London, Alone - Pt. 1.75 - “Access, Cont’d”

Okay, this isn’t really being written on day 1.75, but it is meant to represent the point I was at earlier today.

One of the reasons we travel is order to feel different. A voyage is like a piece of fiction -- it’s not worth it unless the main character has changed by the end. Until this evening, I was only aware of the fact that I was in London. I didn’t really feel. The main reason was that I was worried. At about noon, this worry was divided into about four parts. My luggage hadn’t been delivered, and I got the sense my clothes were starting to stink. I had slept in that morning -- forgiveable, since I had gotten about three hours of sleep in as many days, but still annoying. As a result, I only spent a few hours in the library, even though I had intended to be there from nine to five. I was able to get oriented and put in a load of requests for materials, but I was still feeling one of my background fears for this entire trip -- that my research won’t turn out to be as promising as I thought. I doubt that will be the case -- I already found a few good things today -- but that may not make the fear go away.

The main irritant of today, though, was that I still hadn’t sent in my final paper and that article for the Weinberg alumni magazine. I feel that there really were extenuating circumstances, but I still felt guilty. Additionally, it meant that I spent the early afternoon searching for wirless internet. I had considered just retyping both items on one of the pay-for internet terminals at the hostel, but this seemed inordinately expensive and time-consuming. This wasn’t too awful, since it helped me orient a bit better. Also, my principal target, the Euston Station area, was not so far from the Wellcome Library. Alas, I failed in the end. Euston Station’s wireless only allows free access to the terminal’s site and a few others. The only alternative I could find nearby was Starbucks, which I was told had a T-Mobile hotspot. Ha, maybe in America, maybe, but I was not going to Starbucks in England. (Though they are ubiquitous, in some areas more than in the U.S. I’ll do a count next time I’m out.)

In the afternoon I was able to buy forty minutes’ access for a pound at the Virgin Megastore. This sounds exspensive if you consider that the exchange rate is a little over two dollars to the pound, but it was much less pricy than anywhere else I looked. The trouble was that when I got into the area, my adapter was incompatible with their outlets. It was sort of like trying to use a three-prong device in a two-prong plug. I even unplugged one of their “arcade tables.” (These were really neat, by the way... old two-player sit-down video game units, except they’ve attached some nice seats and everyone eats on them. You can still play the games, though -- I would have if I weren’t freaking out about the exchange rate.)

Oh, and Boy George was there. I couldn’t really see him, but... weird.

I finally found relatively inexpensive access at a place called Caffe Vero. As I would eventually discover, this is a sort of pseudo-Starbucks, a chain that claims to have London’s “best Italian coffee outside Milan.” It actually was pretty good. I suppose I can forgive the chaininess because the fact that they’re all over the city means it won’t be too hard to find one. If I had actually done some planning for this trip, though, I would have thought about where to find free (or “price-of-coffee”) wireless access. If my need hadn’t been so urgent, I might have worked harder to find free access here, but the only good way I can think of doing that is... the internet. Besides, I snuck a look at a Lonely Planet guide which said most places are pay-for. My own guide, though admirable in other respects, only mentioned one internet café, which looked like every other internet café. And what I needed was wireless, not rows of terminals.

Thus, word for the wise, don’t forget internet access! Now, the real entry.