Working man, Aerosmith

Pics:

1) The Hyde Park Calling festival main stage

2) Steven Tyler on the big screen

3) Steven Tyler out stage right

Ok. So I'm a working man now. I got two jobs, and I'm going to choose between the two...one at Planet Hollywood London (which I'm leaning towards...not an "English" job at all, but much better money with tips), and one at a pub called the New Moon in the banking district of London. I have a better story though. The other night I went to Hyde Park to try and hear Aerosmith play at Hyde Park Calling, a festival here in foggy Londontown. We had some good luck though, a couple of drunk beligerent guys got kicked out, we asked them for there VIPs, they gave em to us, so we had our ticket. Only problem was: no re-entry. We tried at the VIP gate, no go. We tried the disabled gate, no luck there either. We walked around the way to another gate, flashed our yellow laminated VIP passes, and they let us waltz right in. Aerosmith for free (as opposed to £50, or $110). They were really a great show. They opened with Love in an Elevator, Dream On was a big highlight, and for their encore, they not only played Walk This Way, but none other than DMC from Run DMC performed with them!! It was absolutely fantastic. Especially for free. So Jeff, if you read this (and I hope you do), I forgive you for GnR.

Boston, USA

So we had a chance to take a cheap flight to Boston, where we made a point of finding Cheers. It was a great time!!

Back in London

So we got back in London about a week ago and things have been going well. Jordan's heading home soon for the summer to take care of a few things, so I'll be looking for work here on my own soon. We figured we'd get some touristy things out of the way first, but man is England expensive. Must make the pound, can't spend them anymore haha. We've done some fun things over the last week, the most recent of which was going to Stonehenge, Oxford, and Windsor Castle today. For some reason, I can't connect properly, so I'll put up the pictures first. One funny story though. We went to the changing of the guard expecting a big military procession. Well, that's what we got, but we were somewhat surprised with some of the choices of music the band played. For example, the first song we heard was Copacabana, then the Theme from Indiana Jones, then the Empire Theme from Star Wars (I found this extremely ironic, because in the movie, it's the song for the evil empire. ie. when Darth Vader is on screen haha), and lastly, Hawaii Five-O! Pretty odd, I kind of expected old traditional military tunes, but no go I guess. I guess it's a big show when it comes down to it. Anyway, pics to come later!

Pics:

1) The Bobbies and I at Parliament.

2) Me as a clock in front of Parliament.

3) Changing of the Guard at Buckingham (we heard a little girl ask her mom, "Where's the Queen?" It was cute.

4) Tower of London where the Crown Jewels are kept.

5) At Stonehenge where I was perturbed because no one really knows why the stones are there.

6) Windsor Castle, Queen E's favourite place of residence.

7) Stormtrooper hangin' out on the South Bank.

8) The Maple Leaf, a Canadian bar (they have Labatt's, Sleeman's Honey Brown, CC, but no Crown. :( And of course an autographed picture from Wayne Gretzky.

9) Lyceum Theatre, where I saw Lion King.

10) Oxford University.

New York, NY, USA

We had a chance to hop a cheap flight to New York for 2 days from Paris, so we jumped on the opportunity. Didn't have much time, so all we really saw was the Statue of Liberty. Pretty amazing place though hehe!

Paris, France

What can I say, the city of love. Paris is truly beautiful, and people are full of it when they say the people aren't friendly. They are a very proud people, very patriotic, and they do love there language, but if you even try the simplest phrases in Paris, you get treated just fine. It wasn't as dirty as we expected, but there are quite a few areas where there's the potent smell of urine in the streets. We kept our wallets in our front pockets the whole time, and we didn't have too much problem at all. Lots of beggars. I think every metro we boarded, someone would come on and you'd hear: Madame, Monsieur, sil vous plait (forgive my spelling if wrong). The Eiffel Tower is the mack daddy of falic symbols...every city's got one or two, but Paris takes the cake. We took a day trip to Versailles, spectacular palace, but they rape you for money. The Louvre was amazing as expected, too big when you're on a time schedule. We even snuck pics of the Mona Lisa, big nono, but we were sneaky. We walked all the way across town to see Jim Morrison's grave, along with Oscar Wilde and Chopin. Can't say enough about this place. Of course, we had the crepes and drank the wine. I found this awesome bottle of wine for a euro 80, it was about double the size of a normal bottle and it was in one of those plastic juice bottles. Of course we indulged a bit in front of the Eiffel Tower, quite a touristy (and local for that matter) thing to do. Beautiful city by night, but when it comes down to it, I will never understand why they say French is a beautiful language. This coming from the guy who speaks German, but seriously, I hate the sound of it. Too many nasal sounds, not attractive in my opinion. Enough of my blabber, I'm in London I should be enjoying the city (although I'll be here for a while to work hopefully haha). In any case, Paris is definitely the city of love. Even Jordan and I shared a moment of passion on the Eiffel tower haha. Check out the pictures, have a laugh, etc.

1) On the Arc de Triomphe with view of Champs Elysees

2) Arc de Triomphe

3) Champs Elysees

4) Romance in Paris

5) Mona Lisa

6) Me at Louvre

7) Arc de Triomphe at night

8) The Hunchback of Notre Dame

9) At the Eiffel

10) The Thinker statue by Rodin

11) Enjoying French wine the classy way: plastic bottle! Oh, and Eiffel Tower.

12) The Eiffel Tower at night

Dieppe, France

We had some extra travel days left on our Eurail passes, so we decided to get some Canadian history up in Dieppe. This, of course, was where Canadian soldiers fought and died in World War 2 just before D-Day. It is one of the Normandy beaches, but the battle was basically a test to figure out how to liberate France. There wasn't a hostel in this town, so we had to stay in a budget hotel which ended up being a bad thing....I got bed bugs. That's right, they actually exist. My body was covered in mosquito-like bites, and I was miserably itchy the first few days in Paris. We figured out that it was from Dieppe, but I got an ointment and some pills at the pharmacy. I'm pretty much all cleared up now, still some red marks now, but not so miserable. It was a nasty experience. Nonetheless, Dieppe was a meaningful place to see. We were really glad we experienced this and took the time to think about what these soldiers went through to free up Europe.

Pics: 1,2) Bed bugs attack!! Jordan and I on the pier

3) Jordan and I on the pier

4) The beach of Dieppe

5) Canadian War Cemetery

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

This was a fantastic place to go. An old fortress town from the Middle Ages, beautiful landscapes and just a great place to walk around. And we found an movie theatre that had Spiderman 3 in English! We had a great time here, but our feet were tired because the valley (basically there's an 'upper town' and a 'lower town') was pretty big and we're cheap on public transport so we walked everywhere. Good time nonetheless.