Protests, taxidermy and Boy George

Yesterday was a London kind of a day. It was the day when professional life met real world which literally collided with childhood dreams and gussied up with a little London nightlife.

It was just a regular day. Except that I forgot to set my alarm. I awoke on my own, with a little stretch and big yawn and through bleary eyes gazed out of my one window to see...sunlight. Sunlight?!

I get up in the darkness. Horror! But it was 7:05 and I still had 10 minutes to put myself together and get out the door. I took a European shower, which is really just a small incline from my regular bath (yes, this flat has a bath situation, which makes for a soapy, sloppy and, frankly, cold morning).

But I made it to work and no one was harmed in the process.

It was fittin' to be a big day. I was going to be the point person for any graphics that would come up from the UK desk and I had my first byline story due by end-of-day along with the graphic (!). I was doing three things at once and it was glorious. I put that byline at the top of the page, sent it off to my editor and thought, my, it's 3 and I need a sammy.

There's the monstrous mall just a few yards from the BBC building. I'm not going to sugar coat it, this spaceship of a mini-town is growing on me. I might find errand-type excuses to spend my lunch break there and 'happen' across the top shop.

This lunch break, however was meant to be short. Run in, grab a sandwich with as little mayo as Britishly possible (impossible, in the end) and head back to finish up.

Except there was a protest going on outside the BBC Television Center building. I'd get into the deets but the online site has already covered it ever so clearly there seems no need.

But the scene outside the building boiled down to anti-nazi posters and songs sung through a blow horn about fascist pigs (so European!).

Since I work on the 7th floor I really hadn't even realized that this 'event' was not only taking place but growing. It was all relatively harmless. I got my sammy and swept by the high security with my BBC tag dangling from my neck (the excitement!).

That was until 6 when I was trying to leave and the protesters had 'breached' the BBC security and were in the building and being dragged out by hands and feet. This is actually all incredibly exciting. We were watching the downstairs chaos from our upstairs office on the BBC channel that was recording the BBC break-in.

But then security locked us in. They locked all the - oh - 25 exits to the streets. So protesters were being dragged out kicking and screaming and employees are trapped inside? It makes no sense.

They finally opened up one entrance so I jumped on a small bandwagon of fellow workers who were going to find this far corner exit of the building. We were walking through corridors and down stairs and back up elevators I would never have known existed.

When all of a sudden I walk right into non other than BOY GEORGE. He may have tatooed his face and eaten his former self but I would always be able to recognize that pout.

But there was no time to idle in startruck wonderment. My freedom wagon was leaving and I was not going to be stuck in this maze, I had a supper club to get to.

I made it out. Made it home. And made myself up for a night of dinner and chat with strangers. It's a clever little idea that has taken flight in London and other urban areas. Someone who likes to cook makes the meal. Someone who likes to host gets the people. There has to be a nice mix of women and men and you have to send in song requests (to enter, to dine, to dance) and pay 25 pounds for champ, a three course meal and wine. A delight.


I went with my lovely flatmate who introduced me to the whole idea, but we were seated at opposite ends of the table. I was seated next to a Londoner by way of Sweden, an aged rocker turned professor (who was, ironically, going to be at the protest today but couldn't make it), an Aussie and a slightly sauced young mum. It was lovely. There was plenty of conversation and a surprising amount of wine for so little money.

And the set up was perfect. On the top floor of a north London pub was a little private room decorated like Alice in Wonderland meets Anthropologie


- taxidermy heads on the wall, floor-to-ceiling purple wall paper, chandeliers and a fireplace.



There was also a garden terrace accessible by french doors. Adorable! I had slight food envy of the Swedish girl next to me but otherwise it was delicious. A walnut, pear and blue cheese salad for starters. Something called grouse (game bird...a little gamey) for main


and some sort of coconut ice cream with caramelized bananas for pudding.

I got some more London recommendations from the aged rocker and am newly besties with the drunk Swede (that's right I now have THREE phone numbers in my mobile).

All in all felt it was a London kind of a night.
xoxoL

Gettin' around

I like to think myself a bit of an urbanite. With London, Chicago, New York and, of course, Gambier, OH under my belt I'd say I'm seasoned in the ways of getting around a city.

All the city's have their fair share of public transportation woes. Most of which have to do with timeliness, stinkiness, and over crowdedness.

I had heard rumblings that the London tube was not up to snuff (mostly from NYers). It was slow, inconsistent and not easily accessible. But it did have a countdown to net train clock - a major plus.

But after living here for a month I've found the tube to be just fine. It arrives just when the countdown clock says. They seem to come fairly regularly, though close just after midnight (a major no-no) and are generally clean, save for the lack of a/c, but I don't even have to deal with that. And just to tie a bow around the whole experience, I live just one block from the tube stop. it's a breeze!

That is, until, Saturday rolls around.

On the weekends the clean colorful lines of the tube map dissolve into gray-out burdens of construction zones. The Olympics are comin' (in two years)! And they are taking their time to make sure everything is in working order (Chicago, trust me, you were saved).

So that tube stop I mentioned, the one just a block from my flat? Consider it dead on the weekends. That's not to say that I'm trapped up here on the northwest quadrant of the city. It just takes some finagling.

Thank goodness I'm a seasoned urbanite. (gulp)

It's just that this bus system is a little more complicated than I expected. Not to mention I have an inherent mistrust of the bus system (traffic + crazies = no thanks) And there seems to be no one map that contains ALL the many doubledecker options. Which is a little problematic for this city-exploring girl. I'm east, I'm west, I'm all over this city, but, on the weekends, I'm mostly on the top floor of a big red bus.

When friend was visiting I wanted to show off my gettin' around the city skills. In preparation for the weekend transportation chaos I settled on a walkable distance brunch spot. It would have been two stops on the tube but it appeared on my hand-held map (don't want to look like a tourist, now) to be just a 10 minute jaunt.

Ten minutes turned into an hour and a half when we found ourselves at the cross section of four major highways, a Toyota dealership and the 'Staples Center.'

Luckily, Staples Center is JUST where I meant to be. They have a delightful brunch of giant post-its with a side of multi-colored pens. Scrumptious.

SO we hopped on the next bus that came our way, drove right down the sad little path we'd just taken, past the street where I took the wrong turn, and about three blocks south, where we got off. yes, it would have been a ten minute walk.

I just wanted to show visiting friend, not only the glories of the American industry at work abroad, but also the real London. The slightly seedy, great big open stretches of highway and industrial warehouse London.

Thank god it was sunny.

But I think I'm learning.

For instance, I found out there's a shuttle bus that takes the place of the tube. Gee wiz! For some reason I had the skeps about said shuttle but it's actually quite helpful, if painfully long.

And just last weekend on my major trek from the northwest to the southeast (below the Thames (insert dramatic music)) I took a bus to the tube to the overground (which required a whole new ticket). Then heading back I took a boat (!) to the tube to a movie (hey, I was pooped) to another tube to a shuttle. And home sweet home.

Ah, city-living.

But I've still seen loads of London. So the adventures continue, tube or no.

A sampling:

What is that, a cottage behind a wrought iron fence? Soooo English, it's ridiculous.



Some sort of custardy heaven from Lisboa Patisserie (SO much better than the Hummingbird Bakery Cafe cupcakes. I know, because I tried one not long after) at the north end of Portobello Road



Quintessential Notting Hill



Canary Wharf, view from my speedy boat



A view from the National Portrait Gallery Restaurant



Where the ubiquitous telephone booths go to die, Covent Gardens



xoxoL

Theater review: Money

The star of the show Money by the renegade theatre-art group SHUNT is most definitely the set.

The actors, the narrative, the music and even the audience are just the tools by which we can experience every nook and cranny of this futuristic industrial park-cum-theatrical main stage.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Just south of the London Bridge tube station, past a train overpass light art piece,

that turns primary rainbow colors




and down a unnamed corridor is a makeshift concrete backyard.


Complete with festive holiday lights, ping pong tables, garden sculptures, mismatching cafe tables, and port-a-johns.

The entrance, like anything related to SHUNT (their temporary 'home' is located in a old wine cellar below the London Bridge tube station), was not immediately obvious. Nor was the 'theatre' which is what I was mistakenly looking for.

The 'theatre' was a shell of a building - a cavernous, seemingly abandoned commercial space. The outside matched the inside in haphazard decor - cafe tables with random chairs, festive lights, and a paint-splattered concrete floor.

What was impossible to ignore, however, was the imposing three-story industrial box at the center of the empty building. A lump of grimy, rusted, damp steel stairs, pipes, fence and windowless stretches of metal sheets. It seemed squeezed into this space, as though it was the lone tree that urban life grew up around.

The industrial monster ushered a catchy, thumping rhythm from its guttural depths - a constant Booom chica chica booom chica chica - that I found myself tapping along to, rather than the 20s-themed jazz that competed for musical attention from behind the bar.

The longer the gathering crowd waited in the dimly lit space, however, the more the monster building sparked curiosity and, almost, a playfulness in the audience.

Couples strolled hand-in-hand around it as though on a romantic evening walk along the Thames. A group of youngins dared one another to go trapsing down into the darkness toward the back blackness. once there they squeeled in surprise and fear.

As the time neared 7:30 a man in full riot brigade gear came out from behind the monster holding a dozen colorful balloons in his left, gloved hand. He sipped soda (spiked, perhaps) through a straw that squeezed in between his plastic mask and the top of his jacket.


One-by-one people came to ask for his balloons and soon he was left with only one red one. The air was playful and the group of youngins teased the guard until an ear-cracking gong went off from inside the monster and steam began to billow out of the open pipes.

The guard quickly went around to the mingling crowd to collect his balloons, in a bit of a panicked rush it seemed. The audience was left to stare, drinks in hand, open-mouthed, at the monster to see what it would do next.

A dolled-up woman in a fur coat sat on one of the steel staircases. Here short dark hair was slicked back and she lounged on the gritty stairs facing an orange lamp as though it were the brilliant summer sun.

Just below here a Hanibal Lector-looking man wearing tights and leather knee pads folded out from under the second-story stairs and climbed down and around the structure. I thought I saw a few feathers stuck to his bald head, but I couldn't be sure.

Two more guards emerged from the darkness and ushered us up from our seats and pointed at the stairs to the right of the monster. The crowd of 40 or so huddled together by the staircase and without any further directions, stood for a moment, like abandoned children after school.

Soon a few audience members started to climb the stairs and we all followed. Up to the second floor we were guided into a dark room that had television screens on the walls with numbers in the thousands counting down.

There were pieces of paper littered all over the carpeted floor. The walls and ceiling were just puffed up fabric that, as the crowd gather in, I swear, were getting bigger and the room smaller.

The television count down suddenly sped up and the mechanic hum of the machine grew so loud that the audience members began to scream along with it. It was hard to tell what sounds were the machine and what were the audience. The numbers went down to zero and all lights went out.

It was utter darkness but the sound of the monster grew even louder and the beat quickened. My heart jumped into my throat and I deeply regretted not having dragged one of my new flatmates to this thing just so I could grab on to her in comfort.

My head darted left to right searching for something for my eyes to grab hold of, but they never did adjust to the blackness although it seemed as though we were standing in there arm-to-arm for more than five minutes. When the pressure of the noise and the quickening pace of the machine came to a head, all went quiet. The lights went up and revealed an entirely new room: wooden pews and wooden walls without door nobs.

We all looked around as though seeing one another for the first time, the fear on some faces, smiles on others. We were confused and excited and a few of us were sweating through our clothes. The woman with the fur coat had appeared suddenly behind me. She stood completely still until and man with slicked-back hair and a robe came up and started kissing her.

The audience cleared out of the center of the room and filled into the two rows of wooden seats on either side of this make out scene.

And so Money began.

We stayed inside this chameleon set for the duration of the show, moving up the set to look down, and moving down to look up. The floors were ceilings and the ceilings were floors that unveiled scenes within scenes.

It was a spectacle to behold. The actors were funny and confusing, distraught and frustrated, they said little or nothing at all.

The action went from bad to good to better to worse. All along the machine seemed to convulse with the emotion. Sound - loud, arresting noises indicated the faithful, something-is-not-right mood, and when we suddenly once again found ourselves alone, together in the dark it wasn't a surprise.

When the lights went up and it was just the audience members in the wood-paneled room without any doorknobs and no actors to speak of there was an overall sense of, what next.

But I wouldn't want to spoil it.

Despite the broken narrative, the abrupt and confusing plot, this spectacle should be experienced. Plus you get a glass of champaign midway through! Plus all around.

It is up until mid December. Book now and bring a friend it's a bit of a haunted house in the beginning and strangers don't generally take kindly to other strangers grabbing their hand in the darkness.

The crowd mingles amidst fog post show

Breaking through the London fog

It's not like I don't know London. I traveled to this fair city many a times with Phaidon. And though I mostly kept to the northeast corner of the city limits I still became acquainted with the little Londonisms, which, of course, continued in the day-to-day correspondents with my British counterparts.

If there was one thing I could say I took away from this preparatory education it was finding out about a little gem called Bank Holidays. During the long stretches after the Martin Luther Kind Jr. holiday until New York blissfully brought on its bloom it seemed as though our London office was hopping out of the office for a bank holiday once a week. In fact, in my minds eye, I'd say these little vaguely named days off seemed to come just at the moments when I needed them most.

Needless to say the Bank Holidays were not far from my mind when I nestled into a new, albeit temporary, life in London. Yes I am working for a news organisation that does not sleep and, true, I should (and do, I promise) take advantage of every working opportunity, but even still the sweet lingering flavor of these untouchable British minibreaks kept breaking on the tip of my tongue.

Coincidentally I'm reading the book "Over Here" a personal account of all things London by the former Ambassador to the UK Raymond Seitz. ALright, so it's a little outdated (Princess Di's death is his pivotal storyline) but it still rings true.

One recent tube ride home I found myself reading a chapter on the difference in holidays between the US and the UK, namely the existence of (gasp) bank holidays. Little did I expect the chapter to end with the realization that these breaks are awkwardly packed together during the spring and summer so you're left with a long, gray fall. Ta da!

Autumn in the United Kingdom will remain long and dreary, uninterrupted and unrelieved. But I suppose this barren season is made bearable by the Christmas light at the end of the tunnel

Ah, London. You dark and curious stranger, you.

Luckily I've found ways to cut through the autumnal fog:

With funny little canal boat ride sightings in Regents Park


Punkdom of Camden


Choice seating for a nibble


tchotchke!


espresso art in Camden


public art in Brick Lane


fox sightings in West Hampstead


high tea with visiting friend!


and balcony street views


I don't need no stinkin' bank holidays.

xoxoL

London adventures

So I'm oot and aboot, people. Wasting no time hititng the streets. Well, maybe wasting a little bit of time getting lost on the weekend re-routed tube. But that's all part of the plan.

A taste of some adventures taken last weekend.

Brick Lane.


Penile monument (somewhere between Brick Lane and London Bridge)


Chinatown


Mmmm meat bun lunch (so tasty I didn't realize I was eating the paper it once sat on)


Oooo dessert?


Ahhh American tourist trap - recreated Friends coffee shop (I swear I didn't mean to go here...but when in fake American London?)


Columbia Road flower market


Pretty purchases




xoxoL

*poof* a flat

I'm official! Officially a Londener. I have an address. The address comes with a flat. The flat comes with a room. The room comes with furniture and the whole bit comes with the added feature of flatMATES. Yes. Friends!

They are extremely lovely and doing very cool and fun things in the arts and this whole thing is just a dream come true. Of course it took some work to get here.

let me just travel down flat-search memory lane for a moment...

I was on a hunt. Well, first I was kindly taken in my a friend of my Dad's. They were so very lovely to take me in, this helpless American on their stoop. Little did they know they'd be adopted host family for nearly a month.

I searched on all sorts of cleverly named craigslist-equivalents for the right fit. I even checked some BBC classifieds.

The advert said something to the effect of Beautiful Maida Vale flat! Close to Nothing Hill! Quaint, 5 mins to the BBC.

We speak on the phone, me and ms Maida Vale. She sounds lovely and inviting. She gives me directions and we set a date. After wandering in and around tiny little london streets I finally come across Ms. Vale's street, which was locked behind a giant iron gate (welcoming). Behind the gate are a handful of tiny brick buildings (quaint). Ms. Vale said that she'd come out and meet me so I survey the squat buidlings. As the road slopes down I notice this young woman opening a window. I stop and she peeks her head out - she looks about 30s or so. cute, nice bangs. So I wave, she sees me gives me a good lip curl shakes her head and retreats into the darkness.

OK. Not Ms. Vale. three houses down, perched against some sort of garden decore (sans garden) is this tiny little woman with a shock of white hair. Upon seeing me she gives a little wave and I see where this is going.

Ms. Vale is one hot little septuagenarian who likes to pair pastels with her neutrals, so long as they're matched with a pair of comfortable loafers. She gave me a tour of the place. My room was on their first floor in the back just past their piano parlor. You just have to step carefully over the marshmallow-colored wall-to-wall carpet (take your shoes of if you can remember) and get a load of that single bed. Oh yes. There's also a kitchenette all to myself that comes with a counter and a microwave.

Though we had a lovely chat in their little-angel-inspired living room I had to say adieu.

Just because Vale didn't work out didn't mean that Cute Notting Hill flat!!! wouldn't.

So off I went.

I tried to put my guard up a little more. I clearly can't judge british people's ages over the phone. SO when me and Notting Hill chatted I tried to pick up some hints. She mentioned a man but called him 'her guy' so that seemed young. Right? or perhaps a fallback to some sort of 50s jargon that I wasn't familiar with.

So we chatted, set a date and got on with it. I got off the tube and was actually right smack dab in the middle of NH. This was already looking better. Shops and cute little eateries. It was a delight. I was already picturing my Saturday stroll, my coffee on my way to work.

So Ms. Notting Hill wasn't around so i was actually being shown the place by her guy. We texted before meeting, me and the guy. I thought this was a good sign.

But then he emerged from this tiny white-brick home - A slouched figure with a bright red basketball of a head that, curiously, had this collection of long gray hair attached to the bottom back side of it. At this point I couldn't help buut second guess my judgment of character or, at least, apartment ads.

It sort of looked like he'd put a child's fake beard on backward and called it a day. He was more criminal-sketch-drawing-come-to-life than new roomie. But, I thought, I've come all this way...

So I followed him in. Surely this had to be the scene of some sort of kidnapping. But criminal sketch was actually quite nice so long as I didn't look directly at him and the gaping shadowed hole were teeth once lived.

The house smelled of ciggies and cat urine. A plus for for any apartment hunter. The room for rent was up a few flights, through and past all sort of common rooms and such. The room was, actually, quite nice. Sun was cascading in and you would have a view of the this budding tree in their backyard.

Criminal sketch croaked "Oh, I hope you like cats." I smiled. "Strays" he said. "We pick 'em up" he said, as though the action had yet to come to a close. "They're generally afraid of anything on two feet so they tend to hid behind the bed."

I pointed to the single bed in the sunlight-room. 'this bed?' I asked. Yup. It was a statement, really. The cats came with the room. I could feel R sneezing across the Atlantic.

Criminal sketch and I parted ways with me promising that I'd call him as soon as I figured out my finances. OH. I nearly forgot to mention. Included in the rent I couldnt afford was dinner cooked by Criminal Sketch...every night.

But no matter. Because Ms. Vale and Criminal Sketch led me to my new sitch, which is just perfect - this perfect English building and this cute little flat. The roommates are normal young girls who chat and eat with friends and drink wine and hang out. One isn't familiar with 90210, but that can be changed. All in all it is fabs.

So today I moved from this blue door in south west London.


To this blue door in the north west London.


Ta Da!


And I couldn't be happier.

xoxoL

Just grab a tenner and your jumper and head to the tube!

London is definitely familiar.

The people speak the same language, thankfully, though with varying degrees of understandability.

As a city it has a nice mix of buildings, monuments, tourist attractions and homey instances of everyday life.

There's a free morning paper, Metro, just as there is in Chicago (The Red Eye) and New York (also Metro and one other I can't remember at the moment).

And of course the public transportation, which indeed works and gets you from A to B.

But just as London warms up to you it blows a few stray oddities to send you a kilter. Though it's the English language they use, it's Londonese they speak. There are all these words, words you'd know but are all topsy turvey here.

For example:
Jumper (sweater)
Pudding (dessert)
Uni (college)
Flat (apartment)
Trousers (pants)
Knickers (underwear)

There's also phrases. At work I'm surrounded by 50 or so Brits buzzing about, catching up on their weekend activities, chatting about projects or just trying to get their work done. When, for example, they ring (another word, meaning 'to call') someone up the first thing they say is "You alright?" as though the person on the other end is suffering from an unexpected tragedy or is caught under a rock, trapped in a closet or has fallen down a short flight of stairs. But of course everyone seems to get over said tragedy quickly and they move on to business.

It's our equivalent of "How you doing?" but the "You alright?" seems to imply that you're not, in fact, alright. That things are going quite badly and that this phone call is only aggravating said state of not alrightness.

I've been asked this a few times myself. Monday morning, with still the better part of 8 o'clock to get through and the girl behind me perks up "You alright?" and considering my transient life, luckless apartment search, frustrating internship, lack of funds, and withering job prospects in an increasingly dire economy I thought she knows! a friend! But turned around to a pleasant but indifferent face and quickly recovered 'good, good, and you?'

In turn I tried the next day to ask of the guy sitting to my right, "are you alright?" but I didn't say it with enough nonchalance or maybe my American accent suddenly made they're introductory phrase seem thick with concern. He looked at me quizzically, mid chew, and said, "pardon?" I recovered again with a "how was your, er, Monday night?"

There's also a funny thing about pronunciation. Obviously if you have a British accent there is no concern about muddling up words and halting conversation. But with this sticky American accent water cooler chats are a little more arduous. Names, also, fall into this category. My computer trainer's name is Bernard. Which I would want to pronounce ber-NARD with the ber running quickly into the nard. But, he introduced himself as BEHHR-nehd, with really very little room for a consonant for me to grab a hold of. The solution, of course, was to not call him anything at all. If I needed help I sort of appeared behind him or asked the Canadian to my right. In the meantime I practiced the sound of this familiar-yet-foreign name as it escaped my mouth - while in the bathroom, on my way out of the tube, during a run (bhr-ned....BUR-nad....brnd, etc. etc.). But when I finally said his name out loud, during class, it sounded riDICulous. All American and then this one British word invasion? I cut it off halfway through and so Bernard didn't respond. I've just reverted to the not calling him anything at all.

But I do love the accent. And it really does vary from person to person not to mention the whole lot of kiwis and Aussies thrown in their for good flavor. It's a roller coaster of linguistics and i can dig. My American one is terribly bland so I'm trying to spice it up with a Canadian 'eh' every now and again but, let's be honest, that's a weak little spice. Slowly but surely I'll work some words into my repertoire. I've ousted bathroom (they don't seem to like that). I can't jump on the Loo bandwagon just yet so I've settled for 'toilet' as in, do you know where the toilets are? Also flat. This seems easy enough. I'm not looking for an apartment, I'm looking for a flat with some lovely flatmates. The flatmates is a little put on but I'm sure if I try it out long enough it'll become second nature.

I ought to throw some photes in, eh? These are taken in walking distance to London flat #1 in south west London.

i have many more from my weekend adventures but those will come momentatiously.

Looking across the Thames


The Hammersmith Bridge (painted Harrods green)


East view down the Thames


Oh and whaduknow...Lola. muffin!


Stay alright, people.

xoxoL