I'm not a very good tourist.

A friend asked the other day what parts of London I'd seen. It made me think, You know, I'm not a very good tourist. I really feel... awkward standing around taking pictures of myself with buildings and statues. And buildings and statues are one thing, but taking pictures of or attempting to distract The Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace seems especially rude and disrespectful.

And that's generally what people who come here take pictures of: buildings, statues, and soldiers. I've got a few pictures of myself with some buildings and statues, but I really don't feel a huge urge to take more. On top of that I don't feel any specific urge to visit them either. It's fun to do, and I've still got a few places on my list that I'd enjoy seeing before I leave, but it left me wondering what it is that I DO want to see while I'm here. And perhaps, I've come up with an answer.

I was influenced heavily in my decision to come here by the amount of fiction I've imbibed over the years that is set in London (or in the UK, anyway). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J.K. Rowling, Charles Dickens, Alfonso Cuaron, Alan Moore, James Alfred Wright, Guy Ritchie, Ian Fleming, Shakespeare, and Virginia Woolf are among the authors of said fiction. Each presents British life in a different light, or a different period. I wanted to see for myself.

But Everyday British Life is not made up of buildings and statues. So (as prompted by a class I'm taking and by my own curiosity) this is the first in a series of posts on my observations of 'Britishness'.

I'll first qualify that I have the perspective of a middle-class, unemployed student living in the center of London. People vary quite a lot, and even more so outside of class and local boundaries. So far, the people I've met here have been incredibly friendly, introducing me to as my people as is physically possible in as short a time as is possible. I've met so many people since arriving here that I frequently embarrass myself by forgetting their names. As a middle-class student in London, you are most likely living in a small flat with someone else, or perhaps a few someone elses. This may account partly for the incredibly friendliness. People are crammed in so close* here you have to know (and get along well with) practically everyone.

*On the tube, people are literally crammed in together.

Middle-class, studying (or recently graduated) Londoners listen and evaluate, and do not often make sweeping generalizations (or if they do, they do so in humorous hyperbole), and I have not yet been in a (serious) heated arguement with someone here. Which is a pretty big difference between the UK and US. People here know how to be subtle and amusing when they're being rude (which in my experience is not often), subtle and amusing in one-upping rudeness, and generally calm and collected (and subtly amusing) when discussing things (even when inebriated).

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. I'm a Usian, so of course my first instinct is to attempt to classify people in sweeping generalizations. But, London is incredibly diverse. There are representatives of almost every nation, and cultures originating from within and without the UK thrive. I've attempted to pick up an 'English' accent while I've been here, but this is next to impossible, because almost no one in the city speaks it exactly the same way. I've picked up a little of the inflection, but that's about it.

And, I'll leave it there for now.

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Don't worry; the title does not refer to London, or to any of my friends.


Hit play on the above video, then read on. This requires a soundtrack.

I woke up early on Friday morning with a double purpose for my day in mind. First, I wanted to go to Wal-Mart. A real Wal-Mart. Second, I wanted to get out of London. I haven't left the city for two months. I wanted to see the horizon again.

From 20090327 - Watford

I did some research and planning on my laptop. I downloaded bus maps, planned my route, looked up Wal-Mart locations, etc, and wrote it all down on a little piece of paper. I caught a Circle line tube to Baker St (where Holmes lives) which is only a 20-30 minute walk, but I was feeling lazy. I left Baker St. on a 113 bus headed towards Edgeware (actually it went all the way to Brent Cross Shopping Center)

From 20090327 - Watford

From there I waited around for 5 minutes and caught the 142 to Watford Junction. The journey to Watford was quite pleasant. There were tree-lined roads, quaint little houses, and I actually felt like I was out of the city for once.

From 20090327 - Watford

I arrived at around 10:00 had brunch at a J.D. Wetherspoon's Moon Under the Water Pub, and then continued on towards my final destination.

From 20090327 - Watford

You should be just reaching 0:52 in the soundtrack. This is the really loud horn section strike where Obi-Wan says, "Mos Eisley Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must cautious." I heard those words, and the music cue* as I crested the rise and found a taste of home waiting for me. There really was a rise to crest and I was almost moved to tears. Almost. But not quite.

*You can turn the soundtrack off if you want. It gets a bit ominous-sounding, which is not the feeling I'm trying to evoke.



Well, there would be more pictures for you, detailing the glorious interior of Wal-Mart and the Quaintness of Watford, but for some reason when I put batteries in the camera, I took the storage card out... and the internal memory only holds 4 pictures. Oh, well. More pictures next time. I luxuriated in the isles of Wal-Mart for a while, and then began the laborious process of lugging my purchases back to Watford Junction to catch the bus home. By this time it was around 2:30 or so. There was a lot more traffic on the way back, than there was on the way there, and it was 5 o'clock by the time I was walking out of King's Cross St. Pancras station. I cooked some lamb, did some studying and promptly fell asleep at around 9. It was a good day.

Normalcy

So, my life in the UK has hit a sort normalcy, in that, I get up every day at seven, have some coffee and toast, etc. On Sundays I go to church, on Mondays I hang out with Nav and Nick's band, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I go to school, on Thursdays I go to choir, and Friday and Saturday, I finish up doing whichever of the weeks worth of tasks still need doing. I've made quite a few friends, and I've visited most of the places in London that I had a horrible, burning desire to see (though much is still unexplored, and I still haven't been to platform 9 and 3/4 at Kings Cross). And I've discovered that the battery charger that I brought for my camera doesn't work with the electrical outlets here.

Which all tend to contribute to the fact that I haven't really had any "news" for a while. I do have a bit though (it just needed saving up).

I quit smoking last week. As I was relating to a friend recently, I followed a very simple twelve step program, that make it easy as pie.

Step 1. Admit to yourself that you're a smoker.

Step 2. Step outside and have a cigarette to congratulate yourself.

Step 3. Decide finally that you should quit.

Step 4. Step outside, have a smoke, and tell yourself that it's your last one.

Step 5. Don't smoke for the rest of the day.

Step 6. Wake up in the morning, and have a cigarette.

Step 7. Remember that you were supposed to be quitting.

Step 8. Try not to smoke for the rest of the day.

Step 9. Have one anyway.

Step 10. Tell yourself you're really, really gonna quit now, and then break down and smoke three in a row because you forgot to write that essay you were supposed to write last week.

Step 11. Run out of cigarettes, and discover at the same time that you're broke, so you couldn't buy anymore cigarettes even if you weren't quitting.

Step 12. Wait a week. Good for you, you've quit smoking!

So, I quit, which is nice. I won't say I'll never have another cigarette for the rest of my life, but it's nice to not HAVE to have one, if, for example, I'm trying to get in shape to run 10 cliks with my dad in April.

I went jogging in Hyde park to see what running was like (I haven't run more than 100 yards in about 2 months) and it seemed OK. Until the next day. I was limping around like a wimp for 3 days. Anyway, I'm gonna give it another go tomorrow after church.

I got an email as I'm writing this, and apparently I've been invited back to "Uni's Got Talent" an American Idol sort of competition among colleges here, even though I forgot most of the words of the song I was singing during the initial event. Apparently I could get on TV and stuff. Shout out to Pete. 'S your song, dude, thanks. And tonight, I'm playing an open mic here at NIDO, which should be fun.