Germs Can't Break Me

By the time we had made it over to the British Museum to check in to my next hostel, the Astor Museum, I could tell I was coming down with something. I couldn't properly check in until 2, so we stashed our bags in their luggage room and went wandering for a few hours. There was an exhibit in the British Museum that Kirsten was interested in, so we spent about an hour in there. I was a bit bummed as I thought: in a nearby alternate universe I have just interned here for a year and got to work with one of the biggest skeletal collections in museum world, but I was more bummed that I was sick. After we left the museum we got some lunch and then hit up a pharmacy so I could get some medicine and orange juice. The rest of the day I waited with Kirsten until she had to go catch her train home, and then I tried to take it easy.
All I wanted was to sleep forever, but the first half of the night I was choking on snot, and the second half I had the worst sinus pressure headache of my life. The medicine I'd got that day didn't really help much. I might have got about 3 hours of sleep in the early morning.
I did feel a little bit better after that little bit of sleep, and I did not want to waste a day in London, so I had a shower and breakfast and went out. I decided to check out Regents Park, which is where I always figured I would've gone running if I'd moved there. My first impression of this massive and well-known park was surprisingly not a great one. This was because I entered the park in the Avenue Gardens, which are beautiful, but strange. They're strange because they look nothing like any other English park or garden; they're too prim and proper and structured. The traditional English garden is like a controlled chaos...random flowers jumbled together...obviously planned, but made to look like they were just thrown together. Its funny, because based on everything else about the English, you'd expect their gardens to all look like the Avenue Gardens. My opinion is that parks and gardens are the one place (besides bars) that the English can escape their super structured, emotionally repressive lives and enjoy some disorganized beauty. I also think thats why they're more inclined to sit on the grass, picnic style, instead of on benches and such. English gardens are special places where people can color outside the lines of their regular lives. They're just so pleasant. And once I left the Avenue Gardens area of the park it was much more traditional and I could relax again.

That night I had dinner plans with another archaeology friend. I first met Thea on a dig in Poland 3 summers ago. She lives in Victoria, Canada and just happened to be in London for a couple weeks using a skeletal collection to get data for her master's thesis. She was also about 4 months pregnant, which I thought was convenient given the fact that I shouldn't have been drinking either (had we both been able to drink, we would've thrown down, because thats just what archaeologists do). We met up in Islington, a neighborhood off the Angel tube stop, which was one of my top neighborhood choices for me to live in. I would not have been disappointed there. It had become a major foodie area, and we had a fantastic 2 course French meal for less than 14£ each. I'll say again: the stereotype about there being no good food over here is BULLSHIT. Yes, the majority of this is foreign food and not puddings made out of animal blood, but the point is that if you're not having some truly amazing meals in London then you are doing something very, very wrong. We went to a little cafe for coffee and dessert and ended up talking for hours. Afterwords we decided we should try to do dinner again before we left (she happened to be flying out the same day I was).
Unfortunately it didn't happen the next night...yet again I was kept awake by my face, which felt like it was going to explode, and so Thursday I woke up feeling even worse. All I did that day was spend a little time in Tavistock Square (my new favorite place), happen upon a couple used Evelyn Waugh books in a shop nearby, and get some more food, juice and cold medicine. I had actually got a little inspired to write something myself, and I spent some time writing in a notebook back at the hostel. Its been a long time since I felt like writing any sort of fiction, so I put all my creative efforts into that and kinda let the blog go by the wayside. Worth it though.
I finally managed to get a little more sleep that night, and I was determined to make the best of my last London day.

The Best Monday

First of all, apologies for not doing better at updating this blog...I'm pretty terrible at things like this though...I've probably mentioned that somewhere.
Monday morning Kirsten and I went to the Borough St market, which is full of fresh produce and bread and meet and fish and flowers, but also delicious street food. I tried the best Scotch egg I've ever head (egg wrapped in meat and fried). Then we decided to spend the day in Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens.  We were searching for the Peter Pan statue, which is supposedly where J.M. Barrie used to sit and write. First go through we missed it, so we went and got some lunch to have a bit of a picnic and try again. We eventually found it and sat in the grass next to it and ate. Very British of us.

We took a detour on our way back to Southwark and got off the tube at Covent Garden. The first thing we came upon was a street magic show, which is so amusing that we actually spent a good 20 minutes watching the whole thing. Another point of interest was a temporary, Brazil themed bar with a giant sandbox with palm trees and chairs to simulate a beach. Naturally, as soon as we got our shitty, over-priced cocktails and put our feet in the sand it started to rain, so we decided it was time to head back to the hostel and take a nap in preparation for our night out.
One of the few things I was insistent upon doing on this trip, even if I went alone, was to go to The Savoy. I've been on a 1920's kick the last couple years, and you can't pick up a book from that time period or after without it mentioning The Savoy. It was THE posh place to go for lunch or tea or drinks, or for wealthy people to stay (its a hotel). Afternoon tea would've been a dream, but it started at 50£ and the thought of what that is in dollars forced me to accept that drinks would be the better option. So Kirsten and I went to the American Bar, so named because it was the first American style bar in London. Definitely a London in the 20's landmark.

It definitely lived up to expectations in terms of poshness...the only comparable hotel I've been to was the Ritz Carlton in the Grand Caymans. The American Bar itself was very smart and vintage, but not overdone. Its also considered a jazz bar, so there was live piano for the evening. The drinks were pretty expensive, but amazing, and there was the novelty of it, so I think we both thought it was totally worth it. We also were given unlimited peanuts, snack mix, and olives, and I think we did a decent number on them. I actually enjoyed olives for the first time in my life, which only further proves my hypothesis that nothing can be bad in London. We ended up staying there much longer than we'd initially planned, but it was worth it, because we discovered after the fact that we had been sitting next to Sir Tom Jones for a good part of the night.
After leaving the fanciest place in the city, we went to McDonalds and took our cheeseburgers down the street to the tube and went up to Camden Town, which would be the London equivalent of Underground Atlanta. Yes. Savoy, McDonalds, Scottish brew pub: a glorious/mad progression. I really enjoyed the brew pub though- its called Brewdog and they're based in Scotland, and they make my new favorite IPA. Its called Punk IPA, which I admit is why I tried it, but I loved it. I also smuggled my glass out under my fancy jacket (we were a bit overdressed...I went all out fancy 20's wise for The Savoy).

We got on the tube to go back to the hostel just before midnight, and we ended up having a fairly eventful ride... At the stop after us, a group of maybe 10, 15 young people got on and gave a full on awesome a cappella performance. It wasn't a planned thing, it was just people singing and dancing around for fun that happened to be really good at it. Everyone else in the car gravitated to where they were and got in on the fun. There was one girl wearing a giant sun hat, which she was also using to hide the jug (we'd say "pitcher") of Pimms and lemonade that she was trying to finish through a straw, and I couldn't help but be a little jealous. They ended up getting off at London Bridge with us, and as our hostel was having karaoke night at the bar we tried to get them to come back with us. It turned out most of them were graduating from somewhere in the morning, which is what had prompted their celebration, so they wanted to get to bed. We, however, were now energized and warmed up to sing, so we went to check out karaoke.
We were surprised to find our Australian friends from the night before, Menno and Scott, at the bar, because they had moved to a different hostel, but it turned out they decided to come back to check out karaoke. To make a long story short, we all did multiple songs, including "Ignition," which I ran upstairs to get my sunglass for. Drunk Rachel needs sunglasses to pull off the gangsta vibe. It was a blast, and we closed down the bar about 3 AM. We stayed up hanging out for a quite a while after that, and I hardly got any sleep, which I think played a roll in me waking up with a sore throat in the morning... Thats really what I get for not taking anything to bulk up my immune system for international travel, and for not eating very healthy, and for drinking a lot. This isn't the first time its happened, so you'd think I'd have learned my lesson. We had breakfast and then checked out of our hostel, because Kirsten was going back to Scotland that night, and I had wanted to "live" the rest of my trip in Bloomsbury around where I would've lived if I'd gone to UCL. I'll stick all of that in another post though...

A nice, blurry shot of Menno and Scott at karaoke. They took videos of Kirsten and I, but I am NOT posting them on here...

Lazy Sundays With Friends

First of all, it has been so great hanging out with Kirsten again! We spent the afternoon wandering around South Bank (the south bank of the Thames). We had a really nice lunch at a microbrewery and then worked our way down past the Globe theatre to a random little pub and partook the tradition Pimms Jug, which is a pitcher of Pimms and soda water and a mix of mint, lemons, and cucumber slices (unfortunately no strawberries at this place). Then we took advantage of our reasonably priced hostel bar and made friends with Scott and Menno, two south Australians. Menno came out with Kirsten and I for a nighttime stroll back down to the river where we got some more drinks, but were overall disappointed with the fact that bars were closing at 11PM on Sunday evening. I also magically found a weird chicken restaurant that was open late and got a fried chicken sandwich that came with a hashbrown patty on it. We then had the pleasure of explaining the concept of Waffle House to Menno. We got back to the hostel bar in time to see some live music by a perfectly decent cover duo, and watched a spectacularly adorable drunk couple attempt to do Dirty Dancing style lifts to "Hotel California".
Not a bad way to spend a day at all.
Its now about 7PM the following day, but we're getting ready to go out, so I'll refrain from telling you about today until its actually over. I will however say that I'm in a pub watching rugby on TV and eating fruit snacks while I type. La la la, life is fab...

Tasting at the Brew Wharf

Pimms forever <3

St. Paul's across the Thames

Random musings from Bloomsbury...

Now I'm sitting in Tavistock Square, across from the statue of Ghandi. I wish I was more inspired to write something other than a boring play by play of what I've done since I arrived in London. Every now and then people walk over to the statue and get pictures with Ghandi. Some people have left him flowers. I wonder what he'd think about that? Wealthy old french women, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, taking turns snapping pictures of each other, almost looking bored, like someone is forcing them to do this. I can't help feeling they don't quite uphold his ideals. 

Equal in number to the trickle of tourists through the square are the unusually plump pigeons, who keep waddling up to me, cooing like fat, pigeony motorboats. Fortunately, it doesn't take them long to realize that my lollipop isn't the sort of thing that will give them scraps, and they leave me alone. Except the one that flew over and pooed 2 feet from me on the bench. It looks like he could stand more fiber in this diet. 

Ghandi looks remarkably free of pigeon poo, though. I haven't seen any of them perch on him yet either. Respectful little tossers. I just had a thought for a short story where all members of Parliament get reincarnated as pigeons in their next life. I bet that would make Ghandi chuckle, and I bet he had a cute little chuckle. The reason he has a statue here is because he got his law degree at UCL. I would have been in good alumni company. Viriginia Woolf also used to live in this area. I think the sign said there's a bust of her somewhere around here. The nice thing about Bloomsbury (besides the fantastic 20's scene it boasted) is the fact that its sprinkled with green squares. Very nice for writing. I just wish I was more motivated about it. 

If I have to be really honest about it, its because whenever I think about some sort of fictional story, it has to do with love. And its a great story, but I just know that writing it will make me sad…because it'll be some story that I wish would happen to me, and I know it wont. This isn't anything new- I've realized this for years now, why I can never bring myself to write good fiction. I don't know how Jane Austen did it; all those happy love stories, and never having one in her own life. Since I learned that I've really felt that she is one of the biggest martyrs in all of literature and there should be a holiday commemorating her, or something. She was much braver than I am with writing, thats for damn sure. In Nancy Meyer's The Holiday, Kate Winslet's character refers to people who aren't loved in return as "…the walking wounded- the handicapped without the privilege of a great parking space…" and that really is what it feels like. And quite frankly, I'm tired of feeling that way. Every time I've been in love it has felt more terrible than wonderful. Isn't it supposed to be the greatest thing in the world? Everyone tells me that its everyone else who's messed up, but I mean, the common denominator is me, isn't it? If I've done it right, what are the odds that its always been the other person who ruined things? Am I just the most unlucky person ever, or do I have terrible taste in guys, even when my taste changes over the years? Or is it something I do every time that I haven't been able to discover yet? 

The good news is, I don't feel completely hopeless anymore. I mean, you never know, I could die next year, but in theory I have a lot of time left being alive, and even though I always wanted to meet my someone early on so I could spend more of my time on earth with them, I suppose I've got a decent amount of time before they have to turn up. I'm really not sure if I'm writing this out for my benefit or to prove to everyone that might be reading that I'm not a complete misery or dangerously unstable. The first step in excepting things for me is to laugh about them, and laugh at myself, so thats the reason I say ridiculously self-depricating things. I find it funny. You know, in a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" way. At the same time, a lot of people who understand this also take this to mean that I'm totally ok now, and thats not true either. This was a bad one. It still hurts and its still easier to pretend "it" doesn't exist, though at the same time its satisfying to yell "NOPE" when "it" tries to steal some of my chips and salsa.

I know I said that I wasn't planning on talking about this, and that the point of this blog was London, but its just that for the first time since everything turned black, today feels like I'm back on track with the screenplay that is my life. I am absolutely meant to be sitting here alone looking at a statue of Ghandi. The sun came out just as I starting writing that. It felt like someone smiling at me. By someone I probably mean God. Or the MP's who were allowed to go to Heaven after they lived good lives as pigeons. I won't even pretend to know anymore.

I didn't manage to sleep very much on the plane, but by the time we were an hour from landing I was so excited I didn't feel tired anymore. Getting through customs and getting to central London was easy. There's an expensive but efficient express train from Heathrow to Paddington. Once I got there, I was only 1 stop away from Bayswater and Knotting Hill, which is where I was spending my first night. The family that owns the barn I used to ride at just happened to be renting a home for 10 days there, and they offered me a place to stay. It really did work out perfectly for my first night, because even if I'd got a hotel the checkout time wouldn't have been til after 12, and I had made it there at 10. 

A prefect example of how well I get on with London is how easy it was for me to find this place. When I lived in New York and I'd take the train into the city, even with my GPS on I'd go the wrong direction out of Penn Station almost every time, and it'd take me a few blocks to realize. Here though, I nailed everything on the first go. After loading my Oyster card (unlimited access for a week, zones 1 and 2 for 31£, definitely the way to go), I got on the right line going in the right direction, and then did not take a wrong turn once finding my way from the station to the house. No maps, no nothing- just instinct and remembering where I was supposed to turn from looking it up 2 days before. For some reason I can actually use cardinal directions here. Its baffling. If any of you have navigated cites in the States with me you'll be impressed as well. 

Getting back to it… As you can imagine, any house in Knotting Hill is going to be posh and this was no exception. I camped out a Starbucks, which is incidentally where I made the blog and put up the first post, and then got in touch with Cheryl, my barn mom. They had been shopping at the Portobello Rd market, which was just 2 blocks away from the house. I kinda wish I could've gone, because I've heard its a fun time, but I was a bit done with crowds for the day. She gave me a quick tour of the gorgeous house (apparently owned by a Lord and Lady, who shall remain anonymous) and then since I was wide awake, I decided it'd be best to go out and explore and attempt to stay awake as long as possible so I could adjust to the time change. 

I wandered down Kensington Church St, which is the place to go if you love antiques or interior decorating. Its also where the Churchill Arms is located (touristy pub), and even if you don't go inside its worth taking a look at. Flowers of all colors exploded off every conceivable bit of the store front except the sign. It made me very tempted to pop inside for a drink, but then I had a feeling it would be an extremely overpriced drink, and I didn't even have a book to read. So I thought maybe I'd go looking for a book shop, and not even 5 minutes later, walking down the same road, I come across a used book shop and got myself a new used Agatha Christie novel for 3£. After some more wandering and searching for a less touristy pub, I decided to just go to one I'd passed down the street from the Knotting Hill house. 

Here, at The Prince Edward, I had a couple Tangle Foots, which were by a brewery called Badger, apparently established in 1777, and a truly excellent fish sandwich. If theres one thing the English can do right, it is fry fish. If you are somewhere in England, and there is some sort of fried fish on the menu, you can safely bet its probably the best thing on there. Some sort of fried white fish, tartar sauce and watercress on an artisan roll. And of course, homemade chips. Absolute heaven. I got about halfway through my book and decided to go back to the house. The family was still out, but I had a key. I had the whole house to myself, so I took the opportunity to enjoy being alone for a while. I took a hot bath and then sat in the garden and did my nails. It was cloudy and drizzly, which I thought was perfect for where I was. After I got tired of being soggy though, I decided to enjoy the formal sitting room upstairs. I "played" the grand piano a bit, and then examined the bookshelves. There was a shelf with some remarkably old books, most notably to me a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I couldn't find a date, but due to its dilapidated state and the fact that the illustrations looked hand done and not printed by a press I have a feeling it was very old and very valuable. 

I also found a book on etiquette and manners from the 80's, and sat on the couch reading about how one should host dinner parties until I got drowsy (honestly, couldn't have been more than 20 minutes). I alternated reading Harry Potter and dozing off until the family came home from dinner, and then since the little girl I was sharing a room with was reading a Harry Potter as well we stayed up for a bit reading together. This was frequently marked by her asking questions like "Harry doesn't really get expelled from Hogwarts, does he? He can't, right?". Once I actually wanted to go to sleep though, I stayed up for hours just thinking about random things. Also I'm pretty sure that one of the neighbors had a dog-pig-monkey-bird that kept yowling. Seriously, imagine something that sounds like a dog whining, pig squealing, monkey screeching and bird cawing all at the same time. 

In the morning, the family had to leave by 9:30, and I decided to leave about 9, since the tube would still be fairly empty, and I'd have all my bags again. But before packing I wandered back down Pembridge Rd and got an espresso and croissant from Neros. It was a perfect, early London morning: gray, drizzly and relatively quiet. I can understand why people find that depressing, but its also very relaxing, which is why I like it. Before I left the house I spent some time with Cheryl and her 2 daughters, all of whom I used to ride with. The whole family is nice as could be, and I really hope I'll have the funds to start riding again. Good things with good people is just good. Darcy, the youngest, whom I shared a room with, gave me an unfinished friendship bracelet she'd been working on, and I promised her I'd finish it and wear it. It'll probably look awful, cause I'm rubbish at those things, but special nonetheless. 

Today I am meeting up with my friend Kirstin, whom I met when I lived in New York, and who is currently getting a Masters in archaeology at University Edinburgh. Our hostel is in Southwark, which is the south bank of the Thames. Its by London Bridge and everything though, so its a prime spot if you're doing something touristy. The hostel is a St. Christophers, which is a chain, and generally has good reviews. I was far too early for check in, but I paid for my bed and was told I could get a luggage locker in the back, and use the bar and the bathrooms and such until proper check in at 2. There was a bit of a incident where the receptionist wouldn't believe they were out of lockers and wouldn't let me use the overflow luggage room, so at the moment they might not be getting the best review, but it all worked out in the end. 

I didn't want to hang around the hostel all afternoon waiting for Kirstin, so I got my purse and my laptop bag and just set off back to the London Bridge tube station. I wasn't sure exactly where I would go, but then it just sort of happened that I got on the Northern line going north, got off at Euston, and walked around UCL's campus until I found the archaeology building. It was pretty anticlimactic, but I did stand outside for a few minutes looking around, knowing that in an alternate universe I walked through those doors almost every day and knew the whole Bloomsbury area expertly. There was no point dwelling on it though, or being sad. I made my choice and I am sticking by it.

Pre-Ramble to London

(Written July 4th 6 PM)
Airports are funny places, or "non places" if you want to get philosophical. They exist to move people from one place to another, like a roadway or a bus stop. Granted, most modern airports have developed into miniatures of expertly planned cities: they have restaurants, shops, places of worship, their own security force, and methods of public transportation (that are honestly planned better than most actual cities). But of course, there are no permanent residents. Living in an airport would be a perfectly easy thing to do, but the whole point of them is that you're not meant to stay. 

Except of course, when you have a 3 hour layover in Newark before your transatlantic flight. 

I really want a coffee, but since its already 11PM London time I'd better not do anything to make myself stay up any later than I already will…my flight leaves Newark at 9:10 PM Eastern and arrives at 9:20AM UK time, so I feel as if I should be able to get some sort of reasonable sleep out of this, but the last time I had an overnight flight to Europe I was wide awake the whole time. Fortunately on this trip I will not have to spend an additional 8 hours navigating from Munich to Interlaken, Switzerland on 4 different trains with a 55lb suitcase. Not that I'm complaining about that…on the contrary, its one of my favorite travel memories…I love being in ridiculous situations that make me prove myself. Doesn't everyone? In a weird way? The sense of personal triumph makes humans do all sorts of ridiculous things. 

This trip isn't necessarily about personal triumph though. Its sort of about accepting that this "true love" paradigm might very well be bullshit, and learning to accept that spending your life alone doesn't mean that you really are alone, and that once you accept this, its surprisingly easy to look on the bright side and just enjoy it. 

But I'm really not going to get into that. Because first and foremost, this trip is about LONDON.

London, London London. My favorite city on Earth (so far, anyway). And I don't say this lightly.

From the time that I was about 6 years old and saw Nancy Meyer's The Parent Trap, I had a burning desire to go to England. Finding Harry Potter a few years later just reinforced this, as did the Confessions of a Shopaholic series (and everything else Sophie Kinsella/Madeline Wickham has ever penned), the Georgia Nicholson books, and eventually Agatha Christie. 

For years and years I was desperate to go, and it finally happened when I was 18, on the stereotypical post-high school Eurotrip. You'd think, as did I, that after you build up a place in your mind so much, for so long, it would have to fall short of expectations…but it didn't. London even managed to surpass my expectations. It just…made sense to me. It felt right. One morning I work up at 5AM and couldn't go back to sleep. The sun was just barely coming up, and I decided to hop on a bus and explore by myself. I was staying in Pimlico, and I got on the first bus of the day to come to the stop outside our hostel. I just rode it around for a while, almost entirely alone. I got off near Parliament and just walked. It was so early that the streets were almost entirely deserted, and there was a gray, drizzly morning light. I stopped in a Neros once it opened and had a coffee and watched the rain. Eventually I went down the first tube station I came to and easily figured out how to get back to PImlico. I remember listening to "Hold on True" by O.A.R. over and over again as I was walking around. The whole experience was unremarkable on the surface, but it confirmed everything I'd ever thought about the city: it was mine and I was meant for it.

Naturally I vowed to live there someday, and when I say that I should have I'm not exaggerating: last spring I was accepted to a Masters program at University College London, and was all set to pack up and move to Bloomsbury for a year. But a few months before I got cold feet and declined my position. It would have been terribly expensive, and I was having second thoughts about whether I'd be able to turn Anthropology into a remotely profitable career path. Even looking back on it now, I still feel like I made the right choice. But that was over a year ago now, and I was promised a "trip" to London that never happened, so when my first proper salary job coincided with an excruciating break up, I decided it was definitely time to once again throw a few thousand dollars into Britain's economy. And by "once again" I mean there was a slight incident last time…with Harrods…and how easy it is to ignore the exchange rate…and being 18 with loads of graduation money and savings…

Anyway, this post is to serve as an explanation and a bit of background for what my blog entries on the trip will be about, which as you might guess will be a long winded, occasionally intoxicated ode to my favorite place in the world. I also have this thing where I like to read books in bars, and London is really probably the capital of the universe for this hobby. I'm also going to try to run in Regents Park a few times and maybe try to get strangers to play rugby with me (I did decide it would be ridiculous to bring cleats and a ball though, so we'll see). I will definitely do Harrods one day, with a bit more restraint this time, and maybe see a few touristy things...maybe explore the suburbs, if you will, with my friend Kirstin. But basically, I just want to wander around where I was supposed to live and pretend that I live there. Even though my chosen branch of anthropology is human skeletal remains, the thing that first drew me to the field was my love of inserting myself into local cultures. 

It still doesn't feel real, to be perfectly honest. I've been threatening to just hop on a plane there for ages, but now that I've done it it hasn't quite sunken in…probably because I only booked everything 3 weeks ago and have been too busy to really let myself get excited. But no matter how I feel, the facts are that I will be in London in 10 hours, and it is going to be fantastic. 

*I'll probably reference songs and things a lot, and when I do I'll try to put links up, but I honestly couldn't find anything decent out there for "Hold On True," but you should try to find it and listen on your own, because it really is a nice song.*

 Taken from that morning I explored the city by myself. 2009. Baby Rachel!

One of my favorite pictures ever of myself...in Brighton, not London, but note the David Tennant Doctor Who shoes, poor choice of sundress for a freezing English beach, and short-lived obsession with Jammy Dodgers. This was also post Harrods shopping spree, so they were really all I could afford.