| London Take 1 |
| Written by Brendon Green |
| Tuesday, 29 September 2009 03:56 |
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Straight off the bat, I will admit that I am wilfully ignorant about London. It has never held any interest for me. I don’t know why; but whenever someone talks about London, my minds says ‘No’... and I zone out and think about mint chocolate chip ice-cream and Smurfs. The only reason I came to London is because I knew some people here (everyone knows someone in London). And also because I wanted to speak English without getting dirty looks. So, first impression of London: I don’t like it. I arrived on Thursday afternoon and didn’t see my first friend until Friday night. So I wandered around the city a bit, but mostly around Greenwich where I was staying for the first 3 nights. I was tired, alone and intimidated. To me; London feels incredibly huge, with no real direction or plan, just a sprawling hodge podge of a city that appears to not appreciate my presence. To be fair, I was recently cautioned about the epidemic of knife crime in England, which probably didn’t help my feelings of insecurity. And then on Friday afternoon I stopped to sit in one of the parks downtown, and a message from the universe was sent to me. I saw a Squirrel! And then another Squirrel came up to it and they started to dance... (I swear they were dancing!) and then the 1st Squirrel slapped the 2nd Squirrel in the face and ran off. I can not overstate how much I love Squirrels, and this was probably the best Squirrel moment I have experienced so far. And from that moment on, I started to warm to London. I had dinner at a sit-in Pizza Hut (purely for the novelty factor and memories), with an Edinburgh Festival friend. Then on Saturday I had a continuous flow of meetings and catch ups with old and new friends. Lunch and a walk around Hyde Park; a glorious sun. A visit to, (and inside!), Buckingham Palace, where I discovered a new life goal: I want to be the Queen. Dinner in an unbelievably busy Chinatown. (There is seriously a lot of people in London, like imagine Hamilton, then forget about it because it’s nothing compared to London.) Then off to a ’get together’ in Clapham South. Now... England has a bit of reputation for drinking; excessively. I think I know the reason for this in London. All of the public transport shuts down at midnight (except for night buses, which would take about an hour and a half to get from Clapham South to Greenwich). So, in my example, I could have had a quick catch up with my old Uni friend who I haven’t seen in 5 years, and leave at 11PM to catch the train, get a decent nights sleep and be fresh for a full new day. Or... I could stay with the good people of Clapham South all the way through 'til around 5.30AM when the underground opens again. It turned out I didn’t have a choice, I was there for the long haul. So I meet up before hand with a friend and her boyfriend, and head to the party. Where it quickly becomes obvious we don’t know anyone. And my long lost Uni friend, whose party this is, is already a fair way ahead in the race to anti-sobriety. Awesome. But then I meet a nice Spanish guy (named, as only a guy with an accent that amazing can be; Eduardo), who tells me some filthy jokes and is generally affable, which makes the situation much nicer. Then the call goes out that it’s time for the bus! Sure, why not. This is where we start to meet more of the guests, while we wait for the bus that turns up 50 minutes late (at the same time as the fleet of taxis also arrive, that someone had called in frustration. And we watch from the back of the bus as the empty, unhappy taxis follow us, apparently determined to get their fare. But once again, public transportation wins out, and the taxi gang disbands). Our destination? A pumping cocktail bar in downtown Clapham, fully decked out like a garish Tiki-Hut that I’m sure is offensive to some indigenous people somewhere. Complete with thatched branch rooftop and fibre-glass faux cave rock walls which literally brought the head and face injury toll into double figures for the night. Best of all, the continuous play list of 80’s and 90’s radio hits to sing along to as I sipped my strawberry daiquiri. Good times. This is apparently how London rolls. It was a fantastic way to catch up with old friends. Even sleeping on somebody’s floor with an oriental rug for a mattress and my jacket as a blanket while waiting for the trains to start up was, kind of, fun. So while I still don’t really like London, I can fully appreciate the people and what goes on here. I’m going to Manchester tomorrow, so that will probably give me some perspective. And if my friends keep treating me to these good times, I may just become a fan of this whole England thing. All I know is that I know awesome people, and I’m happy about that. |
