Lunedì lunare

Been waiting at Stansted for a while. My flight to Bari is at 17:20, but i woke up early today, as it seems the sleeping marathon of saturday and sunday managed to pacify my internal zombie. Stayed at the german YMCA, having arrived there at around 20:30 yesterday eve. Tried to catch a movie (really want to watch Narnia!), but got off at the wrong tube station and ended up in Covent Garden, which is filled with theatres, but no movie-playing ones. Walked all the way back to the hotel (about 4 or 5 k, i suppose), hypnotized by the Xmas lights strung all over the city. They ARE beautiful, though i wonder who's footing the electricity bill.

Another thing i like about London is that its architecture makes me feel that i'm in a parallel reality in which the Roman empire never fell. So much in this city is an echo of ancient Rome! Come to think of it, i've read somewhere that the present western civilization can be traced in so many ways back to Rome --law, politics, architecture, art, costumes, food, worldview-- that for all practical purposes, we're still living in the empire. The capital simply moved from Rome to London, and later to Washington DC (i remember now who wrote this: it was Frank Herbert in one of his Dune books).

Anyways. Today i've also been reading a guide to Greece, to plan my trip there. Finally managed to reserve a room at a pension in Bari, too. "Fiorini", it's called (Via Imbriani 69).

- - - - o - - - -

Was forgetting to tell a funny incident that happened to me this morning at an internet cafe. I asked the guy in charge for the price of an hour of internet, but instead of answering he kept trying to sell me a phone card of some kind. He insisted, and i kept saying no... Politely, explaining that my stay in London would be very short, but consistently repeating: no, no, no... At one point, he must have given up and switched to telling me what i'd asked for, but by then i'd stopped paying attention to what he was saying, somehow focusing on his voice rather than his words. So i went on: "No, thank you. I just need to check my e-mail and write some messages." I only realized he wasn't talking about the card anymore (and hadn't been for who knows how long) when he half-yelled "that's what i'm telling you! The price for an hour is £2.00." I said "oh, sorry", paid, and got on the computer.

Thinking back on the whole incident, i still don't really understand what i was thinking of. Is it that, since english is not my 1st language, i turn it off more easily? Or was it that i was concentrating too much on keeping calm and polite? Or maybe he'd changed topic, but his voice kept the intensity of the sales pitch; perhaps he was a little upset for not having managed to sell me the friggin' card. Perhaps i just got distracted because he was a yummy looking guy. Boh!

Speaking of yummy guys, there's this one sitting in front of me now... Must be 35-40, thin golden earring in nostril, shaved head, smoking a cig, big and tall and strapping. Oh, just got up and left. Bummer. Dang stewardess announcing departure of flight to Cork!