The best addition to London has been Manu.
While I looked almost haggard and aged (20 year olds cannot endure the London rains, or heat waves as a matter of fact), my sister walked out of the plane looking fresh and young and happy. I forgot she was jetlagged and complained of my exhaustion (a culmination of one month of not sleeping--see next entry for more info) the entire day.
Always the good sport, she dragged herself, without having slept 24 hours, through the inevitable, tourist sights of the city (the ones people always hate but must see to "earn bragging rights at home," as my father says) via a city tour on a double decker bus. It started raining while we were on top, the information was distributed quite fast, and the one thing I could discern was, "and they have maintained Harry Potter's platform 12 and three quarters at the King Cross station." After heaving and then correcting the tour guide, we jumped off the bus, and we went on a quest to find some crepes.
We finally found the perfect banana and nutella crepe at a small restaurant near my university hostel, and after watching the swans like little old women in Kensington Gardens, we headed back to my aunt's house, for some hot food and more importantly, some bed.
Bed didn't last too long. We needed to binge London in 3 days, so we were off again, this time to catch a cruise to Greenwich. We stood on the center of the world, admired the quaint streets of the town, and managed to get a free train ride back to London (no idea how).
We tasted the best falafel in the world at Borogh Market. After filling ourselves up with free samples and a very large, fudgy brownie, we decided to split the lebanese wrap, only to realize the biggest mistake of our lives. We tried to share, but wanted to rip each others throats out for the delicious sandwich. After it was finished, we stared into the sun, letting the wind blow vestiges of the garlic and lemon smell, and physical fragments of the falafel, into our faces.
We ended up paying more for 2 lemonades at the next cafe we went to, only because Manu had to use the bathroom and the only public toilet in sight was closed. It took the waitress about 30 minutes to get our bill, but we enjoyed our view of St. Paul's and this mysterious English boy with a suit case who sat on the curb for over half an hour.
After shopping and hoping to catch a glimpse of some bloody street fight in Oxford Circus, we headed back to E. Croydon. In Victoria, I actually ran into a friend from Ridgewood who I hardly see back in the States, but found in one of the many train stations in London.
Again, we came back to a delicious meal, and then slept like drunk babies the entire night--
until my alarm clock sounded the start of another hurried blur through London.
We left early so that we stroll across (run) Abbey Road before seeing the obligatory Changing of the Guard. Of course, our camera malfunctioned as soon as Manu crossed the road. I told her to cross back about 3 times, before coming to terms with the fact that either the batteries were faulty, the camera was defective, or, like all my friends joke, I genuinely have a cursed hand when it comes to cameras. We were then late for Changing of the Guard, and were even more delayed by the hundreds of avid cricket fans coming to Lord's for the Ashes tournament.
I found new batteries by a convenience store by Buckingham Palace, and we decided we would head to Abbey Road again. We visited Embankment first, went on the London Eye and raced through a huge meal at Wagamama (so quickly the waiter hesitated to take our plates away), thinking we had no time. We went back to St. John's Wood, this time without a stampede of national fans, and took our pictures and raced back to E. Croydon, just in time to head out.
Once we were finally seated onboard the train, in the first class compartment which was cheaper than standard on Sundays, we sighed, leaving behind us the fast paced and tiring life of touring London. Our aunt had joked that if we don't stay alert we might end up in Scotland.
2 hours later, I happened to glance on the screen and saw that our stop was next. I nudged my sister, though I was still not fully comprehending, and said nonchalantly, "I think this is us." She looked at me, and blinked. Then with a start, the both of us crammed all of our belongings into the backpacks, and rushed out of the train and onto the platform.
The train sped away from us, leaving my sister and I out of breath, our bones aching with exhaustion and the weight of all the candy bars I collected from the cafeteria.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Shit Happens
Between bouts of extreme fatigue and arbitrary wireless connection, not to mention some much appreciated home cooked dinners from my aunts, I have not been able to write.
So I am now going to shed light on past adventures, like an old man.
Oprah, and others who subscribe to the notion of destiny and fate, believe everything to happen for a reason. Regardless of reasoning and an invisible logic to the universe, things do happen.
Arbitrary torrential rains destroy new shoes, the stereotypically bad food in England still causes people to gain weight, and wild umbrellas crash down on innocent Americans at dinner. Shit happens.
We all wanted to go somewhere nice for our last evening together. We wanted to eat by the water, and though I knew the area, I did not remember the quality of the restaurant, but expecting something classy, we all wore something nice.
And we ended up at one of the same pub style restaurants, though outside, that had consumed our money in exchange for greasy, generic food for the last month. After some bickering, we finally decided to make do with the limited options at this place in Gabriel's Wharf. Except for a few dishes, most people found their food satisfying, and all was well with dinner until time came to pay the check.
The bill was not the problem. But while we were collecting and counting money, one of our friends suddenly gasped, and, with no warning but a soft whistling sound, a large red and white umbrella came flying out of the air, landing on one of our party's heads.
We were stunned. Only the drunken laughs from the other tables brought us back to the reality of a very large and unstable umbrella resting on our table, wet with spilled drinks and covered in shards of glass. The boy who almost had a concussion went for a smoke, not wanting to cause a public display. Seeing no waitress in sight who could have witnessed and possible apologized, I went inside and let the waitress know what "the loud band" (as she had called it) was.
She didn't understand.
She sent the manager, who smiled at our wet pants, saw that no one was bleeding, and said, "things happen. what can I do?" After some kids started yelling about liability and responsibility and appeals for a discount, the manager took the service charge off, which is optional anyways.
"It's not their fault! We don't mind paying the service! It's the principle of the thing! This is bullshit!"
To which he suddenly took offense. "This is certainly not bulllshit. What can I do? You're outside. It happens."
We tried to justify the bad experience with the quality food, but couldn't muster up the courage to make such a brazen lie. Instead we wandered to the next pub, and drowned our sorrows in--oh no, there was no drowning of any sort, because, like all places in London except for McDonald's, this place closed at 11. So as soon as we got there, we essentially made one quick, hurried, emotional toast, and strolled out.
We took more pictures in the Tube station than we did above ground. We took candid ones, posed ones. We got on the Tube and took more, a documentation of all the events on a Tube ride, including sneezing and the possible elbow in your face. When we got back, the last leg of the group, my favorite people in London, all came and sat in my room. Three of us managed to squeeze onto the matchbox sized bed, and the other at my desk, farting.
I finally got to bed by dawn. The sun rose (excessively early, as usual), only to remind us that the small pocket of time we had shared in London became forever engrained in our memories, and nothing else.
There were tears at departure. We promised to meet in the States. We knew we would always have London, but we hoped we could have some of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey, too.
So I am now going to shed light on past adventures, like an old man.
Oprah, and others who subscribe to the notion of destiny and fate, believe everything to happen for a reason. Regardless of reasoning and an invisible logic to the universe, things do happen.
Arbitrary torrential rains destroy new shoes, the stereotypically bad food in England still causes people to gain weight, and wild umbrellas crash down on innocent Americans at dinner. Shit happens.
We all wanted to go somewhere nice for our last evening together. We wanted to eat by the water, and though I knew the area, I did not remember the quality of the restaurant, but expecting something classy, we all wore something nice.
And we ended up at one of the same pub style restaurants, though outside, that had consumed our money in exchange for greasy, generic food for the last month. After some bickering, we finally decided to make do with the limited options at this place in Gabriel's Wharf. Except for a few dishes, most people found their food satisfying, and all was well with dinner until time came to pay the check.
The bill was not the problem. But while we were collecting and counting money, one of our friends suddenly gasped, and, with no warning but a soft whistling sound, a large red and white umbrella came flying out of the air, landing on one of our party's heads.
We were stunned. Only the drunken laughs from the other tables brought us back to the reality of a very large and unstable umbrella resting on our table, wet with spilled drinks and covered in shards of glass. The boy who almost had a concussion went for a smoke, not wanting to cause a public display. Seeing no waitress in sight who could have witnessed and possible apologized, I went inside and let the waitress know what "the loud band" (as she had called it) was.
She didn't understand.
She sent the manager, who smiled at our wet pants, saw that no one was bleeding, and said, "things happen. what can I do?" After some kids started yelling about liability and responsibility and appeals for a discount, the manager took the service charge off, which is optional anyways.
"It's not their fault! We don't mind paying the service! It's the principle of the thing! This is bullshit!"
To which he suddenly took offense. "This is certainly not bulllshit. What can I do? You're outside. It happens."
We tried to justify the bad experience with the quality food, but couldn't muster up the courage to make such a brazen lie. Instead we wandered to the next pub, and drowned our sorrows in--oh no, there was no drowning of any sort, because, like all places in London except for McDonald's, this place closed at 11. So as soon as we got there, we essentially made one quick, hurried, emotional toast, and strolled out.
We took more pictures in the Tube station than we did above ground. We took candid ones, posed ones. We got on the Tube and took more, a documentation of all the events on a Tube ride, including sneezing and the possible elbow in your face. When we got back, the last leg of the group, my favorite people in London, all came and sat in my room. Three of us managed to squeeze onto the matchbox sized bed, and the other at my desk, farting.
I finally got to bed by dawn. The sun rose (excessively early, as usual), only to remind us that the small pocket of time we had shared in London became forever engrained in our memories, and nothing else.
There were tears at departure. We promised to meet in the States. We knew we would always have London, but we hoped we could have some of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and New Jersey, too.
Friday, July 17, 2009
last day of class (walking into street fights in one of the largest commercial districts in the world)
I almost died on the last day of class.
Not because we had to individually present our research proposals (based on the hair-pulling, teeth grinding work at Kew), not because I finally keeled over from sleeping 4 hours per night for the last month (unfortunately not because of partying and living up my youth, but because of a variety of circumstances including the cardboard box in which we slept)--but rather because I almost walked into a street fight a few hours later, on Oxford Street at 4 in the afternoon.
We had all become delirious by the last day of class. The National Archives had managed to consume our souls, and like the victims of Rowling's dementors, we existed lifelessly between the past and present, the threshold crossed as we perused dusty documents for the missing clues to a mysterious treasure. The presentation of our research proposal seemed to be some mess of nervous giggling, strawberry scones, falling off chairs, and making cherry stem knots with tongues, all during the serious explanations of the Royal Niger Company, the exodus of Indians from East Africa, and the role of the United Nations in dissenting the Apartheid.
After class, I collapsed onto my bed. Forgetting that the hostel is actually a training ground for a future in which we will have no feathers, no springs, no down, no general comfort, I rose from my unyielding bed, bruised, and went to my friend's room. He had made the same mistake, and we both decided to attend the debates at Parliament, for remedial purposes.
The line was almost 3 hours when we reached the grand building around 2, so after sitting around for 30 minutes wondering how to handle ourselves without Kew, we decided to go back underground and take the Tube to Abbey Road to kill time.
We walked about 20 minutes on Abbey Road before realizing we had passed the legendary crosswalk. At one point I had remarked the beautiful graffiti on the opposite wall, but did not assume that to be the marker for one of the most famous crosswalks in the world.
It was the only indication--we were supposed to have realized the location of the crosswalk from the "give peace a chance" and "all you need is love" and "jill and eric 4evaaa" spray painted on the once white wall. The pedestrians sprinting across the road would have been another indicator. Though cars paused for the hopeful tourist wishing to imitate one of the Fabulous Four, (and a pause is much more than one could ever hope for in this city of Man Meets Lamburghini Round 1), there was still a general (homicidal) sense of impatience and it would have been risky to stroll across the walkway as though for enjoyment. That's just silly.
Instead, my friend and I raced across the crosswalk, only to run into a chubby Asian toddler and her father trying to enact the same scene.
After our 500m dash across vestiges of the first British invasion (save Plymouth Rock), I requested we go to Harrod's. Being the directional whiz that I am, I took my friends to the wrong shopping area. We ended up roaming around Oxford Street, which fortunately for me (in appeasing my sweaty and irritated friends) at least earns a superlative title as the largest concentration of retail in the world.
It is also home to gang violence, apparently. As we got out of the Tube station and realized our (my) directional error, we suddenly turned to see a crowd of people breaking up to allow two thin boys beat and curse out another. Oblivious to the gravity of the affair, I began walking through the fight, so that I could get to the next shop (it's currently sale season.) My friends grabbed my hand and pulled me back, just in time for one of the punches to go astray.
I decided to be overwhelmed and distraught so that my next purchase--a hot waffle smothered in what appeared to be a jar of Nutella--was justified. I like the "feed your feelings" concept.
We finally headed back over to Parliament in the evening, when the lines were supposed to be much shorter. We went through security and were photographed for paper IDs. We argued about where we should pose for our obnoxious tourist shots and then argued about my being a vegetarian.
The House of Commons seemed to be having the same types of arguments. The substance was legitimate (Immigration), but the members employed sarcasm and chuckles and yawns and big words to make their points. Interestingly, many of the arguments made, concerning high skilled workers from Asia and then the ambiguity of Irish citizenship, were relevant to my research on Indians in Kenya. I kept forgetting that I was watching a conversation of 2009, because I had just read dozens of files from the 1950s. The same fear of highly skilled immigrants "stealing" jobs is present in every industrialized country in the world. The false, arbitrary borders upon which we found our nationalist ideals and values render people on the outside to be foreigners, "thieves" of employment.
It began raining hard as soon as we stepped outside the Parliament building. We were to meet our friends for dinner at some pub and decided to run through the rain, like Hillary Duff. We missed dinner, but we felt spunky and famous and blonde, so it was well worth it.
We slept soundly and without any dreams, as the entire day had seemed to be one REM cycle after the next.
Not because we had to individually present our research proposals (based on the hair-pulling, teeth grinding work at Kew), not because I finally keeled over from sleeping 4 hours per night for the last month (unfortunately not because of partying and living up my youth, but because of a variety of circumstances including the cardboard box in which we slept)--but rather because I almost walked into a street fight a few hours later, on Oxford Street at 4 in the afternoon.
We had all become delirious by the last day of class. The National Archives had managed to consume our souls, and like the victims of Rowling's dementors, we existed lifelessly between the past and present, the threshold crossed as we perused dusty documents for the missing clues to a mysterious treasure. The presentation of our research proposal seemed to be some mess of nervous giggling, strawberry scones, falling off chairs, and making cherry stem knots with tongues, all during the serious explanations of the Royal Niger Company, the exodus of Indians from East Africa, and the role of the United Nations in dissenting the Apartheid.
After class, I collapsed onto my bed. Forgetting that the hostel is actually a training ground for a future in which we will have no feathers, no springs, no down, no general comfort, I rose from my unyielding bed, bruised, and went to my friend's room. He had made the same mistake, and we both decided to attend the debates at Parliament, for remedial purposes.
The line was almost 3 hours when we reached the grand building around 2, so after sitting around for 30 minutes wondering how to handle ourselves without Kew, we decided to go back underground and take the Tube to Abbey Road to kill time.
We walked about 20 minutes on Abbey Road before realizing we had passed the legendary crosswalk. At one point I had remarked the beautiful graffiti on the opposite wall, but did not assume that to be the marker for one of the most famous crosswalks in the world.
It was the only indication--we were supposed to have realized the location of the crosswalk from the "give peace a chance" and "all you need is love" and "jill and eric 4evaaa" spray painted on the once white wall. The pedestrians sprinting across the road would have been another indicator. Though cars paused for the hopeful tourist wishing to imitate one of the Fabulous Four, (and a pause is much more than one could ever hope for in this city of Man Meets Lamburghini Round 1), there was still a general (homicidal) sense of impatience and it would have been risky to stroll across the walkway as though for enjoyment. That's just silly.
Instead, my friend and I raced across the crosswalk, only to run into a chubby Asian toddler and her father trying to enact the same scene.
After our 500m dash across vestiges of the first British invasion (save Plymouth Rock), I requested we go to Harrod's. Being the directional whiz that I am, I took my friends to the wrong shopping area. We ended up roaming around Oxford Street, which fortunately for me (in appeasing my sweaty and irritated friends) at least earns a superlative title as the largest concentration of retail in the world.
It is also home to gang violence, apparently. As we got out of the Tube station and realized our (my) directional error, we suddenly turned to see a crowd of people breaking up to allow two thin boys beat and curse out another. Oblivious to the gravity of the affair, I began walking through the fight, so that I could get to the next shop (it's currently sale season.) My friends grabbed my hand and pulled me back, just in time for one of the punches to go astray.
I decided to be overwhelmed and distraught so that my next purchase--a hot waffle smothered in what appeared to be a jar of Nutella--was justified. I like the "feed your feelings" concept.
We finally headed back over to Parliament in the evening, when the lines were supposed to be much shorter. We went through security and were photographed for paper IDs. We argued about where we should pose for our obnoxious tourist shots and then argued about my being a vegetarian.
The House of Commons seemed to be having the same types of arguments. The substance was legitimate (Immigration), but the members employed sarcasm and chuckles and yawns and big words to make their points. Interestingly, many of the arguments made, concerning high skilled workers from Asia and then the ambiguity of Irish citizenship, were relevant to my research on Indians in Kenya. I kept forgetting that I was watching a conversation of 2009, because I had just read dozens of files from the 1950s. The same fear of highly skilled immigrants "stealing" jobs is present in every industrialized country in the world. The false, arbitrary borders upon which we found our nationalist ideals and values render people on the outside to be foreigners, "thieves" of employment.
It began raining hard as soon as we stepped outside the Parliament building. We were to meet our friends for dinner at some pub and decided to run through the rain, like Hillary Duff. We missed dinner, but we felt spunky and famous and blonde, so it was well worth it.
We slept soundly and without any dreams, as the entire day had seemed to be one REM cycle after the next.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The voice over the intercom is real. There are human beings to whom these voices are attached, and only in London does this humane side of public announcements emerge.
I got yelled at on the bus home last night.
We were all sitting down in the back of the bus, thawing on the way home from the Ice Bar. The bus was crowded, so many people were standing in the aisle. As all buses and other forms of vehicular transportation in London generally act, this particular bus managed to overtake private automobiles, swerve, and almost run over innocent, unknowing tourists.
So the driver decided to get catty.
"All of you who are standing in the aisles right now, please find a seat. You know it's dangerous and if you want to fall, then suit yourself." And he continued his sarcastic rant for about 10 minutes, failing to acknowledge that the danger was essentially caused by his neglecting to signal before changing lanes and to stop for children crossing the street. I began to laugh, completely bewildered by this seemingly individualized PA announcement.
"And to the girl in purple in the back--this is not funny."
I got yelled at on the bus home last night.
We were all sitting down in the back of the bus, thawing on the way home from the Ice Bar. The bus was crowded, so many people were standing in the aisle. As all buses and other forms of vehicular transportation in London generally act, this particular bus managed to overtake private automobiles, swerve, and almost run over innocent, unknowing tourists.
So the driver decided to get catty.
"All of you who are standing in the aisles right now, please find a seat. You know it's dangerous and if you want to fall, then suit yourself." And he continued his sarcastic rant for about 10 minutes, failing to acknowledge that the danger was essentially caused by his neglecting to signal before changing lanes and to stop for children crossing the street. I began to laugh, completely bewildered by this seemingly individualized PA announcement.
"And to the girl in purple in the back--this is not funny."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Ice Ice Baby
While we have escaped to London for the weather, which in itself is a nauseating thought, my friends and I decided to escape the temperate zone entirely, and spent a grueling 45 minutes in the infamous Ice Bar. The walls, tables, chairs, bar, and glasses were made of ice, and we were given parkas with big furry hoods--we half expected Sarah Palin to pop out from behind one of the icicle poles.
It was a frozen tundra, and although our lips were blue, our breath hung heavy in the air, and our fingers had fallen off and were strewn across the floor, but we had to stay because apparently being cold was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
And truly, I don't know the next time I will be partying in an igloo again.
It was a frozen tundra, and although our lips were blue, our breath hung heavy in the air, and our fingers had fallen off and were strewn across the floor, but we had to stay because apparently being cold was a once in a lifetime opportunity.
And truly, I don't know the next time I will be partying in an igloo again.
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