Friday SE had some visa issues to sort out at the embassy so I had to amuse myself all day. After breakfast & getting very specific directions from place to place on the tube, , I set off on my explorations. First stop: British Library. I got distracted by Top Shop in Oxford Circus though. I'd read that it's a high street store & that Kate Moss had a line there, so of course I had to see for myself. (Sadly, her stuff was a bit out of budget.) I ended up with a cute polka-dot dress & black lace leggings. SE later explained to me that "high street" doesn't mean really good, as I'd thought, it means the shop is on every high street (meaning "main street"). Basically it's a more stylish H&M. After an hour I dragged myself away & onto the Tube. We love to complain about the subway in NYC but we still only pay $2/ride here & $7 for an all-day pass. The Tube is £4/ride & £5.10/day - that's $8 & $10.20 respectively! They have an unlimited Oyster card which is generally £1.50/ride, but I can't buy one online unless I have a London address so it's still much more expensive for visitors. The trains do come a lot more often, but there's no air conditioning on the trains & they are generally much further underground. I saw electric signs in every station keeping passengers updated about which lines were working, which hints at frequent problems, & though I didn't experience delays myself all the Londoners I talked to complained about unreliability. It's more of a problem there because cabs are also much pricier, so when there's a Tube issue, jumping in a cab is not as easy. Although the cabs are so much nicer I almost think they're worth it. They look really cool, like better PT Cruisers; they're roomy inside, so 5 people or fewer plus luggage can get in comfortably; you can have privacy or talk to the driver by pressing a button; lots of the cars have phones inside, like on an airplane except free; & there are often phone & iPod chargers built into a side panel. I want LTI, the carmaker, to come over here.
So where was I? Right, on my way to the British Library. It's a beautiful building inside & out. There's a very interesting exhibit called Sacred, about ancient manuscripts of Judaism, Islam & Christianity, especially the Torah, Qu'ran & Bible. I've always thought Arabic a lovely-looking language. & seeing it with gold leaf, calligraphy & painstakingly drawn details made quite an impression. I wish I could get a tattoo in Arabic but that would probably be a bit silly. As much as I love the concept of libraries, they get kind of boring after ~5 minutes if I'm not reading so when I was done wandering around the exhibits I made my way to the British Museum. I meandered around the Chinese, Central America, Japanese, Enlightenment & various other rooms. I checked on the Egyptian mummies, too - we didn't see any in the Egyptian Museum, go figure. They are super creepy & I stayed about 4 seconds, long enough to read the description, before I was too nervous to stay touching-distance from a very lifelike dead body. Eventually I got tired of walking around & being by myself in a strange city & decided to go home. I got off the Tube at Oxford Circus & that's when I realized that I hadn't asked SE how to walk from there to the apartment. I couldn't remember how I got to the station initially because I'd gotten lost & asked about 5 people. Plus my sense of direction is nonexistent. I didn't have a map & thought the apartment was northwest of the station when it was actually northeast & didn't recognize landmarks correctly so I spent about 2 hours walking around in circles with painful shoes. I couldn't call SE & was so clueless that when he called to see if I was coming home, I mistakenly thought I was almost there & didn't ask for help so I was unnecessarily lost for another half hour. At length I found the right street & got safely home. Fortunately we had a bit of time for me to gather my wits before meeting some of his friends at an All Bar One (it's a chain) on Henrietta St.
A few glasses of champagne sorted me out nicely. We went to Bar Shu on Frith St. to meet SE's old colleague & his current girlfriend. Bar Shu is an absolutely fantastic Szechuan restaurant, better than in New York - I was so happy. We all got along very well & continued on to Milk & Honey for a drink, where another friend of SE's met us. Since it was a Friday night SE wanted to see how the London club scene was doing & off we 5 went to Paper. We got a bottle of vodka - if you think NYC clubs are bad, imagine paying the same price in £s (= 2 x $s) - & one of Kahlua so we could continue with the Black Russians. Party girls in London aren't as cute as here, but they're as persistent & freeloading. Some slags attempted to pour themselves drinks from our bottles though we didn't know them. Plus they kept trying to talk to SE & slinking away if I came within eyeshot. I've been working on my jealousy & trusting SE more, so after the initial impulse to kick their flabby asses, I found the humor in the situation. The music was pretty good, I really liked SE's friends, & vodka + Kahlua + Red Bull is a nice potent cocktail. I tend to make crazy drinks if left to my own devices, since I can't really taste alcohol unless it's about 80% of the drink. Pretty odd considering my pickiness with food tastes.
We had a great night & came home at maybe 2:30. I couldn't sleep right away & dove back into Harry Potter. SE was woken up by sobbing then & 5 hours later when I woke up ridiculously early (as usual after drinking) & was finishing the book. I must have spent a good 1/3 of it bawling, which is not necessarily because sad things happen - don't want to spoil it for anyone - but how intense & emotionally involving it is.
The next morning one of SE's college friends took us on a walking tour of Westminster which was really interesting. We did some pub-hopping afterwards, saw my friend who moved to London 2 years ago, & had a nice casual dinner at Busaba Eathai on Wardour St. Thai food is hugely popular in London. I think people see it the way we New Yorkers look at Japanese - healthy, yummy & tasty. There are Japanese restaurants but not so many as in NYC. SE & I were very tired, so we went home in the rain instead of staying out even though it was Saturday.
We took a train from Victoria Station to his parents' in Sussex - I was pretty nervous since I'd never stayed at a boyfriend's family home before. They were very sweet & I tried to be helpful. His mother made toad-in-the-hole one night because I'd read about it in a book as a kid, Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World, & never had it. Sausages baked in batter, nothin' wrong with that. SE showed me around the neighborhood, his old school, the trees he used to climb, paths he used to ride his bike on, stuff like that; really cute. I can just imagine him as a boy getting into trouble & outwitting the other kids. He also took me to Brighton, which was cool because I've read about it in lots of books. I met one of SE's childhood friends with his new wife - good example for SE - & they were delightful, plus I learned some embarrassing things about SE when he was little. I'm happy I finally have some stuff to tease him about.
Tuesday morning we went back to London for lunch with his friend who's getting married in November. SE had told me lots about her, how they went to college together, were roommates with 2 other girls & he had a crush on her for a long time so I was a little jealous but once I met her I thought she was lovely & we got along very well. Later we met one of SE's old work colleagues at Ronnie Scott's, a famous jazz club on Frith which makes amazing drinks, before dim sum at the very fancy Yauatcha on Broadwick. It was quite good, maybe the not best in the world but they did a great congee & once I spoke Chinese to the waiters they were falling all over themselves to make sure we were happy. Then one of the best parts of our London trip - we went to Stringfellows after dinner! It's a very upscale strip club & girls can get naked in London, top AND bottom! I had a dance from a wife & wife team (or so they said) & some other hotties. Plus those girls know how to work a pole, oh boy. Flashdancers except better & much hotter. We had a really good night.
The next day SE did some touristy stuff with me; we wanted to go on the London Eye but the line looked too long. The Aquarium is right there as well [see right] - they have storm troopers on the roof! There was some crazy Star Wars exhibit going on.
There was also a Dalí exhibit in the same building so they had sculptures of Dalí paintings outside.We decided to check out the London Dungeon, which looked delightfully scary. Fortunately we got a FastPass by the Aquarium & didn't have to wait too long. Now, it's quite cheesy & funny but if you're easily startled like me, it's terrifying. The actors jump out at you & wear ghoulish face paint that makes them look dead &/or severely injured so even when they're just walking around they're still awful. We learned about the Great Plague, torture techniques, the Great Fire, Sweeney Todd & Jack the Ripper. I enjoyed the real torture instruments on display but everything else was a re-creation. I was so scared that during the Sweeney Todd part, I refused to lean back in my chair as directed & missed the faux throat-slitting. Not a problem. At the end there's a "free fall" ride. After 1.5 hours of looking around nervously & getting the crap scared or startled out of me every 5 minutes I was completely demoralized, & although it was only a small drop, I screamed like a banshee. Of course they took a picture at that moment & I wish I could show you, because it's the most terrified look I've ever seen on my or anyone else's face. My eyes are popping out & my mouth is open so wide my jaw seems ready to fall off. SE recognized its comic gold & bought it, & every time we look at it we still crack up, it's so ridiculous.
SE showed me around Canary Wharf & the City (the financial area of London) after that. We rode the Docklands Light Railway & I saw bankers in their current preferred habitat. Business is increasingly flowing to the City - the dollar's weakness is really fucking NYC. I like the architecture there, especially the Gherkin, properly known as the Swiss RE building at 30 St. Mary's Axe.
We had dinner with another childhood playmate of SE's at the best kosher restaurant in the city, Bevis Marks, because the friend is converting to Orthodox Judaism. I didn't know much about kosher & just figured it would be crappy like vegetarian food, but this place was great. The Thai crispy beef salad, matzoh ball soup, lamb & salmon were all amazing. Kosherness doesn't seem to make a difference in taste, it just restricts the kinds of foods you can put together.
Thursday, our last full day, we went shopping. First Harvey Nichols, where I had a severe case of sticker shock. Everything is so much more expensive there, they think a rack of £900 ($1800) & under is "on sale." My favorite wish was a luscious pair of leather ankle boots by McQueen with python trim & a skull zipper detail (sorry, Treo takes bad pix) that I really wanted... told my footslave about them. Obviously I didn't buy anything, & got bored perambulating so I went to check on SE who had succumbed to temptation & got a $100 Evisu t-shirt. Silly boy. We then visited the eyesore that is Harrod's - clearly money doesn't buy taste. Although, it's kind of fun looking at the horrible stuff & guessing what outlandish price it is. The most disgusting part was a Dodi & Princess Diana memorial that had an unwashed wine glass from their last night & the engagement ring he got for her the day before. That thing was an utter monstrosity. It's almost the size of my fist & covered in pavé diamonds with an enormous rock in the middle. The placard underneath said this was "proof of their love." Proof of bad taste & Daddy being a billionaire, more like. I would only call that proper proof if Dodi bought it on a janitor's salary. SE was annoyed with the spurious reasoning, though his opinions are a bit skewed when it comes to jewelry & big gifts like that since he's a banker & sees colleagues make those hollow gestures all the time while cheating on their wives. I don't know - I still believe you can do nice things & mean them. We're both cynical romantics but he leans more to the cynical side than I do.Around 4 we met up with SE's college buddy who just got married (SE was best man & threw him a bachelor weekend in Krakow). He's really cool. Plus I heard some more stories about stupid or asshole things SE did, which wasn't always very comforting - I worry if he's really a changed man now - but hilarious nonetheless. We gathered more friends as we moved from bar to bar, ending up at a Wagamama. It's a yummy UK noodle chain that strongly reminds me of Republic in Union Square. SE said the one we went to was not representative of their normally high quality but I quite liked my ramen. Sadly, in America only Boston has the pleasure of Wagamamas at this point. We went to one more pub after dinner & then everyone headed home.
The next morning SE got birthday sex & I took him out to lunch & the Transformers movie. Liked the first 2 a lot. The Transformers were a little before my time & I hardly knew what they were growing up so I wasn't as into the movie as SE was. The story was also achingly stupid, but I thought the transformations were super cool & the leading ladies very yummy. That Megan Fox has a heartbreaking pair of legs. & Rachael Taylor was what I'd want to look like if I were blonde. SE was excited as a little boy & it was worth the £19.50 ($39, London is crazy!) to see that smile on his face. & that, boys & girls, was the conclusion of our grand tour.
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