The Third World of London Hotels

FIrst night in London, managed to score a hotel room that changed my expectations of how to spend $100. Lumbering about with my 30kg luggage I managed to enter the Carlton Hotel (sounds posh, it ain't that). Realising my mistake, I found the Sidney Hotel a few doors down. It was a bitterly cold evening, and my sense of direction was a little skewed. But the Sidney had a pleasant little room, very cramped, but the breakfast was rather good.

New Year Eve accommodation comes at a premium. You could not find a room for $100, but budget hotels were asking a 50% - 100% premium. Yesterday I visited my father's old medical practice rooms (walked past, you do not drop in Kiwi style to "have a looksie") in Portland Place opposite the BBC, and wandered around Regents Park where I had a charmed childhood. The hill in the park seems far smaller each time I go there (it has been 10 years since I have been to London) and I really believe that it is getting smaller, not just my memory flexing reality. The rest of the park seems bigger (but on foot it is larger than when riding a bicycle).

I had nothing booked for New Year's eve, I was going to take a train down to the hotel I have booked in a small town to save money and rest up for the job interview on the 5th January. I thought that I would stay in London for New Years Eve, and had managed to discover a potential small room in the Carlton (the staff room) and this revised my idea of no-star accommodation. Minimal does not begin to describe it. The bathroom has an impossible shower, and no clothes hooks, so you stack clothes and shoes on the unused soap trays high up. The shower head has no fixture, and there is just about enough room to have a shower, the real skill is however doing this without soaking your shoes (far too cold not to wear them). All one's travelling instincts come to the fore.

London New Years Eve - I missed it. Jet lag exhausted me, but then I could not sleep anyway. This adventure has started on the wrong foot. Now, I think it is time to go to that small town and get that job and work my brain for 6 months so I can stay afloat, while I work on my "secret project".

At least I have internet here. Today I visit my brother.