It Sucks To Be Me

To be perfectly honest, this is one day that I really didn't do much other than putter around the apartment.  I went to the local awesome bookstore and got a few things.  I got a really cheap deal on a couple of coffee mugs (two for £1.50, whereas I could have gotten just one at the store for £4!  Yay for British Goodwill!) and I now know where to get some cheap deals on a few other things, too.  In a place like this, where one £ = two $ (and some odd ¢), cheap is very, very good.

I'm accepting all donations - $ and £.  Preferably £, as I don't have to do the exchange rate.  (I'll take your €, too - for when I do those Europe trips!)

If you can detect something in this previous paragraph, it's probably true.

We also saw Avenue Q - which, by the way, is hilariously vulgar.  I didn't know quite what to think other than... hee hee.  It's a good show involving puppets and social taboos.  And, at the end, you really start feeling for those puppets.  And, all throughout the thing, you're kind of surprised at what they could get away with... just because it was puppetry.  Hilarity, puppetry, good stuff.  

I also know what the Internet's really, really great for.

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Lost in Chelsea (With Maps)

So, in the middle of typing up my last entry, A.A. and I got a buzz from most of the group asking us if we wanted to go to Knightsbridge.  I guess we were both bored enough to say "yes" - because off we went to Russell Square station, with L.R. picking up (I think T.F. called it "shopping"?) some things at the awesome Tesco Express across the street from the station.  And then we headed over to Knightsbridge, which I learned was a station.

Yeah, I'm really smooth.

Anyway, while we were riding the tube, L.R. was eating cheese, and somehow E.S. made the wax into some Rocky Horror-esque lips that were obnoxiously red and surprisingly life-like.  They were amusing - and continued to be amusing all throughout the excursion, as they'd make their way out at strange times.  

When we all got to Knightsbridge, we looked around on the street... and realized that we were some of the only people on the street.  I thought it was kind of creepy - but also kind of relaxing.  In the borough of Chelsea, stuff moves at its own luxurious pace.  Luxurious, though, is the right word for it - as the people that we did come across were wearing just the things that we were seeing in the shop windows.  Apparently, to go night walking in Chelsea, Armani is a must.  Or at least Prada.  I think maybe one of the girls had that covered with a handbag, so the police that came around every once in a while didn't bother us.

While walking around Chelsea, we happened across a house that Jane Austen stayed at.  It looked cool - just like all the other buildings in that neighborhood.  I think it's amazing how much the flats looked like brick castles.  Some of them had key gardens.  Others... didn't bother with sharing their garden, and just put it in the courtyard.  Needless to say - Chelsea is one heck of a high-class borough.  I think we somehow managed to make a huge circle around Harrod's - and somewhat confused ourselves. 

Somehow, from Chelsea, we worked our way over to Grosvenor Place - and from there, we got to Buckingham Palace, just in time to see the Royal Mail truck pull up to the gates of the palace.  We kind of gathered around just to watch - and I think A.A. took some pictures.  After the truck went in (having been let in by a guard that actually came out and unlocked the gate for it - things are still done the old-school way at Buckingham), we took a good look at the palace itself, and realized that a few of the lights were on for some of the windows of the palace.  We'd like to think we were being watched by the Queen - but who knows?

I broke off from the group after we got to Trafalgar Square - after realizing where I was (and how dumb I was earlier in the night) - and hey, I was tired from all that walking that prefaced our little excursion.  I took the tube back - switching lines as often as I could, for the heck of it.  Hey, when you can change lines for free... no, I think that's just a me thing.  I got to listen to some nice music in all those different stations, though - there are guys down there with freaking amplifiers and electric guitars down there - which kind of made the older guy with the copper whistle seem a bit... plain?  I think one of the guys with the guitars was playing some Led Zeppelin.  

I think Sundays are officially walking days.

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Lost in Westminster

With nothing much to do on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to get some fresh air in.  I took my camera with me this time (because I regretted not having it before) and set a course south, toward the river.  About halfway through the walk, though, I thought to myself, "You know, I'm really bored."  So, I looked up, found that I was on Oxford Street, and decided to head west.  While walking down Oxford Street, I found a huge (by that, I mean that it had four floors in a good-sized building) store by the name of Zavvi.  And Zavvi is the British version of FYE.  And if you know me, you know that I'm drawn to those kinds of stores.  Needless to say, I spent about thirty minutes gawking at everything and going up and down the escalators.  I was highly amused by two things in particular: 1. The classical music had its own little room, and it was nice and closed off from everything.  It was nice, I suppose, for the classical music enthusiasts who can't stand the music those young kids are listening to these days.  2. The Phil Collins CDs were going for less than Peter Gabriel's CDs.  Therefore, Peter Gabriel is of higher value.  Therefore, Peter Gabriel rocks.  End of story.

After getting out of Zavvi, I continued on down Oxford Street until I got to the fringe of Oxford Square.  I decided it would probably be a good time to start trying to find the Strand, so I turned in the direction that I thought was south.  A few streets down Regent Street, which was what I turned onto, I panicked a little.  And if you were in my shoes, you might have too.  Here's what I realized: a. I'm a girl (it's nice to assert your gender sometimes); b. I'm traveling alone (which isn't bad in London); and c. I hadn't done my research on these streets before I went on them - so I had no idea where I was going.  To ease my mind, I didn't ask for directions.  Rather, I walked to those bus stop canopies and analyzed the bus route maps to figure out where I was.  Unfortunately, those are rather vague and confusing, so I kind of gave up after a little while.  I then decided that I was tired of the crowded Regent Street and thought, "You know, I'm in Westminster.  That's all I need to know - and if I wander out of the borough, I'll know where I am."  

I think it's nice to lie when you're trying to reassure yourself.

Anyway, I wandered down a friendly-looking, less-crowded street (Glasshouse Street - an amusing name, with a complimentary Glassblower's Pub that I didn't visit) until I, completely unexpectedly, walked into Piccadilly Circus.  It hit me like a four foot wide glowstick - and I wasn't quite prepared for it.  I mean, you're walking down a really quiet back street, and then all of a sudden you see this enormous video screen.  I sort of wandered around a bit dazed before I got my bearings back - well, sort of.  I'd been to Piccadilly Circus while on the bus tour - but I was definitely out of commission on the bus tour.  I absorbed the sights and moved on - and I don't quite know why I chose the route I did.  It's probably because I noticed a "Trafalgar Square" bus coming down a not so crowded street, and I, not liking crowds, opted to go down this mysterious street to another familiarly named place.  Looking at a map now, I think I took Haymarket Street.  I saw no hay markets, so I can't say.  However, some of the statues looked eerily familiar.  It was weird - because I'd never been to London before now.  I felt some extreme deja vu until... I realized we had gone this way on the bus tour.  I ended up in front of the National Gallery fairly soon, and just went along with the sights.  A group of kids had gathered up and were shouting at each other to go jump in the fountain.  I thought, "Maybe I should watch this..." and found some stairs that took me to the twin fountains in Trafalgar Square.  There was no fountain jumping.  I was somewhat disappointed, and decided to point myself in the direction of Westminster Abbey - because somehow I'd managed to find another bus, or maybe I saw Big Ben.  Looking back, I could have hopped on the Strand - which was what I was looking for earlier - right then at the square... but I somehow ended up on Whitehall Road, I think.  (I say the names with certainty because now I have a map.)

While making my way towards Westminster Abbey, which I could slowly see more and more clearly, I came across the Horse Guards post, and saw a guy decked out in spiffy red gear, an awesome looking poncho dealie, and, to top it off, a large, golden helmet with a white fluff on top.  I approached him with a great deal of curiosity - realized where I was, and was terribly amused at what I saw next.  The guard was smiling.  I think Americans are awfully aware that you can do just about anything in front of the Royal Guard and they won't crack a smile - but this guy was.  I think I would have too, if I was in his situation.  Why?  About a foot in front of him, a large group of Asian tourists were all huddled, laughing rather excitedly at someone's camera.  I swear, they knew how to pull off the tourist thing like it was no one's business.  I went past the guard, went about my business, and was slowly becoming aware that I really wasn't that far from the Thames.  In fact, the London Eye was getting to be right in front of me - that is, if I turned that way.  So, I came to a decision - I was going to cross the street, cut through this small mews (ha ha) and get over to the river so I could at least find Waterloo Bridge and make my way back to the flat.

The great part was that the mews that I'd chosen was not very much a mews.  It was the side entrance to the Ministry of Defense.  And I had a very distinct feeling that I was being watched.  You would, too, if there were all these cameras pointed in every direction.  Needless to say, I moved along very quickly.  I backtracked a bit, hopped onto a footbridge, got some awesome pictures of Westminster Abbey and Big Ben (the bridge happened to be even closer to the Abbey, and I got a better shot.  Sweet!) - and somehow managed to get to the Waterloo Bridge, and back to my flat.

I think I just might do that again - but I need some sort of landmark to gain my bearings at.  Maybe somewhere along the Thames - I don't know.  

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Heathrow, We Need Clearance

Saturdays are known for their "lazy-day" nature.

However, it's been about a week, and that means it's about time I figured out how to solve the mystery of... our washer/dryer.  So that means... work and waiting.

Last night, the flatmates, in order to prepare for their spontaneous trip to Brussels, decided that they needed to solve this mystery immediately - so I got to watch.  To sum the whole thing up: for about forty minutes, it goes through a rather inane process of turning the clothes from side to side, stopping for about five seconds each turn.  It's an awful lot like watching a little kid be rather amused with turning a crank one way, and then turning it another.  Then, I guess it gets bored of doing that (or maybe it grows up), so it speeds up every once in a while, making loud slurpy noises and filling up alternately. And then, the best part - it decides to put the nitrous on or something and pretends to be a jet engine for about thirty minutes.  Somewhere along the line it attempts to dry the clothes in it.

Needless to say, the whole jet engine bit is a little... unsettling.  Actually, "unsettling" is really an understatement.  It's scary and hilarious all at the same time.  We were all wondering when it would just pick up and fly away.  After all, we are on the Piccadilly Line - which means we're right in line with Heathrow.  So maybe it just might make it to Heathrow, with just a bit of a push in some direction.  Maybe I can go down to the tube station and find out.

Unfortunately, for all that jet-powered action, it still leaves us with damp clothes.  You'd think with all that power spinning it would actually dry our clothes with just that.  But no, it doesn't quite want to work that way.

I think I have some dishes that need to be spared from the power of the jet engine, as they're in rather precarious placements right above the washer/dryer.  I now have three things I miss about America (compared to the hundreds of things that I don't): 1. Things are cheap in America, 2. You get a lot for being cheap in America, and 3. The dryers in America actually dry your clothes.

This may just have to be a pajama day - as all my clothes are in need of some washing/not really drying.

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Not Night Clubbing

Night clubbing, we're night clubbing - we're walking through town.

Night clubbing, we're night clubbing - we walk like a ghost. 

- Iggy Pop/David Bowie

You know, I've never been night clubbing (as I said earlier) - but every time I walk through town at night, I get this song in my head somehow.  I suppose I deserve it for listening to The Idiot - but, oh well.  At least I'm not Ian Curtis.

Maybe it's the "walking through town" and "walk like a ghost" lines that get me thinking about the song.  The rest of the song, I don't know about.  Enough with speculating - on to the interesting walk.

On this particular walk, I decided to go a little farther down than I usually go.  Thanks to the St. Paul's visit, I now can walk twice as far as I usually go and not feel much of a thing.  So, I decided to walk from Russell Square to the Waterloo Bridge... that is, I walked about two miles one way - and in twenty minutes.  Not too shabby for a leisurely walk, I think.  Needless to say, next time I walk all that way, I'm bringing a camera.  The view was spectacular - you can see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey clear across, and it looks real nice all lit up in orange at night.  You can also see the London Eye - but it looks kind of trashy in comparison to the mellow lighting of Big Ben and the Abbey.  It's like looking at a candle across from a neon light - what's going to look better in the end?  Anyway, it just goes to show that I really need to bring my camera to more places.

I also walked down Drury Lane.  I think we all have a friend who lives on Drury Lane, but I don't know him.  Do you?

Dang, that was bad.

... Maybe I should start putting pictures here, too.

You know, now that I'm more aware of the fact that the Russell Square station is right nearby, I can now hear and sometimes feel the Tube come through every once in a while.  Maybe I shouldn't have ridden the tube back... at least to Russell Square station, that is.

According to Wikipedia (ha ha), Russell Square station got bombed a few years ago.  I was surprised - you can't really tell.  I think the only difference between it and other stations is the fact that there are lifts that take you from the tube level to the ground level - but there aren't any blast marks or anything like that.  Just lifts, when there are usually really long escalators.  But it could be that the station's small... blah blah blah.

I'm sure that's really refined, but I'm just shooting off at the mouth now.  The good thing is, I finally feel like I'm awake during normal London times.  Hooray!

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Stories of a Different Kind

Today we had the pleasant honor of being somewhat rushed out of our house by our cleaning crew.  I think I'm awfully glad we have a cleaning crew - as they did a nice job - but it's still kind of awkward having someone clean up after me.  Like, Granville Towers awkward.  Anyway (forgive me for complaining about my former Chapel Hill life), I say that it's pleasant because it happened to be about the same time we had to get together outside on the mews street (the term cracks me up).  We took a really long walk down some rather cozy back streets to St. Paul's cathedral - which, by the way, is HUGE.  I mean, it better be, as it's the national cathedral.  And, we got a really nice tour of the place - learned a lot about the history, saw the different chapels (I started to wonder exactly how many chapels could there be in a place - there's even one in the crypt!), checked out all the different memorials... it was really quite fascinating.  The gilded nature of the place made me think that this was a white and incredibly enlarged version of an Eastern Orthodox church.

  

What really interested me about St. Paul's is that it is, indeed, a very national cathedral.  A good deal of people are memorialized there - many national heroes and that sort.  There are even memorials to Americans - for their involvement in defending Britain during the World Wars.  There was a pretty spiffy memorial to John Wesley - which I think is appropriately placed - outside in the garden of St. Paul's.  What I find is pretty cool is that he seems to be caught in the act of doing what he's known for doing - spreading the Gospel.  I mean, really - what a way to be remembered!  John Wesley's a cool dude - even if you aren't a Methodist - he can still be looked at as a sort of model of what one can do with one's convictions and passions... in Wesley's case, transform the way people thought about Christian doctrine.  Very cool.  There was also a monument to John Donne - a bit of a more stoic memorial for such a firebrand of a guy - which was startlingly life-like.  It's got a bit of history behind it - as the statue was made while Donne was old and dying, and the sketch for it was made as he was posed in a shroud lying in a coffin.  Creepy.  I guess it was sobering for Donne, but I don't know.  It would be for me.  Another monument that was down in the crypt (that I was actually surprised that the guide didn't point out) was one to John Wyclif (or, as it's alternately spelled, Wycliffe).  I mean, seriously, the dude's important.  He was one of the first people to attempt translating the Bible into English - and this was before it was cool to be a Reformationist.  Wycliffe was persecuted severely (there's some harsh criticism of him running around) for believing that we should read the Bible for ourselves.  I don't know about you, but I like reading the Bible for myself.

You know, maybe I'm just attracted to the heretics of Catholicism. 

So, I guess now everyone knows that I get my kicks from the Johns.  Ha ha.  Anyway, they're seriously cool guys, if you want to do your own bits of history on them.

There were other monuments there, too, obviously.  The Duke of Wellington was interred and memorialized there, as well as naval and air force war heroes.  It's interesting... I guess.  I don't quite know British history too well, so these guys didn't quite stick as much in my mind.

Enough about memorials - there's one other specific reason why St. Paul's is a national cathedral, and to get a good sense of that, all you have to do is look up when you're inside.  There are some incredible mosaics on the ceiling, all around the dome.  They're made with small squares of stained glass.  And how did they get up there?  Well, crowds of British people, from Queen Victoria to your regular guy on the streets did.  That, friends, is cool - when you consider that the royalty is all walled off with some pretty gnarly looking barbed wire in a palace.  Everybody got a chance to take part.  Plus, it was designed by an awesome British astronomer-turned-architect-because-he-felt-bored guy (Christopher Wren) - I mean, everything in that cathedral is there because the British put it there!

Not to say that it doesn't have its other influences: it looks rather Parisian, and right now they've got these really vivid paintings up compliments of a Russian artist of the birth, life, and death of Christ.  (On a note about these paintings: I was rather amused when our guide pointed out that the picture of the Nativity didn't look much like a traditional picture of it.  It didn't, really - you've got this unclothed boy Jesus going "check me out, I'm the Son of God!" and Mary's all hiding behind him sort of using him as a human shield from this crowd of pealing bells - which apparently are a symbol of celebration in Russian paintings.  It was kind of cool.  The other pictures portray Jesus as a really almost emaciated figure - as if He were spending His days wandering around, preaching and healing but not really feeding himself because no one would support Him.  It's a frighteningly vivid image of what might have been in comparison to these fleshy, bloodless images of Christ that we're all so used to.)

Anyway, my punny title doesn't refer to the fact that I don't talk about drinking for this post.  No - after our tour of the cathedral and the crypt, we decided to check out the Whispering, Stone, and Golden galleries.  And, where exactly are these galleries?  Well... over eight hundred steep, winding steps above the main cathedral.  I am proud to say that I climbed them all, and lived to tell about it.  I think the weird part was that I started to get dizzy while walking up those stairs - all the spiraling and moving gave me a headache.  There actually weren't any paintings up there (which I think we all thought there would be), but we managed to see some positively fantastic views of the city, and with the Whispering Gallery in particular, an interesting view of the main part of the cathedral... from four hundred and fifty steep, steep steps above it.  Phew!  Even though I'm a bit uneasy with heights, I ventured forth and stuck my head through (yeah, through - I was too short to get a good look through... actually, to get a good look, you probably have to be over six feet tall, because some of the others in the group had to stick their head through too) the guard rail's cusp and looked down.  There was also an amazing view of the statues around the interior dome of the cathedral from that particular gallery - they're so big!  I think I liked the Stone Gallery the best, as it was somewhat high, looking out over the city, and there was a lot of space for me to stick to the dome, then venture out to the edge when I felt comfortable.  There was also a lot of wind up there, which felt good after climbing a heck of a lot more steps.  The Golden Gallery had the best view - as it was the highest up, but perhaps my least favorite, as it was a) high up, and b) really narrow along the walk.  Eeek!  I pretty much insisted that we get down as soon as I got scared of the heights (which wasn't immediately, I'm glad of that) - and somehow the group decided that it was good to go down at around the same time.  Nice!  While up there, I discovered that, by gripping the bannister for my life, my hands were disgusting - so we all went down to the crypt, where the cafe and the bathrooms were... well.  I thought it was weird that all that was down in the crypt.  Apparently that's not too uncommon.

This post is getting a bit long, so I'll just say that I rode the tube for the first time.  It spoke in a British accent, and told me to "mind the gap" about a hundred times.  Fascinating and slightly annoying at the same time.  I'll probably be riding it again... but not often - it's remarkably fast, yes, but I want to see the city rather than my reflection interrupted by orange lights twice every second.  I see my reflection non-interrupted every day that I look in the mirror.

Amusing bit of information: after the group got down, we all noticed that our legs were shaking.  Mine was pretty obvious because I was wearing flip-flops - so my foot was jerking around.  It was rather amusing.

I also now know where I'm going to go when I feel like I really need to do some exercise.  St. Paul's tower gymnasium!

I really hope I haven't committed an act of sacrilege by saying that...

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Not Missing Out, Really

So, I was informed by my flatmates to not do my daily ritual of wandering around at night (isn't that more of a "nightly" ritual?) because we were going to have a "group bonding experience" or something like that.  And, to be perfectly honest - what a let down.  I mean, sure, it was somewhat amusing coming to a drinking game with a bottle of Bailey's rather than beer - but I had a headache and wasn't feeling up to drinking... well.  Beer.  That inane point aside, our "group bonding" ended up being a rather disorganized mass which I didn't quite know how to enjoy.  I don't understand the big deal about drinking games and the like - I mean, it might be one thing to watch a movie and drink every time a famous line's said - but it's another thing to not have any idea what you're doing with a deck of cards, and some people know what they're doing and others know but think that the first party's doing it all wrong, and it all ends up being a silly mess or something like that.  I got more confused as everything went on - laughed at silly rhymes, and swigged the bottle of... what was it that K.W. called it?  "Syrup"?  "Diabetes in a bottle"?  I think those sound a bit right.    

Now that I think about it - it might be the disorganization that's fun... but I think I prefer organized chaos to attempts at drunk chaos.  I'm up for a bit of fun without impromptu drinking games.  Anyway, back to the scheduled programming.

I got a good bit of Bailey's in me, and decided to leave before most of the group went clubbing because I don't do the whole clubbing thing.  Well, I never have - the thought hasn't ever appealed to me.  You're basically going into a room, armed with a headache, and forced to listen to a pounding bass (which gives you even more of a headache) - and I guess somewhere along the line you can drink something fruity and overpriced and, I mean, really.  What's the point of that?  I'd much rather sit at a pub, relax, get a few drinks in amongst conversation that you can actually hear, and not worry about some jerk of a bouncer not even wanting me to cross the threshold.  I want to go to a place dressed however casually I want to, and not worry about some guy looking for my cleavage or whatever.  So, screw clubs.  I might go to one before I say, "screw clubs indefinitely," because I guess everything deserves a chance - but I don't think I'll like it.  I'm not trying to be arrogant - I'm trying to save myself some money from cover charges and pain-killers.

Blah blah blah.

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