Cornish Pasty Blog

Starbucks Leicester Gate Nottingham

Getting here, in a roundabout way

Meeting over, time for some 'real' input.

I arrived here by heading from the Train station towards town, I don't have exact instruction but a map will show a road directly away from the entrance that opens up into a street full of shops; when I arrived at the station last night I walked down Station Road, heading away form town, heading in the opposite direction and straight across the T-junction is what I did today to get to the start of the shopping area. I was heading, under the guidance of a colleague who had been here a previously, towards the main square - a lot of which was closed off for some sort of construction works where a fountain and chillout area used to be.

Starbucks loomed out at me on the right as I headed up the Leicester Gate (I had the street shouted at me over the sound of coffee making, background music and chatting customers. If I had continued on past, which I did actually do and then came back to here, I would have reached what I call the square; this has a magnificent and imposing building with a collonaded entrance, it must have been at least equivalent to a three or four storey office block, it also had the first actual tram tracks I had seen since leaving the station.

Starbucks

The premises are much like any Starbucks, the cash desk is directly opposite the entrance and noise levels there are quite high, with the coffee machines, music, etc. But the staff are very polite and smile, (smiling gets past a lot of inconveniences in my book).

I am seated opposite the disabled toilet, just around the corner from the cash desk and within sight of the counter where customers collect their drinks. While waiting for my drink I fired up the Axim and picked up two signals that held, both reading poor strength, a third disappeared when I refreshed.

Starbucks in the UK operate in conjunction with T-mobile and I could see a T-Mobile signal and a Wifi-zone - which is part of the cloud network. Once seated the T-mobile network went to normal strength, which is what I would expect as this is a seating area for customers. I cannot speak for the table furthest two closer to the outside window and above the stairs, nor for the signal strength in the additional seating area downstairs.

Signal strength on the built in WLAN facility on this Axim x51v reads on average -49 in the normal range and, on the bar that shows signal strength that is 3/4 of the maximum or 4/5 of the columns on the today screen. I have not yet connected but will report in a separate post of any problems I might have.

I have learnt to not log on and then spend 15 - 20 minutes hardly using the connection. I will write a few posts\emails and then connect.

Refreshments

Today I had the banana caramel frappaccuino (?spelling) that is being promoted. I was asked if I wanted it coffee or cream based but misunderstood, thinking they ment did I want whipped cream on the top. Mine is made without the coffee and is very tasty, (I will talk another time about tastebuds - mine in particular), and very refreshing. (In Corfu I have to ask for my frappe to be 'dthen me gala' (without milk) as it becomes cloying if made with loads of milk as Corfiots expect visitors to like it).

All in all a pleasant visit. Now to connect.

Thursday 10 May 2006 13.20

This is also a second posting as the email version has not appeared on the site - another point scored for Kevin Daly's Diarist blogging tool.