Saturday
So Trinidad is out of the World Cup now. We went to Digress again on Tuesday night to watch them lose 2-0 to Paraguay. Glad they got in at least. Now I have to jump on a new bandwagon - either England (since I'm here) or Portugal (because of
Nella)! :)
It was late after the game so we left to come home. The tube stops running around 12am here, which seems really early to me considering Toronto's subways run until 2 or 3am. For a city this large, with a nightlife that is hot every night of the week, you'd think the tube would run until the wee hours of the morn. But no, they do not!
Piccadilly Circus at night
Anyway, the rest of the week was fine - work, home, etc. Oh, but I did my box of goodies sent by Sisy from home, so now I have a few more skirts and tops to wear for work. Plus I got an awesome letter from AR, my nephew, and some beautiful artwork from my younger nephew, H. Everything's been posted to my bedroom walls.
Yesterday afternoon at 2:30pm I had my National Insurance number interview at Camden Job Centre Plus (JCP). HD’s appointment was at 3pm. I arrived at 2:15pm and waited for an hour when I realized that all the people I came with had already been seen and they had moved onto the 3pm people – including HD. Asking at the desk why they hadn’t seen me yet, the receptionist couldn’t find my paper (which I saw the other lady put down on the same desk). So then I had to sit down again and finally they called me where I had a guy in dark sunglasses ask me all kinds of questions at lightening speed and then sign a bunch of papers with photocopies of my passport and that was it. The NI number is supposedly good for tax purposes etc, so whatever, I should get it in about 7 weeks. I’ve lost the amount of time my passport has been photocopied now.
Today is Saturday and it’s a calm, serene afternoon here at Finsbury Park. We went for breakfast this morning and now we’re just chilling in the flat. HD is taking a nap, her allergies are acting up and the medicine she takes for it knocks her out. I’m going to go read more of The Double now and take a shower. Tonight we’re going to Leicester Square to just hang out. And that’s it!
The weekend part 3: Evening
Palace Gates
Palace of Westminster (aka Houses of Parliament)
Then more walking down to Trafalgar Square, past No. 10 Downing Street and we waved at Tony Blair, (joking!), where there was a Sri Lankan festival going on. Neat. I hadn't been there yet, the National Portrait Gallery & National Gallery are there so I'm going back, maybe this weekend. Canada House, the Canadian High Commission, is right there as well.
If you look in the back you can see the London Eye (the big ferris wheel)
It was hot, we were tired and onto the tube. I don't know what tube station we were at or where we went, but the next stop was Tower Bridge to see one of the oldest and most recognizable bridges in the world. It was quite a site but I didn't take any pictures because my batteries died somewhere between Big Ben and Trafalgar Square.
Memorial to Princess Diana at Green Park
Sight-seeing is great fun and incredibly tiring, especially if it's going to be a walking tour, as ours was. After the bridge, we were all done. So we went to Leicester Square, met up with some more people, and hung out at All Bar One until they closed, then to TGIF and then to come casino (no gambling, just chilling.) This was also the first night that HD and I took the night bus. Luckily, it's only one bus we have to take from Piccadilly Circus to Finsbury Park, and it's pretty fast too - about 15 minutes. So, now we now what to do next time we're in Central London after 12am. A very busy and very good day.
Sunday, Father's Day! Happy Father's Day Dad! (again!) Spent it around FP, did a bit of groceries and HD and I watched Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in the evening. It's funny because sword fights really stress her out so for most of the ending she spent it hiding her face in her pillow. Then time for bed! And now here I am, at work, writing this to save and post later this evening. Bye for now!
The weekend part 2: Buckingham
From Finsbury Park you can take either the Victoria Line or Piccadilly Line to Green Park to get to Buckingham. VL is probably faster but we went on PL b/c I didn't know you could take VL. Anyway, you get off at Green Park, about 10 or 11 stops away (15-20 minutes) and turn into Green Park (a park). It's massive, with large trees and lots of space to spread a blanket and have a picnic. A 5 minute walk through the park will get you to Buckingham. It was cool, watching it slowly appear through all the trees. There are cameras everywhere, security is definitely on high alert and there wasn't a garbage can in sight.
We walked around, took lots of photos, and sat on the steps of the monument in front of the palace and waited for them to arrive. There were a lot of people, all different kinds, taking photos, chilling on the steps, but it was nice because it wasn't crazy busy. It was just a quick sort of walk around of the palace, I have to go back because I'd like to do a tour (I think they do them inside) and see the Changing of the Guard one morning. Oh, and maybe hand with the Queen.
After Buckingham we walked to find Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (aka the Palace of Westminster). These buildings are amazing I can't get tired of looking at them. I don't know anything about architecture but that's besides the point.
Again, this is another site I'll need to go back to, especially at night because the clock-tower is illuminated and supposedly looks wicked. Plus, Big Ben is the bell inside, not the actual tower, so I want to see that too although that might not be possible because they don't really allow people inside the tower. Ding Ding. The Houses of Parliament do allow guided tours, so I'll do that one day too.
We took a break then and went to the Red Lion pub for a bit. I'll post some more pics and the rest of the post tomorrow.
The weekend part 1
Sorry for not updating in a while but everything was pretty quiet last week. A few things that stick out in my mind is the Trinidad vs. England game on Thursday at 5pm BST. It was an excellent game with a disappointing ending but still, if you've seen Supa's comments there is always hope to make it to the second round. Since the Trinidad game is concurrent with England's next one, HD and I are going to go to the busspepper hosted event at Digress pub in Soho to watch the game (the same place where we went on Thursday and met up with Supa and friends). It's about a 10 minute walk from where I work at Oxford Circus, well 10 minutes for people who know where they're going because I was 100% sure I had to walk a certain path, which was totally wrong, and I ended up at Holborn Tube where I got on it and made my way to Piccadilly Circus - what should've taken 10 min was about 30. Anyway! It was a fun night overall, after the defeat there was a big party in the downstairs part of the pub. HD had a grand old time and we left around 10:30 since we had to work the next day.
Friday night we chilled. We chilled so much we thought we'd go insane. Ideally, we should've just gone out and walked around, or got a movie to watch, but we just bothered each other and sat outside in the backyard with our friendly neighbours, the snails and finally just went to sleep. Right now I'm reading
The Double by Jose Saramago, just finished
Blindness by him also (excellent) and
Diary of a Mad Housewife by Sue Kaufman, also very good indeed!
Okay, so Saturday. Well Saturday was totally fun! Started off the day around 10am, cleaned my room, read a bit, then we went to Cafe Sixty-Seven, on the corner of Fonthill & Lennox, for a real English breakfast eggs on toast, toast, mushrooms, brown beans, sausage, bacon, tomatoes. You can eat that food and you're good for the rest of the day! Then we went to the library & got some books and our plan was to just relax in the park and read a bit, because it was a beautiful warm and sunny day. Instead, after texting Supa "a ripe cranberry will bounce" (words of wisdom from my Snapple juice cap), he texted back for us to meet them, (him, his cousin, and his friend visiting from Trinidad), at Buckingham Palace to sightsee. So off we went.
World Cup!
As you all know, or maybe not for those not interested, the World Cup began on Friday. I didn't pay it much attention - not until Saturday when HD and I went to watch Trinidad vs. Sweden at The Warwick (right by Piccadilly Circus). There's a promotion company here called Busspepper and they organize these events for Trinidadians - I think it's just Trinis, maybe West Indian in general but I'm not really sure. We were instructed to wear red so HD wore red, white and black beaded necklaces and I wore black. :)
Anyway, this is totally out of character for me but Supa's cousin told us about it and it sounded like fun, so we went. (Supa and friends, by the way, actually went to Germany for the game which must have been awesome.) For 6GBP we went to hang at the Warwick and watched the game. We were about 20 minutes late but the remaining minutes were tense and exciting! I didn't realize it was such a huge deal that Trinidad had made it into the World Cup but it definitely is and the fact that the game ended in a draw against a team that was expected to win had the entire place in a euphoric uproar. As soon as the game was done, the music began and the dancefloor was packed. I did my bit and then had enough and went to find a less busy place to chill leaving HD to dance it out. After she had enough we left the pub and wandered around Piccadilly Circus.
It was such a nice night here too last night - the weather was mild and warm - it felt like summer. We went to find somewhere for dinner and had burgers at some "American" diner which was okay, but they use Tommy ketchup, which in my opinion is total crap compared to Heinz (I'm picky about my ketchup okay?). I wish I'd brought my camera but didn't - next time I will. Piccadilly Circus is a place tourists have to hit when they come to London and there were quite a few out last night. It's an area of popular theatre shows like Mamma Mia and The Phantom of the Opera. And also of huge lit-up billboards - like Times Square in New York. Within walking distance is Leicester Square which we walked through also. That's where all the major movie premiers are - Tom Cruise was there when MI3 opened. We went to a cafe where we were forced to order something to eat if we wanted to sit outside and enjoy the weather, which was really stupid, but nonetheless we had a nice evening. I'll take pics next time we go because it's a place to just walk around and hang out, something I like to do a lot.
Anyway, the next game I'm interested in watching is Trinidad vs. England - don't think we'll be be wearing Trini colours for that one but I know who I'm cheering for!
Tidbits for a Wednesday afternoon
At work, had some things to do this morning and managed to stretch it out for a few hours. Now I’m waiting until 12:30pm when I’ll go for lunch – I think today I’ll go walk around and look in some of the shops! Lunchtime isn’t as crazy on Oxford Street as it after work. Less of a “swarm” and more like a “bustle.”
So just a few tidbits – the World Cup is fast approaching! I’ll write more about that in a later entry. I’m don’t know who to root for though – there’s no Canada, but there is Trinidad and of course there’s England. Well, I’ll just pick whichever one ends up doing better. :)
Also, author Zadie Smith won the
Orange Prize for Literature last night for her novel
On Beauty. (The Orange Prize is an International award for the best full-length novel, written in English, by a woman and it’s apparently the UK’s largest annual literary award for a single novel. The prize is £30,000.) I read it, I’ve read all her works, (only 3), and she’s an excellent writer, so I think that’s great. I heard she can be a bit of a snob but I’ve never heard of a writer who isn’t. Anyway I thought that was pretty cool that she won.
I just came back for lunch and I have to amend what I wrote earlier. It’s totally crazy outside today, most likely this is due to the great weather we’ve been having. Sunny, warm, and breezy.
Short update
There wasn’t much to report the past week. It was a fairly typical week – work, eat, sleep – and on the weekend HD and I went to visit Supa in Oxford again from Saturday to Sunday. There was a party Saturday night that Supa organized for his college, of course he is the ultimate social secretary. That was fun and Sunday we just chilled and finally left around 8pm to return to London.
Both HD and I are working today – she starts her new, permanent, job today! I kind of feel like I’m starting to settle into a routine now. But we really need to work on the food issue – our fridge is always empty and we don’t use the stove or oven as much as we should! Right now I’m at work – it’s 10am and I’m not doing very much, so all is as usual. Not sure what the plans are for the week, but hopefully it’ll be something more interesting next time.
