Settling in

This week's adventures have been limited to the bureaucratic variety, as I begin my life as an overseas student at a large London university. Let me tell you how much they love international students here: not nearly enough for the money we're paying. I have been running around in circles and standing in lines all week, and I'm willing to say quite confidently that every stereotype about inefficient British bureaucracy is based on a solid bed of facts.

Finally vacating the premises of Ashlee House -- I was glad to go, as the place had been taken over by a bunch of seventeen-year-old Belgian boys with the taste, but not the stomach, for Stella Artois -- and moving into my house took up most of my weekend, though I did have a couple of interesting excursions. The first was a lavish dinner Friday night at Le Boudin Blanc, an upscale French restaurant located in Shepherd's Market. Inside you'll find a cozy bistro, which on the night of my dinner was filled with mostly Americans enjoying classic standards of French cuisine. My party decided to take in the autumn air, however -- well, that and we didn't have a reservation -- and so we sat outside under the awning, our bodies and food kept warm by heat lamps. If you're ever in Mayfair and wishing you were in Paris, I highly recommend popping in for some escargots, even for less adventurous diners -- they are a prime example of that genius cooking equation, Butter + Garlice + Anything = Heaven. Okay, maybe you couldn't put ice cream into that equation. Speaking of garlic, I've heard of a bar here that features garlic in everything on its menu, and even throws a clove or two into the beer! That will be an adventure for the coming weeks...

Sunday I took in a Polanski double feature with a friend (go and rent Repulsion, if you haven't seen it-- Catherine Deneuve is quite literally, and fabulously, insane, and there are great shots of '60s London) and afterward, on impluse, finally tried one of those ridiculous dancing machines they have in arcades. Was it worth the £1? Oh, yes. Especially because on an adjoining machine, there was a man clearly using the Dance Dance Revolution as his own personal gym. I'm talking decked out in sweats, with a towel and a bottle of water, the whole thing. All that was missing was a little "Eye of the Tiger." When I didn't immediately grasp the finer points of synchronized feet-stamping on the DDR's blinking floor, he kindly stepped in and showed me how it was done. My envy was fleeting when I realized it was probably this man's only contact with another person for the entire day.

Besides bureaucracy, this week has mostly been made up of wandering around my neighborhood in West London and my campus, and meeting other people in my department. But I have big plans for the weekend, including a specialty library double-whammy, so don't go far.

The Ripper wears Prada?

On Thursday I was so excited to go on the Blood and Tears tour that I got to the meeting point about an hour early. It's over in the area of St. Paul's Cathedral, but that's not a place you rush through, so instead I ducked into the Museum of London for a quick look-around. Turns out it's much more than a few dinky dioramas of paleolithic Londoners or grubby Dickens-era Cockneys; although, suiting the mood of the day's main event, there were plenty of human skulls on display, along with a lead coffin and female skeleton from the 4th century, and dramatic exhibits on the Royal Exchange and jewel-encrusted hair ornaments. Honestly, though, the place seems nice to just amble through, stopping at whatever catches your eye -- you're bound to learn a fun fact or two. And, like all of these state-run museums, it's free.

But let's be honest, ancient stone tools dug up in Cheapside a few decades back just do not hold the same intrinsic excitement as, say, Jack the Ripper. And let me tell you something about this Blood and Tears tour, which has been going for five years -- the guide, Irishman Declan McHugh, knows everything about Jack, not to mention the equally sick Dr. Thomas Neill Cream (whose story, previously unfamiliar to me, was particularly scary), and everyone's favorite barber and subject of his own musical, Sweeney Todd. And a whole lot of other gruesome stories about the financial district of London, which used to host open-air, large-scale animal slaughter at the Smithfield Meat Market (scary if you're a vegetarian) and the notorious Newgate Prison, site of public excecutions and escape attempts until 1868.

McHugh packs so many stories into these fast-paced two hours (really fast-paced: smokers beware), and weaves his eager listeners in and out of dark, dank alleys as he reveals his gloomy repertoire, often quoting the killers or their contemporaries with excellent effect. Because I went on the afternoon tour, I was lucky enough to have the energetic guide all to myself (the evening tour, understandably, draws a bigger crowd) -- which meant that when I didn't know the answers to questions about London's bloody history, I couldn't hide behind some obnoxious true-crime fanatic. However, it also meant that when McHugh leaned in, looked straight at me, and started deconstructing some psycho's character, it was freaky. That said, he did often ask me to imagine how our next location would be very "creepy at night," and he's right -- so go on a night tour, if you go. There will be a few more people, but you will be glad they're there. Shiver, shiver.

That night I was horrified for a whole different reason, when I took a stroll through Knightsbridge, home of Harrods, on my way to meet my aunt and uncle, who are in town. There was no pleasant-looking, evil-soulled businessman ready to kill -- well, maybe there was; there were plenty of businessmen about -- but instead there was a line of stores that I couldn't believe could all thrive next door to each other: Gucci. Prada. Dior. Ferre. Chanel. Versace. I was in the land of the ridiculously high disposable income. These people exist! They're real!

"I write about motorcycles quite a bit... and hatred."

I arrived at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden to find the little place packed, not just with the usual, unshowered suspects, but a fair number of posh folks as well... and a large number of people altogether, over 50 I'd guess. We all packed ourselves into a basement that quickly became a standing-room-only sweatbox. The reading itself went on far too long for most of the audience's patience (starting around 7:30 and lasting for three hours, with one 10-minute break), so by the end of the evening it was just me, and the rowdy regulars waiting to have their name called. "Poetry Unplugged" is so popular that you have to show up an hour and a half before the reading starts to sign up, and even then they have to randomly pull names out of a hat to pick who will actually read. On my first trip out I observed rather than read... and luckily the crazy poets knew how to entertain.

The feel of the reading? Early on, a young man went up and said, "In poetry you get a number of white men trying to act tough -- I thought I'd add my voice to that." Clever and self-deprecating, sure, but he wasn't kidding. In fact there was a very high ratio of men yelling and gesticulating about one thing or another, usually some woman who -- most likely very wisely -- got away from them as quickly as possible. (One of them provided the title of today's post.) And they rhymed. I haven't seen so much rhyming poetry since my Intro to Poetry class four years ago! Perhaps this was because the general reading style leaned more towards slam, or performance, poetry... but this stuff would hardly have cut it at the Nuyorican Cafe in New York. Here's a little tidbit for you:

I can't believe the pain
and there's no one left to blame
for my lonely season waiting for you.

Yeah, that show should have been cancelled mid-season, buddy.

That said, sprinkled among the refuse were some real gems -- my favorite was a guy who read a series of haikus based on the love affair of a Buddhist monk and a Chinese emperor's wife. All in all, it was a fairly standard open mic in terms of the poetry itself, and the lively, encouraging crowd gave it, as one reader said, "a rock'n'roll feeling."

Yesterday I made my way to the biggest tourist draw in London, the Tower of London, and found it, quite naturally, full of tourists. Yeoman warders (military guys who now live and work in the Tower, giving tours and talks) give tours on the half-hour, all dressed up and making cutesy jokes and cultural references -- "This is a WATERGATE! HA!" -- but the tour starting when I arrived had a good forty people gathered around the energetic guide, so I shelled out £3 extra and did the audio tour, "The Prisoners of the Tower." Possibly the best £3 I've spent so far! For about an hour I ambled around the Tower with a big, nerdy grin on my face, pressing buttons to hear additional information about the Bloody Tower and the murder of the "little princes" (sons of Edward V and possibly sentenced to death by that blackheart Richard III), or the escape of a much-hated bishop who drank his guards under the table and climbed down a rope off the top of the White Tower, or a similar attempted escape by another bishop who had eaten a little too much lately, and whose rope broke.

The highlight of the tour, though, was when I was directed by the narrator to march down the steps from Beauchamp Tower to the scaffold outside, with drums pounding in my ears. "Imagine that your day has come... you have made your final confession, and there is no hope of escape. Now, walk out to the scaffold -- the Executioner is waiting." I did indeed march in time down the stairs, giggling quite audibly and receiving more than a few strange glances. The scaffold itself was a history nerd's delight -- so many famous necks severed in just one place! Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey... Coming in second for historical interest was the armor I mentioned in yesterday's post, belonging to Henry VIII in his later years. What a big, fat man! I feel sorry for the horse that had to bear his weight, and the weight of his humongous armor. That horse needs a statue in Trafalgar Square!

...Which is where I headed next, actually, having an hour to kill before I met a friend for dinner in Soho. I didn't get to walk around the square itself very much, as a large portion of it was roped off for some filming project. People were crowded around the square on all sides, staring towards the bright lights and disembodied voice that kept declaring "Action!" and "Cut!" and many other, less audible exclamations. I asked several especially interested onlookers what was being filmed, and they all looked at me with the same disdain as they shrugged their shoulders. Apparently, they had shed themselves of that immortal human question, "Is anyone famous down there?"

So I retreated into the National Gallery for a very quick first look, heading for the Sainsbury Gallery, featuring paintings from 1200-1500 AD. Very, very impressive, and completely overwhelming: rooms and rooms and rooms of paintings, most of which are really worth a careful look. After closely examining a few rooms of unfinished Michelangelos, da Vincis, and a several paintings by "Unknown Netherlandish Master, ca. 1510," I decided that this veritable planet of art deserved its own day, at least, for a good look, and after buying a print of a delightfully strange painting ("Cupid complaining to Venus," by Lucas Cranach the Elder), I was more than ready for dinner.

(Speaking of dinner, a quick note for any of you who have not yet visited the United Kingdom. Don't expect a glass of water to magically appear at your table; you have to ask. And make sure you say "a glass of water," because otherwise you'll end up with some Evian or Perrier and an extra £2 on your bill. As someone who always needs plenty of water with her meal, I think this is an essential traveller's tip.)

After our meal, my friend and I took a short walk over towards Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road, turning down a tiny side street to find Bradley's Spanish Bar. The place has two tiny floors, full of bohemian, dilapidated decor and a young crowd looking to give off the same vibe. When we arrived, it was so crowded that we stood with a few others drinking our beers in the street. This began to seem perilous as cars drive down this narrow little street -- which somehow, amazingly, can fit a car, although just barely -- at regular intervals. But all was well, people were able to scramble up from their seat on the curb in time to avoid the manic taxi-drivers, and shortly before eleven (which is when bars shut here) we all toddled off to the Tube to make our way home.

Roosters, teddy bears, shepherd's pie and Freud

Woo, was yesterday a doozy! Such a doozy, in fact, that I slept in today until after 11AM and so am getting a late start. Thank goodness I have a whole year to discover this place.

Yesterday was the second installment of "How many times can I look at a map and then walk in the opposite direction of where I should be going?" The answer: a lot. I probably spent about two hours wandering around with no sense of direction. It's very freeing, actually. Kind of like when you play that trust game where you fall back and somebody has to catch you... if it took two hours to do that.

I finally got where I wanted to be, my first stop: the Percival David Museum of Chinese Art in Bloomsbury. Now, this is a place where unless you have a specialized interest in the fine art of decorating and glazing porcelain, you don't need to spend a lot of time. If you're in a real hurry, go straight to the second floor, because that's where the really fabulous pieces are -- more than your standard blue-and-white inking. I'm talking brilliantly colored and amazing detailed landscapes and designs -- including a complete twelve-cup tea set of a richly painted rooster and flowers. In the changing exhibition room I learned a fun fact -- when artists painted dragons (which stand for royal authority and the protection of that authority) on these pieces, they varied the number of claws on the dragons' feet depending on the status of the receiver of the piece. So officials' dragons have three claws, princes' have four, and emperors' have five claws. Naturally, I had to start counting claws on every piece of dragon china, and there were quite a few emperors' flasks and incense burners lying around the place. Definitely a fun place for a quick half-hour or so.

Next up, Pollock's Toy Museum, a little further into Bloomsbury. Or as I would like to rename it, "Pollock's Kitsch Magnet." You know all that crap you try to hawk on other people at garage sales or end up just throwing out when you move? Yeah. In London, a guy is charging people £3. 50 to look at it. Floor to ceiling full of toys and old comics; even on the stairways, there are glass display cases full of crap. Some of it is entertaining, especially the roomful of toy theaters (elaborate dioramas featuring sets, actors, curtains, all on one-dimensional paper cut-outs). And now, thanks to the information sheets posted, I know that "Chutes and Ladders" was actually an old Indian game used to teach children reincarnation -- you're bad, you go down; you're good, you go up -- and that the weird game pieces for Monopoly were from the creator's wife's charm bracelet. But there were several rooms of old dolls, many of them staring out from their displays with a palpable hatred for those who disturbed their slumber. Those rooms I walked through very quickly, so I couldn't tell you much about them. In one room, though, I looked up as I ran, only to see a display case full of teddy bears arranged on tree branches in such a way that it looked as if there'd just been a lynching party. Sick.

I happened upon the Correspondence section of something called "The Girl's Own Paper," circa 1888, glued to the back of a door. The ladies writing this stuff sure were sassy! I wrote down a couple of choice tidbits, to show all of you that snarkiness is not a product of the late 20th/early 21st centuries:

Lottie we are sorry to hear of the sad accident to your
eye. But your innoculating yourself was a crazy action for which you paid
dearly, and risked giving infection to others. Learn to spell and write
and to speak English.

Fiona your "water colour drawings" so called, are fearful
achievements. Pray do not waste your time in pursuing the study of
painting, nor our time in sending us examples.

Priceless!

Next I took a break from my "museum day" and had a leisurely lunch with the latest edition of TimeOut London at the Fitzrovia, your typical English pub, where you order and pay at the bar and have the food brought out to your table. Clearly the Fitzrovia has a large number of tourists in its clientele, as they had signs explaining this procedure everywhere. I was delighted to find that "traditional" did not mean "we hate vegetarians" -- I had my first English shepherd's pie, with spicy beans instead of beef. Yum, mashed potatoes and beans. And garlic bread! Sometimes, it's the simple things.

To round up the museum tour I made my way to the British Museum. At this point, though, my several hours of being lost, on top of a full stomach, were catching up to me... so I decided to stick to one exhibit for starters. Luckily the BM is right near my university, so I plan to do such shorter visits often over the course of the year. On this day I went to the "Prints and Drawings" section to see the "From Matisse to Freud" exhibit, taken from the recent bequest of Alexander Walker, a well-known and apparently very wealthy film critic for the London Evening Standard. The exhibit focused mostly on art from the last half of the twentieth century -- so there was some Lucian Freud, as the title says, but also the Op Art phenom Bridget Riley, some Jasper Johns, and some great minimalist etchings by a woman I hadn't heard before, and whose name I don't have with me now. If you're that interested, just ask and I'll give it to you later.

After a long day, I headed back to the hostel, drank some water, and changed for another outing to Poetry Unplugged, an open mic event at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. But that will have to wait for our next installment, as it is past lunchtime -- and I can't go see Henry VIII's enormous armor in the Tower of London on an empty stomach, now can I?

Good day, sunshine!

A sunny day in England? I better get out there and enjoy it. But first, a recap...

Yesterday, after finding out I will have to wait until Thursday for the "Blood and Tears" walking tour, I set out from the hostel with the vague idea of visiting the British Museum. After two blocks I had no idea where I was, and decided to wander the city instead. It turned out to be a good plan -- I wandered around Camden (the student neighborhood) and Bloomsbury, slowly making my way down to Oxford Street and Leicester Square. It was reassuringly familiar, thanks to years of hip films and mystery shows set here. Oxford Street was a nightmare of deranged student shoppers, although I might not have such scorn for them if my scholarship were, say, twice its current amount.

Leicester Square was full of gaudy, overpriced, overproduced muscials and plays -- fans of Mamma Mia will be happy to know the show is in its fifth year. Down the street from The Woman in White (how can there possibly be a need for more Andrew Lloyd Webber?) I found the Curzon Soho cinema, probably the hippest movie theater -- I will not spell it with an -re, not yet -- I have ever seen. There's a cafe on the first floor, and on the mezzanine level, a fairly swank bar, which was quite crowded with fashionable youth for a Monday evening. You mean it's cool to hang out at movie theaters again? Works for me! I grabbed a quick sandwich at the slightly cheaper Costa, a UK coffee chain, before I checked out the showtimes. If you ever go there, stick to the coffee. And another travel tip -- avoid shrimp when you're jetlagged and/or the only thing you've eaten on a given day is curry.

One of the films shown this week was the other liberal favorite of the summer, Super Size Me. Back in the States I had dealt with this movie the way I often do, by reading five or six reviews and opinion pieces about it, and then never bothering to see the actual film. I don't think I wasted my money, but the reviews/articles did just about cover it. Director/star Morgan Spurlock is fun to watch, especially when he's puking up quarter-pounders in a Mickey D's parking lot, but honestly I identified more with one of his doctors, the internist who clearly regards his patient as the kid who always has to show off. Several times the good doctor says some exasperated version or another of, "Just stop!" Oh, old man, did David just stop when he came up against Goliath? I wish he had -- then I'd never have to hear that analogy again.

When I came out of the theater, the sky was dark, and Leicester Square was full of bright young things about to dance the night away. Me? I headed back to the hostel, for an intimate evening with my spiffy striped comforter -- sorry, duvet -- sorry, counterpane -- and Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate. Woke up early this morning to catch the free breakfast (for those of you who have never stayed in a hostel, "free breakfast" means toast and/or cereal) and now I will embark on a day of museums. The best thing about sightseeing on your own is that nobody rolls their eyes at you when you say, "Let's check out the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art!" Well, okay, I did just roll my eyes a little bit.

Look out, London...

I've only been in London for about five hours, and I can already say -- I LOVE the Underground. So user friendly, and thank goodness, because this user slept for about an hour on the plane over and has been sleepwalking ever since. So far I have wandered from Heathrow Airport, to Acton, the neighborhood in West London where I will be living starting the end of this week, to King's Cross, where Ashlee House is located.

A few interesting moments so far: A guy got on the Tube a few stops after Heathrow, carrying with him a tiny black kitten named Midnight in a very large carrying case (I didn't ask, the case was labelled with the little darling's name). You could tell Midnight was British, because it was the most polite cat in a carrier I've ever seen. It meowed two or three times every time the train stopped at a station -- I think it was cat for "Mind the Gap."

Once I got to King's Cross, the jet-lag was starting to feel like a hangover... and nothing cures a hangover like a good curry. So I ventured into King's Cross Tandoori, for a delicious and reasonably priced vegetable curry. The furniture screamed Ikea, which was an interesting contrast for the large plastic flower murals on the walls and the small, dark-stained wood of the building itself. There was only one other gentleman dining when I went in, and I began to realize why when the waiter began to make it clear that I was interfering with his afternoon television ritual. Seeing that I was reading a book, he promptly turned on the flat-screen TV (those who have been to India Garden in Pittsburgh are familiar with this fixture of Indian restaurants) right in the middle of a family quarrel. Characters: dying grandfather, mullet- and open shirt-sporting father, mother and daughter in traditional saris. The waiter wasn't thoughtful enough to translate, but this seemed to be the gist of it...

Father: Daughter! You have shamed the family
by [insert ancient shameful rebellion of daughters here]. Now Grandfather
is dying!

Mother: Husband, it is not her fault!

Father: It is! You are killing my father!

Daughter: Why do you hate me so, father? I am just a beautiful young girl with an abnormally large bindi on her forehead, trying to live her life! This is the 21st century!

[More arguing, and then.... Daughter grabs a conveniently placed can of gasoline and begins to douse herself and her gorgeous turquoise sari. Slowly, she lights a match. Camera zooms in on her holding the match in her hand several times. Mother begins to scream, Father holds her back. Daughter drops match to her sari and presses her palms together in prayer. Fire takes an unbelievably long time to travel up the apparently gasoline-soaked material, during which timeGrandfather miraculously regains his strength.]

Grandfather: Nooooooo! [He puts out the fire, still around Daughter's ankles, with a suit jacket which appears at the end of the bed. Then he turns to Father.] Do you know how much I paid for that sari?! How could you let her almost burn it!
[Father gets a bitch-slap.]

Father: Oh, my father, can you ever forgive
me?

Grandfather: Of course! After all, she is just
a woman! [Family gathers in the center of the frame and
laughs heartily.]

Something like that, anyway... oh well, the curry was good. Off to investigate a tour about London's serial killers -- will report back later!