Getting Ready for the Day

Bandaids on my ankles are in order as I get everything together.  Soon we will be loading onto a tour bus to see around London.  This will be great for the people who haven’t been here before and are longing to get a visual overview of the city.  Oh who am I kidding, it will also be great for me since I LOVE buses and am so excited to just sit, listen, and look around once again.  I don’t love Greyhound, having sat on too many broken down buses between Hartford and Boston.  It is a challenge remembering everything that I might need while out; Oyster Card, room keys, camera, cash, card, little notebook, big map, gum.  So I am signing off again and attempting to avoid the computer temporal suck that happens everytime I log on.  Outward and onward to adventure, London.

Living and Shopping in London...

We had a slow start to our rainy day today, which allowed us to spend some time hanging out together while waiting for Colin Firth.  He never showed, but we made the most of the day anyway.  Some of my classmates headed to Covent Garden for a tea reservation, some headed out to museums, and I decided to get some shopping done.  During our orientation we were told that we are "living" in London.  I'm not sure that three weeks in a place can really count as living there.  Anyone else have an opinion on that?  Maybe after I am finished on this entry and have processed my day fully, I will have a stronger idea.  The shopping I did today was certainly the kind one might do as a resident.  We are staying in a "flat" complete with a kitchen, living room, and two bathrooms.  We have all memorized our addresses...so maybe we are living here...though not long enough to lose our accents.
I was hoping to have some distinct London experiences while looking for the practical things I needed.  The first thing I did was head off in the wrong direction.  I kept thinking that the Carphone Warehouse store was across from Russell Square tube station.  Once I arrived at Russell Square I realized that I had just put all the locations we had seen on a walking tour together in my head.  Out came the map and some musing over it.  Luckily I was close to a place with plenty of delicious food cooking in tents on a courtyard and another place to buy an umbrella.  Armed with food and water defenses, I found my way over to where I needed to be to get a mobile phone.  Let me tell you about these phones: you can buy phone for 2.95 pounds and a sims card for 10 lbs and people can call you from the US for free and you can make local calls.   MUCH cheaper than trying to work something out with your cell phone company.  When I go to Paris, I'll need to get another sims card if I want to use the phone there.  After pocketing this new device, I headed down Oxford Street toward shopping potential gallore.  I was thinking I would just keep walking until I got to Notting Hill and could see the Portabella Road Market.  My aching feet kept telling me that might be too far.  I also started getting a bit lonely.  Wouldn't it be nice to stop in one of these cafes and chat?  I knew some people had gone to Covent Garden and thought I might bump into them If I headed that way.  I didn't have luck finding anyone but the shopping gods decided to smile upon me and led me straight to The Body Shop which is an English company and a little cheaper than in the US, depending on the exchange rate.  Feet still aching I wandered through Covent Garden and saw lots of people.  Covent Garden has a shop area and reminds me of Quincy Market back in Boston.  Starting to feel like I was in Boston and not in London I headed up (up? north? still having a hard time with direction) some twisty side streets.  There are still cobblestones in some of these streets around Covent Garden.  There were also some shoe shops but I just couldn't see dropping so many pounds for shoes that weren't that special.  That was before I walked up to the Terra Plana store on Neal Street.  One look in the window and I fell in love.  I knew that it was meant to be when I saw the SALE sign and when I learned a little more about the company.  It is a British shoe company and their motto is "We make shoes. Better for you. Better for the environment"  (http://www.terraplana.com/uk/about-us/).They don't pay me to advertise for them, I'm just so excited that while I was in London, I stumbled into a place for shoes that is British and uses sustainable resources and methods to make their shoes.  I am all about that.  So I guess one afternoon of slight loneliness is worth it for a random British shoe discovery.

After taking my finds back to the flat I did some grocery shopping at Sainsbury Central on Northampton Rd.  I bought some eggs (not refrigerated), some soup, french bread, yogurt, bananas, cheese (Wensleydale because of Wallace's love for it), and juice.  All set for dinner and lots of breakfasts.  

So now my shopping day is over and I hope I don't have to do that very often.  I barely had enough time to get ready for our jaunt to the Victoria Palace Theater to see Billy Elliot.  The show was wonderful, stirring, and made me cry.  So stirring, in fact, that I am still up at 2:30am!  

Ginger Chicken Enjoys Public Transportation

Maybe it was the ride back on the double decker bus that got me all riled up.  Time to settle down and get to sleep so I can continue the London Life tomorrow. 

A Lovely Evening Out

Waves of nostalgia overcame me tonight as we stepped into The Marlborough Arms on Tottenham Court Road.  This was the pub that I frequented many nights during my fall semester in London back in 1992 (I was an early college bloomer – just seven years old really).  Dr. Everhart led us there this evening to enjoy a pint and dinner.  Unbeknownst to us, they were ready and had a beautiful private room set up with pitchers of water and rolls on the table.  The pints soon came out along with a delicious fish and chips dinner.  Have any of you had warm custard on top of apple pie?!  It’s incredible.  Many thanks go out to Taylor the graduate counselor over at the FSU Study Center for setting that up for us.

Back to the pub, nostalgia, and London in general.  So I stepped into the pub and flashed back to an evening many years ago.  Many memories escape me, but I have a clear one of sitting at one of those tables, drinking a pint, listening to REM and missing my boyfriend (who is now my husband).  I remember some blokes stumbling over to me and my friends to tell us why they hate Americans – in a very jovial and lighthearted tone.  Now that it is 2011, I looked around TMA to see if I could sense changes.  I don’t remember the signs warning me to hold on to my bags.  There also seemed to be a slightly different crowd attending the bar.  Looking around the room I noticed more diversity and I didn’t hear that many English accents.  Perhaps Portuguese?  And something else more elusive…what is it that’s so different about this place?

As I sipped on my pint I chose to share a bit of trivia with my classmates.

“Do you know what David Tennant’s favorite band is?”

To my delight they answered in the negative.

 “He loves The Replacements”, I answered myself in an authoritative tone. “It only makes sense since they are both from Scotland”. 

“No they aren’t” replied Joseph, “they’re an American band.  I think they’re from Minneapolis”.

What?!   How could I be so wrong?  This argument needed to be solved quickly and since we are all library students we were up for the task!  Being out of our native environment, none of us had internet devices on us.  Fortunately, we were surrounded by Londoners - hip people in a hip city- they were sure to have some devices that could help us.  We asked at the table close to us whether they had an internet device and could answer a question.  They looked at me with alarm and answered with a thick accent (Lithuanian?) that they did not and did not know who The Replacements are.  We found another group at a table, this time with English accents, but they also were not connected to any information source and did not know The Replacements.  Giving up for a while, we discussed politics, religion, healthcare, and The Beckhams until I decided to continue the search with a group of young people to my right.  This time the accent was Spanish (they told us they were from  Pamplona, Spain – I’m not an accent expert people!) and they did have an internet device.  The answer to the question was “The Replacements are from Minneapolis”.  Joseph is now officially the pop music expert of the class.  These guys continued to chat with us about education, reading, information, laziness, and Aubry’s tattoos.  I even cracked out the pictures of my beautiful children causing the young woman in their group to exclaim my favorite statement of the evening, “You are too young to have two children!”  I love you stranger from Spain.

After a while I realized what was so different in the pub…NO SMOKE.  It’s hard for me to believe, having traveled in Europe a few times, that smoking in pubs has been banned.  It’s such a different atmosphere without the constant gray haze.  The Guinness was still as delicious and the company delightful.  They have a British beer that I know I need to go back and try; Bombardier.  Oh, Marlborough Arms, it is so nice to see you again.

Sometimes an aimless roam...

...ends in a beautiful surprise.

If you keep walking and turn the corner from this wallscaping, you will be on Drury Lane.  

Around noon, to stay awake after dropping off my bags on the top floor of 15 Bedford Place, I set off on a brisk walk.  I think I was walking down Kingsway because I passed the Holcomb Tube station where I had first risen up into the great city.  The FOOD!  Everywhere, sushi, middle eastern, indian, pastries, bento.  To save costs, I picked up a small sandwich for under two pounds at a little shop.  I found an adaptor for my electronics at Boots.  I checked out a Sainsbury Grocery store, marveling at all the different flavors of crisps (grilled prawn) and the cartons of eggs sitting on open shelves.  I ordered a single espresso at an italian coffee shop and had to ask the barista to repeat herself after she asked me whether I wanted it "Out" or "In" (as in "for here or to go")?  Kingsway (or is it Northampton Row?  These streets just keep changing names!) is a busy street with bustling folks, packed cafes, and some monstrous modern architecture mixed in with the ancient.  Seeing some tempting vistas off to the right, I took a side street, ambling on until I came upon this marvel of foliage.  I am amazed by this flower garden that cascades down the wall and am inspired to continue this aimless roaming.  

From Raleigh to Boston to London

Raleigh

 I'm not as happy as I look to be leaving my husband behind in Raleigh.  Happy to be sitting with him and having the chance to try out the self-timer on my new camera but not happy that he can't come along.  Ginger the chicken looks on disapprovingly.

Boston

 This big giant observation tower is so very Boston Logan Airport.  Very reassuring as I walked down long hallways looking for Terminal B...

 ...and chanced upon some steamed clams.  You just can't get good steamed clams anywhere but the coast of New England so you have to gobble them up whenever you have a chance.  And my friend David Grabowski from way back in the day dropped by to see me!  There are some perks to having a five hour layover in Boston.

London

It's such a wonderful feeling to see the destination city emerge as the plane dips through the clouds.  That is definitely the Thames!!  If I had waited just one minute, Big Ben, Parliament, and the new (to me at least) London Eye would be in the shot.  This was taken around 7:00am London time.  A planeload of tired travelers arrived in London early just in time to stand in an incredibly long line...

North Carolina Morning...

It's the morning that I fly away to England.  Watered all the animals, milked Adeline, cuddled a few baby goats all before anyone else woke up.  I'll take a shot when I arrive at Heathrow of an England morning using the same setting (Auto, of course).  I have my laptop, digital camera, flip camera, cords, MP3 player, headphones, tripod, cell phone.  Oh yeah, can't forget the chargers...I have never travelled with so much technology and I guess I will be kissing any last vestiges of technophobia goodbye.

With an aching heart I took this shot of three potential stowaways.  Only Ginger the chicken will succeed in jumping into my bag.  See you on the other side of the Atlantic...

My Constant Companion

I'm getting to know this little Fuji Guy very well in preparation for the three weeks in London.  As well as shooting tons of regular photos, he and I are going to try some video and some panoramic shots.  Fuji Guy is a FUJIFILM Finepix F80 exr: 12 MegaPixels, 10x wide zoom, and 3.0"LCD.   My little Nikon Coolpix camera is OK but I was never satisfied with the 5x zoom and low light pictures were always blurry and I don't like using flash if I don't have to.  It's also making a funky rattling sound.  Obviously, I am not a professional photographer but with Fuji Guy's help, no one will notice.

The tripod is coming too.  This one has crazy flexible legs

Here's to an efficient and productive partnership...