Alternative Fuel Now!!! Alternative Fuel Now!!! :~)

Here are the latest news stories floating around the media today. $150 USD per barrel by July, and the bubble will burst..taking us back down to where we are currently, and people will be relieved that we are below the $150 mark. Are we happy with the current price? It probably won't be going below it for a long long time.

xo

BBC - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7440536.stm

CNN - http ://money.c nn.com/2008/06/06/markets/markets_newyork/index.htm?cnn=yes

New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/business/07stox.html?hp

MSNBC - http: //www. msnbc.msn.com/id/12400801/

Yahoo - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080606/ap_on_bi_ ge/o il_prices_185;_ylt=AoUufXZi_axgNw74z8f3DSWAsnsA
Unknown "d'Artagnan" Purring - 16 years, 5 months, 8 days ago

13.5.2008
Wake up…where the hell am I? Ok…it’s daylight. What time is it? Check. London….10 something in the morning. Today is exchange from euros to sterling (damn it), laundry, and meeting Ed tonight in Brighton. Email check…ah! Ben has written a note, offering up his personal tourist service. AWESOME. Will call him back when doing laundry. Need to talk to Ed about details for travel to Brighton and so on. But first… monies. Located post office, very short distance away. Walked there…..stood in line…got up to the counter…. Got depressed and slightly pissed off at the exchange rate, but got it over with. Ouch. Ok…. it’s still ok. lol. Breathe. Food time again. Found a nice Italian place..got a great handmade margarita pizza that was delicious and it was a very comfy and inviting place. The tiramisu is to die for. Not sure, but I think this was the place:

http://www.zizzi.co.uk/index.html

Next, back to the hotel to grab the clothes and find the nearest laundry mat. Packed up the dirties into a suitcase and rolled down the street. Found the local laundry mat, yet again…only a short distance away (LOVE the fact that things are so close and easy to find). Put the clothes in, fiddled with the monies to get the machines going, and then placed a call to Ben. Such a cool chap! Worked out the details after explaining that we were sitting and ‘watching the closes go ‘round’ as the Pretenders did back in the 80’s. Made plans to meet up on the 14th around 10:30-ish for a tour around London via guide (and friend) Ben. :~) Next, and after figuring out that one of the washers didn’t do its thing – then fixing the issue with the person manning the station at the mat, called up Ed to finalize details for the night. Figured out that we hop a train to Brighton via Victoria Station and it’s a direct link to Brighton..about an hour. Great! Easy peasy. Ed was going to met us at the Brighton Station, then a walk around and dinner out. SWEET!

The feet were getting better..and worse, from the Germany issue. I had a small reaction to the adhesive in the German ‘plasters’..so located another ‘chemist’ (Apotheke in German, chemist in London…different terms different places) for a hypoallergenic plaster. Again…easy. Wow. HAHA. And then…back to the hotel….get dressed, and figure out the train thing.

Off to Victoria Station…via a walk. Busy busy busy train station! Rush hour. Again…still feeling comfortable with it all..strange…but true. Found the ticket place, purchased, hopped on the train with 4 minutes to spare. Crowded train, but still..felt at home. Stop…after stop…after stop….and Brighton is the last stop. :~) Got off the train and couldn’t find Ed lol. Called him on the cell and hooked up. HI ED!!! Hugs and handshakes, then walked down to the road to see the channel. Spent a few moments there staring out to France. Beautiful. Brighton is absolutely lovely. Walked some more and ended up in a very nice pub. Sat, talked, and drank a couple pints. REALLY lovely. Eventually food time came again, so we walked a bit more and found a spot that served fish and chips, right near the water. Ed, you’re a great conversationalist and wonderful person. Love ya. Talked some more while we ate…then it was taxi time back to the station to catch the last train for the night back to Victoria. Ed made sure that we got the right train and then was off via taxi back to his home, where his lovely children were waiting on him. :~) Less stops this time going back the other way. I guess it was around 23:00 when we were on the train heading back. Arrived back at Victoria with an almost empty train about 45 minutes or less later. Decided that it was too cold and windy to walk back to the hotel, so flagged a taxi. Got back to the hotel and zzzzzzzzzzzz….totally tired, but what a lovely day/night!
Unknown "d'Artagnan" Purring - 16 years, 5 months, 9 days ago

12.5.2008
Off to London. Taxi to the airport. Excellent taxi driver….very informative about where to go and what to do once at the airport. Taxi drivers have their own culture. :~) Found Lufthansa’s line with ease, checked the bags, got the boarding passes..all very very smooth. Found the terminal. Truly…Leipzig airport was one of the best laid out places I have seen. Doodled around with the DS and the laptop for a bit..got out the camera and snapped a couple photos of the terminal. Read, over the roses in my book. Then boarded zee plane to London via Dusseldorf.

Arrived in Dusseldorf, and when walking to the terminal to sit and wait….was told via the customs guys at their posts that were was nothing to do back in the actual terminal area where we were headed, so we may want to wait in the shops area for a bit before heading back lol. So helpful those guys..and so right. We decided to sit in a café and watch the planes while eating some nice sweets and drinking a coffee. By this time my laptop battery was out of juice and I couldn’t find the convertor (damn thing was hiding in the bottom of my computer bag… figures…and I even took everything out of the bag to find the sucker…no go!), so I wandered around a bit in the shops. A couple of hours later we ventured the way of the terminal once more and went on through…getting another stamp for the passport: Dusseldorf. Germans are so efficient and tedious with their details…it’s amusing and pleasing at the same time lol. So…. we sat…and sat…checked the boards…discovered a discrepancy of which gate to be at (upstairs or downstairs, luckily in the same terminal area) but got it figured out…. And then we hopped a bus to the plane from the terminal. Once on the plane and seated, it was a little while before we took off…which wasn’t that big of a deal, because both of us were extremely tired and were dozing off anyway. There was an interesting person sitting in front of me that kept looking backward at us…I would wake up and she would be staring at me lmao. Dunno…maybe I was snoring or something. Amusing..once more. lol. We circled Heathrow a bit and then landed.

Heathrow is a madhouse, people…don’t let anyone tell you any different lol! That being said….to me…it went smoothly. We got our checked bags with ease and off we went to find a taxi. Sidney Hotel, please…Victoria. I’d gotten to be a pro at this by now. Black top taxi, cabby all chatty about politics, religion, jobs, news, you name any controversial topic…it was covered haha. Arrival at hotel….and it is discovered (the hard way) that the Brits don’t take euros. DOH! Luckily, they do take USD…and there was always the option of going into the hotel and doing an exchange for him. Oops. Mental note: euros are for Europe..not the UK (except Ireland lol).

http://www.sidneyhotel.com/

The hotel was….ummm..different than the pictures online, but still doable. Four star that should be rated a 2 star lol. One step away from being a hostel…it did have its own bathroom, which was its saving grace. Unpacked, made a couple phone calls to Pete, Lisa, and Ed to say that “the eagle had landed” lol, then food time. Decided to wander down the road a bit and ended up at a place called “Chimes”…a local ciderhouse.

http://www.chimes-of-pimlico.co.uk/

Ordered country mushrooms, gloucestershire lamb pie, some Chimes traditional cider, and a traditional orange treacle tart with custard. YUM YUM. Props to the Brits for their food. The bartender/waiter was a bit odd…kept staring at us. Oh well. That’s not a new thing in my book. Then, back to the hotel, and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Unknown "d'Artagnan" Purring - 16 years, 5 months, 9 days ago

shameless plug time:

myspace - http://groups.myspace.com/nopetrofridays
facebook - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46924835178

newly created groups, for those that oppose the petro price hikes. come check it out, join if you like. no pressure....just wanting to get people together to protest. these social networks are great for spreading the information around, but...there needs to be action behind the words.

make words = actions.

xo
Unknown "d'Artagnan" Purring - 16 years, 5 months, 15 days ago

If you already use mass transit or don't own a car, then think about what you do use given a regular day and see if you can alter it somehow. For example, walking or riding a bicycle vs. taking a taxi, tram, train, or bus. If you can't do it all day, then for one trip. It's a start.

If that is not feasible, how about using a cloth bag for shopping vs. plastic bags?

Make words = actions.

xo
Unknown "d'Artagnan" Purring - 16 years, 5 months, 16 days ago