Sorry, Again

I have been neglecting this... again.

Ah, well.

Sorry 'bout that.

What I Did The Past Six Days

Sorry.  I've been terrible, neglecting my blog for the past six days. 

So... uh.  Here's what I did. If you want to really know the juicy details of what I did, just comment asking for details on such and such part of the day.

Tuesday

- went to the Camden Arts Museum for class

Wednesday

- went to the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum

Thursday

- went to the Opera to see The Magic Flute

Friday

- saw the Inns of Court (all four of them)

- went to the Temple Church

- ate at the pub that was previously the Lord of Essex's house

Saturday

- met Moth

- heard that Camden Market caught on fire

Sunday

- walked around after fetching train tickets for tomorrow

I will have something of substance tomorrow.

My Name Isn't Simon

Okay, so we didn't go to Bath today, as the train tickets were too expensive.  So, I just happily slept in, and minded my own business when I woke up while my flatmates conspired at the breakfast table.  For a little while, I was a bit confused - but I then decided to be happily ignorant, as I figured I'd ask them what they were doing if they left.  Fortunately, it didn't get to that point, as I got in on it almost as they had decided to get their gear on - they'd decided to go to the Tower of London.  

Well, it wasn't Bath - but at least it was cheaper and interesting for all of us! 

It was a beautiful day outside - so we decided to walk all the way to the Tower - which, by the way, is a long way!  It's a good nearly four mile walk, I think.  We went down Fleet Street to St. Paul's - and somewhere along the line we hopped onto the Thames River walk.

Fun facts about Fleet Street:

1. Fleet Street used to be a small bend in the river Thames - it was filled in at some point to allow London to expand a bit more.

2. Fleet Street has a lot of clocks down it.

3. There is, indeed, a barbershop on Fleet Street.  But, for some reason, underneath the sign is a Thai Food restaurant.

Anyway, we got to the Tower just in time for the last guided tour of the day (surprisingly enough, the Tower closes at 4:00 pm.  We got there around 2:00.).  The cool bit about the guided tour is that they're led by people who actually live on the Tower Grounds: the Yeoman Warders.  And the guide we had sure acted like he lived there every day.  Hilarity ensued.  

While the tour was mostly an informative point-and-go sort of thing, the guard was incredibly funny.  And he gave us a lot of background on the entirety of the place.  He gave us the bloody details: for instance, the first person to be informally executed there was named Simon.  And the first person to be formally executed on Tower Hill near there was named Simon.  And the last person to be executed after being imprisoned in the Tower on the nearby Hill... was also named Simon.  In the words of our Yeoman, "This is not a place to go to if your name's Simon."

He also pointed out the ravens and gave us a word of advice on them: "There are two things the ravens will do if you get too close.  One - they'll just step out of your way.  Or two, they'll turn right 'round and bite you.  And when they bite your finger, you'll scream.  And when you scream, one of us will be right along - and soon we'll all be gathered 'round you, laughing our heads off.  So don't feed the ravens!"

Well, I didn't feed the ravens, but I did get to see the Crown Jewels.  And those were amazing to look at.  I mean, really - it's the epitome of sheer extravagance.  Royalty at its height.  Big, gold, elaborately fashioned maces.  Crowns loaded with jewels and lined with velvet.  Lots of shiny shiny shiny.  That sort of thing.  

I also walked along the inner tower wall connecting a lot of the towers (the "Tower" of London is a bit of a misnomer - it's quite a few towers all on one ground) together - went into the Bloody Tower where Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned, saw Catholic graffiti (amongst others) in the Salt Tower...  It's sort of an eerie place, really.  Especially the chapel which is also within the inner walls - the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, where many of the people who were imprisoned from the Tower and executed on the Hill were brought... well, without their heads - and buried.  

Most importantly, I saw (and used!) the long-time award-winning bathrooms within the walls!

Okay, that's not that important - but, you know.  They have a competition for "best public bathroom" in London.  Interesting.

Admittedly, Salt Tower was the most sobering place.  There's a sort of heavy air about the place - a sort of uneasiness in the small room.  Admittedly, I'm a touch claustrophobic - but I do okay in rooms smaller than that one.  I think I cracked a really bad joke in there to break the tension.  Didn't go over well.  Oh, well.  I can't really explain it - that Tower, I mean.  But, apparently, there are ghost stories associated with that particular tower.  

I think I was more intrigued by all the petitions along the wall - summoning to mind Christ's suffering in the midst of their own - that is, the image of a wounded foot.  And this was one of those permanent calls - not just something painted over quickly or scribbled out.  I don't know - there's just something about this need to remember the divine in the midst of trial that really calls out to me.  I realize that there's a lot of easy responses - you know, the obvious "of course that's what you should be doing" - but seeing a deep (in the literal and figurative sense) cry like that is such a physical reminder... well.  It's not something you forget that easily, and it's not something to brush off, either.

Well, at the end of the day, I took some sweet pictures of the Tower Bridge, as well as a few other spots along the Tower.  I also got some ice cream, and promptly made milk shakes.

Tomorrow is Pancake Day!  Guess what I'm going to be making...?

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Reprise

The thing about clubs is that there's often a lot of people there.

And I don't like a lot of people.

I like them a bit more with a few drinks, though.  Oh well.

Interestingly enough, I decided to go to a club again - I was just feeling like going out.  Apparently, I wasn't feeling like going to a club.  Ah, well.  At least I got the interesting concoction of Red Bull and three shots of vodka in me- and somehow I ended up dancing with a Brazilian girl in the Carnival celebration that was going on in the bottom of the club.  She was friends with another guy who was getting to be friends with L.M. - and he was a wonderful gentleman for someone who didn't speak that much English.  

I also happened to have an exchange with an AP photographer when I went upstairs in TigerTiger.  I gave him props for liking his job - and we did a high-five just because.  K.D. managed to get his business card (apparently she was talking with him before?  Surprise!) - so I'm looking forward to trying to chat with him again.  I mean, he was a nice guy.  And I'm intrigued by the prospect of being a photographer.

What, you didn't know I liked photography?  It's a nice hobby.  And I take pretty good pictures.

Anyway, the report:

• No scandalous dances went down - but there was a lot of jumping.  I think I pulled a running man.  Hilarity ensued.
  
• I saw two cute boys on the way home.  One I actually talked to for a little bit.  
• I don't quite know how I feel about this particular club.   
• A fight almost broke out between a bouncer and a bunch of black guys in front of us.  They got turned away for not having IDs and they accused the bouncer of being racist.  Phew!
• I did nothing much earlier today - except wade through the crowds at Primark.  It's like the gentrified Wal-Mart of Britain.  Lovely!

And there you have it.

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Museum and Sushi

Today was a nice Saturday.  I slept late last night, and decided to sleep in.  For some reason, I woke up at ten - which I decided wasn't right.  So, I went back to bed, and slept in until around half past two.  That's more like it.

So, I was milling around, chilling on the couch, and K.D. proposed that we should go to the Victoria and Albert Museum, since that was on our list for the London Experience thing that we get to do on our own this week.  I agreed to it, as I thought it might be a cool idea, so we went after eating our lunch-breakfast meal.  Fortunately, there was no changing of lines on the Tube or anything like that - it's a straight (long) shot from here to the station closest to the museum.  

When we got to the station, we noticed that there was a "subway" to the museum.  We thought that would be convenient, so we went.  Turns out, the "subway" is a sub-way: there were no trains or whatever to take us there.  Not that we'd need it - it wasn't that much of a walk.  K.D. made the fine bet that we wouldn't go outside at all today - save for our trip to the station from our flat. 

The museum in and of itself is amazing.  I mean, we popped in from the subway - and immediately we got distracted by this section called "England 1600-1800".  I think it was something shiny that caught my eye down there.  Anyway, almost immediately we were kind of in awe, looking around with sort of open mouths about the place.  There were intricately carved furniture, cups made from enormous sea shells - even a really decorated clavichord!  And then we wandered to the next room, where we saw busts of popes, cardinals, and a bishop, as well as more cool furniture and statues.  All in all, we kept thinking (rather out loud) about how on earth could all this be done back in those days - the detail work, the painstaking care put into something like a spoon.  People probably spent their lives pounding carefully away at silver, gold, and stone just to have someone else eat and drink off of it.  It's a bit humbling, when I think about it.

We left that area and went up a level - and we were greeted by a Rodin piece in an almost palatial room.  Granted, Rodin wasn't the only one showcased there - but they had a lot of his sculptures there.  Rodin is an interesting sculptor - and really stands out when you see his sculptures in a room full of other sculptures.  I mean, in said room, there were several really contorted, unusually-formed pieces amongst some tranquil statues of people looking rather natural and calm.  And the weird ones were Rodin's doing.  I really like Rodin - just because he's willing to go out on a limb and make his sculptures' limbs, well - rather interesting.  For instance, he'll put some really masculine, muscular looking arms and legs on a female body.  And, in a world of art where boobs on sculptures are pretty prominent - Rodin will emphasize other things - like hands, arms, legs, and feet.  He makes the torso and the genitals diminutive in respect.  When he chooses to sculpt the head (which he sometimes doesn't bother with),  it's usually well worth looking at - as it's usually caught in some sort of desperate emotional state.  

We moved on to see the paintings of the Renaissance, and were once again in awe of the gold and silver fineries.  What was interesting to note was that there seemed to be a tendency to include more and more detail once the Renaissance got underway.  Two-dimensional art changed dramatically - becoming more real-to-life rather than somewhat symbolic.  Paintings started looking like photographs.  Carvings started looking more and more like sculptures.  And sculptures started looking more and more like what they were aiming to represent.  This, I suppose, reflected the movement going on in the Renaissance.  As learning went more and more into detail, art reflected that, too.

We then wandered around, cutting through the cafe and stealing a few sugar cubes from the tables (I can't help that I've got a sweet tooth!) - sort of distracted by the fact that every room looks like it could belong in a palace.  I mean - there were chandeliers in a museum's dining place!  I'm not sure if it was casual - as it looked pretty formal - but it seemed awfully out of place in a museum.

Somehow, we wandered down a hallway to discover something amazing.  We just happened to peek into a room filled with old plaster casts of rather notoriously famous things from around the globe.  There was the front of a cathedral in Spain, there were monuments of Templar Knights' tombs - and, the big one: Trajan's Column - which had to be cut in half just to fit in the space.  I mean, they didn't even have a sculpture of Trajan at the top - this thing was huge on its own!  K.D. and I were stuck wondering what it was at first - and I read the description and could pretty much say what it was at the title.  I know my Roman history - and I know that Trajan was the guy that invaded (and conquered) Dacia.  And Dacia is in modern-day Romania.  Go figure - I'd find the one thing that represented my home country's history in a British museum.

Interestingly enough, I didn't see a representation of a triumph - or maybe I didn't look hard enough.  I don't know - it was so big, you'd kind of have to have stood there for ten minutes just to see what was on both sides.  Unfortunately, with the museum thirty minutes away from closing by the time we made it down there, we didn't really have time to spend.  But it was kind of cool actually seeing what's actually on those columns.  I mean, I'd been familiar with it - the columns represent important battles, expeditions, and the return of the army and so forth - but seeing it in person kind of blows those pictures I'd seen in text books away.  I think it's supposed to be that big -  it's meant to be marveled at and contemplated.  It's a showcase of the emperor's work - which, back in the day, he really wanted people to know about.

We managed to get a quick glimpse of Victorian fashion on our way out, by the way.  They have a room devoted to the clothing of the times - and, needless to say, I would not be caught dead wearing some of the things that they made ladies wear.  Corsets are not my thing.  Neither are big, poofy dresses - and being restricted to only wearing those big poofy dresses.  I think I'll probably go back to see more later.  Maybe I'll give women's fashion in the Victorian era a chance.

Maybe I'll be tempted to burn it.

Um.  Anyway, we basically got herded out of the museum, which was a real shame.  Oh, well. 

I got some sushi to go at YO! Sushi and was pretty much AMAZED by how good it was.

And, the best part?

They've got the for serious wasabi here.  None of this green-tinted horseradish crap they've got in the States.  The stuff burns your nose in small doses!  Good grief!

I had some sashimi, a crispy shrimp and avocado roll, some shrimp on a rice ball, and a few cucumber rolls, among other things.  To top it off, I had a crispy duck hand roll.

Mill on that for a little bit.

It was pretty good, though.  Nice and crispy.  And the sauce inside was freaking awesome.

Needless to say, when I feel like sushi, I know where to go to get the best stuff ever - just down the street.

So, the plan, I think, is to go to Bath on Monday.  We've had news of really bad weather outside of London, so we're waiting until things get cleared out in the country before heading out there.

Also, I'm going to go to the markets on Sunday to get some cheap produce.  Yum.

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Christian Clubbing

So, this Friday, we didn't have an official "London experience" to go about doing with the group.

Well, we figured out something to do during the day.

I slept in.

Interestingly enough, I slept hard - which I don't usually do.  Probably because I ended up sleeping around five in the morning last night (morning?).  Unfortunately, even when I'm dead tired, I don't sleep quickly when there's lights on and movement going around - which is what my roommate was doing.  Blah.  

I slept in - and woke up around lunch time, which was nice.  L.M. and K.D. were looking for some sweet fish and chip place - so we all went - got some really good (and reasonably priced) fish and chips.  

Just so you know - there is something greasier than Bojangles.  And that is... good fish and chips.  

And then I did nothing but veg out the rest of the day.

That is, until around nine o' clock.  That's when I reviewed everything I needed to know about where I was going.  It was take the tube, switch lines, hop off at the end of the line and walk two blocks and a half until I got to a little place that seemed like a hole in the wall from the outside.  I got there around ten (I left the flat about twenty minutes after nine, I think.), and got terribly confused at the front desk - because I had no idea what to do.  I mean, I almost gave my cover charge to the bouncer - I was so confused.  That's the thing about not going to clubs prior to this: I don't know what to do when I actually get there.

After a little guest list mixup (not entirely my fault, but I certainly didn't help), I walked in, being informed that a few people from the group I was with were already there.  Unfortunately, I didn't know what they looked like - so this didn't help a bit.  However, I found out that they had made their way to the back, if I wanted to join them.  Of course, I did, so I wandered to the back - and found the rest of the club.  There was a nice dance space past the bar, and then a little lounge area with a foosball table.  No luck there at first glance.

I'm usually a shy person, but I know how to manipulate myself into talking with other people.  And one of the fast ways to do that, for me, is to get a few drinks in.  Sorry.

I got myself a piña colada and guzzled it down.  Pretty weak drink - but good nonetheless.  Definitely not worth almost £5, though.  I stuck to cheaper drinks after that.  Letting the drink kind of settle in, I was approached by a scruffy looking guy who looked maybe like Daniel Radcliffe if he had the right light accompanying him.  He didn't.  He danced with me a bit, we made introductions - and I sort of broke off from him after a while.  I felt kind of awkward being around him - mainly because he kept making signs to his buddies.  And really, I don't dig signs to buddies when I don't know what they mean.  I kind of laughed at him and walked away to the bathroom.

Hey, I don't have to be taught how to get away from a troublesome boy.

Anyway, I was feeling a bit fuzzier than sober, so I decided to wander back there again, and ask if anyone had seen Bruce - the guy that was sort of organizing everything.  And the first person I asked just happened to be the right person to ask.  Her name was Abby - and she was cool, even sticking with me for our really awkward exchange.  The two other girls that she was sitting with, sometime in the middle of our conversation, went off to dance - and we eventually joined them.  After a good ten minutes of ear-busting dance music, Abby gave a nod - saying that Bruce had come.

Bruce ended up being a really nice guy - I wasn't expecting anything otherwise, really.  He was nice in the sort of hipster sense that seems to be going around these days (that I really like).  It was pretty sweet.  Bruce introduced me to Tim (who was cute - but I'm sure that doesn't matter except for those of you interested in my love interests) who I ended up talking to on occasion.  Tim said that I had to meet Lisa - and I did after a little bit.  Interestingly enough, Lisa is an American who, after studying abroad, decided to live here.  And she's engaged to a cute British guy named James (who I also talked to).

I spent a good deal of time chatting (well, screaming at - you can't chat in a club) with Lisa and Bruce.  I found out that this was more of a social event - sort of catching up with each other.  I also learned about the boiler room (that is, prayer room) in the area, and both Lisa and Bruce said they'd recommend churches in the area.  I was thrilled.  So, after a bit, I went out on the dance floor, and ended up really grooving it down with... a dude.  What was great was that we had a bit of a circle around us, and we were just jamming away - and then at the break, Abby told me, "That was an awesome dance with that guy."

My now-influenced-by-vodka-and-coca-cola brain suddenly went, "What?"

Nobody knew who this guy was - but he was bouncing around everywhere being really cool (and somewhat drunk).  He was a pretty noisy dude - I'd usually think he was obnoxious, but I tolerate a bit more when I've had a few drinks.  And he kept bouncing back and dancing with me - and laughing when I'd dance with him.  He was like, "This is great - you're great - I love you!"  After breaking off with him a few times and bumping into him again, he gave me a good bit of white wine (which I've now learned I really don't like - but I drank it anyway)  and we did some intense dancing.  And by intense, I mean we were actively grooving for fifteen minutes.  I got a bit dizzy at the end (guess the wine got to me?) and I excused myself to the bathroom for a bit of peace and quiet.

I danced with Tim, James, Lisa, Bruce, and a few others from the group a bit - and we were joined by the DJ, Dave.  It was pretty sweet.  I gave Dave a high-five, just 'cause.  And then the guy bumped into our group and danced with us, too.

Eventually, the guy bought me a drink, and we had a good chat.  I learned that 1. his name was Naz, and 2. he wasn't from around here.  The good news was, neither was I.  I gave him just my last name, knowing that he'd be amused at hearing it and probably forget it (and it's a common Romanian last name, if he did remember it).

I guess I was impressed by him because he said that it was "a fact" that I was beautiful and "(insert expletive here) those bimbos who say otherwise".  He also said he wanted me to enjoy myself - and I said that I was - because I was.  I was especially amused when he asked some random guy if he knew who T.S. Eliot was - and when the guy answered that he didn't know, he essentially responded, "well, (insert same expletive here) him!"  and then asked me what he wrote.  Ah, irony.

Don't worry, I didn't spend all my time with Naz - but I was terribly amused by him.

Bruce caught up with me after I sort of hung out with Naz, and I asked him, "So, this is pretty much how it goes?"  And basically, he said, "Yeah - but usually we get together beforehand and pray, and then we do a bit more praying on the floor, and we approach more people and chat with them."  

Needless to say, I liked it - at least, the casual club.

I made my farewells to everyone a bit early, because I knew I had an hour's worth of walking ahead of me.  What sucks is that the tube doesn't run all day - it stops running at around midnight.  I wasn't up to finding out where the night buses were coming and going from, so, I figured, walking would do me good.

Walking did do me good.  I regained my sense of hearing along the way.

Unfortunately, I almost exploded from really needing to use the bathroom.  I was lucky enough to run into a club in the area, and casually slip in to use their bathroom.  I kind of gave a head-jerk at the DJ on my way out, just to kind of act cool, and act like I belonged here, I guess.  I dunno.  I was feeling sociable.

When I got home, I called my mom and wished her a happy birthday.  That felt right.  Didn't tell her about the clubbing.  Ah, well.

Maybe I'll tell her when I do the official Club-and-Pray.

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