Beautiful Day

Beautiful Day, originally uploaded by Xenoc.

It's a beautiful day here today. The sun is shining, there's only a
light breeze, and it's just overcast enough to keep the heat in.

I woke up fairly early today, only a quarter of an hour later than I
get up for work, had a brief laze around the house, then went out for
my morning coffee, after a quick stop at McDonalds for breakfast.

After my coffee, I walked over to Westway, arriving just as the
climbing gym opened at 10am. Since I was on my own, bouldering was all
I could do without finding a partner. I started on the easiest
bouldering routes and was quite surprised how hard I found them. The
holds were smaller, and spaced much farther apart, than on even the 5+
walls I had been climbing. I only climbed for about half an hour, but
worked up a good sweat, and felt my hands starting to tire from the
small holds. I'm climbing with my coworker again tomorrow, so I didn't
want to overdo it today.

After climbing, I headed over to Notting Hill (yes, from the movie) to
explore the area, and to see a flat later. It's only a 15-20 minute
walk from work or Westway, just off the famous Portabello road and
it's market. I found a Cafe Nero, my favourite coffee shop, and
convinced them to make me an iced americano, even though it's not
something on the menu. They did a fine job of it, and I'm now enjoying
my cold beverage on a bench in a nice little park square a couple
blocks from the flat I'm going to see. The neighbourhood and location
seems ideal, and from the photos I've seen of the flat, it looks very
nice and fairly spacious. What remains then is to see if it's as nice
in person, and what I think of my potential flatmates, and vice
versa. That's at 1:30, so I'll be done there by the time any of you
north American readers are even out of bed.

I'm seeing another flat at 3:30. It's farther from work, about half
hour via the tube, but it's also in an area I like, one I walked
through a couple weeks ago, Little Venice it's called, because of the
couple canals that run through it. (Uhm, two police on horseback just
rode past. London is cool). The location and neighbourhood are nice,
though the room looks a bit small, so I'm not sure if it'll work out.
I seem to have acquired a shocking amount of "stuff" since I got here,
between stereo, computers, camera gear, and all the assorted boxes of
miscellaneous manuals, parts and such that go along with. I haven't
decided yet how I'm going to move, whether I'll hire a "man with a
van", or just make many trips on public transit with my two roller
suitcases full of stuff.