Writing from Reading
Jun. 2nd, 2005 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamtouchI'm back in Reading, UK. I helped Sher by moving all of our stuff from the horribly expensive but poor-quality Holiday Inn to a beautiful modern corporate apartment costing half as much. The one nice thing about the Holiday Inn was its placement right on the Thames. You could see the Swans and ducks on the river from the room and we used the towpath as our route to the railway or the town centre. Fortunately, this apartment is right on the Kennet, another (much smaller) river going right through Reading. And we're now in the centre. We can walk the Kennet towpath to riverside restaurants, etc.
The UK is massively inconsistent. Nearly all cities are filthy, with buildings poorly maintained, incompetent paint jobs peeling away or showing grime right through, etc. Facilities of all kinds seem to have about a 30% failure rate. Wherever you go there are signs (or announcements at the rail stations) "we apologize for the inconvenience due to such-and-such being (out-of-order|canceled|seriously delayed|etc.)". They've developed public apology into an art form. In the meantime, trash swirls around your feet and clots public gardens. You see people engaged in cleaning and repairing things much more than in the States, they just must not do a very good job. The mainstream food is generally horrible to poor. And everything costs more, often twice as much, as the same thing would in California. This last is not just a feature of the current weak dollar, although that makes it worse. I noticed this back when the dollar was strong. I'm sure it's possible to live cheaply here, as many people are poor and there is no minimum wage here. I don't want to learn by direct experience how they do it. It's also possible to live much better, and not pay any more for it.
The Holiday Inn gave us a tiny "executive" hotel room. The security lock didn't work. Everything in the room was drab and poor. The corridors were heavily scarred. It cost about $300 per night. Add about $30 a day for internet and $25 for breakfast. Not a good deal.
This new apartment (their literature actually calls it an apartment rather than a flat) has two master bedrooms, a sun deck, a living/dining room and a kitchen. Each of these areas is at least the size of the whole hotel room we just left. The kitchen has all appliances built into the cabinets (the upscale European appliances that cost an arm and a leg in the US, including a washer/dryer), It has beautiful wood floors, doors and trim. It is thoroughly modern and pleasant. And it costs half as much! Not cheap, but affordable by corporations for their employees.
In previous trips to the UK, I've either stayed in hotels paid for by my employers, with similar quality and price, or I've stayed in Bed & Breakfasts while traveling on my own. I like the B&Bs here. They very a lot in quality, but are generally better than hotels. And you can book them from the tourist offices in every town, making spontaneous travel pretty easy.
Oh well, enough on this topic!
_Greg
The UK is massively inconsistent. Nearly all cities are filthy, with buildings poorly maintained, incompetent paint jobs peeling away or showing grime right through, etc. Facilities of all kinds seem to have about a 30% failure rate. Wherever you go there are signs (or announcements at the rail stations) "we apologize for the inconvenience due to such-and-such being (out-of-order|canceled|seriously delayed|etc.)". They've developed public apology into an art form. In the meantime, trash swirls around your feet and clots public gardens. You see people engaged in cleaning and repairing things much more than in the States, they just must not do a very good job. The mainstream food is generally horrible to poor. And everything costs more, often twice as much, as the same thing would in California. This last is not just a feature of the current weak dollar, although that makes it worse. I noticed this back when the dollar was strong. I'm sure it's possible to live cheaply here, as many people are poor and there is no minimum wage here. I don't want to learn by direct experience how they do it. It's also possible to live much better, and not pay any more for it.
The Holiday Inn gave us a tiny "executive" hotel room. The security lock didn't work. Everything in the room was drab and poor. The corridors were heavily scarred. It cost about $300 per night. Add about $30 a day for internet and $25 for breakfast. Not a good deal.
This new apartment (their literature actually calls it an apartment rather than a flat) has two master bedrooms, a sun deck, a living/dining room and a kitchen. Each of these areas is at least the size of the whole hotel room we just left. The kitchen has all appliances built into the cabinets (the upscale European appliances that cost an arm and a leg in the US, including a washer/dryer), It has beautiful wood floors, doors and trim. It is thoroughly modern and pleasant. And it costs half as much! Not cheap, but affordable by corporations for their employees.
In previous trips to the UK, I've either stayed in hotels paid for by my employers, with similar quality and price, or I've stayed in Bed & Breakfasts while traveling on my own. I like the B&Bs here. They very a lot in quality, but are generally better than hotels. And you can book them from the tourist offices in every town, making spontaneous travel pretty easy.
Oh well, enough on this topic!
_Greg
