I’m fine. Somehow I didn’t figure out that any call (while roaming) would use minutes. In the UK it’s only calling out that you have to pay for: Which might explain why it’s so cheap for calling cards home here vs there.

Anyway. All’s fine. I’m in a London hostel for the night — pretty incredible bar & population. When I called in to register he told me he wouldn’t take a reservation because he had a 100 free beds. This place is like a city block. It’s teaming with people. The bar is hopping. The lounge is full. The computer lab is full. It’s Sunday night, 1:30am Monday.

At high cash burn rate (read “last two week”), I’ll burn thru everything I’ve got in the bank in 3 1/2 months. My return tickets are for two months from now. The rent here is $200-something/week. This is not a problem right now.

My stamina may be.

Today started at 1pm and began with a search for a way to get back to London today. It seems my plan of heading up to Amsterdam and catching my flight tomorrow was flawed, so I have to catch the flight from London Heathrow tomorrow afternoon.

The bus tickets were sold out so I had to take the Channel Tunnel (“Chunnel”) Train back to London. Strangely enough, this wasn’t so much of a problem, even though it cost 7 times more than the bus. Because the only stretch of train I really wanted to ride was the Channel Tunnel. I was sent off by two lovely Mexicanas. No complaints.

And that leads me to the Generator Hostel, in Compton Circle, near Russel Square in London. There’s a
beautiful young woman glaring at a young man in this room. The young man’s not me. That’s ok.

Tomorrow afternoon I catch a flight London-Amsterdam-Istanbul, without enough time to visit Amsterdam. Maybe I’ll mess with the airline and miss the last leg of the return flight. I can always take a ferry back to Dover. That too, is funny. I’ll have to ask about that: what if there are penalties??? If there, are I’ll come back to London. And go right up to Scotland on this rail pass cover nobody looks inside. It expires a couple days before I return. And I’m the only one who knows if I used it to go to Dover.

What happened before Friday? I’ll get back to you about Ireland.