Subject: a traffic jam in memory lane 
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 07:58:07 PDT 


hi all 

here's an update on happenings. 
As I write this I am watching the South Park movie on my computer, a 750 MB 
file ! 

WEDNESDAY : 
I had been stressing for the past week up to this day, should I look at 
the sun or not ? Would be hard to avoid it when walking around ?   What of 
the animals and birds ? Due to the shifts I work it was my day off so I got 
up and ate and dressed as I had to go into town to get some lira, pesetos, 
francs and  Escudos as well as some travellers cheques for Emma. 

At 9am I don't know if it was me but the sun was feeling particularly 
bright and hot today (!) Full Contact was at 11:11am so about half an hour 
hour before and after we would be able to see changed. London would have 95% 
totality. I was going to go to the park because the leaves are supposed to 
ask as pinhole camera and one is supposed to be able to see multiple images 
of the sun on the ground. 

As it happened I went out onto the balcony and one of the girls from the 
hostel was the with a pinhole viewer made out of failed job applications. 
(Across from us we saw 3 young boys and only one had shades on, but not an 
actual eclipse viewer, we shouted over to tell them to be careful). As it 
turned out she was a dispensing optician so I stuck around. Sooner 2 other 
people joined us. Looking into a window we could actually see a reflection 
of the eclipse though only when obscured by the clouds, otherwise it was far 
too bright to see. And that was it !  I heard there was a lot of people in 
the parks and Dougie who works on a high building site said he could look 
out onto London and saw lots of people on the rooftops. 

So far this morning there's been reports of some 300 people with damaged 
eyesight.... 

Went home via Notting Hill Gate and did some cd shopping ! Picked up some 
cds I'd been looking out for for a while ! 

Got home and cooked dinner and then retired to the room to start tidying 
up and packing up everything into labelled boxes. Tonight I'll start putting 
them into storage. I had great joy last week throwing away bits and pieces I 
had accumulated in a year ! Lots of music and videos (unavailable in New 
Zealand) of course. 

TUESDAY : 

I really wanted to knuckle down and write up some more emails to you all 
but my wrists are playing up again, so I contented myself by playing Quake 
II on the network against a few other people, a bit of a wasted day !! 


MONDAY : 

got up at 5am feeling more lively than deadly as I'd been awake since 
4:30am. got on the central tube line and eventually after some mistarts got 
to Knightsbridge at 6pm get out the tube and see 5 people waiting outside 62 
Brompton Road right opposite Harrods. 

I took my place outside. The guy in front had got there at 5:45am. A few 
minutes later 2 guys appeared behind me. By 8am there was a solid 100 in the 
queue stretching back. 

  At 8:45am we got let in, I followed everyone to the 3rd floor that then 
found out that this was for passports only so we quickly ran down to the 2nd 
floor....damn, there were now 6 people in front of me !!  We come in and 
grab a ticket, only 40-50 applications are processed a day. The girl comes 
in and starts sorting out everyone. Looking around I see people of various 
nationalities as well as some perturbed australians. Suffice to say it is a 
despair of gloom, and I feel sorry for the girl who has to deal with all 
this, she seems snappy and curt but I can sympathise with her. 

I'm a bit shy but eventually I go up with all 50+ pairs of eyes on me and 
enquire as to how to correct the date. She looks at it and tells me to sit 
down. Later on, the south african fellow that was in front of me comes back 
down from the 3rd floor as his date is wrong ! 
Eventually the lady calls us up and we finalise the correct details. We wait 
for 20 minutes more and I am outside getting a breather talking with an 
indian lady who sister and husband are from Australia and how they have 
wasted 3 weeks trying to get visas ! We all feel sorry for the girl and how 
overloaded she is and how we all felt like going up and giving her a hand 
with the clerical stuff. I feel sorry for south africans who need visas for 
EVERY country ! 

Anyway, eventually we get the green light and go up to the third floor to 
pick up the passports. The floor is packed with families and everyone that 
was in front of us is still here !  We manage to get out  at 11am. I manage 
to get back to work at 12, they didn't miss me. 

FRIDAY: 
Today I swapped with a workmate so I have the day off. Emma had BEEN 
fretting about her portuguese visa and finally it arrived !! 
I opened it to check and OH NO the wrong date ! Oh Bugger, Looks as though I 
have to get into the Portuguese embassy early on Monday morning...... 


THURSDAY : 
Finally saw Matrix !  when I got off the bus to walk to it I passed Greg 
Proops in the road. He is same height as me. Went to Wong Kei with Emma and 
Shaun a guy from Hong Kong who works for my company.  In town it was the 
celebrity premiere for Wild Wild West so we caught a glimpse of Will Smith 
etc. Lots of loud screaming etc. 

ONE DAY IN EARLY AUGUST : 
Because of a falling out between Australia and Portugal, supposedly 
Australia has started charging for visas so Portugal has started doing  it 
as well. Total chaos and headlines as the queue outside the Portuguese 
Embassy is 80 deep every day before 7am (opens at 9am). 
Emma takes a day off and gets there at 6:30am but misses out on one of the 
first 50 tickets so ends up having to send it via post, they would not 
accept it over the counter so she had to send it via registered mail from 
the Post Office right around the corner ! 

ONE DAY IN EARLY JULY : 
My normal shift has changed from Monday to Friday to a week with Wednesday 
off so I took this opportunity to get dicounted flight tickets with our 
newly acquired student cards ! 

ONE DAY IN JUNE : 
Busabout tours had a deal where if you booked before July you would get a 
ticket for halfprice. So instead of 269 UKP it was 159 UKP for a 15 day 
unlimited coach pass in Europe !! 
We scrounged the money together and Emma went to campus travel to get the 
tickets. She went in and there was Sally who used to live at the hostel! To 
cut a long story short she ended up getting up International Student (ISIC) 
cards for us which means we ended up paying 130 UKP and discounted/free 
entry to various museums, cinemas for the year ! 


NEXT WEEK : 
so here's the plan ! 

Saturday we leave Heathrow on Air Belgium at 9:30am then hit Brussels at 12 
then to Venice at 2pm. 

Venice 14-15 
get here saturday afternoon and leave on monday 16th. 
rome  16-18 
Anna-Maria says she will be our tour guide around her city ! 

florence 19-21 

nice 22-24 

from here we will check out cannes, monte carlo etc which are really really 
really really supposed to be expensive. 

barcelona 25-27 
madrid 28-29 
......... 

On the 30th the ticket will run out so have a week or so to explore Portugal 
and Spain ! 


The hostel may be getting sold soon, hopefully not while we are gone, so 
please don't send anything to my postal address here. 

I have packed all my stuff into boxes and stored them away so that if 
something does happen someone will help take our stuff with them. 

Andrew seems a bit upset at our imminent departure for 3 weeks. 

So as you can see last weekend was pretty stressful, with the passport visa 
problem on Friday as well as the news that the hostel may be closing down 
(albeit temporarily). 


I'll try to keep you guys uptodate !! 

I've finished watching South Park movie, it is ok but doesn't really hold 
your attention. I wouldn't spend money on it ;-) 


lots of love 
darryl