The Unwanted Guests

After the fabulous food at the chinese restaurant I left Enzo somewhere around Piccadilly Circus. It was nearly 1am. This meant the tube had stopped running and to get back to the hotel I needed to get on a bus. The transit system in London is truly incredible. It runs like clock work. The schedules located near the bus stop tell the duration from your present position to your destination.

The trip to the hotel was pretty easy. Enzo made sure I knew how to read the bus details before reluctantly leaving in the opposite direction. I suppose it freaked him out a bit when I said I could walk back to the hotel as a worse case scenario. "Do people not walk around much in London?" I thought to myself. Then I realized with an efficient transit system and a lot of women wearing high heels, high heels and skirts I might add, it would probably be easier to take the bus or train. People in London, perhaps even all of Europe, seem more fashion conscious then us track suit wearing, sweat shirt, T-shirt, jean, baggy pants wearing people of north america (with the exception of Montreal).

By the time I got back to the hotel, about forty minutes later, I was damp. It was raining most of the night and I managed to get a bit soaked while walking from the bus stop to the hotel. I changed into dry clothes and put my jeans on my suitcase to dry. I spent about an hour and a half lying on my bed in front of my laptop editing the pictures I had shot today. It was around 3am and I thought I'd go out to shoot some street shots with my tripod.

I grabbed my damp jeans from the top of the suitcase when two big fat roaches fell to the floor. Eyaaah!!! I hadn't seen the roaches since friday and had sort of forgotten about them but because of the sighting on friday I had gone to Sainsbury's and picked up some yogurt and creme brulee. It is important to note that when I get creeped out I do not start eating (necessarily).

I had bought these food items because of their containers. The creme brulee, which was incredible by the way, came in a glass container that resembled a short threadless jar. The sugar was in a separate pouch. The glass would allow you to blow torch your dessert without the container melting, unlike plastic. Last season I had bought this dessert so I had not only a yummy dessert but the jar which served as a small change holder.

The second food item, the yogurt, came in a tall plastic container that had two sections. The bottom section that had the yogurt and fruit. The top layer that had crunchy granola like nuggets. There was foil that separated the two sections. Once you took out the foil the container became a cup with a bubble lid.

The Roach Hunter

This brings me to the roaches. Once on the ground, after coming off my jeans, I dumped my change on the counter and dropped the creme brulee jar over one roach. The other roach ran behind a water pipe againt the wall. To pick up the captured roach I slid a postcard, I bought to send to some lucky person in Toronto, under the jar. Then carefully lifting the jar with the postcard underneath I went over to the sink where I had placed the opened yogurt cup. removed the postcard away from the jar and plop, easy as pie, the roach dropped into the yogurt container which I then immediately covered with the bubble lid.

Interestingly enough I noticed that the roach could not crawl up the smooth surface of the cup. Perhaps it was because of the size. Cockroaches in North America or Canada at least can pretty much crawl up anything. This made catching the second roach easy.

I took the cover off the yogurt cup and placed it under the roach that was trying to hide behind the pipe. I whacked the butt of the roach with the postcard and into the yogurt cup it fell. As a side note the hotel wall was textured allowing the roach to crawl up it. Once in the cup the roach was trapped. Just to make sure I put the lid on it. That is I put the lid on it after I took a few photos with my extension tubes. If I only had a nikkor micro lens.... (insert big sigh here).


Cockroaches the size of your thumb!