Hitting a Stride

I feel like I’m finally hitting my London stride.  I managed to go the full day without getting lost.  I’m looking the right way down the street, I’m saying “quid” instead of bucks, cash, dollars, etc. and more importantly, I’m really enjoying the flow of the city.  I’m also thinking in pounds, which is good because 10 pounds for a meal really isn’t all that great a deal.  The past couple of days were a little trying.  I brought two pair of headsets, and they’d both broken.  My sandals broke right before the trip and worse, it’s been too cool to wear them.  We did laundry and we haven’t got a dryer, which made drying clothes in the rain mean our flat was now a jungle of underwear and blue-jeans.

So, how do you get into the stride of things sooner when you visit London?  First, think left.  Cars go on the left hand side of the street and so do passing pedestrians.  Fortunately, most of the roads have very neatly labeled reminders of which way to look for cars and bicycles (let me know if you’d like pictures of this).  Second, things are expensive.  Get over it.  Go to the Co-Operative or Tesco and get some pasta and cook it some nights.  Turkey sandwiches have been quite nice, too.  By the way, London supermarket cheddar is like what we would consider gourmet.  The Wensleydale is good, too and for all of those Wallace and Gromit fans, so fun to say.  Next, Boots is a pharmacy, but they only sell healthcare stuff.  If you want hardware, like superglue to fix your sandals or headsets or twine to hang your laundry inside, you’ll need to go Robert Dyas (the pronunciation of which is somewhat up for debate).  Also, Fish and Chips are great, and I want more of them, but the food of the newest arrivals is cheaper and quite delicious.  In our neighborhood, this is a lot of Hallal style food (Pakistani mostly) and Indian food.  Speaking of cheaper, bring cash.  American credit cards don’t have the crucial pin chip, so we have to swipe which is a big deal requiring IDs, signature validation and often phone calls to international agencies.  Just bring cash.  Finally, they have a show here called Top Gear.  If you like cars, or have ever seen a car, or better yet, if you hate cars, find this show.  It’s awesome. 

The local neighborhood has a restaurant called the Hayfield Masala, which used to be The Scream (a hip English bar) and before that the Richmond Tavern (a traditional English pub).  It gives you an idea of how the neighborhood changes.  We spoke with the owner who told us that the neighborhood was the Jewish bricklayer community before it was gentrified by the English.  We’re planning on visiting the surviving bagel (or Beigal) joint soon.  Then, probably about the time of partition, it was populated by Bangladeshi, pushing the English west (I’m speculating now).  There is still a fair amount of English people here in the town, but it is much easier to find Saag than mushy peas. 

So, things are going very well.  Work remains work, which is a good thing, I’m still washing dishes most nights and I’m still probably walking about a mile and a bit a day.  It’s almost too bad we’ll be leaving in a week (with the weekend dedicated to beer, waffles and French fries/chips in Belgium). 

We most recently visited the Tower of London, the British National Gallery for an amazing highlights tour conducted by Emily, the British Museum, which was an overwhelming but incredible meander through unmarked spread-out galleries, and Westminster Abbey.  The Abbey was breathtaking in magnitude, but very interesting as a study in conservation.  I saw lots of important British dead people, but everything was worn down because as humans, we like to touch things.  Emily will post pictures soon – sorry, internet connection has been a little spotty in the flat.  Well, sorry for being so lengthy.  It’s quite the trip so far.  Tomorrow, with Emily going to Oxford to see more Michelangelo stuff, I’m going alone to the British Bank Museum.  Can’t understand why she doesn’t want to see that one!  More reports to follow.

Elgin Marbles at the British Museum

Emily in front of Westminster Abbey