London Tales - Parte the Seconde
So I went to London. You may know that already. I wrote a blog about it here. You may know that too. I promised more to come, blogwise, about said trip. There has been nothing. Some of you may want this "more" that I promised. Some of you may actively oppose it. My hunch, however, is that the vast majority of you- whoever "you" are- don't give a shit either way. Meanwhile, my life provides me with plenty of inner turmoil as it is, and I don't need to be plagued by my own laziness and guilt re: lack of action on the London blog. So this is mostly for me. All you who want it, or don't care, this is for you too. As to the people who don't want to buy what I'm selling, go over here instead. I'm sure he can give you what you're looking for.
Since the trip- and since the first blog installment- time has, as is its wont, marched inexorably onward. About six months' worth, actually- as I write this, we were in the UK six months ago exactly. Memories grow hazy at this point, which will probably turn out to be a good thing. I won't write as much about the excruciating details, and you won't have to read them. Then again, this is already longer than most people's entire blog entries, and I haven't even said anything yet. Ah, verbosity is a cruel mistress.
By way of a bit of explanation, I will cut and paste a paragraph from the last blog:
For those who haven't seen them already or who want a return trip to two dimensions of someone else's memories, my complete, unedited, no-commentary London photo gallery is here and Alan's is here. Jeff has no photos, as far as I know. If you get really desperate, Alan inexplicably posted all my dopey little videos to YouTube here. They're not exciting, but they entertain me in a back-of-the-brain kind of way. Apologies for the ads on my gallery- they keep it free. It seems that Alan takes more pictures of people and I take more pictures of things. Does that make me bad?
Well, on we go.....
So, we had our airline misadventures, and finally made it to London. Got to the apartment- sorry, the "flat"- and Alan and Jeff instantly crashed. Despite nearly 24 hours with no sleep to speak of, I was still way too wired- so I unpacked my important stuff, got settled, explored the apartment, took some pictures. I have an odd habit of taking pictures of hotel rooms and such when I travel. I want to remember the way the room looked, the view- it's a strange little compulsion. But here we were in London, in a two-bedroom two-bath flat on the top 1 1/2 floors of a converted house (most of the apartment on one level, then step-down to the kitchen) and it was so bloody cool that I went a little nuts with the documentation. You can see it in the gallery. I also took compromising photos of Jeff and Alan sleeping, which I will discreetly NOT post on this blog out of consideration for those involved- however, if you go to the gallery, they would be the first two pics on page 3. But I didn't tell you that.
This is my room.
This would be the hallway.
Across the table and down into the kitchen.
A bit about the flat- I was kinda nervous, because the flat was pretty much all my doing. I had seen a lot of websites about short-term apartment rentals, and it sounded like the way to go for us- less expensive than a hotel, more comfortable than a hostel, we could make some of our own meals and save a bit of money. So, I pushed the idea on the others, did all the research, picked and booked the flat. I found a place that seemed to have everything- good price, plenty of room and comfort, not too close or too far from the heart of the city, Tube station right around the corner, interesting neighborhood that seemed not too dodgy to the people I consulted with, and it was literally a few steps from Portobello Road, which I'd at least heard of and knew there was supposed to be something special about it. If it turned out that the place sucked hard, or we were in grave physical danger every time we stepped out the door, I felt it was going to be entirely my fault. Luckily, the place was (in my opinion) perfect or nearly so- maybe just a bit too much night noise from the nearby freeway, and the stair climb got old after a while- but Pshaw!!! Mere annoyances! For what we needed and wanted, it was just right, and I was very relieved.
And now a short break from our action-packed tale to introduce today's video clip. In a courtyard behind our flat was this tree:
We could see it had fruit on it, but weren't close enough to tell what kind. Looked like pears or something. It's probably 400 years old and is so tall, we were wondering how you'd ever get the fruit off of it. Well, God heard our query, and one morning we saw this:
Yup, an old babushka woman whacking the tree with a long-ass stick and picking up the fruit. I love this video on so many levels, including: 1.If you haven't already, you will probably watch a video of an old woman whacking a tree with a stick, and 2. She has no idea there's a video on the web of her whacking a tree with a stick. I only wish the quality was better, so you could really, really see her whack that tree with that stick.
Anyway- after properly inspecting and archiving the flat, I was still wired- London, for God's sake!- so I decided to take a walk and explore the immediate neighborhood that would be our home for a week. There's the Tube station, that's good, here's where the restaurants and pubs are- ooh! Thai food! Good to know- eventually went back to the flat and fell into a confused slumber.....
Woke up a couple hours later to twilight, two lively and hungry friends, and a pounding headache. Sunday night, things seem quiet, not much open- we make our way to a nearby place I'd spotted earlier with the romantic and accurate name of "Sausage and Mash". There are a lot of immigrants in London, from all over the world. Many cultures and cuisines are on display. For some reason, at least judging from this trip, all the places that serve the wonderful heart-busting stuff that would be considered "traditional" English food are staffed entirely by Eastern Europeans with very strong accents. I tried the Toad in the Hole. Yes, I know it sounds painful, but it was damn good at that moment.
Then we wandered down the street until we found a pub with the promising name of the Duke of Wellington. After getting our pints from the friendly Eastern European gentleman behind the bar, we settled at a table to drink our English beer in an English pub and contemplate the mere wonder of being in fucking London (which is incidentally a lot more exciting than regular London). At a nearby table sat an old man who, if he was in the U.S., would be a completely disenfranchised homeless person, but in the UK, was probably a comfortable neighborhood eccentric. Chest-length white beard, long stringy white hair, and a generally kooky air about him- if I had been asked to pick the crazy person in the pub, I would have picked him. I would have been wrong.
We'd been sitting there for a few minutes in jet-lagged conversation when suddenly, we weren't alone. A man- who also had a kooky air about him but I wouldn't have put him top of the crazy list- carrying a freshly filled pint sat silently and uninvited at our table, bringing our conversation to a screeching halt and eliciting three confused stares. After a few eternal seconds, Jeff finally broke the silence with something like, "Can we help you?"
"Oh, just wanted to see what you're talking about," he said, or something like that. I don't know if he was drawn to us because we were Yanks, or just didn't fit in, or were new victims, or all of the above- but he just decided to join us. Okay, fine- it's cool to meet people, and it'll probably make for a good story.... Meanwhile, Long Beard Guy, who is directly in my line of sight and behind New Guy, catches my eye, grins, and points at New Guy then taps his head, indicating, "He's crazy." I grin slightly and nod acknowledgement, careful to not anger New Guy. Okay, what now......
Well, not surprisingly, New Guy doesn't really care about whatever we were talking about, and quickly steers the conversation to his own agenda, which happens to be The Imminent and Terrible Extinction of the Human Race. Okay, he had some good points about global warming and our destruction of the planet, but it was mixed with a rant about the muticultural iconography of tigers (including the impassioned cry, "Seriously, can you live in a world without tigers?!?") and something about how we should be educating 18-year-old girls to not bother having children because the next generation is all going to die anyway, "But you can't tell them that. They don't understand. But we're older and we know better, don't we?" There was a lot of polite, noncommittal nodding going on in the Duke of Wellington that night, my friends. Eventually, Alan pulled something out of his ass like, "Hey Jeff, we'd better get moving if we're going to, you know, meet that guy," we said our fond goodbyes to Tiger Man, and wandered our way back home.
Before Tiger Man.
During Tiger Man. Note my look of intense interest.
Although we weren't exactly in the mood to talk about the end of the world, I sure am glad I met Tiger Man. Welcome to London, indeed.
THUS ENDETH PARTE THE SECONDE
Since the trip- and since the first blog installment- time has, as is its wont, marched inexorably onward. About six months' worth, actually- as I write this, we were in the UK six months ago exactly. Memories grow hazy at this point, which will probably turn out to be a good thing. I won't write as much about the excruciating details, and you won't have to read them. Then again, this is already longer than most people's entire blog entries, and I haven't even said anything yet. Ah, verbosity is a cruel mistress.
By way of a bit of explanation, I will cut and paste a paragraph from the last blog:
For those who haven't seen them already or who want a return trip to two dimensions of someone else's memories, my complete, unedited, no-commentary London photo gallery is here and Alan's is here. Jeff has no photos, as far as I know. If you get really desperate, Alan inexplicably posted all my dopey little videos to YouTube here. They're not exciting, but they entertain me in a back-of-the-brain kind of way. Apologies for the ads on my gallery- they keep it free. It seems that Alan takes more pictures of people and I take more pictures of things. Does that make me bad?
Well, on we go.....
So, we had our airline misadventures, and finally made it to London. Got to the apartment- sorry, the "flat"- and Alan and Jeff instantly crashed. Despite nearly 24 hours with no sleep to speak of, I was still way too wired- so I unpacked my important stuff, got settled, explored the apartment, took some pictures. I have an odd habit of taking pictures of hotel rooms and such when I travel. I want to remember the way the room looked, the view- it's a strange little compulsion. But here we were in London, in a two-bedroom two-bath flat on the top 1 1/2 floors of a converted house (most of the apartment on one level, then step-down to the kitchen) and it was so bloody cool that I went a little nuts with the documentation. You can see it in the gallery. I also took compromising photos of Jeff and Alan sleeping, which I will discreetly NOT post on this blog out of consideration for those involved- however, if you go to the gallery, they would be the first two pics on page 3. But I didn't tell you that.
This is my room.
This would be the hallway.
Across the table and down into the kitchen.
A bit about the flat- I was kinda nervous, because the flat was pretty much all my doing. I had seen a lot of websites about short-term apartment rentals, and it sounded like the way to go for us- less expensive than a hotel, more comfortable than a hostel, we could make some of our own meals and save a bit of money. So, I pushed the idea on the others, did all the research, picked and booked the flat. I found a place that seemed to have everything- good price, plenty of room and comfort, not too close or too far from the heart of the city, Tube station right around the corner, interesting neighborhood that seemed not too dodgy to the people I consulted with, and it was literally a few steps from Portobello Road, which I'd at least heard of and knew there was supposed to be something special about it. If it turned out that the place sucked hard, or we were in grave physical danger every time we stepped out the door, I felt it was going to be entirely my fault. Luckily, the place was (in my opinion) perfect or nearly so- maybe just a bit too much night noise from the nearby freeway, and the stair climb got old after a while- but Pshaw!!! Mere annoyances! For what we needed and wanted, it was just right, and I was very relieved.
And now a short break from our action-packed tale to introduce today's video clip. In a courtyard behind our flat was this tree:
We could see it had fruit on it, but weren't close enough to tell what kind. Looked like pears or something. It's probably 400 years old and is so tall, we were wondering how you'd ever get the fruit off of it. Well, God heard our query, and one morning we saw this:
Yup, an old babushka woman whacking the tree with a long-ass stick and picking up the fruit. I love this video on so many levels, including: 1.If you haven't already, you will probably watch a video of an old woman whacking a tree with a stick, and 2. She has no idea there's a video on the web of her whacking a tree with a stick. I only wish the quality was better, so you could really, really see her whack that tree with that stick.
Anyway- after properly inspecting and archiving the flat, I was still wired- London, for God's sake!- so I decided to take a walk and explore the immediate neighborhood that would be our home for a week. There's the Tube station, that's good, here's where the restaurants and pubs are- ooh! Thai food! Good to know- eventually went back to the flat and fell into a confused slumber.....
Woke up a couple hours later to twilight, two lively and hungry friends, and a pounding headache. Sunday night, things seem quiet, not much open- we make our way to a nearby place I'd spotted earlier with the romantic and accurate name of "Sausage and Mash". There are a lot of immigrants in London, from all over the world. Many cultures and cuisines are on display. For some reason, at least judging from this trip, all the places that serve the wonderful heart-busting stuff that would be considered "traditional" English food are staffed entirely by Eastern Europeans with very strong accents. I tried the Toad in the Hole. Yes, I know it sounds painful, but it was damn good at that moment.
Then we wandered down the street until we found a pub with the promising name of the Duke of Wellington. After getting our pints from the friendly Eastern European gentleman behind the bar, we settled at a table to drink our English beer in an English pub and contemplate the mere wonder of being in fucking London (which is incidentally a lot more exciting than regular London). At a nearby table sat an old man who, if he was in the U.S., would be a completely disenfranchised homeless person, but in the UK, was probably a comfortable neighborhood eccentric. Chest-length white beard, long stringy white hair, and a generally kooky air about him- if I had been asked to pick the crazy person in the pub, I would have picked him. I would have been wrong.
We'd been sitting there for a few minutes in jet-lagged conversation when suddenly, we weren't alone. A man- who also had a kooky air about him but I wouldn't have put him top of the crazy list- carrying a freshly filled pint sat silently and uninvited at our table, bringing our conversation to a screeching halt and eliciting three confused stares. After a few eternal seconds, Jeff finally broke the silence with something like, "Can we help you?"
"Oh, just wanted to see what you're talking about," he said, or something like that. I don't know if he was drawn to us because we were Yanks, or just didn't fit in, or were new victims, or all of the above- but he just decided to join us. Okay, fine- it's cool to meet people, and it'll probably make for a good story.... Meanwhile, Long Beard Guy, who is directly in my line of sight and behind New Guy, catches my eye, grins, and points at New Guy then taps his head, indicating, "He's crazy." I grin slightly and nod acknowledgement, careful to not anger New Guy. Okay, what now......
Well, not surprisingly, New Guy doesn't really care about whatever we were talking about, and quickly steers the conversation to his own agenda, which happens to be The Imminent and Terrible Extinction of the Human Race. Okay, he had some good points about global warming and our destruction of the planet, but it was mixed with a rant about the muticultural iconography of tigers (including the impassioned cry, "Seriously, can you live in a world without tigers?!?") and something about how we should be educating 18-year-old girls to not bother having children because the next generation is all going to die anyway, "But you can't tell them that. They don't understand. But we're older and we know better, don't we?" There was a lot of polite, noncommittal nodding going on in the Duke of Wellington that night, my friends. Eventually, Alan pulled something out of his ass like, "Hey Jeff, we'd better get moving if we're going to, you know, meet that guy," we said our fond goodbyes to Tiger Man, and wandered our way back home.
Before Tiger Man.
During Tiger Man. Note my look of intense interest.
Although we weren't exactly in the mood to talk about the end of the world, I sure am glad I met Tiger Man. Welcome to London, indeed.
THUS ENDETH PARTE THE SECONDE
Labels: london
posted by Zonthar at
10:52 PM
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