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...
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Castles and the High Life
Supposedly the best castle in England open for visitation,
Warwick doesn't disappoint. Just don't expect
Minas Tirth.
Scrambling up claustrophobic stairs to amazingly high tower tops lined with archer-slits, strolling down massive battlements, fighting for a strong stomach while exploring the dungeon and torture chamber (equipment still present), investigating the gate-house defenses and machinery, watching a classically trained archer let loose 20 arrows a minute on a 14th Century mid-sized bow, learning how a full suit of armor is donned, watching trained eagles, falcons and owls show off over the castle grounds and indulging your childhood medieval fantasies - these are the lure of Warwick Castle.
4 hours later (yes, you can easily spend 4 hours there) I caught a train to Oxford where I was picked up by 3 English Uni-students in a new Mini. I had met one back in Regensburg thru a mutual business course - so when she heard I'd be in her country over our break, she excitedly set up a meeting. I ended up spending the next 3 days with her and her 2 friends, all students at York University. The bulk of it was in Nottingham, the very town Robin Hood terrorized in days of old.
Nottingham was a heavily industrialized town until the 1980/90's, when globalization and improved efficiency moved the textile and weapon factories abroad. Since then its been notorious for high unemployment and subsequently a high crime rate. But in the last 5 years something has shifted: smart planning, marketing and petitioning is casting Nottingham as a young and vibrant town good for shopping, clubbing, and generally living it up. This has brought in a slew of redevelopment projects to tear down some of the very ugly industrial buildings, inserting new glass/steel info and tech companies in their place; put hip flats in old factories (like LoDo in Denver); and clean up the run-down mess that was many a neighborhood. Has it been successful? Though my stay was short, I would say yes. I was impressed with the downtown redevelopment and plethora of shops, clubs and bars. I stayed in one of those renovated factory flats, which was rather
pimp. Perhaps most importantly, I felt just as safe as anywhere else in England.
I must admit that my positive vibes stem partly from the lifestyle we maintained that weekend:
The High Life. Living in an expensive, well decorated apartment in the heart of downtown (with a killer sound system!). Driving around in a Mini, eating great food (we cooked all but 1 meal ourselves, but went all out with nice dinners, picnics in parks, and even a rooftop BBQ), drinking great beer, listening to great music, watching DVD's on a big screen surround sound system, lounging around town in shops and clubs, and enjoying the company of funny/intelligent/affable people. Does it get much better?
More kerns than you could shake a spear at
Ah, who can't help but recall hours spent trying to decipher Shakespearean vocabulary and syntax at the hands of oppressive high school English teachers?
Though I felt abused at the time, I've since grown rather fond of the man (I just read "
Love' Labour's Lost" on the trains and plane back to Regensburg, where I'll reside until further notice). Just as well too, as I met up with a good English friend of mine in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace (and home for much of his life).
The town was very relaxed, with a very pleasant atmosphere. Pedestrian friendly roads lined with scores of small boutiques: I felt like I walked into the love child of the Pearl Street Mall and Estes Park, had the two been English, perpetually rained on, not had any mountains, and ... Ok, so its a bit of a stretch.
But I always maintain that meeting up with friends in foreign cities is a wonderful, bonding and world-shrinking experience - an opinion easily reconfirmed that day. We had a jolly good time investigating the many tributes to Shakespeare, perusing the shops, eating hearty pub food, and debating over my first English cream tea (black tea to your preference, with a fresh-baked scone spread with butter, fruit preserve, cotted cream, and a small cake on the side).
At this point in the trip I had averaged 1 conversation in German per day. I was amazed, but shouldn't have been surprised, at the number of Germans I bumped into on my Anglo-Island travels. Oft when I bump into random Germans in Germany they attempt to speak English with me (thinking they are being nice, or trying to improve their abilities) - such was not the case in England. After having to communicate in English the full duration of their trips, I found the Germans to be rather excited, even a touch relieved, to lapse into the mother tongue.
