NOOL Story

In the long tradition of NOOL stories on this website, I am willing to share a little bit of my experience on my first trip to England which occured on October 24 to 30 this year.

First of all, I will take the opportunity to state that it's been one of the things I have wanted to do for a while, to meet the british members of this and see New Order in their country, so I can actually say that I met one of the things on my life to-do list.

To start with the context, I decided around July to finally make this trip and booked it in September, but so many things happened that could have compromised it, starting with 6 weeks of being stuck with various viruses and bacterias, flu, lung infection and throat infection and a first, asthma, which hopefully is now gone. Let's say that one week prior to departure I was about to cancel the whole thing, I was feeling exactly well when I left, I still had through problems with severe coughing that forced me to relax on my first 3 days in England, but since everything was paid, better resting there than at my place.

So I left on Monday night from Montreal, flying for 6 hours to Heathrow using Air Canada, it was obviously my longest flight, I have done long flights before but with connections, and apart the fact that I started to have pain in my through at some point, and that I had a little boy crying all the way behind me and that kept me from sleeping, it was ok... and I can say Nacho Libre is not really a good movie.

Arriving at Heathrow at 7am, which was 2am for my system, I was expecting more delays, but finally, after walking a lot, waiting in line at immigration, which seemed to took forever, but finally, just a few questions and they let me go without worry.

One of the main thing about this trip is how bad I have sweated all along, I always thought it was due to my illness, but I realized after coming back that it wasn't only that, it's very wet in England, and one week was not enough to adapt to it.. I was sweating a lot in the line waiting for immigration and let's say you don't want too look too nervous when you go through the customs, fortunatly I had no issues.

I had printed the directions Tim gave me to go to my hotel, and I thank him very much for it, because it was easy. I took the Heathrow express, and I was impressed.. what a wonderful train system, nice seats and tv, that was my first train in England, and I wished we had something like that over here, but obviously it's very pricy. Getting out at Paddington was an experiment of its own, because I had to find my way into the underground, pay for my ticket and grab the good line into the right direction. Once I managed to do that, obviously I was in rush hour, and it was getting very very late for me and I was sleepy and sweating like no other. To my surprise, the subway system in London is huge, but the trains are very small, half of what Montreal have, and I always though our subway trains were small. So I was there standing with my luggage, it wasn't a too good experience, but I survived.. I got out at Charing Cross, then I realized I would have to climb a lot of stairs with all my luggage, while very tired and still sick, it wasn't that evident, but I managed. Then it was looking for signs for exiting on The Strand, finally found one, followed it, bang, I'm in London, and I have no idea where I am beside that!

First thing first, for a north american, your first contact in London is trying to figure how it works.. and trying to find... street signs! we have them on the road in Canada, it took me 2 days to realize they were on the buildings in London, and not on all of them. I was in Traffalgar Square, where 3 streets (at least) meet, and one of them is The Strand, and one way is the good direction, but you have no sign to see which one is which. Lucky for me, one or two shops had their civic address including the name of the street, that saved me, and since I wasn't at the main exit, I had the wrong direction, but I finally made it to my hotel, which wasn't too far away.

I tried to do my check-in at the Strand Palace Hotel, but they didn't have any room available. I had nowhere to go, I was desperate and sleepy, I had 4 hours to wait and I was wet. 1 hour later, I went to the desk and said I would pay for the upgrade for 1 night, I just wanted to sleep, they said they had a room, but it was a very small one, it could cost me no more, I said that's fine with me, I just want to sleep, and I finally had my room.

It was indeed small, but more than what I wanted to take a shower and sleep, which I did and slept for about 8 or 9 hours straight. I then decided to explore a bit of what there was around the hotel to find something to eat. Once out of the hotel, it was at night, and I have decided to go back in the direction I came because I saw a Tesco Express, and due to a running gag on NOOL, I knew what Tesco was. But it was dark, nothing that looked like a take out place seemed to be on the way, so I did the most unoriginal thing... I went to McDonald's, to find out that the normal portions in Canada are the big ones in London (which are the small ones in New York City!), but I took a burger they didn't have in Canada and went back to my room.

Obviously due to jetlag, everything was closed and I had nothing do to, I never expected to see everything closed all the time in London, compared to New York where everything is still opened at midnight. So I sat at the hotel, reading my tourist guide and checking local TV to find a baseball game actually (world series)... I tried to sleep, but once again the sore throat kicking in gave me a hard time.

The next day, I needed to find an internet connection and I decided to explore. I asked to the conciege of the hotel where was the closest internet connection, he told be at Kinkos.. I was quite surprised to see they had Kinkos in the UK, since we don't in Canada. WenOrder made me discover those in Chicago, and in all my US trips I finally visited them for internet and empty my memory card with their sony machines, so I felt at home, though they don't have the same system as in the US, it's not self-service, and it's pricy. While going there, I realized I was close to a few things because I was going on the opposite side, and I had a super Tesco Express just in front of the hotel next to the Kinkos.

Other thing, I was in front of the Savoy Theatre, I knew that place because I think I have a live recording of a Pet Shop Boys gig that happened there.

I also noticed I was just next to a bride (Waterloo) where you can see the Queen Elizabeth Festival Hall just in front (where Peel Day 2005 was)

So that was the Thames river (La Tamise in french). I could actually see the London Eye and Big Ben, and that funny building that looks like a dildo that I saw in the bad movie Basic Instict 2.

Then I went back to my hotel, it was then that I realized that any effort was making me sweating, and I was sure it was flu related. I went to Kindos to find out NewOrderOnline was completely not working and tried to fix everything from there, and tried to find the numeric ip when I found out it was the domain that was expired. I had to since it had all the information to go meet Ricardo at 50 Pound Note's DJ Gig that night. I finally managed, I got the address, after thinking for a while, I decided to go, by foot, into Soho to find to find this club called the Arts Theatre I believe.

The place was small, downstairs, and as I was expecting, full of men. I don't know if it is a gay bar or it was because of the night, but there was a lot of bearded gay guys, and very few women. I met Ricardo, I was trying to talk to him though I have very bad audition in noisy places, after Jeb's DJ set I met him, and there I sweat a lot and actually realized at some point beer was one of my friend, because it made me feel better. Since I wasn'T feeling that much better, I decided to go and made plans with Ricardo to do a little tourism the next day.

If you bought Community 2, you will understand that Jeb Edwards (50 pounds note), had a part in it as he did part of the design, so it's always nice to meet one of the Community artists. As you can see however on these pictures, I sweated a lot that night ;) and that's the ONLY night I used my black nool t-shirt, I said I wouldn't use it to gigs this time, and that's what I did. I forgot my camera that night, so thanks to Ricardo for his pictures, you can see the rest of them here.

Then I walked back to my hotel, I forgot to tell you that I had switched room in the day for the one I paid for, it was much bigger and even had a 2nd bed even if it was a single room.

That room was much better, though it was a smoking room due to the fact I did the switch very late, but I was ok with it. So I went back to my hotel, took a good shower and tried to sleep as I had a meeting early with Ricardo, though night once again with sore throat kicking, once again, at 5am sharp. Don't know why, it always happened to me at the same hour, midnight my time, and it lasted for 4 days I believe.

The next day, I got up, took a shower, went to Tesco Express to get something to eat and went to Kinkos to see if NOOL was getting better, tried to fix things once again, finally received a text from Ricardo who was late. He finally came one hour later, I dragged him to do a bus tour of the city (The Original Tour!), and we went on a bus trip that lasted a little more than 2 hours across the city.

[Pictures to come]

... To be continued