Council Chamber Prep, Jack the Ripper, and Public Transportation

Based on my present calculation, I spent around six hours on public transportation today as the result of the Tube Strike.  Unfortunately, not all of those hours were spent reading, as I was still attempting to navigate the bus routes.  My two hours to BAC were expected and I left Nido early this morning to compensate.  However, the two hours from work to Tower Hill for our cultural excursion, as well as the two hours from Liverpool Street back to Nido seemed a bit excessive...

Today, we prepped the Council Chamber for a student group that will perform this weekend.  Most of the morning was spent hanging lights (with me pushing Stuart around the space on the lift and attaching lighting instruments to a cord for him to reel up)...it was refreshing to do a familiar task, and Stuart is a fun workmate.  He and Luke actually gave me a rundown of the variety of culture within their home county of Essex, which was enlightening.  :)  After our lunch break, we had the lovely task of laying down a dance floor...oh joy!  :)  I'm still kind-of sore from taking down the black curtains in the General Office earlier this week, and I know that I will be achy tomorrow after taping down the dance floor.  We also set up microphones, chairs, and a projector and screen, so I really watched the room transform over the course of the day.  I also spent a little time working on the prop hunt online, but I felt like my service was better needed upstairs...and you can only look at so many giant, but not quite giant enough, digital clocks before you need something else to do.  :)

In the evening, we had our Jack the Ripper Walking Tour, which was enjoyable apart from the irritating people in our group.  (Can't win them all...)  Our guide, Richard, was very sweet, though, and the walk took us all over London's east end, which was an interesting glimpse of the socioeconomic diversity of modern London as well as a gruesome history lesson.  By the end of the tour, most of the group had wandered off to the pubs, but Richard was very gracious and even helped us look up the bus routes to get back to King's Cross...and, after the very long bus ride as well as all of the running around at work today, I know that I will sleep well tonight!  (I was awoken at 3:00 this morning by drunk hooligans yelling in our hall...ah, the joys of student living!  They had American accents, too...my countrymen have really failed to impress me as ambassadors!)