Food in London

We’re in London, so what do you imagine we’re eating? Fish and chips? Bangers and mash? Maybe scones and crumpets and other traditional choices? Maybe you don’t know that London also has a huge assortment of foreign restaurants! Indian, Asian, German, Mexican, French, and so forth. After all, the Brits, just like Americans, enjoy eating foods other than their traditional meal choices. In addition, London has a large immigrant population. Much like American cities, there are actual zones in London which are mostly populated by natives from another country.

We have eaten at some pubs, but there is also a Starbucks nearby where many of the students get their coffee in the mornings. And for lunch today, we visited a local Japanese restaurant called Wagamama, located a couple blocks from our study center. The waiter was Japanese, although he spoke with a British accent. There were chopsticks and much of the menu consisted of rice or noodle dishes. Because I am a salad eater and normally eat salads for lunch, I opted for a mixed greens and salmon salad. And up above you can see the mixed juice drink that I ordered, with all the pulp at the top. Honestly, the foreign food restaurants are as good as any native pub or market food, just not...British. Or not British in the sense that most Americans might imagine Britain. Tonight though, we are going to a regular pub (the small, cozy, type). So, I might just order some fish and chips tonight, before I head over to the Poetry Cafe for Unplugged trip number two!

First Study Center Day

So, today has been exhausting. First day we officially met at the study center. This class is now fully underway! Downside: this means homework. Upside: this means lots of exciting field trips and theater performances, etc. over the next week or so! I don't really have much to report today, although I did find the history of our study center kind of interesting. Apparently, this building, which is located on Great Russell Street, originally belonged to an aristocratic family (the Earl of Thanet) and was built shortly after The Great London Fire, when London started to expand. This ornate panting in the lobby is one of the few remaining artifacts that points to the center's aristocratic past.

Reminiscence Territory: Day Trip to Surbiton and Kingston

Okay, as promised, here is my Surbiton/Kingston blog. Four years ago, during my undergrad, I also studied abroad in London, or rather at Kingston University. Seething Wells are the Kingston University flats where I and my flatmates (Stephanie, Jessie, and Courtney) lived during that month. As I grow older and visit more places, I find that I also have more places that I miss, even if they were just temporarily home. Surbiton is one such place, so I spent part of Friday to take a trip into reminiscence territory. Awww, the blue gates. I’ve missed those.
 

While I lived in Surbiton, I became very well acquainted with the three-block walk to the area of town where the corner grocery store, shopping area, and pubs were. I remember the orange and white gas station, the bike shop with the huge, stuffed animal lioness in their front window, the cracked tiling outside the flooring place, and so forth. I remember Steph getting excited over stuffed animal meerkats in smoking jackets (she wanted to buy one) on display in one of the store windows. Oh the memories. Sadly, most of the things I remember are missing. The gas station is still there, as are all the shops, but no meerkats. The cracked tiles have been replaced. And the worst shock, for me, was the missing big kitty in the window. I took a picture of the bike shop and the red arrow points to where she used to sit. I wonder what became of her.

A while back I wrote a poem that referenced the Thames swans. Some people back in the U.S. seemed surprised to learn that there are swans swimming in the Thames, so I took pictures this time. You don’t see the swans in central London. I think they may only live in the quieter, residential areas like Kingston and Surbiton. Technically, these towns are suburbs of London.

I walked along the Thames all the way to Kingston’s shopping center. The walk takes about half an hour at a leisurely pace. Having forgotten my cameras external memory, I had to be picky about what pictures I took, but this odd display was too intriguing to pass up. I have no idea what this depicts, if anything, and there was no sign to explain it, but I took a picture anyway. If you click on the photo, you can enlarge it and get a better sense of the oddity.

And, of course, this is part of why I found the display so fascinating: a penguin in a hat. Now that’s my kind of dapper penguin!

 

I spent a couple hours in the shopping center. The penguin on the dockside display reminded me that I keep forgetting to bring Topper on these outings with me. I felt bad about leaving Topper behind, so I bought him a friend! This is a little penguin eraser that I found at the card shop in the mall. He’s about an inch tall and adorable. I still have to think of a name. I also found this penguin card and decided I had to buy it too. No wonder I love this town. So many penguins!

And in closing, here is another aspect of the Brits that I noted with interest: they enjoy watching tennis at the pub. At the end of the day, I returned to Surbiton and ate dinner at the Duke of York pub, where I ate dinner the final night before returning home four years ago. Their ice cream is still delicious! Half the pub crowd was enthralled by the tennis match on the tele. In fact, one bloke asked the owner to turn it up so he could hear the announcers better. Granted, I haven’t been to a lot of bars or pubs in the U.S., but I could swear American football, basketball, and baseball rule in the U.S. restaurant and bar scenes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tennis match broadcast in any eating establishment back home. But these Brits were very excited, cheering over scores and everything. I don’t know whether the locals realized that I found this all very amusing. Apparently, the Brits get excited over sports other than football and cricket.

Note: If you visit my Facebook album "Day in Surbiton and Kingston," there are a couple of additional photos. I didn't feel I needed to include every single photo in this blog.

Covent Garden: Suitcases and Tea!

  

Didn't get out much today. About the only thing I did of any consequence was visit the Covent Garden Market. I bought a new suitcase bag though! People who know me from the Midwest will know how much I love my current/former suitcase. I adopted it as a new purse. It's much handier than a purse: bigger, sturdier, waterproof, has a handy place inside the flap where you can stick a small umbrella, a zipper pouch inside where I keep my wallet, and the adjustable strap is made from a recycled seat belt, which is comfy and sturdy (mine has never broken, snapped, or frayed at all in four years). And yes, as you can see by the logo above, it has the "Suitcase Recycled in London" tag on the side, just like my former suitcase. I bought it from the same vendor I bought the former bag from four years ago. He even noticed that I had mine with me and when I told him how much I love it, how well it's held up, and that I had made it a priority to get a second one upon my second visit, he gave me £5 off my purchase; said the discount was for being a repeat customer. Awww.

I also managed to track down a Whittard's and get my Strawberry Kiwi tea. Yay! I can buy two bags for £11.50 if I'm in the U.K. That's practically the price of international shipping, if I were to buy them online from the U.S. So I am happy. I have my tea and a new bag!  And I even had a chance to see some street performers: a string quartet that somehow managed to play and dance at the same time (even the cellist), and then a group of break dancers, although only one of them was really very good. Still, I love that you can see street performers all over the place in London! I'm considering taking a trip down to Surbiton and Kingstone tomorrow. I just want to see my former home again. I want to see if the flooring place ever replaced the cracked tiles outside their front entrance and whether that giant stuffed animal lion is still in the window of the bicycle store.

Much Ado About Nothing Day!!!

So, finally, I was able to watch Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing. And, since none of my friends are in London, watching it by myself was easily achieved. And I adored it! And I am sure I will continue to adore it after everyone else has seen it and hated it. And, I’m sure some will hate it because it is still very Much Ado, even though it is a Joss (the feminist) film. Although, in Joss’s defense, he did try his best. The ending is slightly altered, and does help make both Benedick and Beatrice seem a little less foolish, without seeming any less in love. And Joss did some really scene excellent editing, often ending scenes in such a way as to give women the last word…before she could be put in their place by a man. And I love that Benedick and Claudio’s room is made up like a little girls room…with dolls! I also like the new element added by making Conrad a women. And yes, Joss did include sex. Quite a lot of sex, actually, including in the back story that he created specifically for this production, which shows a less “virtuous” side of both Beatrice and Benedick, adding an extra layer to her grieving scene in the story. Plus, there are a lot of physical innuendos that made me giggle. And Amy was a brilliant sarcastic Beatrice. I don’t really feel Fran was dislikable at all as Claudio (I might be biased though), but he was nicely overly emotional...and often very drunk. And Joss finally got a chance to shoot Fran shirtless! Yay! And I loved, loved, loved Reed Diamond! I don’t think I ever realized just how good of a comedic actor the guy really is. His timing is perfect, and so much of his humor is perfected by facial expressions, or just the subtle movement of his eyes. He also has fantastic dance moves! Everybody seems to be talking about Nathan Fillion steeling the show, and he is hilarious too, but I kind of think Reed stole the show. And I am okay with this, because Denzel Washington played Don Pedro in the Kenneth Branagh production, so I assume it's okay for this character to stand out from all the rest.

In addition, since this is really a review, but a sharing of my experience, The Curzon theater…excuse me, cinema…is a unique venue. And yes, I made the mistake of asking “Is this the theater?” and received a quizzical look from the lady behind the desk. She corrected me “It’s a cinema.” I guess that makes sense, seeing as cinemas and theaters (where plays are) line the same streets, side by side, in London. You would need a different name, so people don’t get confused. I was still confused because The Curzon isn’t just an art theater (which I still think it is, because of the sorts of films they show), The Curzon is also an underground theater and it’s connected to a bar/lounge. The signs says bar, but it looked more like a lounge to me, judging from American standards. It was too fancy for an American bar and the seating arrangement was kind of open plan (using a library term here, because I don’t know if there is a barroom term). I wasn’t at all sure I was in the right place when I walked in, because you have to walk down two floors to get to the movie showing part of the cinema. The young man behind the concessions stand surmised that underground cinemas might be more common in Europe than America, due to space issues. That makes sense. I probably should have taken a picture, but the street was so busy, it would have been difficult and I didn't care to stand in one spot long enough to frame the shot.

I’ve never been to a true art cinema in the U.S., so I wonder what sorts of commercials they run before the movie. I was kind of impressed by the commercials preceding Much Ado, especially the Fosse dance number advertisement for a remodeling company. I also would like to observe whether Americans who go to art films also sit through the credits. Most of the audience stayed for the entire credits and the cleaning crew didn’t even enter the room until after the credits. This was particularly fascinating to me, because every cinema I’ve been to in the U.S., you feel very unwelcome if you stay for the credits. Cleaning people give you weird looks and pretty much everyone else will have left. Such a different experience here. I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon out.