Monday, March 5, 2007

8 DOLLARS!!!

That's how much it costs to take one short trip on the London Underground!

How does anyone afford to live in this stupid city?

The CT scans went as well as they can, I suppose. My mouth still tastes like a penny, from the dye they use. And if it makes you Americans feel better, health care is no cheaper in Europe, from what I can tell - $1400 for the scans, about the same you'd pay in the US.

Directly after the appointment I went to the airport and flew to London. I'll be here until Wednesday for a meeting. Tomorrow I plan to meet up with two of my English cousins, which I'm very excited about. In the meanwhile I need to find some food in this town and I'm worried I'll and up spending twice my per diem on one meal...Either everyone here gets paid a lot, or they all shop secondhand for everything.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually health care is free in a great deal of Europe (only partly so in Ireland, it depends on your income), but not to foreigners, so Americans should still feel bad. In the UK it is free.

Also, the London Underground is cheaper the more you use it, because you can buy much cheaper, longer-term travel plans. For example to get a day card it is around 10 or 11 cards, which allows you to travel unlimited for the whole day.

Gwyneth said...

Well, yeah, of course Matt is right about the free healthcare in Ireland - I ended up going to a very nice private clinic since I don't qualify, but there were actually quite a few people coming in and getting prices and making appointments while I was there waiting, because they didn't want to wait the 6 months or more it would have taken them to get an appointment on the national system.

The sticker shock lessened a bit today, but still - $25 on dinner last night and all I got were two appetizers and a water! And this was at a place with a "Time Out Magazine Cheap Eats" sticker on the door.

shutupproust said...

Best of luck with the test results, Gwyn. Let us know how they come out.

Miriam said...

I know, London is ridiculous. I still love it there though. Let me know how the scans go!

shutupproust said...

Hey there--a big CONGRATS on the test results! I'm so happy to hear that. As for my ID, I went to high school with Joy (she's the one who told me about your blog)--I'm living on the East Coast now, and I think the last time we saw each other was when I came down to visit you while you were in school in DC... YEARS ago! Yikes! Also, I was one of Joy's bridesmaids.

Sorry I'm leaving a bunch of lame clues instead of my actual name, but the embarrassing truth is I'm kind of a public figure out here now, and I got burned really really badly when someone leaked some personal e-mails of mine to a rival publication, so now I'm totally neurotic. SUP is my little safety outlet, where I get to curse and crack wise and not worry that it's going to wind up being used to discredit me professionally, so I try really hard not to do anything that would ID me specifically. Anyway, does that help ID me?

Gwyneth said...

Yup, I know who you are now! Thanks!