only £2.80 and tasted fine. After the Unicorn we went to the Weatherspoon to grab some food. It had the same menu as the Postal Order and I got the same BBQ chicken, bacon and cheese Panini. After food we jumped on the train back which we were very glad we had as all of us were too exhausted to bike back. I had wanted to get off at Worcester Shrub Hill station so I could go directly to Emma’s house for more dinner, I learned the train only stopped at Foregate station. So I got off there and then had to walk across town, which was so long as I was pretty tired at this point. I did arrive there eventually and had chicken stir fry and we watched Riddock Pitch Black. It was good although it was a bit like Aliens on a planet that was in total darkness.