London

So the real fun began this morning. They started handing out the border entry cards a little before the end of my flight from DC to London. There is a spot on the entry card for you to put your name, passport number, blah blah blah, and the address of the place you'll be staying in the UK. Bad news. I booked my hostel a couple hours before I left DC. Heck, my friends were joking around with me because I booked my flight to DC the day before. I was just pleased I HAD a place to stay, whatever the address was. So I suppose that doesn't make me much of a planner. I had no idea what the address of the hostel was. I'd seen it on a subway map and had a vague idea of how to get there. I figured the worst case scenario was that I get online at the airport, or go to a cafe and look up directions. I'm just not one to be bothered with these minor details - tickets, addresses etc. :) So I get off the plane and ask the flight attendant, as well as one of the workers at the border entry what I should do if I don't know the address. They didn't know. Call someone, was their solution. Well, I don't have a phone, and all of the wireless networks in the airport were password protected so I couldn't look it up. So I wrote the name of the hostel ("The Backpackers' Hostel" -- which didn't help) and crossed my fingers. As it turned out I got a mean British-Indian lady. When I got to the front of the line she was not happy with me. She proceeded to chew me out for a while. Felt like 15 minutes, but it was probably more like 7 or 8. "If you don't know the address, how are you going to get there? How do I know you're ever going to leave the UK? What do you think the border police in the US would say to me if I didn't know the address of my hotel in the U.S. when I came to visit? Do you have any evidence you are leaving? How could you be so irresponsible? This is unacceptable." Over the course of her outrage she said the word unacceptable about 23 times. Any mentioning of electronic tickets, my future job in New York, and my plan to look up the address when I got internet access only further infuriated her. The best part though was when she started to ask me if I had any money. I showed her a couple of credit cards and I said I had some cash.
"How much cash?"
"Around 85 USD."
"Let me see it" (she proceeds to count it twice and then practically has an aneurysm) "There's ONLY $53 here!"
"Well, I spent some in D.C. on a couple of things including dinner with my sister."
"Do you have a receipt for the dinner?"
"Umm (I pretend to look for it). No."
Then she recaps her case of why I'm an idiot. 1- I don't know the address, 2-not having any printed any tickets, 3-wearing a Barclays sweater that I could've gotten anywhere, 4- Your not carrying any British Pounds, and adds on top of it "now you've lost ALL credibility because you don't even know how much money you have!"
My only thought was, wouldn't paying no attention to a minor detail like how much money I'm carrying, only add to my credibility, since I obviously have paid absolutely no attention to slightly larger details like where I'm actually going to stay. Of course I didn't say anything, just a lot of looking at the floor, some yes ma'ams, and nods of contrition.
She was livid. At one point she sees me digging through my carry-on bag trying to find something that will make her happy.
"Is that a laptop?"
"Yes"
"Ok then. Show me your electronic tickets."
At this point I'm beginning to feel like David Spade in "Tommy Boy" when the travel agent tries to book him a ticket from Chicago instead of TO Chicago where he wants to go.
"Hi, I'm Earth. Have we met?"
"(puzzled) I don't think so."
So by this point I'm compiling a list of my own. 1- You're wasting 15 minutes over information we could look up in the phone book in 3 seconds. 2- You work in an airport, and you don't have any concept of what an eTicket is. 3- You actually think that there is a direct correlation between a person knowing the exact dollar amount of cash in their pocket, at any given point in time, and having bad intentions in a foreign country. 4- You think that I would actually exchange dollars into pounds in my home country where I DON'T NEED THEM.
So anyway she threatens that if I don't get out of line and find more verifiable information she will have to question me further. She knows I don't have a phone and there's no internet, so i say bring on the questions. She then says 'unacceptable' a few more times, and ends up letting me in based on the fact that I have Russian and Chinese tourist visas valid later in the month.
"But, I'm not happy about this. I 80% believe you and 20% think you're going to wander around for a few years illegally." Are those exact percentages ma'am?

I suppose I'm lucky, but the bottom line is that I'm making up an address next time.

Anyway, that was quite the rant. On to other news. It's Saturday night I haven't been to bed since Thursday morning. I tried to sleep of the plane, and even took a sleeping pill. I think I've been fighting sleep for so many years that when more sleep chemicals enter my body that my natural reaction must be to fight against them.

Saw some awesome places today. Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, the National Gallery, St. James' Cathedral. I showed up at the Globe theater around 8:30pm thinking no one would be there since I was the only one in the dark alleys that I wandered to get there. I went to walk in to see if I could check it out but as it turns out I was turned away since Macbeth was playing. So I wander around a little and end up walking in the front entrance. There are a lot of people getting refreshments so I ask a different doorman if it is just starting or if it's intermission.
"Intermission"
"Do they usually sell out every night"
"Yes, they usually do."
"Do you think there are any empty seats?"
He then gives me this look like, 'I'm really impressed that your love of the theater is so great that you would even want to get in at intermission.'
"Let me ask."
He disappears to talk to his manager.
"I'll tell you what. If you go put something in the donation box, however large or small, we'll let you in where there's standing room."
"Absolutely. Done."
So I empty my change and end up standing in the rainy Globe to watch the second half of Macbeth.

And THAT, my friends, is how you gain admission to a country for which you don't have a valid entry card, AND to a play that you don't have tickets for.