Some more cool London places

We had a team afternoon out at work: lunch and then a visit to the Tate Modern (I keep wanting to call it the MoMA! Take the girl out of New York…). I hate modern art. I’m kind of a plebe that way. As one of my team members said, “It just feels like they’re always trying to take the piss out of you” (taking the piss out of someone is a charming British colloquialism meaning to pull one over, sort of like a practical joke). But the BEST PIECE I’ve ever seen was displayed here. It consists of a sheet of canvass pulled taut and slashed once with a razor. That’s it. It’s supposed to represent ultimate reality or something. It was amazing.

That’s not to say there wasn’t anything truly cool at the museum. They’re currently displaying an exhibit by Carsten Höller consisting of slides. Not the kind you see on a playground, but reminiscent of industrialized water slides: curving, shiny and twisted, stretching from each floor down to the ground in a large open space called Turbine Hall. All the guys in our group took turns going down all the slides (except for Ken. He went down the first one and we could tell all had not gone well from the loud BANG we heard as he started from the top. He came out limping and swore off the rest of them). All the women demurred, which, in my opinion was smart because a) hello, Ken’s leg, and b) we’d just eaten and that could get very ugly.

We had stopped before at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. This is a famous pub on fleet street, famous essentially for being quite old(e). It was patronized by the likes of Samuel Johnson, Voltaire and Charles Dickens, and as a tavern dates back to at least 1538 (though the original structure was burnt in the Great Fire of 1666 and had to be rebuilt). We ate down in the cellar, which survived the fire and is thought to date back to the 13th century when it was part of a Carmelite monestary. The food was traditional pub grub, pies, fish and chips and jacket potatoes but you can’t beat monastary cellars for ambiance.

This weekend Taron and I met up with Sara, Priscilla’s sister who is studying in London this semester. We had lunch and then shopped along High Street Kensington, which is where I was introduced to a more modern, yet still cherished, London icon: Argos. It’s kind of a department store without departments. A catalog store where you still physically go to the store. A store where you don’t shop, you Argos!

Essentially the space consists of catalogs on tables and lots and lots of people standing around them. You look through the catalog to see what you want and then you check on a little electronic thing next to you to see if it’s in stock. If it is, you write the catalog number on a piece of paper and bring it up to the cash register where you pay. Then you wait by the back of the store for someone to call your number and then you pick up your merchandise. It’s brilliant. It combines the joy of shopping from a catalog with the immediate gratification of shopping in a department store.

I bought a CD/radio alarm clock; you can also get mobile phones, linens, games, toys, furniture, jewelry and tons more. I look forward to many more shopping, uh, Argosing, excursions in the future.

I’ve found a flat!!!

After three and a half weeks of searching I’ve finally found a place to live here in London (thank God, as they’re kicking me out of my hotel on Thursday).

My flat is on the Isle of Dogs, which is in London’s zone 2. It’s actually a peninsula rather than an island, and there are no more dogs than usual (although the first time I visited a fox crossed my path, twice. Apparently there are an estimated 10,000 foxes living in London. It still freaked me out.). It is the docklands area of the city, where ships came in and were unloaded or loaded and sent on their way. The peninsula is riddled with wharfs and quays (pronounced “keys”, go figure) but now the boats there tend to be pleasure crafts rather than industrial ships.

The docklands were historically a poor, deprived area of London inhabited by dock workers and their families. But gentrification has recently overtaken it, and in the early 90s the largest building in the UK was erected at Canary Wharf. It soon became a major business district in London as other buildings followed, and by now it looks kind of like a small-scale version of lower Manhattan.

I live 3 stops on the Docklands Light Railway from Canary Wharf, towards the southern part of the peninsula, almost directly across the Thames from Greenwich (in fact, there’s a footpath nearby where you can walk under the river to get to Greenwich, which is one of the first things I plan to do after I officially move in). The stop is called Mudchute.

English names for places are often really delightful because they tend to describe exactly what the place is. Mudchute was called Mudchute because back when they were building nearby Milliwall dock they displaced the soil and silt here—it essentially became a mud chute. The ground was very fertile and the area became rife with wildlife, both plant and animal. In the 70s this spot was slated to die an urban death with the erection of a high rise estate, but the public campaigned against it and won, creating instead a park for the surrounding neighbourhood. A few years later the charitable association tasked with running the park took it a step further and introduced farm animals for educational and recreational activities. The 30 acre region is now called Mudchute Park and Urban Farm. My point here is that I now live next to the only farm in all of London, complete with cows, sheep, horses, pigs, ducks and geese. And a llama (all the traditional English farmyard animals then, as someone at work pointed out). I’ve found most people in London don’t know the farm exists at all—the general reaction is, “There’s a farm in the docklands?”

My flat isn’t exactly across from the farm, but it’s within a five minute walk. The outside of my flat to me looks kind of like a motel (see the above picture; my door is the first from the left on the second floor. Taron explained that it is probably an ex-council flat—these flats were constructed as low-income housing post World War II, but became privatized during the Thatcher administration. Often the flats are in huge estates (like Rose’s in Doctor Who) but my building only has about a dozen flats or so). The inside is nice. It’s split level, with the kitchen and living room on the bottom floor and the bedrooms and bathroom on the top floor. There’s a washing machine and a dishwasher, but, as is typical with flats in London, no dryer, so you have to dry your clothes on a rack. I’ll be living with at two Hungarian girls. Their names are Zsanett and Betty and I like them a lot.

So now I have a job, a bank account, a mobile phone and a flat. I’m starting to feel as if I actually live here…

On a side note…

I tend to despise AirTran. The flights are always late and the seats uncomfortable. But believe me, my estimation of them just shot up 100-fold:

Click here

More airlines (and cinemas and theater and restaurants) should follow their lead.

Forbidden Planet

Down by Leicester Square on Shaftesbury Avenue is the coolest store I’ve ever been in: Forbidden Planet. Yes, I know there’s one in NYC; I’m a big fan. And as much as I love everything in New York, this London Forbidden Planet has stolen my heart.

Oh, it’s got comic books. It’s got action figures and memorabilia and posters and Spike puppets from that Angel where Angel turns into a puppet. It’s got graphic novels and role playing games and manga and anime. BUT it’s also got DVDs from American TV shows. It’s got t-shirts and regular novels. And it’s got the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life: a stuffed Cthulhu doll dressed like Elvis. In case you missed what I just said, it’s got A STUFFED CTHULHU DOLL DRESSED LIKE ELVIS. This store is obviously the best place on earth. It’s geek shangra-la.

I have a feeling the Arrested Development season 2 box set I walked out with will the start of a beautiful (and heartbreakingly expensive) relationship.

‘Tis paltry to be Caesar (even if he IS really hot)

In college I wrote a paper called “‘Tis paltry to be Caesar” taken from a line from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, one of the plays I was writing about. It posited that Shakespeare was a closet feminist and I remember it fondly, not because it was a topic close to my heart (I went to college in the 90s and everything was postmodern, so the class centered on the Shakespearean “other”; I’ve never been much of a postmodernist myself) but because I actually put a lot of effort into it, which was rare. Regardless of why, I was very excited when I saw that the Royal Shakespeare Company was currently performing Antony and Cleopatra (with Patrick Stewart as Antony! “Engage…”) and treated myself to an orchestra ticket.

The production was amazing. It was one of, if not the best, performances I’ve ever seen of anything. The thing is, sure, I dig Cleopatra. She’s a feminist hero, according to my paper at least. The “feminine”, not the absence of masculinity but an entirely independent condition, is represented by Egypt and personified by Cleopatra. She’s the only one who dies a noble death on her own terms; the Romans all kill themselves from shame or fear. Poor Antony, lascivious and ultimately impotent, can’t even kill himself right. He lingers on for a while and begs his soldiers to finish him off. Cleopatra, however, decides she’s not going to be defeated and enslaved, so she dresses in her royal robes and crown and dramatically puts an asp to her breast to poison herself (and how cool is that? Note she doesn’t die on a “sword”. She dies nursing, the ultimate feminine act).

But, God help me, I’ve always had a thing for Caesar. I know he supposedly, in contrast to Cleopatra, represents the “masculine”, but I’ve always read his character to be detatched and logical and slightly baffled with all the debauchery going on around him. In a purely non-metaphorical light he seems to me to be looking at Antony’s eating, drinking and fornicating, and saying, “Hey, what the fuck? We have a world to run, remember? Can you please put the turkey leg down?” To me he is the least manipulative of all the characters, except for maybe Antony who’s just kind of dumb.

Caesar in this production was played as young, slightly awkward and hypersensitive. And hot, although that’s probably just incidental to the actor. His name is John Hopkins and if you ever have a chance to see him in anything (even without Patrick Stewart) you should do it.

This production was the real thing. I’ve never seen Shakespeare performed with such fluency, such skill, which makes sense because, you know, it is the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was the coolest thing I’ve seen since I’ve been here. This is why I moved to London.

Oh give me a hoooome….

Looking for apartments sucks. I don’t think this is peculiar to London (if it were I’d have to say looking for flats sucks) but it is certainly more difficult when you don’t know the city. Someone who lives in west London says that east London is terrible, someone who lives in east London wouldn’t live in west London if you paid him. North of the river hates south of the river and vice versa. There’s not too much of a consensus, and I haven’t been able to suss out distinct characteristics of individual neighborhoods. The east end is grungy and becoming gentrified, the west is posh and maybe snooty, I think Soho is supposed to be gay.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lived near NY my entire life that I know the reputations of the neighborhoods so much better (even if some of them have long since been true), or if the neighborhoods here aren’t as well-defined. Although, let’s face it, even in NY individual characteristics of various neighborhoods have devolved into “expensive.”

So I’m looking in Bloomsbury/Kings Cross and Clapham tomorrow. Bloomsbury/Kings Cross is about a mile from my office and therefore walkable which is very attractive. Clapham is south of the Thames and is young and vibrant. I went to a party in a bar there last weekend and it looked cool, kind of like north Williamsburg (and I find myself constantly comparing everything here to NY. I hate that. I guess, though, that it’s kind of natural, a way to process new experiences. I wish I could just view everything as new.). I have two more weeks here in my hotel if I need them, so I have time. And Taron, Priscilla’s best friend from NY who moved here herself 4 years ago, offered to let me stay with her until I find something if I haven’t by time I need to leave the hotel. I’m covered. I just feel so unsettled and homeless.

10 things I’ve noticed about London so far:

1. The @ is where the ” should be on the keyboard and vice versa.

2. The architecture is beautiful — I was walking on Chancery Lane with Katherine and she said, “Yup, you haven’t been in London long. You’re gawking at the architecture.” Like a knife in the gut of a New Yorker! How can I ever make fun of tourists who stare up at tall buildings in the middle of the sidewalk again?? (I’ll manage to find a way, no doubt.)

3. If you say pants, people think you’re talking about underwear.

4. People walk even faster than they do in NY. I didn’t think it was possible.

5. Drivers are even more insane than they are in NY. I didn’t think it was possible.

6. Taxi drivers have to memorize all the streets in London and pass a test on them before they are given a license.

7. Theater tickets are much more reasonable here than in NY. Tomorrow I’m going to see a play called “The Woman in Black” and I’m very excited. Check it out here.

8. People wear much more sensible shoes here. Maybe this is the reason for #4 above.

9. Cell phones, or “mobiles” are really big. Like, they’re big back in the US but they’re bigger here. People have little stands to put them in at work, and you can see a mobile on every desk you pass.

10. Getting up for work is still a bitch no matter where you are.

That’s the way to do it

The basics of the story of Punch and Judy, those screeching puppets who hit each other with sticks, is always essentially the same. Judy forces Punch to watch their screaming baby and Punch, pure sociopathic id, gets tired of hearing him and throws him out the window. Judy comes back and when she realizes what he’s done she starts hitting him over the head with a wooden spoon and he turns around and beats her dead with a stick. The policeman comes to arrest him and Punch kills him, the priest comes to condemn him and Punch beats him to death too, the hangman comes to execute him and Punch tricks him into the noose instead and finally the devil comes to claim him and Punch kills even him, all the while shouting, “That’s the way to do it!” after each murder. Then, pleased as Punch with himself (get it?) he says good-bye to the children in the audience and invites them back for the next show. Because, you see, Punch never dies.

English humor is so fucked up.

Punch and Judy is also the name of a pub I went to in Covent Garden this weekend. I met up with friends of a friend (thanks Julie!) and we went out first to a chain pub around High Holborn Street, where my hotel is, and after one of the women, Katherine, and I went to Punch and Judy essentially because it served alcohol and had a bathroom, our two main requirements. If I didn’t have to pee we probably would have gone to an outside pub where plenty of people were bundled up in winter coats, drinking happily in the open air on a January night, but I really needed that bathroom.

Covent Garden itself is an area in London right next to Holborn (where my office and hotel are) but it also generally refers to the central area of the neighborhood, an outdoor piazza where buskers and street artists perform amid various bars, restaurants and shops and the Royal Opera House. This was the first time I’d ever been there, but at night it reminded me of Pier 39 in San Francisco, without the sea lions. Or the water. (Yes, scoff if you like, but I like Pier 39. I like the views and the clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.) I’d like to go back there in the day sometime soon.

I had a really good time. We closed out the bar. It’s less impressive than it sounds since bars close in London at 11:30, but if you factor in the time difference beteen here and NY it was… 6:30 pm. I really am getting old.

I can see your dirty pillows

All airports are alike, at least the ones I’ve been to. Some may have more traffic, some less, but there’s always transience. No one lives in an airport, except Tom Hanks in that movie where he plays a guy who lives in an airport. It was a really bad movie.

The point is that everyone in an airport is on his way somewhere else, either at the beginning of a trip or heading home. This has always excited me, this feeling of movement and travel just starting or just ending, of seeing people again that you’ve missed and of going home slightly different than you’d been before. But this time I was coming home to a place that wasn’t yet my home.

I got to go “fast-track” through immigration because I’d flown first class. Thank God, because otherwise I’d still be waiting in line. Even in “fast-track” I had to wait almost 45 minutes. The custom officials were thorough, but surprisingly nice considering I’m used to the ones at Newark who are often, in short, officious jackasses.

Then it was time to get my bags. I was dreading this more than anything else I had to do in getting to London. Since I had bought premium economy tickets I was allowed two checked bags, each weighing no more than 70 lbs. Mine weighed in at 67 and 68 respectively. Then I was allowed one carry-on, which was supposed to weigh no more than 13 lbs. Mine weighed 35. (No one in Newark bothered to check the weight of my carry-on. I’ve never seen anyone weigh a carry-on; I’m not sure why they bother posting a limit.) So I had to somehow transport about 170 lbs of luggage from Heathrow to the center of London and preferably by train since taxi rides are exorbitant.

I went straight to the carousel and immediately saw one of my bags sailing by. I lunged and grabbed it, nearly herniating something in the process. Then I saw my other bag way out of reach and waited for it to come around again. This is what I did do. What I should have done was find a cart to pile my luggage on first and then get my suitcases. Instead I found myself stuck with 3 suitcases and no available carts. Everyone else in the baggage area had carts but I couldn’t figure out where they came from.

I made my way over to the Virgin help desk thusly: I dragged one large suitcase and the small one about 20 feet or so. Then I went back and dragged the other large one 20 feet beyond the first two. And so on. An American woman who had been sitting near me on the plane, all silicone and expressionless botox, pantomimed a smile and said, “It could be worse.” Of course, she HAD a cart.

I made it up to the Virgin help desk (there’s an idea for a short film in there somewhere: a help desk for virgins, whether they’re trying to escape a dragon or simply trying to get laid) and asked the man behind the counter, “Where can I find a cart?”

He said, “All the way on the other side of the baggage area,” and pointed to a far wall.

“Oh,” I said. “I have these three huge bags. Could I just leave them in this area and run and get a carriage?”

He smile, sincerely insincere: “No, I’m sorry. We don’t do that.”

I get it. I could have a bomb in one of my bags, but why would I wait until I landed and was in baggage before exploding it? Or he could have offered to have someone help. But no, I was on my own.

And at that moment a panicky loneliness hit me, hard. I was alone. I had to get these three gigantic suitcases to the other side of the baggage area and then get them and myself into London and somehow get settled in this place and there was no one there to help me. Now, that’s slightly unfair: Taron’s here (or will be after her holiday) and I know people at work, one of them who sweetly has offered to help me find an apartment. But at that second, with these monstrous bags containing my entire life, I was alone.

I did manage to get those suitcases to the carts and right now I can look back and say, Hells yeah, I did it myself. Then, however, I was miserable. I navigated the entire length of the baggage area moving two bags 20 feet, then another 40 feet, then the other two another 40 feet and so on. Finally I found a cart and had to lift the suitcases into it, which was no mean task let me tell you. I was finally ready to leave.

I followed the flow of people out of the baggage claim into the main terminal. On either side of me were throngs of others waiting for their friends, dads, moms, family, loved ones who had landed, starting a trip or coming home. I didn’t know where to go, but true New Yorker that I am I was not about let that show and walked purposefully with the thinning stream of travelers. Ahead of me was a huge red sign: Virgin Upperclass Limo Service. I thought, “This is too good to be true!” In fact it was too good to be true: I asked a woman behind the counter what the service was, exactly. She said, “It’s a limo service for (pause) UPPERclass passengers.”

“Yeah, I was an upperclass passenger. Can I book a limo?”

She looked up my name and then smiled, faux sadly: “You were upgraded,” apparently a dirty word. “You’re not eligible. Sorry!”

I sighed and wheeled my 170 lbs of luggage to look for an ATM. I’d already decided I was never going to make it by train and that I’d have to suck it up and pay the $100+ for a cab. Then I saw a sign for Virgin Revival (ooooh, another idea for a short film–I think essentially Virgin anything would make a swell movie). One of the flight attendants had told me that if I wanted to sleep through breakfast I could just stop there after the flight, eat a meal, take a shower and, well, revive. I decided I could really use a shower, and all I’d eaten on the plane was a mini croissant.

I pushed my cart through the doors and into a long descending hallway up to a front desk. I told the woman there my name and she looked through a printed list and finally asked the dreaded question: “Were you upgraded?” I nodded and she, at least, looked sincerely regretful. “I’m so sorry; you’re not eligible if you were upgraded.”

I nodded, sighed, and rolled back up the hall into the terminal. There was nothing left to do but find a cash machine. As I labored along looking for one I got a little sadder and a little sadder until, I am ashamed to admit, I started to cry. The truth is I’m an easy crier. I just got back from bawling my eyes out at Pan’s Labyrinth. I cry when Jennifer Anniston hugs that poor little bald kid on the St. Jude Children’s Hospital commercials. I cry.

So as I found a set of cash machines I also found myself crying, just a little. I wasn’t crying that hard at all, but my nose was running disproportionately to how little I was crying. Actually, I realized, it was running a whole lot. I put my hand up to my face and when I took it away it was covered in blood. It took me a second to realize that my nose was bleeding, and not just a little bit. It was gushing, and I lost it.

I just started weeping. I was hysterical. Here I was in the middle of an airport by myself, obviously losing pints of blood and with no tissues and I couldn’t get it to stop. I was going to freaking die from blood loss from a bloody nose in the middle of freaking Heathrow airport. Seriously, I was a mess. I was crying and slobbering and just covered in blood. It was like a scene from Carrie. Pretty soon Piper Laurie was going to show up and tell me to go to my closet and pray.

And then the really nice man on the line next to me said, “It’s ok, hold on,” and started tearing through his luggage to find me a little packet of tissues. He pulled one out for me and then someone else helped me sit down next to a pole and try to relax. Someone else offered me napkins. Finally a man from the airport came by and asked if I needed an ambulance. I shook my head, “It’s just a bloody nose,” I said through the blood and the tissue and the tears. The nice man with the packet of tissues translated for me that it was indeed just a bloody nose, and the airport worker helped me up and brought me to a handicapped bathroom to relax and clean myself up. The nice man even offered to stay with my bags, but the airport worker said it was ok, that we’d take them with me, and they fit into the bathroom.

I was a gory disaster. My nose was still trickling blood, and my hands and my face were becoming sticky from it all. I washed the blood from my hands, watching it stain the water pink as it swirled in the sink, and then scrubbed my face clean. My nose had stopped and I just felt exhausted, spent.

I was alone again as I left the bathroom; the concerned crowd had dissipated off to their homes or hotels or wherever they were going and I was OK with it. I needed to get myself to my hotel that was my home and get some sleep. I found a nice cab driver who called me “luv” a lot and whom I’m terrified I stiffed on tip since I’m still unsure about tipping customs here. I got to my room, wrote a sad little post in this blog and then slept for about a day. I’m still sleeping a whole lot, but I feel a thousand times better and my blood has been staying safely where it belongs.

 

I hate overnight flights

They’re terrible to me. I can’t sleep and the next day I’m wrecked. In theory they should be the best way to travel, multitasking your sleep while you move from point A to point B, but I never sleep. I should be great at sleeping considering how much I love doing it, but really I ride the little bus into unconsciousness each night.

I have no excuse for this flight either. As I checked in at the airport I heard the six most beautiful words in the English language: “We’ve upgraded you to upper class.” I celebrated in the Virgin Atlantic clubhouse, only open to first class passengers, and that’s where my mistakes started because by celebrate I mean drank a rum and coke and 2 glasses of champagne in the space of an hour.

I boarded during preboarding (fabulous!) . My seat was 7A. In upper class the seats face toward the middle of the plane because they convert into beds. Really each seat is completely segregated from every other passenger’s. The other thing about upper class is that as soon as you sit down the flight attendents start bringing you drinks and boy do I love champagne. I had another glass and a bellini by time the plane took off, popped some asthma meds in flight and got ready to spend a peaceful 6 hours basking in upper class splendor.

Except as the hours went by I began to feel more and more ill. I watched The Devil Wears Prada which, despite a fantastic Merryl Streep and ridiculously gorgeous shoes, was boring. Then I started to watch The Office (US version baby) but I couldn’t concentrate and thought I’d try to sleep. I couldn’t. My heart was beating too fast and it was too warm and I couldn’t get comfortable. So I went to the bar and drank 5 glasses of water straight which only made me feel sicker. I tried to sleep again until the aesthetician roused me for my hand massage and accupressure (it’s a whole different world in upper class I tell you). It was about 8 am London time.

At first the massage was amazing. I love accupressure. The rationalist westerner in me has a sneaking suspicion that it’s all voodoo, but there’s enough romantic in there to abolish my inner Descartes to the back of the closet, especially when I’m getting a massage. Except that I started to feel more and more faint. I’ve passed out before when I was dehydrated and when I got my eyebrow pierced; the doctor says I have Vasovagal Syncope. I just think I’m a wuss. Regardless, this was where this was leading. I must have looked ill to the aesthetician because she asked me if I was ok and quickly got a wet towel for my forehead and some juice and water. She said to me, “Don’t worry about it. This happens a lot. It’s a very effective massage.” Here’s the thing: If people tend to pass out from a certain massage, doesn’t it make sense to NOT do the massage? But Descartes has left the closet and I think the truth is that the water I’d drunk hadn’t been absorbed into my system and the combination of alcohol and the dryness from the artificial air had left me dehydrated.

I returned to my seat and tossed and turned for another hour until it was time to convert our beds back into seats to prepare for landing. By then I was sleepless and still ill. While this wasn’t exactly the best way to start my “new life” (a term that makes me nervous. it’s all the same life, it’s just that this part of it is in London) on the plus side I now have negative, sickly connotations with upper class. This will do me well the next time I fly, trapped with everyone else in coach.