This past week has honestly been the best week I've had since I've arrived. Truly - it's been so amazing. I'm on cloud nine. To be fair...odds were stacked in it's favor. I FINALLY finally felt better after more than 10 days of feeling like total crap. I think my roommates felt like an entirely different person moved back in because my mood was so much better!
Then Tuesday of last week was the most amazing weather. Like upper 50s. And SUNNY! I got a little taste of how wonderful it's going to be over the summer. Running was especially amazing. Everyone was in a good mood. People were smiling for no reason. It just was a magical-feeling day.
And then was the Of Monsters and Men show.
For those of you that don't know, I've been trying to see them for the past 8 months. They played at Lollapalooza, and I missed their show (intentionally that time) thinking that I could see Florence and the Machine instead and catch their after-party show. But then when we went to the after-party, the line was so ridiculously long that most of us called it a night and went home. My brother - on the other hand - stuck it out and an hour later got in and saw them play. Of course he bragged about how amazing they were. Then I was really determined to see them. But they played in Chicago on my last weekend in town...and no one else was really up for seeing them. So since I was debating hanging out with Mary and Abby for the last night in half a year or seeing one of my favorite bands.... sigh... I skipped them again. Then I arrived in London and they were sold out for all 3 shows!!! I went through several ticket scammers on Gumtree (their version of Craig's List) to get to these legit tickets. But we got them!!!! No problemo! I went with my friend Dave (who is probably more obsessed with music than me) and a school mate also from Chicago, Ashley. They played at the 02 Shepard's Bush Empire, which was a great venue!! It reminded me of the Vic in Chicago. An old theater with beautiful ceilings. Only somehow there was NO lines for the bathrooms, and everything seemed to go seamlessly! I have to share some of
the photos and videos just to try to give you a little taste of why I
think they are so great.
It's hard to make out the ceiling, but it looked a lot like the Vic!
Let's just say, the show did NOT disappoint! They. were. incredible! The 7-piece band was so talented, several of the musicians played multiple instruments, the two lead singers were so incredible, and I think it's safe to say I have a full-on crush on their drummer (who was wearing a black bodysuit with rainbow colored fringe and was very animated to say the least).
Full on crush on this black body-suit-with-rainbow-fringe-wearing Icelandic drummer
We also made friends there (not really a shocker for anyone that knows me). There was a girl and guy standing behind us that we asked to take our picture (really great one as you can see)...
Ashley, Dave and I at the gig
The girl happened to be from New York, but has lived in Istanbul, Turkey for the past 3 years and recently moved to London for grad school also. She just happens to live right down the street from me, which I think is pretty cool because my neighborhood is super small. The guy was from Ireland, and both of them are also in a band. She's the singer, he's a guitar player. And he was equally as obsessed with Of Monsters and Men, so we spent the better part of the night making animated faces at each other!
Also, after the show we all went and got a pint together. The only reason I'm telling you this is because we were hungry, and Ashley bought a bag of crisps (potato chips) that were "LOBSTER" flavored!??! Wtf!? ha! I had to try them because where else are you ever going to see Lobster Crisps!? (They did not taste like lobster for the record.)
Next on the list for the best week ever was last weekend: My first visitor!!!! A friend of mine - Lori, who is a fellow Ohian and Ohio-Stater who now lives in Chicago also - came in town last weekend on her way through to Barcelona. It was sort of an excuse for me to play tourist again, and see some of the things I haven't made it to yet.
Friday was a stereotypically, gross, rainy London day. PERFECT for a trip to Harrod's food court. I have to tell you, I honestly had no real desire to go to Harrod's previously. I thought it was just a department store. I have no money for shopping. What's the appeal? Ohhhh was I wrong. This food court was out. of. control. Amazing decorations. A chocolate room. A tea and macaroons room. A wine cellar and restaurant. A seafood parlor with lobster, oysters and champagne. A charcuterie. All surrounded by designers clothing, jewelry, etc. Basically we walked by Tiffany's and then had some champagne. Pretty perfect. So here are some highlights of the 3 hours we spent just in the food court (and then promptly left, haha). The other crazy thing was how Lori just kept commenting on how NICE everyone in London was! I was honestly pleasantly surprised, since let's face it: the Brits aren't known for being super friendly. But she was right... everyone was overly nice to us. (May be because we were inside Harrod's for several hours though!)
This was one of our favorite things there. They let us sample some super rare, refrigerated dates, and then they obviously had mounds of different varieties that were nothing short of amazing.
Lori and I having some vino in the Wine Cellar. It was so cute!
Gnocchi with wild mushrooms, and truffled cheese fondue!!!!!!!
I'm pretty sure the chef had a crush on us. I'm okay with that. He was an amazing cook.
Finished off our boozy lunch with some truffles from the Chocolate room!
It was dark by the time we left Harrod's, but it's so pretty lit up at night!
Saturday was our main "touristy" day. We went to Portobello market (which I already gushed about in my post a couple of weeks ago). I really love the atmosphere over there. Then we caught a big red bus (one of the "must do's" on Lori's list) and rode along Hyde Park, past Kensington Palace (where William and Kate live), and got off by Buckingham Palace. This was my first trip to the Queen's place, so it was perfect! Honestly, the exterior of these palaces are pretty boring to me. I was expecting palaces to be these crazy ornate buildings. It's more the gates and statues surrounding them that are beautiful. However I have to tell you that the parks around them are just out of control beautiful.
Buckingham Palace
Queen Victoria Memorial right in front of the palace. Hard to see the fountains, but it's beautiful!
So we got some English tea, and strolled down the "mall" along the palace walks where the Queen lives.
These are the gates in front of Green Park (or maybe it was St. James park??), right next to the Palace. Not a bad view!
Basically London is full of Royal parks. St James's Park apparently is the oldest Royal Park in London and is surrounded by
three palaces: Houses of Parliament, St James's Palace and Buckingham Palace. The Queen lives in Buckingham Palace, and Prince Charles and Camilla live in St. James Palace. So we're just strolling down their driveway (aka the mall), and saw some pretty fancy guards. Now, I don't know if these are officially the "beefeaters" (for some reason I think they have to be dressed like this to be official beefeaters).
But I think the guards we saw were pretty close. The best part is that they aren't allowed to move. They aren't allowed to look at you. They aren't allowed to talk to you. So... I think that's a perfect time to start doing goofy, weird stuff that you know they are just DYING to look at, but they have to carefully dart their eyes, and avoid smirking at the crazy girls acting like morons. You gotta admit... it's kind of funny...
Check out this guy!
We walked across this really amazing footbridge and snapped a few more pics along the pond, and with the London Eye (ferris wheel) and Houses of Parliament in the background on our way to Westminster Abbey.
Along the way, we saw what we are fairly certain is a black swan. Now... I've never seen a Black Swan (although I did just watch the movie!) so we could be wrong. Lori thought the best way to clarify was to talk to the damn thing. So she got right up there and started snapping photos and asking mister swan whether he was in fact a swan. Shocker - he didn't tell us. So we are left guessing.
As we walked towards Westminster Abbey, we walked past another set of buildings that were heavily guarded. By "heavily", I mean with machine guns, not by beefeaters. :) So - as typical smart and overly chatty Americans - we make friends with the machine-gun-equipped guards and ask them what it is they are "guarding". They tried playing a guessing game with us. Apparently 10 Downing Street is supposed to mean something to us. Unfortunately, mister guard does not realize I'm not the brightest when it comes to politics. (For those of you that don't know...10 Downing St. = 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's where the Prime Minister lives!) We thought getting photos with our new friends was a really good idea.
The guard right next to me is actually married to a woman from the US. And the guy on the right thinks that the most amazing place in the world to visit would be.....wait for it..... FLORIDA!!!! Hahaha!
Alright, I'm getting a little long-winded here. No surprise. So since we've already toured Big Ben, the London Eye and Houses of Parliament together a couple of weeks ago, I'll skip over those and just post a few another cute pic before going on to the highlight of the weekend - THE PROHIBITION PARTY!!!!
Ok - deep breath. I'm going to get really excited here. As most of you know... I have an obsession with the 1920s. I love the jazz. I want to be a flapper. The fashion is amazing. In general, I'd just like to transport myself back to the Prohibition Era. So around my birthday, when we were trying to find fun things to do Sharon (my roommate) found all of these prohibition parties. People in London get really into Fancy Dress parties (aka costume parties). We decided it was too much to take on for my birthday, but we bought tickets to go to the one last weekend instead. My roommates and I have been planning for this weekend for weeks! Sharon made herself a dress and had the milliner she works with lend her a super expensive hat (seriously, it was like £150!!). My other roommate Laura had 3 dresses that worked for the occasion so she let me borrow one. I've spent over a week looking for cool hats to wear. Unfortunately as I was told by the British man named Leslie at Alfie's Antiques, the hats I was finding were mostly daywear hats. (bummer).
Everything about the night was themed. They don't tell you where the location is until the last minute so that the cops don't find out. Fancy dress is required. So we started off the night with some amazing Indian food and Moet champagne (thanks Andrew for the birthday present!!). Getting ready was kind of half the fun. We did the whole shabang: fake eyelashes, pinned up hair, red lipstick, big headpieces, flapper dresses. It was great!
Lori's loooooong eyelashes
Sharon's amazing headpiece
Close up of my nose! ha! just kidding, I think this was an attempt at my eyelashes too.
Putting the finishing touches on in my bedroom.
Lori helping Laura's boyfriend Alex get ready
So we get all the way over to the other side of town (seriously, it's like a £30 cab ride!!), walk up to the secret location and there are people outside chanting something about legalizing alcohol. Ha! We walk in the door and the space was incredible. Hard to see from most of my pictures, but it was huge with lofted ceilings and decor that was awesome. There was a live band - although disappointingly, they didn't seem to be clear on what 1920s music was and played more music from the 40s, 50s and 60s. I will say that was one of the main disappointments. I had hoped there would be people doing the Charleston and nonstop jazz. Notsomuch. Sigh. Otherwise, people were decked out to the 9s. It was seriously so cool to see so many people done up so well. They served drinks out of teacups in case the cops busted us. They had drink menus hidden inside of christian books. Ha! The best way to show you is just to post all the pictures. But let's just say this was one of the highlights of my entire trip so far! What an awesomely fun night! I seriously think any party I host in the future may have to be fancy dress.
Laura (roommate), me, Sharon (roommate), and Lori
Had to get those red lips and pearls!
To be honest, at some points it felt more like a 1920s themed club. But either way, you get a sense for how packed this place was.
My best attempt at a full body shot
Group shot!
We all had a lot of fun with this sign. Obviously.
With the secret "drink menu"
Seriously, Lori is amazing at taking self portraits that turn out well.
Better shot of Sharon's headpiece
The cleverly disguised drinks
Hidden gambling tables in the corners
Another shot of the venue with the live band
Check out our dance moves!
Overall, I'd say the night was a phenomenal success. Sharon snagged the crap out of her dress and it may be unwearable in the future. And I apparently get crabby when I'm cold, hungry and can't find a taxi at 3 am. But other than that, it was an awesome weekend with Lori in town.
I did get a job finally. Insert half-hearted sigh. I know this is a good thing. I need to make some money to fund all of my travels. But adjusting to a job now is going to be a bit of a pain. I actually have two job options. Ha! One is at a local 'brasserie' around the corner (which ironically enough DOES play jazz music) and the other is an upscale neighborhood gym. Yesterday was my first 8 hour shift at the restaurant (called The Elgin). Next week is a training shift at the gym. We'll see whether one or both of them stick. I figure I'll just be a little picky and keep the one that's most enjoyable and pays the most.
Tomorrow is the Lumineers show with my friend Dave. Actually roommates seem to be considering jumping onto this band wagon, so we may have quite a crew which I'm more than excited about. I'm super pumped to see them again after Of Monsters and Men last week. And then on Friday I leave for Geneva. We're spending the day in Switzerland and then heading West to France for a long weekend ski trip!!!! Stay tuned for more updates soon!
I promise the entire blog will not be about this subject…but as I was
leaving a pub Friday night talking with my friend Rachel, we quickly
agreed that someone needed to dispel the myth of the perfect, charming
British man that everyone thinks is out there. I know to some, this may
be equivalent to telling children that Santa Claus doesn't
exist….but…well… it doesn't make it any less true. So for all my lovely
friends back home (ahem Mary, Jaymie) who have high hopes that I will
marry a charming, hot British man, have cute red-headed British babies,
and everyone will live in happy La La Land with British accents… we may
have to give up the dream. Now I was initially going to write about how
HOT British men don't exist (because except for Oliver - the near god-like receptionist working at one of the gyms I applied at - I haven't seen one), but my roommate Sharon
encouraged me to hold out hope. She did agree, however, that they are no charmers. You know, the kind with manners, who sounds cute and sweet when
they have that accent!? Sigh.. That's not to
say there aren't attractive men here. There are plenty! They just
aren't Brits. (Well of course my roommate Paul and Laura's boyfriend
Alex are exempt from this statement. So okay there are no hot, charming British men EXCEPT for Oliver
and Paul and Alex …..and David Beckham). And the
other thing… Brits are actually known for being pretty unfriendly. So
put those two things together (not charming + not friendly), suddenly I
feel like I've been lied to my whole life! Where are the Jude Law's!??!
(I'm including the pictures in case any of you had a hard time conjuring
up a mental image of these two men I previously mentioned ;).
I think you get my point here and I'm sure all the guys reading are about ready to vomit, so I'll move along to more "mature" subjects.... like the fact that I'm actually AMAZED that I haven't been hit by a bus yet. There certainly have been several close encounters. Unlike in the U.S. - where pedestrians have the right away - cars pretty much don't stop for people. On top of that, I still forget which direction cars come from. Combine the two of those, you can see why I've feared for my life. But since I've managed to avoid death-by-bus thus far AND since I wasn't killed by the awful flu I've had for 9 (seriously 9?!?!) days... I figured I'd share a few other things I've noticed that are particularly different between the English-speakers over here and the American-speakers over there in the States.
Their Medicines
Apparently there is this amazing painkiller called paracetamol that the US government is keeping from all of us. As I already mentioned, I've been hit up pretty hard by either the flu, or an awful cold, or a sinus infection or some version of all 3 (how can you tell the difference anyway???). So Sharon gave me a package of Lemsip.
It's a lemon powder with paracetamol and decongestant in it that you drink like you would drink tea. Crazy! Why don't we have this?? It works wonders. Some other 'methods' I'm not sure work so well despite everyone being convinced they do (i.e. drinking massive amounts of tea, drinking massive amounts of honey lemon water, and putting your face over a boiling pot of herb water for ages to steam it out. This last one I've unfortunately done several times a day for the past few days. Not sure of it's long-term benefits, but it doubles as a pretty nice facial in case you were wondering…)
Alleys - aka 'Mews'
Ok, so an "alley" and a "mews" aren't exactly the same thing. But they are pretty close. According to Wikipedia, a Mews was a row of stables, usually with carriage houses below and living quarters above, built along a street, behind large city houses. Today most mews stables have been converted into dwellings, greatly modernized and considered highly desirable residences. The States need to take a cue from London and revamp our alleys this way. They are some of the nicest and most expensive places to live. I actually think I'm going to go out and take pictures of the prettiest Mews sometime in the next few months. Until then, this picture will have to do.
Deli/Takeout Sandwiches
This may seem like an odd thing to notice…but given that every day whether I'm in a M&S or at the University, there are loads of pre-made sandwiches it's hard not to notice. They have some of the most bizarre sandwiches I can imagine for a cheapy little shop. Examples include: cheese and onion (this is a super common one), cheese, pickle and jam, and avocado and prawns. All I can think every time I see these is that no one would eat these in the States! It also deserves to be pointed out that literally EVERYONE here refers to Americans as fat, and points out all the awful and unhealthy things we eat. No thanks to shows like Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, people assume we all like terrible, greasy, drive through style food every day! But I find it baffling that they think we eat such crap, given the amount of crap around here that people eat!!!
(I know you can't see the labels below, but the one on the right is definitely prawns and avocado.)
Men REALLY Know How to Dress
Ok I know I just went on a rant about how un-charming Brits are. That said, DANG do they know how to dress. All European men for that matter (don't be dumb enough to think British men are Europeans. They are not. And they will angrily tell you so.) Men over here put themselves together well. I mean seriously. I kept trying to figure out how to snap pictures of said men on the tube without creeping them out. Not super successful. However, my roommate Paul graciously allowed me to snap a pic of him in his favorite red pants he wears all the time. See how good he looks!??!
Their ties are skinny, and hit at the right spot.
They know how to wear sweaters well. The know how to wear scarves even better.
Their pants are straight leg (instead of droopy saggy), and they ALL wear good shoes.
Seriously! Only the d-bags wear good shoes in Chicago. I'd be lying if I didn't say I appreciate the way they put themselves together. Someone needs to teach American men this lost art.
Cars Park Whacko
This still is insane to me. They drive on the opposite side of the road as we do. They drive MUCH smaller cars than we do (the amount of super super small smart cars here are out of control). They can park either direction on either side of the road. This means that you could be nose-to-nose with another car going the opposite way!! AND they can double park sometimes at night on the road!!?!?Seriously… take a look at these shots.
Double parked
Facing opposite directions
And seriously!? Hello Kitty!?!? Who would actually drive this car??
Men Drink Pink Cider
This would NEVER fly in the States. Not only is cider huge here (which I quite enjoy if I do say so myself), and men drink it all the time, but it's quite common to have several different types of cider. I've learned enough to stay away from the sweet ones and go for the dry ciders. But it is baffling to me the number of men who order a 22 of strawberry cider, and pour it over there ice cubes in a chilled glass!!! Go for it guys! Be secure in your manliness! Drink pink, fizzy drinks! Excuse me if I find it slightly humorous that my girlfriend Rachel is the one drinking the Guinness in this photo, and her coworker is taking down his second pink cider of the night.
A few other things I thought I'd share just for the heck of it…
If I haven't mentioned yet, people are craaaazy when the sun is out.
It's like 1 degree above freezing, but if the sun is out, everyone is
sitting on outdoor patios?!?!
I frequently get lost here. (And NO Abby, not like I get lost in Chicago). I literally will have my map out and know exactly where I need to go, but because there is no rhyme or reason to their roads, I cannot ever figure out where I even am! I know this is not just me. My friend Natalia is late every time she takes the bus because she went the wrong way or got off the wrong place. But it's super confusing how to get around the streets! There is no way to tell which way is North or which is South in the middle of the city. I use Google Maps all the time (I don't know how people did it before that), and I STILL get lost all the time. This probably also explains why my iPhone dies twice a day, seeing as how I'm sure Google Maps uses up double the battery.
I'm reminded again of my love of Nutella. Thank god for the Europeans and their invention of hazelnut spread. It's delicious!!! (again, a picture just in case you forgot what it looked like!)
There are an INSANE number of "Prince Albert" pubs. This is not like
America where they are all owned by the same people. Nope. No
affiliation at all. They just ALL like to name themselves after this
prince. A quick Google search will pop up pubs in Camden, Notting Hill,
Battersea and Westminster. So I looked up this bad guy. Seems in
addition to having a monument in Hyde Park which I've already visited
and didn't realize it. (See below…remember that guy?). Apparently he was
married to Queen Victoria and died of typhoid at the age of 42! So
anyway, I thought I'd give you just a little snapshot of how funny I
think it is when you see pub after pub after pub with the same name…..
This is the Prince Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens
There is a bar here for just about any type of theme you could want.
Saturday night I found myself in Soho at a bar where they literally were
playing Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears all night downstairs. And
apparently the waitresses (who are all wearing polka dot dresses,
although I'm not sure why because nothing about it felt like a bar from
that time period) would randomly jump on a table and start karaoking to a
song. Then when they were done other people would take turns doing the
same. So at one point, there were two men in turbans singing some boy
band song on a table!!
I know it's hard to tell, but these are two men in turbans doing some sort of weird sing/dance off.
