I aten't dead; Life on a boat

Friday After two days of heavy walking and several days of never quite enough sleep, I was tired and got up late and decided to take it easy. Walked north along Regent's Canal to Broadway Market, a quaint little street of shops, with a food market today (Saturday) but it's getting late and raining again. Tried a wi-fi, but it didn't work. Walked through some big park, Victoria? not sure, ended up on Mare Street, and tried an Ocakezi Mese Bar, whatever those are, called Tad's. Or Tap's. Ordered an adana kebab, large, 4 pounds 90 plus some surcharge for eating in, ended up paying 8 pounds. I certainly got enough food for it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4888923361/ I originally meant to take half home, but it was my first meal, and I ended up eating it all over a couple of hours, killing time by reading Murray Leinster's "A Logic Named Joe" and other stories on my phone, courtesy of Baen eBooks. I think it's a free book, even.

I probably shouldn't have eaten all that, I felt very slow and heavy, and hours later after some cider and bread I was almost throwing up in the tube. But I didn't. That was 4-6pm Friday, it's nearly 3pm Saturday, and since that meal I've had some bread and cider, a banana, a peach, an apple, and a small piece of cake, and I'm not that hungry though it's coming. Food quality: decent, though somewhat greasy or fatty for my taste. Mostly the rice, the lamb I expect to be fatty. I tried cutting it with the onions. The far white bowl was onion cylinders in beet or pomegranate juice? Didn't eat them, but dipped the bread in the juice.

Wandering around I found the Hackney public library. There's one P. C. Hodgell book in the system. A fair collection of graphic novels and manga right across from the SF shelves.

Ah, but the real adventure. So, walking to, I mentioned that canal. It's got narrowboats:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4889518274/ note the bike; these are house-canal-boats!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4889518976/ really narrow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4888922583/ Wind in the Willows!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4888923647/ Tea in a boat

Walking back, there were a couple of people crouched by the Willows boat, and I said hi or asked a question -- maybe are these houseboats? -- or something, and fell to chatting, and ended up getting invited for a boat ride. There was the boat owner, a girl from Germany who's working as a nanny and had studied JFK and Adlai Stevenson in school, a painter, a couple more girls one back from studying ministry in Northern California if I heard her right. They were a fairly churchy group of Europeans, though "more spiritual than religious", at least some knowing each other from some non-religious branch of the Anglicans.

What I thought were nice clouds at the time http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4889521112/
I was told this was a gas tower, stuff telescoping up within the frame as gas fills it http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4888925069/
Lock filling. We went through a couple of locks. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4888925439/
Very dark, but this building seems to have trees on the roof. View from the boat http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4889522232/

I took a minute of video with the phone but I'm not sure it's posting, it's pretty blurry and makes Blair Witch look like Steadicam.

Anyway, it was fun, though I was rather paranoid about the narrowness of the boat, especially as we were mostly sitting on the roof! No photos from there, I didn't want to risk it falling out of my pocket. Sorry, haven't been on boats much. A rather slow and complicated means of travel, especially with locks, but a nice experience. And we ended up going to some pub near Islingon, whence the bread and cider.

Oh, part of the reason I got out late was that early in the morning, I'd activated every standard widget to make sure that that wouldn't brick the phone, and discovered that it did. :( I'm trying to be very conservative and scientific now, installing from scratch and testing booting after each new app. Pain in the ass. OTOH, leaving it on 3G all night didn't make a dent in battery... perhaps not having Foreca weather widget installed helps.

Probably will stay another week here, in a different lodging.

My first working wi-fi!

That's not true. St. Pancras station had some, but it was slow. The Ocabezi cafe ostensibly had some, but my phone couldn't get an IP out of it, and I didn't think to try my eee. Now, however, I'm at the Gallery Cafe. Phone outside got a web page though not ssh -- maybe I was too impatient; eee inside has both. 5 pounds 50 for pesto linguini, 2 pounds 50 for fresh squeeze orange juice, which isn't the best I've ever had -- not the ecstatic bliss Myfanwy got to laugh at the facial expression for near her home in San Francisco -- but good and definitely better than what Scholar's Bakehouse in Bton has been passing off.

It's more cafe than gallery, but I'm under a skylight with view of a nice garden.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4890436605/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4891035566/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/4890437149/

BTW I'd been forggetting to tag my phone-blogged posts, so if anyone's been relying on the travel2010 tag I recommend checking again and going back a bit.

Last night, boat was fun but being in a loud pub with strangers wasn't so much, especially after the German girl left leaving a flirting couple and maybe another one. So rather than waiting for a boat ride back I asked for transport direction. I figure that if I can get to a tube stop I can get home, though the route looked roundabout. The bartender suggested walking somewhere to take the 55 bus, or going to another station for that, but at first I didn't feel up for a strange bus and street system at night. However, at Angel station it seemed that there was a bunch of work and delays happening, of uncertain magnitude, so I rode one stop and decided to take my chances with the bus. And it worked! Very crowded at first. Driver wasn't announcing stops but an LCD screen was, once I got a view of it. London buses are stretchy or double-decker; this was double but I didn't feel like going upstairs. Given how jerky acceleration was downstairs I fear what it felt like above. But I made my stop, and the neon glow of a strip club oriented me as to where I was within the intersection. All hail neon.

Today's plans: not sure. I spent a lot of time looking for places to live next. Got plans to meet more RPG.netters at 8.

It has rained every day except the one I came in on. Be difficult to carry my duffel and an umbrella.