Hmmm. Apparently I am not the only orange person in London, though I do tend to be a bit more animated I hope. Some of these orange people are not telling the truth. London is not small nor is it modestly priced. It is large however, this is true.
So I'm back here again. This is my third trip so far. I was home for 6 days and then off again. I haven’t even completed my blog from the last trip -- no time, because I am… Orange Clove Head, International Traveler.
I was about to start whining about jet lag and never being at home but it occurs to me that this sure as hell beats last year, which I spent at the Houston airport waiting to get to some hot, sticky, republican place like Miami or San Antonio. Austin is in there a little bit too, like a sometimes vowelish y, but I do like weird little Austin (that condo downtown with the deck...remember?).
OK, no more talk of Tex-ass. I am in London. Former capital of the world (or maybe not so former).
I can’t say that I feel like I have remotely made a dent in the place or seen a fraction of what it has to offer, yet the more I am here the more I think this place can really give New York a run for its money…err….pounds... as capital of the world. The people here certainly think so.
So, we’ll cram this whole little segment of my life into this blog called "3 Weeks In London".
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I am sitting in the bathtub at my hotel reading the new shiny sexy Wallpaper Magazine. There is a delightfully wicked article ranking on Vancouver. They describe it as a small fishing village north of Seattle with no good restaurants and a crappy skyline. I did not write this! Really. I am too jet lagged to feel smug or vindicated (well, maybe just a little vindicated).
On my laptop Liane Hansen and puzzle master Will Shortz are chatting away. They’re actually in Washington, DC, but I am listening to them over KCRW from Los Angeles. I might feel very jet-set-ish if I were not so tired.
My flight over was uneventful except that some little girl threw up on the plane, so they brought on paramedics when we landed to make sure she did not have bird flu or Ebola. I don’t think 4 year old girls from Seattle wearing Hello Kitty shoes get Ebola. After we waited on the ground for 20 minutes the paramedics confirmed this too.
Also on the plane I watched Crouching Tiger dubbed into English. That was weird. It was like a whole new movie I had not seen before - even though I have seen the movie 40 times. The translation choices made by the people who wrote the dubbed dialogue were different than those made for the subtitles. Things were different. It made me feel funny. The fighting between the girls was still hot though. Chicks with super powers fighting is the best. I sure miss Buffy.
Much to my horror I ran into an old boyfriend at Heathrow, Eric Rocky. Oh shit. Didn’t I used to sleep with you 14 years ago? Yes, I know you are a retired Microsoft millionaire. Yes, I see you are still skinny. Yes, I see you have all your hair still. Off to Italy? Great. Actually we both pretend we don’t know each other. Get me out of here.
Now that I know how to get around London a bit this trip is so not intimidating. The Heathrow Express train is a good thing. Please note that the Heathrow Express is not a subway – it is a regular fast train that goes back and forth from the airport to Paddington. There is no way to get lost and end up in Scotland or Paris.
My hotel is just like it was before, except that the doorman recognized me and they put me on a higher floor with an amazing view of Hyde Park, the Post Office Tower, The City, Canary Wharf, and the London Eye.
The Park and The Eye
The Post Office Tower
The City (with winking Gherkin)
Canary Wharf and The Eye
Damn, I am tired. With apologies and credit to William Gibson, I do feel like most of my soul is stuck in Seattle. Currently it is streched thin between London and home. See?
In a day or two it will snap back all the way to my body and I won’t be tired or grumpy. Until then I will be bitter and filled with hate.
What am I saying? I am always bitter and filled with hate.
I need sleep.
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Tonight I went out to dinner with several of my work cohorts. We had Lebanese food. Not Lesbianese food, you perv --Lebanese food. In America we call this Middle Eastern Food. God, this was good. Thick perfect houmous with little chunks of lamb in it, minty tabouli, grilled lamb and chicken, and the most amazing halloumi I have ever tasted. As you should have learned from Nigella Lawson, halloumi is a Mozzarella textured cheese that is a mix of goat's and sheep' milk. A little like feta actually. Normally it is grilled in a dry pan, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and maybe some chilies. When I have made this at home it’s just hard and rubbery. Here is it fluffy and bouncy and really, really good.
I have noticed that service in England is bad. These mafia-looking guys in suits all walk around ignoring you and talking in some foreign language. Sometimes they take your order, sometimes they bring food. Mostly they just tell jokes to each other.
Lisa called me at 1am on my cell phone to ask when my birthday was. It’s hard to get mad at someone when they are trying to remember your birthday but I will get even.
As I type this, I am in some suburb between Liverpool and Manchester in Northern England. I am at a Holiday Inn without internet access. My bathroom is larger than my entire hotel room in London.
Driving up here on the M6, I got to see a lot of England. Birmingham has a nice skyline.
Most of England looks like one big golf course, punctuated by the occasional nuclear cooling tower.
I think they use sheep to mow the lawn at this giant golf course of a county.
As we get closer to Liverpool and Manchester, I realize this is just one big maze of freeways. We are so in the suburbs -- except these miles of office parks are made up to look like quaint little English villages. Seriously, this is suburban hell. I just read that within 50 miles of Manchester there are 11 million people. That is bigger than Chicago.
Tonight we had dinner at this Chinese restaurant that the M&S people always come to up here. The people in London kept kidding and saying we were going to eat Northern Chinese food. Nope, longitude aside, this was all Cantonese. And it was great. Wonderful little deep fried appetizers, hot and sour soup, pork in a bird's nest of noodles, perfectly cooked chicken in a not too sweet and sour sauce, carved vegetables a la Eat Drink Man Woman. I have never had normal tacky Cantonese this good before.
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I wake up to news of Bird Flu in the UK! Media Crisis! Media Crisis!. Live coverage on all channels from a little town in Scotland called Cellar-Dyke (get your mind off that Lebanese food, pervert).
BBC and SkyNews tell me that a swan died of the flu. The poor bird got infected by some snotty French bird. Soon we shall all die, too, from bird flu. The media is in a tizzy. Although, I do not think there is a single TV helicopter in this entire nation, so it’s a little hard to take this seriously if they are not going to fly around and show live shots of the barn from the air for hours on end.
Ignoring the pending flying apocalypse, we get up, eat the standard British breakfast of poached eggs, potatoes, Canadian bacon, baked beans, mushrooms, and cooked whole tomatoes. These people eat beans for breakfast. No wonder that French bird tried to infect everyone here.
We drive around to visit stores, enjoying the views of the cooling towers and golf courses, then head to some little fake suburb called Cthulhu or something for Italian food. Those same mafia waiters from London work here too.
The next day I am not dead yet, of the bird flu, but not that the TV stations would lead me to believe. Apparently it’s the end of the world.
Mark is scheduled to get into London tonight. He’s staying at the hotel there and I’ll meet up with him on Thursday. I wonder if he didn’t come because of the Bird Flu.
I notice that I have some weird growth coming out of the side of my neck. It's like some weird little extension of skin. It’s kind of long. I wonder if this is a symptom of the Bird Flu – will I grow some kind of turkey waddle thing before I die?
Actually it doesn't really look like a waddle at all. Not sure what it reminds me of.
As we head out for another fun-filled day on the freeways built around nuclear cooling towers, I see this sign in the parking lot of the hotel.
I am just speechless. Where is Gloria Steinem when you need her? Probably up in Cellar-Dyke.
More driving around, visiting call centers and such today. I cannot understand what anyone is saying. This northern English accent is a little like Scottish. We brought along this guy named Steve (pronounced Staiyvf) who grew up here so he could translate, but I cannot understand him either.
Finally we head back into London. Traffic is bad so we get off the freeway and drive around the outskirts of Birmingham for a little while. Meadows, sheep, rock walls, little castles, etc.
It’s so perfect it just has to be contrived and artificial. I think I am suffering from the Orlando Syndrome.
Finally we get back to London, well within the M25 at least, and we are dumped at that Tube station way out in Bumfuckshire. Another non-scary tube ride. Soon I meet Mark at the hotel. He’s spent the day reading in Hyde Park surrounded by daffodils. We walk over to Queensway and have dinner at an Indian restaurant. Those mafia waiter guys work here too.
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I am up early, out to the suburbs to work, but then I play hooky at noon so Mark and I can spend some time together. We walk though Hyde Park and end up over at Harrods.
I am sorry, but Harrods really does remind me of that crappy flagship Macy’s store in Manhattan.
It’s a bunch or smallish rooms that you wind through like at Ikea. Much of the carpet is fraying and is held down by duct tape. The food floor is amazing, and we have really good cheese and champagne there, but then we stumble upon the Princess Diana shrine. Pictures of the doomed couple and a dirty wine glass they drank out of that final night. There is bad fake Egyptian stuff all over the walls. We have moved from Orlando to Las Vegas now. I buy some DVDs. A collection of early Almodovar films and a Spanish vampire movie called Cronos that is hard to find at home.
Tonight I take Mark out for Lebanese. Same great food, same mafia waiters, different restaurant.
Back at the hotel we watch this TV show on Channel 4 called Green Wing. This is the funniest thing I have ever seen. In my entire life. Ever. Turns out that series 1 is starting on BBC America in May. Watch this show! It is the funniest thing you will ever see, in your entire life. Ever.
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Finally it is Saturday. I have a whole day off and I can be a real tourist. We start off walking up the park to get to Oxford St. We pop into the big flagship M&S store at Marble Arch for a scone and latte. The scone actually did not taste like sawdust, which I find odd as I thought sawdust was a key ingredient in scones. We walk around the store for a while. For a flagship store, Marble Arch could use a bit of work. It's kind of beat up, like Harrods.
Across the street is Selfridges. Selfridges is not beat up. This is a department store, maybe the department store. Super cool orange mannequins in the windows. Gotta love the orange people!
Very young hip people work here. Many of them squirt perfume on you when you walk in. This is where they invented that. I was going to buy a watch but they were all around 3000 pounds. Nigella has her own section here.
A bit more shopping on Oxford St then we take the tube to The City. “The City” is the oldest part of London. It's where the Romans first set up shop. Now it’s the financial district – like Wall Street. I want to see some of the buildings here. First is the NatWest Tower.
I first became aware of this building from music videos in the early 1980s. I’ve had a crush on it for 25 years and now I am right here. It is so weird that I am actually here. I walk up and kiss it.
Next is the Lloyds of London building.
This is another famous building that I have wanted to see for years. It's kind of Pompidou-like – all the conduit and pipes are on the outside. I walk up and kiss it.
I mention to Mark that we have to see the Gherkin and then I gasp. Right as I say that we turn the corner and there it is.
Seems like this should be kind of tacky or silly, but it works. I really like this building a lot. I walk up and kiss it. And I lick it, too.
After a while we walk over the London Bridge and come down into this great market. Food stands, homemade honey, hippies, you know the drill. There are a lot of people out as it’s the first real day of spring here. We eat some souvlakis and some pastries with rosemary and tomatoes in them.
As we walk along the river we see the Globe Theatre, this old prison call The Clink, and a wine museum. There is a pack of boys from Portugal who are near us as we walk by a restaurant called Wagamama. This is the funniest thing they have even seen and they cannot stop saying Wagamama now. For about 4 blocks they walk along with us screaming, "Wagamama!, Wamamama! WA GA MA MA!!"
Self explanatory:
We go to the Tate Modern museum. Lots of famous art here and a pretty cool building. It’s an old power station.
This is fun and interesting but I don’t think New York has to worry about competition from London on the museum front.
As we walk through this exhibit of styrofoam cubes I hear a woman saying "God damn ecological menace!"
We walk around on the Millennium Bridge and then head down to the London Eye.
I would have loved to do this but the line was way too long. I have noticed since I got here that the London Eye does not really seem to move. Ever. I wonder if the same people have been in those little pods since the turn of the century. That would explain the line to get in.
We cross back over the river and see the buildings of Parliament and Big Ben. This is a bit surreal. Orlando Syndrome again.
We walk through St. James Park up to Buckingham Palace. I think she is in there, Her Hiney -- you can tell because the flag is up.
Finally our feet hurt so we take a cab back to the hotel.
Before dinner we go to Soho to shop for watches on Carnaby Street. We are walking down this busy shopping street when suddenly Mark stops and sniffs the air. I am concerned. He looks at me and smiles. “I smell Lush!” Sure enough within a block there is a Lush store.
All is right in the world. We do not go in to ask how the Bellevue store is doing.
At a store called Storm I find a very cool square watch.
We walk around looking for a place to have dinner. We walk and walk. Look, there is the BBC! Soon we are lost. Really lost. Finally we find this street with lots of restaurants on it. We decide on a tapas place. After a while we realize this is the TGI Fridays of tapas, but the food is not terrible and the mafia waiters are not here.
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The next day we are off to the British Museum. The museum itself is an amazing space. They built a glass canopy over the old buildings so there is a huge expanse covered in glass over what used to be outside. The collection is what you would expect. Old things.
We see the Rosetta Stone, mummies, Greek statues, basically everything and anything the British could pillage from the world.
Rosetta Stone
Egyptian stuff
More Egyptian stuff
Nice
Nice
Nice
It’s a little creepy here. Plunder the world and bring it home to show off. Sounds familiar. They taught us well.
I don’t like the way the mummies are treated. Some of them have been ripped open and legs bones are sticking out as tourists gawk. This is someone’s dead mother and Japanese children are photographing her leg bones.
Later as we walk around the city some more, I note that even British culture in now being subsumed to the large American menace they helped to foster. References to Santa instead of Father Christmas, cans of Red Bull instead of tins of Red Bull, people saying skedule instead of shedule. The Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street sells mainly American DVDs. This is what you get if you don’t respect the leg bones.
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So Mark heads home and I have a long week at work. Slowly, carefully I start to take the Tube more and more. First just one stop, from Marble Arch to Lancaster Gate. Very scary. Then two stops, Lancaster Gate to Oxford Circus. Then I transfer from one line to another, Bakerloo to the Central Line. Then I take the Tube at rush hour, all packed in like a Japanese sardine. I do not feel like myself -- it's like driving a stick or dancing, or god forbid playing golf. I just do not do this. Who am I?
I have just not been dealing with that small head growing out of the side of my neck. Finally I just pull it out and set it free.
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After two weeks all I want to do is go home, see my cats, see my tulips, listen to NPR and have access to 400 TV channels.
I spend the the entire flight home trying to avoid Kathie Lindemann, a VP at the mermaid that I used to work for. I am sure she sees me but she has pity on me and does not try to make contact.
I get home on a Friday and turn around and go back the next Friday. My tulips have come and gone and I wake up at 1am everyday. The cats are glad to see me and decide I must have a tongue bath at all times while I am home.
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So now it's a few days later and I am headed back to London again. I run into Andrew Redeway, a mermaid person I worked with years ago. He did not know that I was no longer there. He’s going to London to see some family that lives there. That explains his teeth.
I have seen all the movies on the plane 4 times now. I pop some melatonin, some Benadryl, and drink some wine. Soon I am snoring and drooling. I am not asleep, but it's fun to annoy the people around me. I used to think a 5 hour flight to Maui was hard. Now I am getting used to these transpolar jaunts.
Blah, blah, land at Heathrow, get through customs, take the train in. Blah, blah.
I could not get into the Royal Lancaster this time so I booked at the Quality Crown right next to Paddington Station. It’s a great location and is cheap.
The French man at the front desk is mean to me. Oui, you did request a king size bed on the top floor, but you will get a small bed on the bottom floor for the same price and you will like it! I stumble into the room and crash into the bed. This is by far the smallest hotel room I have ever had.
I cannot figure out how to turn on the lights. The switches do not do anything. I sit in the dark and whimper for a while. I am not going to ask that French jacque-ass at the front desk for help. In the back of my head I know I should know how to do this. Finally after 15 minutes in the dark I remember seeing something on the Travel Channel about how you have to insert your room key into a special slot in the wall in order to turn on the power in these third world countries. Voila! Lights!
Soon I fall asleep. I am really zonked out but I am awoken by an earthquake. No they don’t have those here…an airplane landing on my ceiling?....no, that can’t be...SANDWORMS! There are Sandworms eating the hotel!!!
As I become more awake I realize that it’s unlikely my room is being eaten by sandworms. It takes me a while to figure out, but then I realize it’s the subway. The Tube runs right under my building, right under my bed. Every train loudly shakes my bed. This is going to be a fun week. I really hate that French guy at the front desk.
Tonight I head up the street looking for some food I can just take back to my hotel. I find this little Lebanese restaurant called Fatuch. I order some grilled lamb, some tabouli, and some houmous. The owner realizes I am American from my accent and then suddenly seems to be really happy that I am willing to eat his food. I was afraid he thought I hated him because he is an Arab. He was afraid I thought I hated him because I am American.. wait...whatever...we are both happy we don’t hate each other. He gives me free coffee and dessert while I am waiting and I give him a big tip.
Full of good food I crash early as the sandworms munch on…
The next night I am at a nearby pub with some coworkers. There is a soccer game on and everyone is really into it. I keep making loud drunker comments like “Did they just make a touchdown?” or “Is that a home run?” and I explain how much I liked tether ball as a child. No one finds me humorous.
A bus full of young children pulls up. They all come in the pub. They seem to be a tour group. They all look hip and middle class. They are here for the food! Why on earth would a bunch of British kids come to a smoky pub in London for food? Turns out they are not British. They are Russian. This is some sort of bizarre cultural exchange like Ricky Martin. They eat their sausages and mash and all get back on the bus.
My work week is long and difficult. Politics and personalities. They want me to stay one more day but I cannot get my flight changed so I get to come home. I am really ready to go home.
Its not that I don't like it here. The people are mostly polite here in England. It’s a weird polite I think they have developed to be able to live in such a cramped giant city. They are also very direct here which just pushes all my passive aggressive Pacific Northwest buttons. They also jaywalk and do u-turns here which makes my head explode. I need to leave.
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Back at Heathrow I am having a glass of wine and a really good Panini sandwich. I am depressed. I don’t think I am cut out for this job. I don’t want to be a consultant. I don’t want to be Lead Technical Program Manager. I know what I want. I want to be a hat check clerk at an ice rink in Maui.
I thought about Hawaii a lot this last week. My birthday is coming up and this will be the first time in many years that I have not been in Hawaii for it. Something is wrong with this picture. I need to fix this.
Everyone here jets off to Spain or Portugal for holidays. Long trips are to Madagascar or Egypt. Many people are fascinated with Canada for some annoying reason. They don’t believe in Hawaii – it’s a mythic place that exists only in the movies. I offer up I went three times last year and am met with suspicion. They ask, "Did you go to Avalon and Shangri-La last year too Troy?"
I am all sad and depressed then a miracle happens. I pick up a copy of The Independent and flip through the pages. Suddenly I find that Helen Fielding is publishing brand new weekly installments of Bridget Jones Diary! vg! vg! vg! She’s all preggers and not married to Mr. Darcy! Sorry for the spoiler. v funny! Especially the interaction with her mother.
Switch to vodka and put Chaka Kahn on iPod in honor of Ms. Jones. Not in such a bad mood now but am unable to stop writing like Bridget. vg. Must go buy cheese and try to find poofy scarf before I leave.
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Flight home is fine. Same movies as before. Of course I run into some other person from the mermaid in customs, Bill Winkleman, the Starbucks Card guy. He had a similar experience to me there. Standing in line in customs I decided I must book a trip to Hawaii this week or I will die.
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Well, it's done. Booked November 4 – 11, house in Kailua with a pool.
As I type this I hear Belle & Sebastian are sill tuning table at Marks and Spencer. It’s my birthday weekend and my soul has come slamming back to my body from London. I am so glad to be home. I had drinks with some of my best friends from the mermaid on Friday night. They are moderatly fond of me. That was nice.
Saturday Mark took me to a fantastic dinner at the Palace Kitchen. Martinis and ravioli to start, then arugula salad (not rocket) and Yakima Chardonnay. For and entrée I had this perfect duck breast with asparagus and fried gnocchi. We has a very cute lesbian waitress who was not mafia like at all. She gave us free dessert. Then we went to the Paramount for an evening with Julia Sweeny and Ira Glass espousing the joys of atheism to a packed theatre. They were preaching to the choir of course. I love my NPR listening-godless-non republican-vanilla flavored little city.
Sunday I started off with Liane Hansen and Will Shortz . Then off to Swanson’s to buy greatly overpriced heirloom tomatoes. Then an amazing dinner at Lark with Mark and Lynnette.
Today I slept in, went to the gym, and played in my yard. Yes my yard, not my garden. And yes I am growing Oregano and Basil, both pronounced the American way.
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