2nd day in London - Part Two
Conference over, more people came over to talk with me. Success!!
It turned out dinner was just Graham (the conference organizer) and me. He said he'd made reservations at a true Scottish restaurant. I jokingly asked, "Can I get Haggis?" He was amused and said I could.
You need to check the link out if you don't know what it is. It sounds nasty, doesn't it?
Although he had his GPS (a Garmin with a soothing British woman's voice), Graham still got a bit lost (I told him I'd post about that, ha ha). But I got to see more of London! Parts remind me of the older parts of Boston. The rowhouses remind me of Baltimore.
We talked about the conference, his cyberstalking situation (which my group, WHOA is going to try to help him with), and the restaurant we were going to, Boisdale (in the photo on the main page, look waaaay in the back - we sat at the table in the dark cubbyhole where all the pictures are hanging).
Graham teased that he couldn't believe I was going to try the Haggis. Damn! Now I had to! We got there ahead of the reservation time, so we sat in the bar area. I had a Guinness and he had a local ale. We talked about how we met our spouses (his wife is from Ghana originally, but he used to walk by the Royal Doulton store in London where she worked and would see her through the window. . .eventually he braved going in to buy something for a friend's wedding and the rest is history), his time in Jamaica (where the cyberstalking began) and some things he'd done in his past life - music (he worked with Nine Inch Nails, no, not in the bad); film animation; entertainment; and more.
We got to our little table and our waitress came up to give us our menus. Who wouldn've thunk it? I had to go to a Scottish restaurant in London to be waited on by a girl from Texas! LOL!!
Yes, I did get the Haggis, but the appetizer (or first course, as they call it here). What was funniest was when the waitress came over with another beer for each of us, she had a shot of liquor, which she placed in front of me. I looked at Graham accusingly. It turned out it was a shot of Johnnie Walker Black to pour *over* the Haggis. It looked like the one in the photo at Wikipedia. It actually was quite good - it looked like ground sausage and was spicy and very, very tasty!
For the main course, I ordered a 36-day old rump steak with black truffles and garlic mashed potatoes. We talked more about a lot of things. Graham was quite funny!! Dinner was delish, but the Haggis had honestly filled me up and would have been plenty, so I ate 3/4 of the steak.
We left and he promptly got me back to the hotel. I went in, up to the 4th floor to my room and damn, my room key wasn't working. I kept getting a red light instead of a green one. Just as I turned to go back to the lift (as they call the elevator here), the fire alarm went off. I burst out laughing - the same thing happened when Chris and I stayed at the Union Bluff for our anniversary.
But this time, the alarm didn't shut off. So I trudged down the stairs. Other guests came out of doors and we all went to the lobby, then outside to wait. About 15 minutes later, the alarms were off and I went to the front desk, got my room key redone, then up to my room. The key worked - yay!
Got in my jammies, then called Chris on Skype. I miss him so much! Although I love being here, I can't wait to get home!
Went to bed and slept pretty well. Today is the big tourist day! I hope to be awake enough later to post about it!
It turned out dinner was just Graham (the conference organizer) and me. He said he'd made reservations at a true Scottish restaurant. I jokingly asked, "Can I get Haggis?" He was amused and said I could.
You need to check the link out if you don't know what it is. It sounds nasty, doesn't it?
Although he had his GPS (a Garmin with a soothing British woman's voice), Graham still got a bit lost (I told him I'd post about that, ha ha). But I got to see more of London! Parts remind me of the older parts of Boston. The rowhouses remind me of Baltimore.
We talked about the conference, his cyberstalking situation (which my group, WHOA is going to try to help him with), and the restaurant we were going to, Boisdale (in the photo on the main page, look waaaay in the back - we sat at the table in the dark cubbyhole where all the pictures are hanging).
Graham teased that he couldn't believe I was going to try the Haggis. Damn! Now I had to! We got there ahead of the reservation time, so we sat in the bar area. I had a Guinness and he had a local ale. We talked about how we met our spouses (his wife is from Ghana originally, but he used to walk by the Royal Doulton store in London where she worked and would see her through the window. . .eventually he braved going in to buy something for a friend's wedding and the rest is history), his time in Jamaica (where the cyberstalking began) and some things he'd done in his past life - music (he worked with Nine Inch Nails, no, not in the bad); film animation; entertainment; and more.
We got to our little table and our waitress came up to give us our menus. Who wouldn've thunk it? I had to go to a Scottish restaurant in London to be waited on by a girl from Texas! LOL!!
Yes, I did get the Haggis, but the appetizer (or first course, as they call it here). What was funniest was when the waitress came over with another beer for each of us, she had a shot of liquor, which she placed in front of me. I looked at Graham accusingly. It turned out it was a shot of Johnnie Walker Black to pour *over* the Haggis. It looked like the one in the photo at Wikipedia. It actually was quite good - it looked like ground sausage and was spicy and very, very tasty!
For the main course, I ordered a 36-day old rump steak with black truffles and garlic mashed potatoes. We talked more about a lot of things. Graham was quite funny!! Dinner was delish, but the Haggis had honestly filled me up and would have been plenty, so I ate 3/4 of the steak.
We left and he promptly got me back to the hotel. I went in, up to the 4th floor to my room and damn, my room key wasn't working. I kept getting a red light instead of a green one. Just as I turned to go back to the lift (as they call the elevator here), the fire alarm went off. I burst out laughing - the same thing happened when Chris and I stayed at the Union Bluff for our anniversary.
But this time, the alarm didn't shut off. So I trudged down the stairs. Other guests came out of doors and we all went to the lobby, then outside to wait. About 15 minutes later, the alarms were off and I went to the front desk, got my room key redone, then up to my room. The key worked - yay!
Got in my jammies, then called Chris on Skype. I miss him so much! Although I love being here, I can't wait to get home!
Went to bed and slept pretty well. Today is the big tourist day! I hope to be awake enough later to post about it!
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