Last week, I was in London visiting the office in Buckingham Palace street. After flying from Aarhus to Kopenhagen and later to Heathrow, I could use the so-called Heathrow express to get to central London. The underground system was quite impressive as you can see on the picture below...
Unfortunately, I had only the street address of the hotel, so I had to do a lucky guess on the correct one. I had to smirk when I entered the hotel. I mean, what would you expect to happen if a desoriented guy with a half finished Burger King meal goes to the reception of a noble hotel and says something like "I think G booked a room for me" (G being a synonym for a very large search company; I avoid direct references to keep the blog as unsearchable as possible). If I'm unlucky they put me in a mental station. Well, I was lucky, and so a good-looking German girl from the hotel staff started to flirt with me. Oh, I'm sorry, probably she just tried to be nice... Probably because she didn't want to lose her job that's why she was nice. Yeah, that's probably the correct reception ;). Hm, but after seeing "inception" I don't care so much about reality or dreaming anymore as it seems to be kind of interchangable ^^.
The hotel room was the best room I've ever been in. Especially the bathroom; I was sort of amused by the amount of mirrors and glass...
The office was very impressive; never seen anything like that. One nice feature was a facility that allowed to get a bit of a flight simulator feeling. On the picture, you can see me pointing at the Uniteich!
On the weekend, I took the bus to Oxford to meet Laura and Elli who happened to be there during their England round trip. In the double decker bus, I could get the front seat on the top deck! When Laura and Elli arrived, I shouldn't have been surprised, but, I mean; what is the first thing one would do if you arrive in an unknown city? Of course the answer is: Shopping! Well, I don't know; maybe this is a gender specific issue that I wouldn't expect this ;) Anyway, thankfully it did not take too long for them to buy their Oxford T-shirt, so we could move on to the museum of science ^^. The museum itself was not really exciting, but an interesting citation drew my attention:
"However powerful our technology and complex our corporations, the most remarkable feature of the modern working world may in the end internal, consisting in an aspect of our mentalities: in the widely held belief that our work should make us happy."
After eating some ice cream, we cooked dinner at the youth hostel. And despite fundamental dissensions about the amount of noodles a single person can eat; and nearly triggering a fire alarm with burnt cucumbers, it was quite fun ;). After the dinner we explored the youth hostel game room. Maybe I should not write this here; but to my shame I must admit that I lost against the girls in tabletop soccer..
The next day, we attended a mass of the church of England. The priest was a woman and it was amazing how she reminded me of some teacher in Harry Potter...
Well, time passed by fast in Oxford and my flight back was booked for Sunday afternoon. So, I had to say good bye to Laura and Elli..... Below you can see a photo with me and the two lovely girls ;).
On the flight back, I had my first experience with multiplied gravity, because I had to go to the front of the plane while it was approaching for landing in Kopenhagen. Just when I stood in the middle of the plane, the pilot pulled the plane upwards forcing me on the floor and sort of turning the world around me. So I was glad to reach the ground of the airport in Aarhus...
