Getting good at taking the bus

Last Friday I was listening to the news as I was getting ready for work. A segment that you’d only find in Britain was showing - the garden bird survey. The newscaster, binoculars slung about his neck, was reporting on which birds have had a good year this year. They then cut to a camera called the Bird Cam that was perpetually focused on a birdfeeder. However, this being live television, no birds were actually on it. Keep in mind this is a prime tv time slot when millions of people are tuning in. Well, at least everyone will be in the know, aviarily speaking. (I just made that word up.)

Ta = thank you

So there I am sitting at my desk eating carrots, the regular kind not baby carrots, and I take this one bite that sounds as if I was standing at the Grand Canyon with a microphone at my mouth; the sound was so loud and echoed for so long that it felt like everyone stopped what they were doing to look around and wonder who the idiot was who was responsible for the disruption.

I have been getting lost every day. I don’t plan for this; it’s not like I’m deliberately seeking out strange neighborhoods and going up and down back alleys. For example, I went to find the other library branch at lunch on Friday and was lost for 30 minutes. I’m telling you, it REALLY doesn’t help matters when one street suddenly turns into another street just because there’s a traffic light.

G (on the phone): “Hey Mum, it’s me. Are we dancing tonight?”

What country is it again that produces really tall women who also wear hideous red shoes and carry hideous red purses in the shape of lips? Denmark? Sweden?

Saturday I went to the Portobello Market in Notting Hill (this is the market that Hugh walks through in the movie). It was, hands down, the best market I’ve ever been to. The stalls sold everything from old antiques (as opposed to new antiques) to fruits and vegetables to handmade bags to vintage clothing and pretty much everything in between. I never realized that I am obsessed with bags, but walking through that market made me realize that I’ll be coming home with at least three more bags than I came with. The market also secured my decision to stay in Notting Hill for the duration of my stay in London. It’s a wonderful little neighborhood with a friendly, cottage-y atmosphere. I’m definitely not doing it justice…the feeling you get when you walk down the narrow streets with a garden on one side and cozy flats on the other all flanked by coffee shops, bakeries, florists and bookshops is something you have to experience to fully understand what I mean by the trite description of “cottage-y.”

I ordered a falafel from a vegetarian stand at the market and, as the first meal I’ve bought in London, it was absolutely delicious. Just like the Falafel King in Downtown Crossing, the man gave me a falafel ball to eat while I waited. Heavenly…

So I’m walking to the Tube station in my neighborhood Friday night and I hear this siren going off. Given that I’m new here and I can’t really tell the difference between a police siren and a car alarm, I ignore it and keep walking. But then I see a group of about 10 teenage boys run out from McDonalds, most wearing some kind of scarf or handkerchief on their face. Everyone on the street, including me, is just staring at this asking themselves, “Is this really happening?” I’ve never witnessed a robbery before and I guess I liked to think that if there were something I could do to help stop it, I would; I wanted to be different than all those people in Chicago who just stood around and stared while I shouted for someone to help stop the guy that robbed ME. But in the end I decided that it would be quite stupid of me to take on a group of 10 in order to help McDonalds get back the $300 or so that they lost. I’m a bad person.

When I went to Sydney I was sad to learn that their culture isn’t really a “bagel culture.” Being Jewish, this took me a long time to get used to. I am happy to report that bagels are plentiful in London.

I learned the hard way that when you want a bus to stop and pick you up, you have to signal for it or else it’ll keep on driving right past you even though you’ve been waiting out in the cold for 15 minutes and it’ll be another 15 minutes before another one comes along.

In my mind, everything stops around 3 pm in London. No matter what you’re doing - walking the dog, eating green beans, creating a pivot table - when 3 o’clock rolls around, you drop everything to drink a cup of tea. Not only do you do this mid-afternoon, but you also start your day off with a cup and finish your dinner with another one. Of course, also in my mind unicorns gallop, I’m 5’6”, and I actually went to the Massachusetts All-State trumpet audition in 10th grade instead of feigning illness. But alas, much like these things, it’s just not true. It is just as much a coffee culture here as it is in America. Sure, there aren’t Starbucks literally right across the street from other Starbucks, but I’m thinking that’s just because they don’t yet realize that you can do that.

I passed by a pub called ‘Old English Gentlemen’ and there were, in fact, two old English gentlemen sitting at a table drinking beer. It was 1:15 pm. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

The crutches people use here are the ones with the gray arm cuffs. I guess they just have a deeper respect for their armpits than we do. Personally, I’d be bummed about having to use those crutches; one of the perks of breaking your leg (okay, maybe the ONLY perk) is getting to use the fun wooden crutches that let you rest your body weight on them when you’re tired of hobbling.

Continuing on my museum kick, I went to the Tate Modern last week. I like art. I do. And while I can appreciate that there’s a deeper meaning behind a painting that is simply a canvas painted all black, I certainly don’t feel the need to spend more than 3 seconds looking at it. A rainbow isn’t suddenly going to appear out of the black nor am I going to have a life epiphany just because I’m staring at it. And because of that, I was only in the 5 storied-museum for about an hour and a half (25 minutes of which was spent figuring out which floor the stairs led to and which floor the escalator led to, and no, the answer is not the same). This is not to say it’s not a great modern art museum; to the contrary, it’s filled with pieces by Picasso, Miro, Rothko, Pollock, Bracques, and Hockney, to name a few. I guess I’ll just never be able to go to a modern art museum without the thought “I could do that” crossing my mind.

The current in the Thames must be about 80 miles per hour. Seriously. If you fell in, you’re pretty much a goner. That is one river I wouldn’t want to row on.

Seeing as how I’m so much closer to Europe than I was a week ago, I’ve decided that I’m going to travel as much as I can while I’m here. I mentioned to SR that I would love to go to Barcelona for a weekend. He was very excited for me and told me what a wonderful city it is to visit. But in telling me about his past travels there, he happened to mention that somebody in his party got robbed each time they went. I don’t think he realized until after he said this and I gaped back at him in disbelief that he had made me a little more than…concerned. Looks like I’ll just have to bring my gun with me when I go.

I dare anyone to shop for a plate on a London street and find one that DOESN’T have a picture of either Princess Diana or Prince William on it.

I asked S if the Tube went to the city airports, not just Heathrow, since I didn’t want to have to take a taxi. Having only known me for a week and thus not knowing my propensity to go to the extreme just to save a buck, she immediately interpreted this as an aversion and insult to taxi drivers. All of a sudden she got on the defensive, appeared hurt and asked, “What do you have against taking a taxi? My husband’s a taxi driver.” That’s when the backpeddling started and I had to explain how I’m one of the cheapest people she’ll ever meet (I said it in a less self-debasing way). But she’s absolutely right; taxi drivers here aren’t like taxi drivers in say, New York. (Here’s where I stereotype to make a point.)
Taxi drivers in New York: smell of body odor, don’t speak English, talk on Blue Tooth (so you think they’re talking to you but really they’re talking to someone else who happens to be awake at 2:30 in the morning), are sleazily dressed
Taxi drivers in London: polite, British, well-dressed, congenial, look like “a dad”

On the bus to another museum, I passed by this wall surrounding what looked to be yet another garden. Mounted on top of the wall were video cameras, barbed wire, and huge spikes. Putting two and two together, I realized this probably wasn’t just another park in England. (Since I’m ridiculously smart and my common sense skills are off the chart, this was actually the case – it was Buckingham Palace, or Buckinghuge Palace as Glenn likes to say.) But the funny part about this wall is that there were signs on it that read something about how it was a federal offense to trespass on the property citing the “Serious Organized Crime and Police Act of 2005,” which is very different than the “Not-So-Serious Organized Crime and Police Act of 2005” which hasn’t been enforced all that strongly.

Noodle Noodle sounded like a much better restaurant when I thought the sign said Noodle Doodle.

Happy belated Australia Day!

Hump Day

The cost of groceries in downtown London is surprisingly affordable. I figured I’d pay at least $8 for a banana. It was nice to find that the bunch only cost me around $2. But may I suggest staying away from macaroni and cheese in a can. It’s about as good as it sounds.

No less than two emails were sent to the office today saying that there were after-New-Years cakes in the work area for all to enjoy. What is eerie is that a) even though they referred to two different desks with cakes on them, the emails were sent within 10 minutes of each other b) they both mention cakes specifically (even though the table I saw clearly had other non-cake items on it like grapes and cheese spreads) and c) a 2008 New Years dietary lapse was alluded to in both emails.

You wanna see something confusing and not at all user friendly? Take a gander at the London bus map.

Assumed is pronounced ‘ashoomed.’
When I hear this word I immediately stop listening to what is being said and think of shoes.

One thing I had forgotten about foreign subway walkway tunnels is the high concentration of bills that are posted on the walls. It’s just non-stop advertising down there – books, movies, banks, subway crime (ANTI-subway crime rather), musicals, Oyster cards (like T passes), etc. It’s definitely a good thing for people like me who are easily distracted. My favorite poster so far was the one of some new Joaquin Phoenix movie; someone (a female I presume) had kissed the glass over the poster right where Joaquin’s cheek was, leaving a perfect lipstick mark. Now THAT, my friends, is dedication to the OhMyGodJoaquinPhoenixIsJustSoDreamy cause. I’m not even sure I’d kiss a public poster of Pierce. And you know how much I adore him.

I think it’s an unwritten rule that if you are playing an instrument for money in the London Underground you are required to play a Beatles song. Except for that awesome guitar player who was singing the theme song to Scrubs. That made my day. (I’m no Superman.)

This week I was reminded how nice it is to take public transportation to work and have a set time each day for reading. Since I walk to work in Boston, I hadn’t had this privilege in quite some time. I actually kind of wish my commute were longer than it is. Kind of.

Tonight I went to the National Gallery. One wing was closed off and so it seemed a little small, but I still got to see some big names – Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Gaugin, Seurat, Cezanne, Picasso, and Pisarro. The one Vermeer they had that I was excited about seeing was in the closed-off section. But the wing is only closed on Wednesdays (due to some beef they have with the government – the museum, not Vermeer) so I’ll just have to go back some other day to see it. There were a LOT of Jesus paintings. I kinda skimmed through those rooms. There’s only so many paintings of Jesus on a cross this little Jew can look at in an hour (this number is more than 0 and less than 2). Despite this, I had a great time walking around looking at the paintings, looking at people looking at the paintings, smiling at and making eye contact with the room guards who everyone else was oblivious to, listening to the saxophone quartet giving a concert, debating whether or not I should get that postcard of the Seurat painting, but most of all, leaning over the shoulders of the drawing class students trying to recreate paintings from the 18th century. I don’t know what it is about watching someone sketch that I find so comforting and stupor-inducing (stupor-inducing in the best possible way). I get that feeling when I watch someone sort papers or when someone gives me a back massage or when I had long hair and someone would brush/play with it. I get into a strange, somber zone where I could just be content there forever. I tried not to get too close to the students who were drawing because if I were them, I’d certainly be freaked out at this person just standing there staring. But I could have watched them until the museum closed. It was great. And a nice way to relax. Even if no one agrees with me.