Blog Postcard From Europe 2011: First Stop--London!!!

London Calling:

I Need To Make a Call: Nick Verreos steps into a London Phone Booth

Two weeks ago, my NIKOLAKI partner David Paul, and I returned from a two-week trip to Europe. It was both for Business and yes, pleasure. The main purpose of the trip was that I was invited to be part of the Miami University Summer In Italy Program once again (third year in a row!!) and bring some of our NIKOLAKI Collection for a very special FIRST EVER Florence Italy Fashion Show (more on that in a later post of course!). But first, we decided to take a couple of Pre-Florence-Fashion Show "pit stops". First up, London:

Uniform Perfection: Queen's Foot Guard, Buckingham Palace London

We flew into London, Capital City of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, via British Airways. Right as the Royals (William and Catherine) decided they wanted to be in Canada and California, we felt that we should be in London! (go figure!). It was quite timely in that, as we arrived from our ten-hour flight, checked into our hotel, turned on the TV, the whole Murdoch/News of The World Scandal had broken out! It was quite CRAZY! Well, since we were only there for two days (yeah, I know, that's it!), we dove right into the city and decided to do the "London Sightseeing" Tour.

Big Nick: Nick Verreos, with "Big Ben" in the background, London UK

We visited "Big Ben", the great bell of the clock in the north end of the Palace of Westminster, as well as passed by Westminster Abbey (it was closed for tours but open for the prayer service--needless to say, we skipped that).

The London Eye (LOVE that second photo above that David took! Such a great photographer!)

Right around the corner was, of course, the Thames River and the now-iconic London Eye Millennium Wheel. We went to it and thought long and hard about riding it but truth be told, it was quite pricey (US Dollars vs. British Pounds= Being Poor!) and the line was longer than a Disneyland ride. I was saving my money for my Topman Retail Spree!!

We also walked to Kensington Palace and stopped by its gates, which were filled with Princess Diana Birthday Tributes and Cards as seen from above photo (It would have been here 50th Birthday on July 1st). There, I overheard--in Spanish--some girls from Colombia (I recognized the accents!), who were whispering something to the effect of "That's the Designer from "Project Runway"..." Well, even in London via Colombia, I can't go "incognito". Thank goodness I wasn't in flip flops and shorts!

Continuing our tour, we walked (yes, we WALKED EVERYWHERE!!) to Buckingham Palace (above), took many photos and even tried to go into the museum but realized that the "Catherine Duchess of Cambridge Wedding Gown Exhibition" was not open yet.

So, we decided to go to the Victoria & Albert Museum--the "world's greatest museum of art and design", because we knew we could see some FASHION there. This Museum is INCREDIBLE...

Victoria & Albert Museum: Dale Chihuly Glass Chandelier

The Entrance/Rotunda is just stunning; I just LOVED the Dale Chihuly Glass Chandelier which hangs right in the center of it. There is so much astounding art at the Victoria & Albert. We visited some of its Galleries--including the European Paintings section, the Sculpture section, as well as the Jewelry Exhibition.

But we also wanted to see the Yohji Yamamoto Exhibition as well because it would close in a few days. It was wonderful to see a Retrospective of his designs--both womenswear and menswear. The exhibit is designed for up close-and-personal viewing and it was wonderful to see all the pieces inches away. There were no blockades keeping you from going right up to the dresses, but there were plenty of Security Guards with watchful eyes! We were bummed to not have bought one of those cute "safety pin" Yohji Yamamoto/Victoria & Albert tote bags. We would be needing them in a couple days on the beaches of Mykonos...

Yohji Yamamoto Menswear Suits, Victoria & Albert Museum London

Yohji Yamamoto Window Display, Victoria & Albert Museum Store, London

After so much sightseeing and culture, we wanted to devote our second and last day to...SHOPPING!!! So, naturally, we hit up Harrods:

Harrods London

David Paul, in front of Harrods London

Harrods was KRAZZEEE!!!! Madness I tell you: So many people, so many shoppers, tourists. And there we were, right "in the mix". Picture Macy's in NYC but ON CRACK!!!! Also, there were SOOOO many of those Gulf States/Dubai/Kuwaiti DIVAS, in their black caftans, all covered up--except for their PERFECT FIERCE Make-up, Chanel Sunglasses, Hermes Birkin Bags and Louboutin 5" Heels!!!! I was OBSESSED with them! Everywhere I turned, there they were; all together, and all FABULOUS! Their male counterparts were not far away, looking a bit "Guido-esque" in their D&G/Versace outfits.

But moving on...At Harrods, we passed by the "Diana and Dodi Memorial" (above photo--kinda tacky if I say so myself) and then made a beeline to the infamous Harrods Food Hall. Well, darlings, I just about DIED and went to CULINARY HEAVEN!!!!

Harrods Food Hall: The Fish Section and the Pies Section (above photos)

The Fish! The Kabobs! The Meat! The Pies! The Chocolates!!! Good Lord! Too Much! (but all good!). Afterward, we went to Topman and did some retail damage. Let's just say Nicky got himself about TWO YEARS-worth of wardrobe! Nice.

Carnaby Queen: Nick Verreos--and his Topman shopping bag, at Carnaby Street London UK

We ended our "Shopping Day" with a walk to Carnaby Street where we checked out all the hip pubs that were filling up post work day. It was a fabulous quick two days and can I just add: London IS THE CLEANEST City IN THE WORLD!!!!! It was almost to the point of obsessively clean! Anyhow, in these two quick days in London, we tried to get in as much as we could...before we left to my Father's homeland: Greece, and the island of Mykonos to be precise to get some Pre-Florence, Italy Fashion Show R & R.
Stay tuned for that little blog posting...

*Click HERE on my Facebook for more Photos from my London 2011 Trip.

10 Most World's Worst and Crazy Jobs

(1) Janitor at a Porno Theatre
Janitor, in itself, is a pretty bad job. But, porno theater janitor is the worst job on the list. The main responsibility of the porno theater janitor is to take his mop and rag and wide up after each show is finished. Unlike a traditional theater, it's safe to assume that sticky substance under the chair is something other than Coca-Cola Classic! At least you get to see all that porn for free and you'll probably be very popular among your male friends, although this is probably not a job you want to talk about with your mother, or your wife for that matter.

(2) Guard at Buckingham Palace
Guard duty at Buckingham Palace is regarded as one of the worst jobs in the British Army. Besides the fact that they have to stand for hours, no laughing allowed, they also have to look their best. Soldiers spend several hours each day cleaning and pressing their uniforms and polishing their boots in preparation for one of the many kit inspections that they are likely to face before taking up their positions outside one of the royal palaces. Any soldier whose turn-out is less than immaculate is likely to face a variety of punishments, such as extra guard duty.

(3) Animal Masturbator
Researchers who want animal sperm -to study fertility or for artificial insemination-have a suite of attractive options: They can ram an electric probe up an animal's rectum, shove an artificial
vagina onto the animal's penis, or simply do it the old-fashioned way-manual stimulation. The first option, electroejaculation, uses a priapic rectal probe to send electricity pulsing through the animal's nether regions. "All the normal excitatory signals that stimulate ejaculation, like touch, sight, sound and smell, can be replaced with the current from the probe," says Trish Berger, professor of animal science at the University of California, Davis. "It's fascinating. Of course, this is a woman talking." Electroejaculation generally requires anesthetizing the animal and is typically used on zoo dwellers. The other two methods-the artificial vagina, or AV, and the good old hand-require that animals be trained to the procedure. The AV-a large latex tube coated with warm lubricant -is used primarily to get sperm from dairy bulls (considered the most ornery and dangerous of bovines). The bull gets randy with a steer; when he mounts the steer with his forelegs, a brave technician, AV in hand, insinuates himself between the two aroused beasts and deftly redirects the bull's penis into the mock genitalia, which he must then hold tight while the bull orgasms. (Talk about bull riding!) Three additional technicians attempt to ensure this (fool)hardy soul's safety by anchoring themselves to restraining ropes attached to a ring in the bull's nose. Alas, this isn't always absolutely effective: Everyone who's wielded an AV has had at least one close call, and more than a few have been sent to the hospital. The much safer "digital pressure" is used mostly with pigs, who are trained from an early age to mount a small bench while the researcher reaches around with a gloved hand and provides appropriate pleasure-er, pressure.

(4) Sewers Cleaner
Ramesh Sahu works in the sanitation department of Calcutta, cleaning out the city's sewers. On a regular basis, Rakesh sits in a low crouch at the bottom of a seven-foot-deep manhole, sloshing away in a swirl of human waste and sediment. Equipped with a hoe and a steel bar, and wearing only a pair of loose purple underpants, Rakesh empties the thick black sludge from a clogged sewer into a bucket that his fellow crew members hoist up and dump in the middle of a narrow road. A small mountain of decaying excrement accumulates between the manhole and a rickety wooden vegetable cart. Two co-workers reach down and yank Rakesh out by his sore, extended arms, his body splattered with putrid muck. At 27, with a wife, three young daughters and a monthly income of about $100, he has been a sewage worker for the Delhi Jal (Water) Board for the past 10 years.

(5) Brazilian Mosquito Researcher

Scientists fighting malaria must study the biting habits of the mosquito that spreads it. In Brazil, that's the Anopheles Darlingi, which doesn't fall for the light or wind traps researchers use in Africa: this smart little sucker will come near scientists only when they offer themselves as bait. In the early evening, when mosquito activity is busiest, a mosquito dinner- researcher finds a nice buggy area and sets himself up inside a mosquito-netting tent with a gap at the bottom. Mosquitoes fly in low and get trapped inside, where the researcher sits stoically, sacrificing his skin to science. He needs focus only on his legs to keep him busy: whenever a mosquito chooses a drumstick dinner, the researcher draws it into a mouth tube and then expels it into a container. Veteran researcher Helge Zieler used to put himself on the menu twice a week. On his best evening, he caught 500 Anopheles in 3 hours. Meanwhile, of course, the skeeters feasted on his entire corpus-a grand total of about 3,000 bites, or an average of 17 per minute for 180 minutes on end. "It's not so bad," he says, explaining that his personal response to mosquito bites is an immediate itch that goes away naturally in a few minutes. Except when his response is to contractmalaria. Despite taking prophylactic chloroquine, Zieler developed a case that took him two years to shake.

(6) Portable Toilet Cleaner
This job is a sort of combination of garbage collector and gastroenterologist, and arguably more disgusting than both put together. Although most people in polite society methodically avoid situations where they need to use a portable toilet, modern outhouses can be lifesavers. As gross as they can be, they'd be worse without the folks who clean them for a living. Using a tank and a vacuum wand, cleaners must suck up all the waste in aportable toilet. After picking up any stray toilet paper, they also wash down all surfaces that could possibly be soiled, including the walls. This is when a high-pressure hose comes in handy. Usually, cleaning one portable toilet takes only a few minutes, and most workers clean from 10 to 60 of them a day. But it's not always that easy: Portable toilets that tip over require more damage control. Nevertheless, some cleaners grin and bear it -- and take home $50,000 a year.

(7) Flatus Odor Judge
Odor judges are common in the research labs of mouthwash companies, where the halitosis-inflicted blow great gusts of breath in their faces to test product efficacy. But Minneapolis gastroenterologist Michael Levitt recently took the job to another level-or, rather, to the other end. Levitt paid two brave souls to indulge repeatedly in the odors of other people's farts. (Levitt refuses to divulge the remuneration, but it would seem safe to characterize it thusly: Not enough.) Sixteen healthy subjects volunteered to eat pinto beans and insert small plastic collection tubes into their anuses (worst-job runners-up, to be sure). After each "episode of flatulence," Levitt syringed the gas into a discrete container, rigorously maintaining fart integrity. The odor judges then sat down with at least 100 samples, opened the caps one at a time, and inhaled robustly. As their faces writhed in agony, they rated just how noxious the smell was. The samples were also chemically analyzed, and-eureka!-Levitt determined definitively the most malodorous component of the human flatus: hydrogen sulfide.

(8) Cat Food Quality Controller
British man Jon Hanson had what he describes as the worst job in his entire life: quality control on cat food. His task involved several test as he describes. Test 1: Bury face in a huge tub of it and sniff it to make sure it's fresh. Test 2: Plunge arms in it up to the elbows and grope for bony bits and take them out. Test 3: Scoop up huge dollop of it, smear it flat on surface and prod it with fingers to test how much gristle is there. Uggghh!

(9) Roadkill Remover
Pretty self-explanatory. Roadkill collectors not only have the job of peeling the remains of dead creatures in decay off the road in various states, they also get to do it while braving oncoming traffic.

(10) Monkeys Chaser at a Safari
Marin from Canada was hired to work in a safari zoo. He had to be caged-in in a car and drive around from one reserve to the next. Monkeys always climb on top of the car and usually enjoy a free ride for a while. At the exit of the monkey reserve is a zoo worker equipped with a stick. His duty is to prevent monkeys from leaving the reserve on a car. Imagine chasing monkeys in the glowing sun for eight hours.