Ah jolly olde England.
London calling and we answered.
Here we are! So let’s begin at
the beginning - with a flight. Until someone of immense intellect perfects teleportation, the only way to get anywhere significant is by plane – or as I like to call it
– flying cattle cars. We have yet to
accumulate enough wealth or airline point to fly first class so like the other
99% of humanity, we travel “economy.”
Ken likes to rationalize that the money we save means we can stay in
better accommodations. I suppose one
step up from a 6 to a room hostel is worth giving up a seat that can recline to
a comfortable sleeping position. We flew
Air Transat. It started out good. The plane was new – even had “new airplane
smell” and the seat back entertainment unit actually worked. We also had the seat between us empty
although I must admit; I have no idea how a person could fit there unless they
were the size of a small child. Things
got a lot different once we were in the air. There was a fair amount of turbulence so drink
and food service was constantly interrupted. On Ken’s side, the attendants made it up and
down twice in the first hour hurling drinks left and right. Meanwhile on my
side the other flight attendants never made it past row 12. Eventually, a woman 2 rows behind me went up
to ask what was going on and the 100-year-old flight attendant marched down the aisle and screamed “I’VE BEEN DOWN HERE!
WHAT IS THE HELL IS THE PROBLEM?”
To which we all said, “No you haven’t!
You’ve never made it past the first 6 rows which we’ve watched you serve
3 times in the last 3 hours.” She argued
for another 5 minutes and then went and got the cart. Started serving the family beside me and
realized she was out of apple juice.
Reaches up above my seat to press the “call button” and proceeds to
press it over and over and over again until finally, the purser from first
class runs down the aisle in a panic thinking someone had just gone into
cardiac arrest. Turns out, there was plenty
of apple juice in her cart if she actually opened any of the drawers. When it came time to serve dinner, she kept
forgetting where she left off which meant some people were served twice while
others not at all (I got 3 breakfasts).
Meanwhile, her 150-year-old counterpart spent the bulk of the flight
aimlessly wandering the aisles and falling into anyone sitting in an aisle seat
(not due to turbulence btw). Quite a few people ended up wearing their beverages
and meal for the duration of the flight.
Now before you get offended and call me out on ageism – let me be clear: I don’t care how old you are if you want to
be a flight attendant! But I draw the
line at being able to walk a straight line without falling every 10 feet and it
helps if you are not suffering from dementia.
(Now is the time where I provide my in 140 characters or
less in-fight movie reviews)
“Exodus: Gods and
Kings” – Christian Bale goes 6 years without a bath, has deep meaningful
conversations with a rock and essentially becomes the Jewish version of the
Taliban all because he met Ben Kingsley at a pyramid building site.
“The Hobbit” Battle
of Five Armies” – WTF Peter Jackson.
All that build up in the last movie about Smaug and finally getting some
dragon Benedict Cumberbatch only to have it all crash and burn within the first
5 minutes of the movie. PS. Total overkill on Bilbo’s hobbit feet.
“Night at the Museum
3” – Ben Stiller has a primal cave man thing for Rebel Wilson. Ben Kingsley shows up, there is a reference
to pyramids, and Sir Lancelot tries to dance a lot with Hugh Jackman. Everyone get’s peed on by a monkey.
Arrived in London around 9 am local. We figured we would get to our hotel, sleep
for 3 or 4 hrs. and then hit the streets.
Lay down for a nap and the next thing we knew it was 7:30 at night. Jet lag – it will do that to you. We needed food so Ken found a Sainsbury’s a
few blocks up that had sandwiches marked down to 99p. Ate. Showered.
Passed out again. Didn’t wake up
until 7 am Monday morning.
After a breakfast of cheap sandwiches and instant Starbucks
coffee we were off to the Imperial War Museum. Even as a peace-loving beatnik I
found the museum to be a great way to “kill a day.” It has been seriously overhauled since my
last visit but the big guns where everyone poses showing off their “big guns”
still remain, as do all the planes and tanks in the main foyer. Sadly, one can no longer climb on them and
recreate famous scenes from Inglorious Basterds or Patton. One of the more interesting pieces on display
was what we thought was a rather interesting sculpture of scrap metal neatly
folded like origami and stained a lovely hue of burnt umber. Turns out it was a van that was at ground
zero for a massive car bombing in Afghanistan).
Never had something look so beautiful and painfully barbaric all at the
same time.
The big draw for the museum is the World War I exhibit. This is a definite must see unless you have
PTSD in which case you are going to want to avoid it at all costs. You spend around 2 hours wandering through amazing
displays of the war while being bombarded with the sounds of machine gun fire,
artillery explosions and the screams of dying men. It’s about as immersive as you can get
without actually fighting the war itself.
Add to that the throngs of screaming school children and you will need
therapy and a stiff drink before you head up to the next level for the “Ration
Fashions of World War II” exhibit. Ken kind of poo-poo’d the idea of checking
out a “fashion” exhibit (he has never let me live it down about the V & A
and how “All it had was a bunch of clothes and tea sets”) but we both enjoyed
this display very much. It is amazing
what people could make when they had to recycle material due to rationing. Because so many of the images we see of the Second
World War are black and white you never get to appreciate how much colour there
really was. I would fit right in! Not sure I would want to knit my own
panties. It just seems wrong to have raw
wool “down there.” We also got a kick
out of all the morale posters about how as a woman, no matter how ratty your
clothes were you should ALWAYS wear lip stick and do your hair. You know – do your bit to remind the boys
what they are fighting for. One poster said,
“Just because a war is on doesn’t mean a lady leaves home without lipstick! Don’t be the reason our boy’s won’t
fight! Keep your face pretty and your
hair tidy!” Right next to that poster
was one about “Secrets lose wars.
Don’t tell her anything other than you love her.”
After a $400 museum latte the size of a thimble we made the
afternoon trek to the Tate Modern. We were
both super pumped to see one of our favourite museums only to arrive and find it
in the throws of deconstruction. There
is a new Tate Modern slated for opening in the next year so the current one
looks like someone ransacked it and no one bothered to clean up
afterwards. God what a
disappointment. I love modern art and
the more obscure the better. But the
crap that was in the Tate Modern wasn’t even decent enough to be called crap. It was beyond insulting. We actually wondered if the entire museum was
set up as a giant installation piece where gullible humans wander through
filthy rooms looking at pieces of news paper with paint splotches and photos of
a man’s uncircumcised penis pressed between glass slides murmuring to each
other “This is ART!?!?” while someone in
a back room films and giggles maniacally.
The Rothko meditation gallery is
still there although it was hard to get meditative with the Lucien Freud massive
scrotum and dong painting blinding you just before you went in. Ken is scarred for life.
London Tourist Tip: Do not eat at a museum. Museums are free to get in and there are
“picnic” areas to eat your own packed lunch, which you want to do. Museum food will cost you your first-born
child’s college fund for a burger. As a
matter of fact, just don’t even bother to eat out in London. It is beyond expensive. As in, plan to mortgage your house for a sit
down dinner. On the plus side, lots of
super markets sell cheap take away. I
already mentioned to sandwiches. You can
also get cheap 3 dish Indian food with naan bread for 5 pounds or less. I have not given up my Starbucks Lattes but I
may switch to crack cocaine because it will save us a ton of money in this
city.
Day Two had us walking through Hyde Park to find the ranting
podium (aka Speaker's Corner) and Princess Diana’s memorial. We
found neither although we did find the ostentatious memorial to Prince Albert
(who looks kind of like a drag queen in this one) and I got attacked by pigeons
while trying to feed the wild parakeets and red squirrels. Hyde Park is a birder’s paradise with a
plethora of songbirds tame enough to eat out of your hand. A welcome sight after the Natural History
Museum with its cases of songbirds stuffed and pinned into ghoulish Victorian dioramas. (The hummingbird display case screams “Serial
Killer in the Making.”)
We then took the bus to North London/Camden. Wow – you are so not in Kansas once you get
to Camden. Five minutes off the bus and
some homeless guy cycles past two women and yells “FUCKING BITCHES” for no
apparent reason and then tries to run them over. Every second shop is tattoo parlour. Every first shop is a bar of questionable
repute. There is a famous street market
in what was once the old stables and blacksmith shops of old London. Now it is rows and rows of Goth clothing,
incense sellers and palm readers. The
whole place smells like weed. There is Amy Winehouse graffiti everywhere. My kind of place! We walked along the canal and chatted with
the junkies. Wandered through the market
stalls and bought some creepy Star Wars t-shirts. Amidst all the squalor you begin to see the
seeds of gentrification sprout – an old warehouse district being remodelled into
luxury lofts, a Whole Foods market wedged between the curry shop and a piercing
and branding studio. And then – holy of
holies – STARBUCKS! Time for my
ridiculously expensive caffeine fix.
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| Go ask Alice where to score in Camden |
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| Houseboat living on the canals of Camden |
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| Waterfront luxury - Camden |
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| Self explanatory blue collar |
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| Shit gets real when there are cupcakes! |
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| If your ever in need of a disco suit that can survive a volcanic eruption... |
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| Birds of a feather... |
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| If I were a duck, I would be this duck |
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| Watch out for the monkeys! |
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| I don't even want to know what the Tate paid for this. |
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| Me not even giving a s**t anymore at the Tate |
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| Ken trying (and failing) to understand modern art |
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| "Blank stare - Blank Canvas" - Tate Modern |
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| "Wasting" time at the Imperial War Museum |
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| Ken flexing his guns |
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| Soldier Boy |
