Brum brum
Soooo this weekend I went to Birmingham to stay with Stuart, my former next door neighbor and co-owner of Cubert, the Nissan Cube I drove around Japan. I waited too long to get my bus ticket, so they were pretty expensive and the train was only about $10 more, so I opted for train.
Got up at stupid oclock, realized the buses weren't running that early, and power walked/jogged to the train station. Slipped onto the train, madly took off my coat and scarf since I was sweating from the speed walk over, kept my eyes open long enough to see a pretty section of coastline, then promptly fell asleep for 2 hours. Woke up, read some of my book, then got into Birmingham.
Stuart was there to greet me and whisked my tired butt off to get some breakfast. We went into a Wetherspoons (which I guess is a kind of chain that takes over pubs? Like in World's End) at 11:59 and asked if they were still serving breakfast. The barkeep said that we had one minute to order (!!), so Stuart just said, "TWO OF THE SPECIAL" and that was that. Good on them for actually serving us.
Met up with Stuart's friend Dave and walked around the city and visited the brand new library, which they say is the largest in Europe. It was pretty big and fancy, and I believe that it may hold that title until the end of time, seeing as most libraries are downsizing. Viewed the city from the observation deck/s, which was nice.
Stuart and I went back to his house and hung out with his super cool lovely nice funny amazing mommy. In the evening it was off to curry with some of Stuart's friends. Went back to their place afterwards and just hung out laughing and listening to epic Stuart stories. It was really nice to sit with a group of people in an apartment and just hang out and laugh. Still working on the friends thing here.
Sunday, Ahmad, another JET from Saga who recently returned to the UK, picked us up and we drove into town. Had a lovely tour of the city, explored more library observation decks, and got some american candy. At night, we drove to the "asian" part of town.
In England (the UK? Europe?) "Asian" usually refers to west-asian, so indian, pakistani, etc. Admad suggested the amaaaaazingly cool restaurant called Mughal e Azam in a converted church. For being so super fancy, the prices were cheap as anywhere, and the food was amazing. I included the name here because if you are in Birmingham, please look it up.
When I was in the ladies' room, a gaggle of indian girls dressed in beautiful saris came in. They were speaking in some melodious language and it sounded just gorgeous. I was wondering what language it might be, when one of them, in a full brummy accent was like "UGH I just need to PEE" and then slammed the stall door.
Afterwards, we said goodbye to Ahmad and I watched Downton Abbey with Stuart's mom.
It was nice to hang out with Ahmad, and I think it is the longest we've ever hung out even when we were both in Japan, haha. Stuart was a gracious host and his mom is the best. Thanks, Birmingham <3
Got up at stupid oclock, realized the buses weren't running that early, and power walked/jogged to the train station. Slipped onto the train, madly took off my coat and scarf since I was sweating from the speed walk over, kept my eyes open long enough to see a pretty section of coastline, then promptly fell asleep for 2 hours. Woke up, read some of my book, then got into Birmingham.
Stuart was there to greet me and whisked my tired butt off to get some breakfast. We went into a Wetherspoons (which I guess is a kind of chain that takes over pubs? Like in World's End) at 11:59 and asked if they were still serving breakfast. The barkeep said that we had one minute to order (!!), so Stuart just said, "TWO OF THE SPECIAL" and that was that. Good on them for actually serving us.
Met up with Stuart's friend Dave and walked around the city and visited the brand new library, which they say is the largest in Europe. It was pretty big and fancy, and I believe that it may hold that title until the end of time, seeing as most libraries are downsizing. Viewed the city from the observation deck/s, which was nice.
Stuart and I went back to his house and hung out with his super cool lovely nice funny amazing mommy. In the evening it was off to curry with some of Stuart's friends. Went back to their place afterwards and just hung out laughing and listening to epic Stuart stories. It was really nice to sit with a group of people in an apartment and just hang out and laugh. Still working on the friends thing here.
Sunday, Ahmad, another JET from Saga who recently returned to the UK, picked us up and we drove into town. Had a lovely tour of the city, explored more library observation decks, and got some american candy. At night, we drove to the "asian" part of town.
In England (the UK? Europe?) "Asian" usually refers to west-asian, so indian, pakistani, etc. Admad suggested the amaaaaazingly cool restaurant called Mughal e Azam in a converted church. For being so super fancy, the prices were cheap as anywhere, and the food was amazing. I included the name here because if you are in Birmingham, please look it up.
When I was in the ladies' room, a gaggle of indian girls dressed in beautiful saris came in. They were speaking in some melodious language and it sounded just gorgeous. I was wondering what language it might be, when one of them, in a full brummy accent was like "UGH I just need to PEE" and then slammed the stall door.
Afterwards, we said goodbye to Ahmad and I watched Downton Abbey with Stuart's mom.
It was nice to hang out with Ahmad, and I think it is the longest we've ever hung out even when we were both in Japan, haha. Stuart was a gracious host and his mom is the best. Thanks, Birmingham <3