Off the Map

London, Cheers!

[Ed. This is the final installment of the English Travel series - other recent posts can be found below. Complete photo galleries can be found at brightside.smugmug.com]

My first experience during a 3 day stay in London involved an unruly dog and a suitcase. My suitcase, to be exact. I had recently stepped off the Piccadilly line at Hammersmith and had begun my search for the nearby flat where I would be staying for 4 nights. This proved more difficult than I had anticipated (I distinctly recall thinking "OK Jason, you can find your way around Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, and travel alone in England - but let me get this straight, you can't follow some SMS directions to a flat that should be 7 min from the subway?"). Wondering where the devil I was, my hostess rung my cell, thus engaging me in involved conversation to determine my current location. While this transpired, a mid-sized dog and owner approached on the sidewalk. The dog, perceptively noting both my inattention to everything except my conversation, as well as my stationary, upright duffelbag, saw his moment of opportunity. He trotted gleefully over to the front of my bag, gracefully lifted a leg, and let loose. This took a moment to set in. I remember looking down at this dog watering my luggage and thinking "Is this really happening?". luckily for me, the old owner was a little more alert, shuffled over with surprising speed and shooed his errant hound away. At this point I was staring in disbelief at my duffelbag whilst my hostess chattered away on the cell phone unaware and the owner apologized profusely while walking away as fast as his old legs would carry him. Welcome to London.

Aside from the fact that the English Pound is worth twice as much as the US Dollar, this unsolicited urination was the only catch during 3 wonderful days in London. It is an amazing city - and I've subsequently added it to the list of places I'd like to live at some time or other (a list which has rapidly expanded during this year in Europe!). All the attributes I associated with London revealed themselves at somepoint during my stay: international/cosmopolitan, business and political hub (evident from the goings on), cultural center, history trove, dynamic, a mesh of the "I say, Cup of Tea?" and "You wanna hit?" England's, and inexhaustibly interesting.

The inevitable question I get at this point in the spiel is "So, Jason, what did you see?". Lucky for you, I took notes. The list is as follows:

• Westminster Abbey
• Parliament
• The Queen's Walk
• Tate Modern
• Shakespeare's Globe
• millennium Bridge
• St. Paul's Cathedral
• Trafalger Square
• St. James' Park
• Piccadilly Circus
• The Largest Private Art Gallery in London (behind the scenes tour)
• China Town
• London Eye
• Saatchi Gallery
• London Bridge
• Tower Bridge
• The Tea wharfs
• Tower of London
• Buckingham Palace
• Regents' Park
• BBC
• Westminster University
• SoHo
• British Museum
• Soccer match (Chelsea Vs. FC Bayern Munchin) in a local pub with my host

This dosn't include shopping (I've found some great underground British HipHop!), all the great ethnic food (I had a Lamb Vindaloo curry so spicy it would fry an egg), and hanging out with my host and hostess (& Co.). My hostess, an aspiring journalist, took me to the largest private art gallery in London, where a good friend from college works building exhibits and selling the pieces. We got a behind the scenes tour of how a gallery takes down and puts up new exhibits, as they were currently in transition. Its a lot of construction work, but with a huge creative drive, making for a rewarding job (and an interesting tour!).

After seeing so much of Europe I found my favorite activities weren't the historical sites, like the bridges, churches or Palace, but rather the galleries and activities. The Tate Modern and Saatchi art galleries were excellently presented, with a plethora of new art of such a quality as to refute common criticisms about worthless, inflated modern art. The London Eye, though expensive, was a lot of fun, and (much like the top of the Eiffel) gives one good perspective as to how the city fits together.

I have a standing invitation to stay with my hosts (23 year old financial analyst, 24 year old accountant, 23 year old journalist) in London again - but this time they've promised to show me their favorite attraction: London's night life . Suffice it to say that I've already been looking at plane tickets...

posted by Jason @ 12:50 pm