London is charming. Strange, but charming.
We've finally gotten settled into the swing of things here in London. Domestically, at least. I can't say that it has been difficult - acclimating hasn't been too taxing, save the weather. Andy called it when I came here two weeks ago: you get four seasons in one day, everyday.
We began our house hunt last Monday. After viewing a few too many available flatshares in "council estates" (a major misnomer - they're more like decrepit housing projects), we stumbled upon a lovely sunny and clean room in a small, newly refurbished flat in Mile End in East London. There was lots of light, everything was brand new, the view was nice, the Bangladeshi couple living there were heartwarmingly kind and friendly, and the best part (for me at least) - it was a seven minute walk to Queen Mary, and a four minute one to the Mile End tube station.
"We've got a cleaning policy here, too," Rhiana told us. "Every week someone different has to clean the house." Sold - when can we move in?
And so by Wednesday night we were home, the night glare from the skyscrapers in Canary Wharf shining through the window and the whiff of brand-new-sheets formaldehyde mixing with the cool breeze wafting. We're still setting up house, but we have a comfy place to sleep.
Room with a view.
The new neighborhood, Mile End, is if nothing else a quite quirky place. Most of the neighborhood is home to London's Bangladeshi population, and there is a sizable Arab Muslim community as well, so about 90% of the shops on Mile End Road are curry restaurants, halal fried-chicken-and-doner shops, and, of course, countless barber and call shops. Surprisingly, and pleasingly, most of Mile End seems to lack the necessities of the globalized gentry such as Starbucks, Pret-A-Manger, Mickey D's, BK, Au Bon Pain, and the likes. Just miles of cultural fried staples.
And then, there are the English English who inhabit East End, those whose accent makes me feel sometimes as if I am in a perpetual Guy Ritchie movie. I can't help but giggle when these people talk, because it all seems a bit surreal. You know, you hear all that on the television, and then you are just tickled pink to find out that people really do talk like that. It's a bit like when Anna came to New York and looked at the houses on Laurel St. and said with a giggle, "I'm sorry, but the houses....they're just like in the movies!" That's one of the few things I still haven't gotten used to yet, the accent, and I'm sure it's for the same aforementioned reason - it just sounds funny to me. But then, I hate to think what the Brits make of my American drawl. I'm sure it sounds for them to hear me say things like "quid" and "get on" and "crisps" and "mash" and the like (I'm still getting used to the lexicon, as well).
Still not quite sure what to make of the language.
There is lots to do in Mile End. There is a great park across the road, Mile End park, which follows a canal - Regent's Canal, complete with locks and adorable houseboats - which you can walk along all the way to Victoria Park, which is just under a mile away from where we are, and has plenty of cycle paths (God I need to get a bike soon). That seems to be the ironic thing about Mile End - there is lots of stuff around in just under a mile from Mile End. There is a community sport center three minutes away, and a sort of adult playground just across Grove Road with all sorts of jungle gym-like equipment that looks like a lot of fun to play on. There is a theater down the road (about a mile??), and beyond that is the famous Brick Lane. And should all options in our locality be exhausted, we are only a 10 minute tube ride to Central London.
Regent's Canal
Oh yeah, and let's not forget about Queen Mary. The campus is quite small and, unlike most of London and the University of Delaware, it's not a giant brick shithouse. Small is a good thing, because it's easy to find things. It's not crowded, the atmosphere is laid back. The graduate center is located in the old lock-keeper's house next to the canal, which is a nice space with a nice view, and the library is seriously high-tech, albeit a nice place to come and use the internet (since my computer doesn't like the wireless at home). I haven't spent too much time on campus though. When I went to enroll on Thursday, I felt queasy walking around among all the undergrads - it reminded me of my sentence at Delaware, and all the sfigati I had to go to school with then. The students here seem more cosmopolitan and less boisterously obnoxious, but let's say I'm not feeling the urge to dive right into the student life here. Well, maybe I should just shut up and get over myself like Anna says.
One of the great thing about England is, naturally, the pubs. Really, there are a lot of pubs here. From the outside, most of them look the same - hanging sign, painted latticed windows, quiet and tidy looking. You imagine a fire going inside with old Britons sitting around in dim light sipping a pint and chatting. But even though most pubs look similar from the outside, they are all starkly different on the inside. One pub I went into last year with Evan had a few ales on tap and served only Mongolian food. A pub in Stepney Green, called The Hayfield Masala, is a pub/Indian restaurant. There's The Little Driver in Bow Road with antique mirrors, carpeted floors, and tired washed-out East Enders; there's The Wentworth Arms around the corner that's a testosterone cesspool of middle-aged drunken angry football and rugby fans; and, our favorite, there's The Victoria on Grove Road that, despite its tacky leather sofa/mounted deer head/old mannequin Victorianesque decor, has managed to assert itself, oddly, as a decidedly hipster bar. Nonetheless, we love the free live music (last night it was a fiddler with suspenders and muttonchops) and movie every Sunday night, and it's never crowded. It was a pleasant surprise of a find. There seems to be something new to discover in every pub.
And so far, London has been kind with its charming surprises. On Saturday, we went to the Bermondsey Street fair, which was loads of fun (it had a petting zoo!), and we found a craft brewery in the industrial zone under a nearby railroad bridge. A walk along the Thames Path revealed a fantastic open air used book market. Yesterday, on the way back from Victoria Park, we stumbled upon an impromptu "race" in Regent's Canal - a group of people had made home-made rafts out of household materials. It was a fun discovery, and although the Inner-Tube Girls won, the boy with the cluster of inflated surgical gloves tied to his waist was a close second.
Ye Olde Pig Roast at the Bermondsey Fair
Start your engines, racers.
One of the most pleasant encounters we've had here, though, was with an older woman at a curry stand at the Chrisp St. market in All Saints while on our house hunt last week. While ordering a cup of tea, she overheard me speaking to Anna and turned around:
"Are you American?"
"Yes."
"Oh, my goodness! I'm so sorry, but you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago, someone I was engaged to."
"Engaged? What happened?" And she proceeded to tell us the story of how long ago, when she was young, she fell in love with an American seaman posted in England. He was a chauffeur. She loved him a lot, and they were engaged, but one day he went off on the ship and he never came back.
"That's terrible! I'm so sorry," I said.
"Yeah. I had a breakdown for three years," she replied.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry."
"It's OK. But he was so handsome, and charming. He looked a lot like you too. Oh, and the dancing......*sigh* Well, if you've got any friends, could you bring them over here so I can meet them?" I laughed and said I didn't have any friends, and offered to buy her tea, since she had earlier said she was having troubles with her rent.
"Come on, let me buy your tea," I said when she protested. "I like hearing stories, and yours was a nice surprise."
"Yeah. I've got a lot of stories. I would have written them down, but I don't know how to spell."
"Well, that's OK, lots of people can't spell," I said. "In fact, I saw a sign earlier that said 'Driver's Wanted'. But it had an apostrophe, so it was wrong."
She looked at me blankly. "What do you mean?"
"Well, if it's plural, it shouldn't have an apostrophe, because then it would be possessive..." I rattled on as Anna rolled her eyes. "....so it's wrong you see, because of the apostrophe."
"The what?"
"The apostrophe," I replied.
She turned to Anna. "Is that a bad word or something?"
Oh, London - please keep the surprises coming.
Weird London
