In Search of Sherlock Holmes, Donovan, and Various Good Times: My jaunts to Regent's Park, Baker Street, Hyde Park, Bloomsbury, Goodge Street, Bits of the East End, and Superbowl Misadventures...

Thursday, of course, brought some much un-needed class...but it was followed up by a trip to the Phoenix Theatre, near Leicester Square, where our theatre class saw Blood Brothers...  It was an extremely sad play, about two brothers, born poor in LIverpool and separated at birth so that one might lead a better life.  Of course the plot was pretty inevitable at points:  they become best friends, to both mothers' disapproval.  They keep running into eachother over the years, stuff happens, and eventually one ends up shooting the other, and then gets shot by the police only seconds after they find out that they're really brothers.  Thoroughly depressing.  Not my favorite show up to date, but it was interesting.  Met up at the union with Jenn, Kevin, and some other people, and pretty much ate half of Kevin's nachos.  What a guy.

On Friday I, of course, did some more random sight-seeing...I started off trying to get to Regent's Park, but that tube station is closed, so I made a hike to it from Oxford Circus.  On the way down Regent Street, I was stopped three times:  one asked me if I'd be interested in being an extra for commercials or theatre, a second woman fairly chased me down the street to see if I'd want to model, and a third simply asked for money for some British charity or cause, then relented when she asked me where I lived...I said I was just visiting, and was from Chicago--being sure to make sure the accent was exceptionally broad--and she wished me a happy holiday.  At least my Americanism comes in handy for some things!

I made it to Regent's Park, and it was completely gorgeous.  At first, I didn't know what to expect...one would hardly guess to see flowers in bloom during January, but I was pleasantly proved wrong.  Granted, the color and foliage was limited, but shocking nonetheless.  Dozens of fountains scattered among the endless promenades made a trickling sound all around, and there were even some ponds with beautiful black swans and noisy little ducks bobbing about.  There were rose gardens, and waterfalls, and park benches everywhere so the little old ladies could find a sunny spot to just sit and take it all in.  Which plenty of them did!

Also, I was ecstatic to find lilacs in bloom...I could smell them all over the park, and eventually found a bush, and picked a little stem of the yellow flowers.  I definitely carried that about with me for the rest of the day, sniffing it occasionally as I walked down the streets, and hiding it up my sleeve the rest of the time.  It was glorious; it reminded me that spring will be here soon!

Regent's Park is also home to the London Zoo, which I did not visit--although I did hear some suspicious roaring when I was by the mer-man fountain.  It also has an outdoor theatre, which I'll bet is packed in the summer.  In fact, I imagine it's hard to find a remote, quiet spot in Regent's Park in the warmer months:  it lends itself so beautifully to canoeing or picnicking during the day, or strolling along flowered paths in the balmy evening.  Food vendors have caught on too, apparently--I saw more than enough ice cream booths strewn across the park (all of them obviously closed)!  Haha, I suspect the park is much like one would expect the Garden of Eden to look like...that is, if Eden had well-manicured English Gardens and ice cream.  Which I suspect it did not.

After the park, I headed out to Baker Street, in search of (who else?) Sherlock Holmes.  Sadly didn't find him, but I found where he potentially would have lived, at 22 Baker Street....which is unfortunately in the middle of a road.  I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pulled one over on us.  Bastard.

So I hopped on the tube, and randomly decided to get off at Westminster to see if I could catch another Evensong...but there was none scheduled for that night, so I instead poked around Westminster College, getting pretty lost in the narrow passages and tiny courtyards.  I found my way out, and walked up the Thames again, spotting tons of couples kissing everywhere.  That's one thing I've noticed about London:  lots of public displays of affection.  And I thought the British were supposed to be cold, unfeeling snobs!  Haha, kidding.  I eventually headed home, as it was getting dark, and I was ravenous.

The next day, the weather was absolutely brilliant--a "blue sky day", as I call them.  Pretty rare here!  I decided to start of with a little closer-to-home excursion.  So I walked around the streets here in Earl's Court for a bit, and eventually made my way over to Hyde Park.  This park is much different than Regent's Park--it's pretty much all green grass, geared mainly to sports like soccer, or dog walking.  It's got footpaths running this way and that, in a manner which, if I did'n't know better, I'd assume to be complete chaos:  like a spider's web, after said spider had a few too many pints.  There's also the Serpentine, a waterway (river? lake?  I'm not sure...) that has a bunch of rentable rowboats that were out of commission for the season.  Hyde Park is also home to the Lady Diana Fountains, which was a nice place to sit and people watch, while whole flocks of birds wheeled overhead.

I hopped on the tube at Lancaster Gate, with a mind of seeing Goodge Street--yes, the "Sunny Goodge Street" of Donovan fame.  I totally missed my transfer, though, and ended up getting off at Holborn.  Walked around a bit, and decided to see Bloomsbury, the famous literary district.  I'm not sure where any of the greats lived, so I just took in the atmosphere.  It's a nice neighborhood, and it has this slower, quieter, sleepy quality to it; like it's unaffected by modernity, but chic anyways.  I approved heartily.  The jaunt took me past Russell Square, where plenty of people were out soaking up what little sunlight the buildings would allow to slant between them, since it was getting past midday at this point.  I saw a man lying flat out on his back, completely dazed with the unexpected dose of Vitamin D.

I continued on to my original destination:  Goodge Street.  When I reached it, I was glad to find that it was, in fact, still sunny--albeit a bit less sunny than Donovan would have wanted it, considering the advanced hour in the day--but he wasn't there, so we didn't have to worry about pleasing him.  I was singing the song in my head the whole time, sighing "my, my" and thinking myself a beatnik for a moment or two.  But hunger got the better of me, so my cool facade was let down so I could order and extremely cheap and wickedly delicious chicken pesto baguette, to go, from a little local shop called Le Pain du Jour.  You see, food is generally cheaper from the shops when you don't sit in their store to eat it:  generally by a difference of at least 30p or 50p.  So I marched down the street with my paper-wrapped sandwich, dispensing it like an ice pop, and trolling the streets for interesting things.  Actually, this Friday was the first Friday I really felt like a local; I seemed to merge flawlessly with the moving crowd, knowing where I was and where I was going; just one among many Londoners.  Quite cool.

That evening Jenn, Kevin, Jack, and I went out to Baker Street to meet up with three of Jack's friends (David, Liz, and Anna, in case you were really curious and dying to know their names).  Jack's a fun kid--he likes skateboarding, smoking, and indie rock...and apparently has an interest in fashion, since he claims to own over 300 pairs of shoes.  Most of which he's never worn, and instead trades around like baseball cards...  His friends were all Americans studying abroad on a different program:  the epitome of hipsters.  Total indie kids, and pretty much too cool for anything, haha.  Anyways, we headed out to a club off the Old Street tube stop.  It's an interesting area:  since it's a bit farther east than where'd I'd yet been, it's slightly edgier, and sort of run down, but you can tell that it's hugely popular with the punk and indie rock kids.  We were going to be forced to wait in line and pay a whopping £10 to get into the place, but David knew a guy in the band we were going to see, so we got in for half price.  Thank goodness.

The band was called White Man Kamikaze, and they were actually really good--I was surprised.  A bit like Louis XIV, which I like the sound of.  The club, however (called 333, since it was located at 333 Old Street) was kind of weird--they had this trippy screensaver-like visual on this projector on the main floor, with tattered photocopy posters of pop-art all around, and a very interesting crowd...all sorts were there.  I drank Foster's Twist all night, since it was the cheapest beer there...thankfully they came with limes, to mask the crappy beer taste so I could trick my brain into thinking it was a Corona.  We stayed out realllly late that night, and had to take the night bus back to the flats.  My head didn't hit the pillow until about 5:30...

So needless to say I was pretty dead to the world on Sunday morning.  I didn't get going until ungodly late in the day--I know, shame on me.  When I did finally get my act together, I decided to find where Petticoat Lane was.  Petticoat Lane is a pretty famous street market that takes place on Sundays, and specialized in clothing.  I knew I'd missed the market, but I thought I'd head out east and see if there wasn't anything left of it.

I made my way to Liverpool Street Station, and set out on my way, map at the ready.  I promptly got lost, and wandered aimlessly for quite a while, and was sort of surprised by my surroundings, and their modernity.  So here's a story, kids:  the east side of London was, until relatively recently, mainly docklands, warehouses, and decrepit building projects.  When the City ran out of room (as booming financial districts built upon medieval streetplans are wont to do) the government decided to acquire and sell the land on the east side to expanding businesses in hopes that they'd build up the area and make it less...well...crappy.  Which they obligingly did. (Or at least this is the story Steve told me; I'm assuming he didn't lie to me, haha.)  So today the area around there is full of tall glass and concrete buildings, with granite walkways and more than its fair share of post-modern plaza art.  In other words, it's a business executive's playground--good for the economy, bad for sightseeing.  But it was interesting to see, and I feel that exploring all different types of areas really lets me have a grasp on the Real London.

I eventually found my way to Middlesex Street, which is where Petticoat Lane's Sunday market is held.  I had missed it by a number of hours, though, thanks to my unusually late start...so instead of a bustling market I found a bunch of empty booth scaffolding and street sweepers.  So I wandered away, and ended up by the Spitalfields--an area that I've heard is the new trendy place, with a lot of restaurants and entertainment--but I was unimpressed.  Perhaps I didn't venture far enough in to the neighborhood, but at that time it still seemed a bit too commercial to be charming.  Also, it's on the edge of some relatively rougher neighborhoods, and by that point the sun was setting and it was high time I went back to the flat.

I caught the Aldgate East tube back home just in time to miss the call I'd been expecting from Steve:  he was supposed to let me know where we were meeting up to watch the Superbowl.  Instead, he sent the message along that since he couldn't take work off on Monday, he was cancelling...which was sad.

As I mulled over my options for game-watching, I opted to do some much needed laundry.  Courtney and I were at the laundromat together when we met a couple of Australian guys who were traveling the world, and were just moving in to London for a few months before continuing on their way.  They'd already hit Asia and the Middle East, and were doing their own laundry for the first time in their lives:  apparently they'd had laundry services to do it at hotels along the way, and their mothers in Australia before that!  So it was interesting, needless to say, teaching clueless Aussies about detergents, separating loads, and spin cycles, as well as reassuring the more worried of the two that those little white specks on their dark clothes were, in fact, bits of lint, and that they would come out in the dryer.  We swapped travel stories and had a jolly good time.  Hopefully we'll run into them again!

As far as Superbowl plans went, I'd decided to revert to Plan B:  calling up random people in our study away program and begging them to go out and watch the game with me.  I decided to do my pleading from a stool at the King's Head pub, a lovely, traditional place right around the corner.  It's the infamous site of Laura and Jenn's Sunday Night Tradition of drinking (sometimes a bit too heavily!)...  It's what Padraig would probably call our "local":  it's got great atmosphere, the bartender already knows Laura's regular drink, and they've got reasonably priced pints.  So I've decided to make it part of my Sunday Night Tradition, too!  I called Kevin from Jenn's phone, and luckily begging was pretty unnecessary, since he luckily had been planning on going to the union to watch the game anyways.  Alas, we walked a loopy Doyle home, and deposited her in the flat with poor Courtney, who was studying for her LSAT and now had the lucky task of dealing with a hilariously un-sober Laura.

The union was packed with Americans from the study abroad program, and I was clad in my Bears shirt and ready for fun.  We got there just in time for the national anthem, and never have you heard a louder rendition from college students roaring out the Star Spangled Banner!  Feeling very American, I stubbornly refused to drink anything other than Budweiser longnecks, and I cheered like a maniac for that first delicious play after the kick off...

Jenn spent most of the evening outside, making friends, drinking, and necking with some English boy named Johnny...I was inside, glued to the projection screen, along with my two fellow Chicagoans, Alex and Peter.  We talked about the season, high-fived for all the great plays, and collectively glared at the Colts fans.  It was good to have some other Bears fans with me--they were good guys, even if they are both from the Northside, haha.  :)

It was interesting listening to the British kids that were there...basically, they made fun of the sport the entire night, and laughed at how excited about this silly little game we all were.  It was a bit maddening, but I ignored them.

We all know what happened, so I won't even go there...Peter fairly stormed out of the place, Alex looked dejected, and I was pretty damn quiet.  I felt bad for Kevin; the poor boy had to deal with me that night!  And he's just an innocent Cowboys fan!  Ah well, we'll be back next year.  Go Bears!

Alright, enough of that--you're here to hear about London, not the American sports scene, haha.  Needless to say, it had been a long night, since the game didn't even start until 11:30 p.m. here.  Monday brought more class, unfortunately, but was followed up by Jenn, Laura, Kevin, and I getting drinks at the union, as per usual.  We met up with a few couple guys from our program:  Max  (a mountain of a man, with a super friendly disposition and a voice that's so booming and deep, it reminds me of James Earl Jones) and his flatmate Scott...After chatting for a while, we decided to meet up with some of Max's friends at the Oxygen Bar, a trendy spot by Leicester Square.  En route we ran into Jack and his flatmate Joe, so the lot of us went to the bar--really trendy, really expensive--then ended up going to Fiori's afterwards, and eating a delicious lamb kebab and not getting home until almost two.

So that made it three long nights in a row, and needless to say, I'm tired.  So methinks it's time for bed...Take care!