C'est la vie

This weekend can probably best be described as the weekend that should have been. Nothing terrible happened, no grand plans were set awry, just little hiccups all along the way that made me kind of just want it to be Monday and have it all over and done with.

I let myself sleep quite late on Saturday as a reward for not sleeping well all week. I’m not sure why this has been the case. Someone asked if it was because I have a lot on my mind, and for one of the first times in my life, if not the absolute first time, I don’t. I’m on the cusp of leaving this great place and going home, and I’m ok. Everyone at work is asking me what my plans are, and other than a destination and an ideal career goal, I don’t have any. But I’m ok. And though occasionally when I’m asked this I flashback to senior year, and my heart races and I feel the panic threaten to consume me, it goes away a second later, and I’m ok. (And unlike last year I don’t have to restrain myself from clawing the interrogator’s eyes out.) So in conclusion, not sure why I haven’t been sleeping well. But I’m ok.

But on Saturday I got up, got ready, and set out for Hammersmith to return two ill-advised Primark purchases, sans receipt. This meant waiting in a queue to have them tell me to do so I’d have to exchange them for something else, then searching for other items (the easy part), and then queueing again for the fitting room, and again to pay. Once I paid, I was told in a childish “I’m taking my toys and going home” tone that because I didn’t give them a receipt, I wasn’t getting one. This is unfortunate as I bought a turtleneck whose hanger was marked as a 12 (and I know by now not to go by the hangar but I did anyway) but was actually an 18. So next weekend I will have to repeat this all over again.

I should mention Saturday’s weather. It was clear and sunny, warmer than it has been, but still in the 40s and somewhat windy. I let the shining sun fool me while I was dressing, and thus wore a short-sleeved turtleneck and a blazer, with a pashmina and gloves, but no hat. By the time I got to Russell Square with the intention of loitering around Bloomsbury for the remainder of the afternoon, I was freezing. I decided to just get a pizza at my favorite pizza place - a place frequented while staying at the Mentone for summer school - and then hopefully find a sunny spot where I could eat it, and then get on with my day. Ha.

While walking to the pizza place along the Brunswick Centre, previously mentioned in here, some miscreants threw ice from about four flights up down at me and a few others. The height at which it was thrown, and the force at which it crashed on to the pavement in front me, would have almost assuredly meant a trip to the hospital had it hit me. I looked up to see the little bastards laughing, and immediately wished awful, terrible things to befall them. I wanted nothing more than to scream up multiple expletives, ending with some sort of “I bet your mothers secretly hate you!” insult. But despite having the mouth of a sailor too much of the time, something in me simply will not let me shout up multiple storys, in public, words like that. I just rest easy knowing they probably have bad teeth or mullets. (Stereotypes, I know, but I nearly died!)

At this point, I gave up. I went back to my flat, ate my now semi-cold pizza, took a nap, watched a few movies, including “Notting Hill” on BBC4.

Sunday I had higher hopes for. I woke up at 9 refreshed and alert. I read a Bill Bryson book for awhile, made myself an interesting breakfast, entry on that coming tomorrow, and then set out with the intention of going to Covent Garden. I got sidetracked by Waterstone’s and a book I’ve been eyeing since September, newly in paperback and half-priced. This resulted in browsing for an hour because it would be silly to just put £4 on my card! After this I decided I really didn’t want to walk all the way to Covent Garden, that I really just wanted to sit and read and write at Café Nero. I debated this for entirely too long, thinking I shouldn’t waste the time I have left here sitting in a coffee shop. But you know what, a very wise person (coughAshleycough) told me that even if it’s as simple as something like sitting in a Café Nero or eating at EAT, I should do it because in a few months I won’t be able to. So that’s just what I did.

Got in line at Nero craving a warm Panini and a cup of tea, only to discover they didn’t have my favorite kind of Panini. Strike one. Decided to go for a grande cup of tea and a muffin instead, only to realize I had spent my £5 on pizza yesterday and had less than £3 in change. Strike two. One muffin and one impossibly small and over-priced cup of tea later, I settled into one my favorite spots and pulled out my notebook and pen to write. Strike three. No pen! Not only do I always carry pens, I’m a writer, I should have one surgically attached! I’m pretty sure the first thing they teach you in “Being a Writer 101” is to always, always have a pen! I’m in a stationary store, tons of pens lie one floor beneath me, but I sat for an hour – while eating, drinking, and writing, not just thinking – debating if I should just take all my stuff, thus losing my seat, and go buy a pen, or if I should just take my bag and leave my coat and Waterstone’s purchases, make a mad dash to buy a pen and return. In the end I decided, given Britain’s zealous commitment to safety, and tendency to dispatch police cover to any suspicious, abandoned object, which they presumably blow up at some point, to gather my belongings, buy a pen (or in my case multiple pens) and then come back and find another seat.

But before this I made a quick stop to the bathroom, where I proceeded to drop a battery in the toilet. Now this may sound random, but it’s really not. I always carry extra batteries with me for my digital camera. (But apparently not a pen. Maybe writing’s the wrong calling.) Despite the toilet being…clean…I still had to put my hand in a public toilet to fish out a battery that never holds it charge long, and definitely won’t now. And of course the sink in the bathroom was one of those brilliantly designed marvels that only lets water out if you push in on the faucet with one hand, thus not allowing you to form a lather with the soap with both hands, or even really get your hands wet enough as you are also juggling a coat and bags and a purse. Don’t even get me started…

I wrote for awhile, and then decided to make my way to the grocery store to pick up some Super Bowl munchies. What kind of munchies for American football does one buy in London? Well, I bought chips and dip, classic American fare I feel, but then some hummus and pita bread and brie and crackers. And some veggies to offset some of the carbs. What can I say? I’ll be up until 3 or 4 in the morning watching the game, obviously not how it’s done in the States, so it’s ok if my food is a little off as well.

Tune in tomorrow for my Super Bowl recap, and then later for the results of my great biscuit search. And I plan on updating my blog EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. No really, I do. I already have entries for Tuesday through Thursday, the plus-side of having to wait until 11:00 to watch the Super Bowl was that I had lots of time to write. So come back soon!

Pictures from the Bloomsbury Festival now added!

This has been a long, frustrating week and I’m glad it’s nearly over. Hoping I can just make it to Friday where I will crash and not wake up for a long time. Or until Saturday morning when I hope to finally make it to Portobello Road and the market, which I haven’t been to this trip.

On the upside Mom and Aunt LuAnn will be here in a week, and the tickets for Scotland and to see “Sound of Music” are all booked!

I really don’t have anything else exciting to add. Been trying to get into the shows they have on BBC, but not much luck. They have a cheap knock-off version of ANTM with Rachel Hunter called “Make me a Supermodel” but it’s not half as good. There’s a trashy new soap called “Goldplated” that’s sort of like OC, but not. “Strictly Come Dancing” was alright, Baby Spice is on so that’s interesting to see her. And sadly the only American shows they seem to be playing right now are “CSI”, “The Simpsons”, and “Battlestar Gallatica.” But luckily for me this means I spend less time watching tv. And more time doing things and reading.

Speaking of reading, I have no one here to discuss books with so I’m including my mini-reviews of what I’ve read recently just because I can. Feel free to skip over. Not sure what my weekend plans are as of yet. Need to definitely buy a winter coat. I’ve tried on a ton but haven’t found just the right one. And I am definitely going to at least one museum, though I’ve been saying that the whole time. Happy almost-Friday everyone!

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
A beautiful book. The way she writes makes me wants to drop everything and write, and the way she talks about writing is exactly how I feel. It was of course a book tinged with sadness as it deals with her husband’s death and her daughter’s near-death illness, but it was touching without being overly emotional, and there was beauty in how she wrote about herself and her husband. I admire her way of writing because it was very stream of consciousness, a way I can not write, and reminded me a lot of Gloria Vanderbilt’s “A Mother’s Story,” another book about grief I found haunting and beautiful.

Saving Fish from Drowning – Amy Tan
She is a great story-teller, and there were a lot of pieces to her plot but they all came together very well without being confusing or annoying. And best of all it took place in Burma/Myanmar, a place I knew very little of, but know feel like I learned a lot about the culture and want to learn more. A book is good in my mind if I learn about a different culture and want to learn more.

The Third Brother – Nick McDonnell
I judged him too soon, and he is actually deserving of the fact that he’s written two books by 21. Though I haven’t read his first. And while it wouldn’t kill him to learn how to properly transition instead of cheating and making each new scene a new chapter, he writes well and is very creative and different. And while the book is not centered on 9/11, a pivotal scene takes place on the day, and he writes about being in the center of the chaos in New York, in a way I haven’t read before. I don’t know how he knows the details he does, or if they’re even true, but I think they are and it was fascinating to read that portion.

Everyone Worth Knowing – Lauren Weisberger
First, I love chick lit. If it is about rich, elitist New Yorkers, I buy it. If it’s about a small town girl who tries to make it in a big city, I read it. If it takes place in New York, Paris, or London, has anything to do with fashionistas or shopaholics, or has a pink, green, or purple cover, I grab it. But sadly, I think I have reached my chick lit peak. Ten pages into this book I knew who she was going to end up with, when she was going to have her breakdown, and who was going to be the secret villain. And I’m not saying this in a cocky “ooh I’m so smart” way. I’m saying this as someone who has, at least for now, reached the end of the chick lit genre, kind of like that commercial where the guy is surfing the Internet and he reaches the end, he’s seen it all. It is a sad sad day for me indeed.


The Lady and the Unicorn – Tracy Chevalier
This book was only ok. I loved “Girl with a Pearl Earring” and read it in one night, but this one just wasn’t as good. It may be because I had never heard of the art she wrote about, whereas I had always admired the pearl earring painting, I don’t know. It just wasn’t as entrancing. But at least I can say I now know how tapestries are made now.

The only way is jumping

Pictures will be added Tuesday 24/10/06.

While weekends are definitely made sweeter the more tiresome the week is, I really would appreciate them just as much without the loooong work weeks. Nothing bad or out of the ordinary happened, just long and tiring. I think I fell asleep at 9:30 two, possibly three nights this week. I have no idea how I used to stay up all night during college doing work, and still put in a full day of work and classes and hanging out the next day. And as I write this I realize that next month I will have been out of college for six months. Wow that just hit me like a ton of bricks.

Anyway, once again the TimeOut London web site gave me something to do this weekend. Without fail, everytime I check out the site I find something to do. This Saturday it was the Bloomsbury Festival, in, you guessed it, Bloomsbury. More specifically Brunswick Square, less than 100 yards from the Russell Square tube stop, and the neighborhood I stayed when I studied here. I love any excuse that brings me back to this area. As it was the first area of London I ever saw and explored on my own, it will always hold a special place in my heart.

I started off listening to a quartet perform on the main stage, Portico Quartet they were called. They played mellow music with no words. I am terrible at music instruments, but one guy had a cello, one a drum and cymbals, one a long gold brass instrument, and one some metal thing I named a goompa, after the villains in Super Mario Brothers. Yep. I then walked around some of the stalls they had set up, as well as what was billed as Bloomsbury’s first farmer’s market. I bought a cheap beaded bracelet and necklace set at the stalls, an infamous 1.50 Borough Market brownie, and then potatoes and tomatoes at the farmer’s market. I felt very grown up for some reason buying vegetables at a farmer’s market. And then kid-like as I marveled at the purple cauliflower. I would have bought some just because of the way it looked, but it would have been too pretty to eat.

I then made my way across the street to The Brunswick, for an “aerial performance.” The Brunswick is this concrete monstrosity that reminds me more than a little of Davie Hall. It has flats on the top and shops on the bottom. (“With condos on the top, whose rent keeps open our shop…” Sorry, “Rent” break.) Last summer when I was here it had nothing but the tiniest Boots ever, sketchy-looking flats, and temporarily housed my favorite sandwich shop. Now, however, it’s been transformed. It’s still a concrete mess, but is in the process of becoming “Bloomsbury’s high street.” There’s a giant Waitrose supermarket, a cinema, cd store, Superdrug, French Connection and some other higher-end shops, and of course a Starbucks. There are lots of benches in the open-air center and on this day performers and musicians.

Anyway, on one side were performers suspended from wires, doing some type of interpreative artistic dance. It began with a woman wearing angel wings on the very top. The site of this made a little boy behind me start screaming, and kind of scared me a bit too. It’s just surreal to look up and see an angel standing eight stories up on a roof. I’m used to seeing odd things in the city, but not angels on top of shopping centers. Other performers came out then, climbing on the sides and two went down the middle and “danced.” (By the end I swear they were just flailing.) It was interesting, if for no other reason than seeing people come out of the back doors of their flats and seeing people suspended in the air in front of them. I don’t know if they weren’t warned or what, but one lady looked especially intrigued/terrified.

The performance ended and I set off for lunch at my favorite pizza place from last time. For 3 you get a personal pizza and a soft drink, as long as you take it away. So I did just that, and ate it in the shade in Russell Square. Russell Square happens to have one of my favorite fountains ever, which is saying a lot as most of you know fountains are in my top five of favorite things ever. Well they would if I actually had a codified list, which I don’t. I’m anal but not that anal. Yet. Anyway, I like the fountain because there are no barriers, it’s just there, you can walk right up to it and through it. It just feels like a natural part of the landscape, like it springs from the ground, and it wants people to be near it, to enjoy it. It was the first fountain, and I still think the only fountain, I’ve seen in person like this.

After lunch I went back to the festival to join a free walking tour on the history of Bloomsbury. It had started raining by this point, and would continue off and on the rest of the day, but the tour was still enjoyable. It was led by a short, thin British woman, whose name I don’t know, but I named her Jane, because she just seemed like a Jane. She said things like “such a grand old boy” and “blight on our history” and I just found her very British.

But before the tour was officially underway, a short pause while I run into a low-lying tree branch that I swear appeared out of nowhere. I hit it so hard, and it was such a surprise, that after I ran into it, I looked up, saw the branch, and thought, “Hey, a branch, I should move.” Then I realized my teeth had rattled and my head was throbbing. Too late to duck. I think only two people saw me, actually that can’t be true, there were a lot of people behind me, but they did ask if I was ok while trying not to laugh. I wanted to be like, “It’s ok, laugh. Happens all the time.”

Although I must take the time to say this. Just like last time I traveled, I am not as clumsy in this time zone, on this continent, as I am at home. I know no one will believe this, but it’s true. While I occasionally trip on the uneven sidewalks, I barely run into things, never just fall out of nowhere, and I have not once fallen while running up and down the many stairs at work 10 or 15 times a day. And yes, I am knocking on every piece of wood right now and muttering “no jinx no jinx” under my breath.

Anyway, the tour was based on walking the boundaries of where the Foundling Hospital was in the 1600s, and looking at a map from 1769. It had its boring bits, I really didn’t need to know the history of stucco, but as “Jane” was constantly pointing out what original in the neighborhood, I really enjoyed. I literally get chills when seeing a plaque on the sidewalk that’s been there since 1730, or a doorway there since the 1800s, or the window to the room where Charles Dickens wrote “The Pickwick Papers,” even though I’m not even a huge Dickens fan. Jane clearly knew her history and had a love from her neighborhood that made the tour very nice.

I had planned on going to the Foundling Museum after the tour, but it had started to rain and I was tired and my back sore, so I sat at a Pret on Bernard street to read. I then went to Aldwych in search of a cheap store I had seen awhile ago, only to discover it was a “New Look” store on High Holborn. In other words, a store of which there are at least two of on Oxford Street, where I had just been on Friday. It of course was raining hard at this point and I was irritable, tired, and wet, so I cheated and took the tube home instead of walking, and made myself a good meal of a salad with my fresh tomatoes, chicken, and farmer’s market potatoes. The most well-balanced meal I’ve had in awhile.

Sunday was rainy and cold. Church, long lunch with people from church, to the library to stock up on books, and then back to the flat to read, drink tea, and watch BBC. We finally got our tv to get English-speaking channels, with an antenna that means everyone has an ever-present aura, but at least it’s in English. And I have been reading up a storm here, I think three books last week alone. It helps having nothing to do on reception at work. And it’s the best way to unwind after work too.

In general, I’d just like to say I’m happy here. I miss home, but I’m not homesick, I love it here, but still want to try other places. For once, I’m not restless. And it feels great. And Mom and Aunt LuAnn will be here in less than two weeks and I’m so excited I can barely stand it.