London Hive Meetup
It was really nice to attend my first Hive meetup in over a year. It was small but it was time well spent with awesome people. So much so, that I feel like we need to revive these meetups. We used to have them every week at some point back in the golden era of this blockchain :)
I arrived in the area a little early so I took the opportunity to see some of my old work neighbourhood. I used to work around the Liverpool Street area about a decade ago. I had been back there since, of course, but it was interesting to see the massive changes that have occurred in the area in such a short period of time. Some of the streets are now completely unrecognisable, in a good way, since I last was there. In some other ways, it was sad to see some of the soul of the area lost to modernisation.
While the core of Liverpool Street Station itself hasn't changed in probably over a century, the fixtures have. The shops were different with the exception of Costa Coffee and Boots Pharmacy. There is also now a platform where the public can use between certain times while waiting for their journey. It even has USB ports for charging devices. I didn't try it, but I would be surprised if they worked at all. With most things meant for public convenience, the whole area was in a poor cosmetic state.
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The biggest change is in the immediate vicinity of the station. The change has been so drastic that, at least from the point of view of someone who doesn't frequent the place daily, most of it is now unrecognisable. I was quite disorientated in an area I could navigate with my eyes closed just a few years ago. The old buildings have now been completely dwarfed by towers of glass and metal. Yes, the towers were there before, but mainly in the Moorgate and Finsbury areas. Now even Shoreditch is in the shadows of these glass giants.
Broadgate, which used to be relatively open spaced, is now completely surrounded by skyscrapers and, judging by all the cranes, there are more coming. It felt more like Manhattan than the City of London.
Mr Fogg's Tavern, where we met, is a very charming and peculiar place. The decoration is like non other that I've ever seen. The walls are covered in vintage paraphernalia and original 18th and 19th century paintings and photographs. The men's toilet is full of very interesting artwork too. The deco is like something from the distant past. In there are the more "adult" versions of the aforementioned vintage and antique paintings. Apparently, the female toilet is even more interesting en deco, if less lewd.
I had a very nice cup of coffee. Even though being mildly allergic to milk, and I don't take sugar, I decided to put both the sugar and the milk into the coffee just because it all looked so good and felt like a shame to let it go to waste. The coffee was actually really good too; rich, full bodied and perfectly roasted.
We had a pretty good chat I'd say. We even tried to onboard the waitress to Hive. That was quite hilarious. She was having trouble understanding where the money would come from but I think she kind of got it in the end, or at least pretend to just to shut me up 😄😄
Afterwards we decided to have something to eat so I suggested the old Spitalfileds market where, at least as I remembered it, there was always a lot of food kiosks to chose from. We were there a little late and most of them had packed up. I was also surprised to see the place having also modernised quite a bit. I tried to pay with $HBD but, once again, the proprietor had no idea what I was going on about. He did, however, know Bitcoin and Ether 😄
Special thanks to @steevc and @livinguktaiwan for inviting. Hope you two had an easy trip back home 🙏
Peace & Love,
Adé
It was great meeting you at last, after all these years!! The meet ups are always nice to get to know people better which would unlikely be possible on chain.
As Steve has mentioned below, Hive will be taking part at an event in December and they're looking for volunteers to manage the stand, I'm sure you can work your charm to onboard people there. You can get more info on the Brit discord
I hope your other half enjoyed his whisky as much. Always good to see you.
ROTFLOL. That could be interesting. I've been on a stand before ages ago for Steem 😃
That was a really nice way to spend my evening despite the wet weather. I've not seen you for quite a while. I just find chats with Hivers to be fun and we had a lot of shared memories of being around the chain.
I did enjoy your attempts to try and spend some crypto. I know some places around London do accept Bitcoin and/or Lightning. I know it is possible to do that latter using Hive funds, but I have not tried it yet.
My journey was fine. The rain eased off on the way home and the trains were running on time.
We really should do this again. I know a few other people were interested including @nicklewis, @chris-uk and @heruvim78. I think the last real London meetup we had was at a @tdctunes gig when @mcsamm and @basilmarples turned up too. All we need is a time and a place if anyone wants to suggest another. We can plan things around when folk are available.
I know some people are planning to be at Tokenize: LDN next month, but that is on weekdays. I may be able to take a day off for one of those.
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Good to hear you got home ok. Yes I'm looking forward to the next one for sure.
A great read this. So glad to see the meetup went well, regardless of numbers. I will look forward to the next UK meetup. Hopefully, I will be better financially and be able to attend. it has been a year since I last went to London and I need to go back, Flixbus have launched a super cheap Norwich-London route which I may take advantage of as train tickets seem to be on the rise and can sometimes cost me £50+ to get into the capital.
Loving the photos and cool vibes.
I hope you can get to one some time. We could meet elsewhere as we have done so in Cambridge and Bedford before.
I’m definitely down for those. I don’t mind the travel either. I’ve never been to Bedford before (I'm sure it is worth a visit), and I’ve only been to Cambridge a couple of times. It’s a really nice area. I will definitely start a little savings pot for these meetups and hopefully secure a non-zero-hour contract job soon or shortly into the new year.
Thank you Chris. Hope to finally meet you one day as well. 🙏
Nice to see you guys together!!! Hopefully, we will join one of those London meetups!!
It would be nice to get a big group together one day
Sorry I missed the meetup. It was on my radar but somehow I forgot about it. Good to see you all had a good time.
I'll check out the December thing.👍 If I remember 🤦♂️
Bro I haven't seen you in a while!
I've been in a kind of hibernation mode for the last year almost. No sign of it changing any time soon.
With the way things are these days, that's probably the best thing to do
Agreed lol
Fantastic pictures, Ade! Are the London Hive Meetups regularly? One day I will join in. Was in Vienna back in September which was a very nice get together.
This is the first in a while. We do have a fair few people in and around London so we should do more.
It's been a long while. The last one was about 2 years ago I think... that I attended anyway. Some other people met up more recently but I wasn't there
As soon as I come to London one day, I want to meet with all of you guys 😊
Hopefully. 🙏
Glad you all had a great time, next time I’ll join you, I’ll make sure!
Would be cool. We should plan it before the idea fizzles away again :)
More than happy to pick a date such as the 30th January perhaps? Another Friday. Are certain days of the week preferred? We could then have such carchups more often, monthly perhaps? Every two?
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Cool lineup -I have to confess sometimes I do miss my monthly work travels to London.
I came after reading LUT’s post. I was left wanting to see the men’s loo!
I’m more drawn to this idea. Haha… and it’s hard to believe that people over there don’t have more contact with cryptocurrencies.
Crypto adoption is surprisingly low in the UK actually, especially compared to places like India, Venezuela and Nigeria.
I was going to take more photos of the loo but a bunch of men came in to use it so it became weird haha
It took me 1 second to recognise u this time xD
@livinguktaiwan 😄
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