Woah... Do I have a lot
to tell YOU.
I’ll try to pick up right where I left off – I think it was
Saturday evening before I went out for the night. Well, this starts out pretty funny actually..
I took the double-decker bus by myself for the first time
into Clapham Junction – about a 40 minute ride – to meet some friends. The agreement was to meet around 9:30 at
Northcote records, a bar on the main strip.
I arrived a bit early so I got myself a cider and waited by the
bar. As some of you know, I haven’t been
able to use my phone unless on wifi (still had a US number this past weekend
and would be roaming if I used it), so I couldn’t text my friends to let them
know I was there. I waited, waited, and
waited. It was almost 10 so I asked the
security guard if there was another Northcote records. ….Ya, I was at “The Northcote”. Northcote Records was a couple blocks down. That
was embarrassing. Anyway, I casually
placed my cider down on the bar and walked away like nothing happened and I wasn’t the loser standing at the bar
pretending to text on her phone.
But then – the night turned around. I got to Northcote Records, which was jam-packed,
and met up with my friends. We had a
couple drinks and then co-mingled with a group of guys and gals from
Ireland. They were beyond fascinated
with our “American accents” and couldn’t get enough of it. They had been in London for only about a year,
so not entirely familiar with the city and still completely obsessed with
Ireland. I told them I would be going to
their homeland in a few weeks and they were just elated. They were by far the nicest people I have
ever met. I wasn’t surprised since all I’ve
heard about it how nice the Irish are… I can now confirm that is 100% true. I totally plan to hang with them again but boy can they drink. I’m going to need to get my stamina up before
that happens again.
It took a while for me to get up Sunday, thanks to my nice
Irish friends and my failed attempt to keep up with them. I really just wanted to chug a Gatorade and
sleep for the rest of the day but NO. That is just not an option, Holl, you’re in
London, GET UP! Ok, Ok… I got
up. Got in a workout to sweat out the Jaeger,
got myself ready, and met Courtney for a day out on Brick Lane. On our walk over I saw a sign by a café that
said “We have ICED coffee!”. Wow that
was music to my ears. We stopped in and
I ordered a large. The nice café worker
handed me my iced coffee, which was just a cooler version of regular coffee in
a plastic cup with straw, sans ice. I
guess my expectations were set too high.
Man I could go for a dunks pumpkin iced right now.
We made it to Brick lane, walked down the street where Indian-restaurant
owners tried to reel us into their pristine-but-empty curry palaces. It smelled delicious but we decided to keep
walking to see the real thing. Then we
got there – the Brick Lane indoor market.
I am not kidding when I tell you they have every single type of food in
there to choose from… well, everything besides American. They had Indian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Ethiopian,
Mexican, Italian, English, Spanish, Irish, German, and some I hadn’t even heard
of. Since we had our hearts set on curry,
we both went for the Indian booth. We
got a giant, heaping plate of curry chicken, mixed vegetables of all sorts,
topped with spices and other random sauces, for just 5 quid! I think I ate a third of it and was
immediately full. Then, we walked around
the other side of the market which had everything from scarves to dresses,
purses, jewelry, phone cases, hats, and rugs.
All hand-made and all awesome. We
took some time to peruse and then went down the street for a look at some other
sights. We saw a guy selling coffee out
of the top of his car and the queue (line) was pretty long. I mean, wouldn’t you buy coffee from a guy
simply because he was selling it out of the roof of his little black car? I would.
But I didn’t because I was still full.
We saw more shops, more food, and then we saw crepes. It had been a couple hours since we had the
giant plate of Indian so we decided it was time for a banana Nutella crepe of
goodness.
After we finished drooling over our delicious dessert, we
started on the hunt for a bar that was playing the Pats game. JetLag, the bar from last week, wasn’t
playing it so we starting calling everywhere we could think of. We found out that Hippodrone Casino in Leicester
Square was playing most of the NFL games so we decided to try it out. Guys, I am never going to another place to
watch a game while I’m here – The Hippodrone is LEGIT. An American guy runs the entire back lounge
where he has separate theatre-like rooms set up for every single NFL game. Additionally, he welcomed us with an American
bar food menu, featuring Coors Light, wings, and nachos, before mentioning that
there was going to be a wing-eating contest at halftime. I told you, this place is legit. And of course, since it’s a casino, they are
open 24/7. So no matter what odd hour
you may have to watch your game, you can count on the Hippo to be at your
service.
Let’s take a small commercial break to add a few more words &
phrases to the English-to-English dictionary:
1.
Car Park = Parking Lot (self-explanatory, I
know. Just different and sounds a bit
funny)
2.
Way Out = Exit (Again, self-explanatory. But I literally have yet to find a sign that
says “Exit”. Everything says “Way Out”. The only Exit sign I saw was on Brick Lane
because it was a name of a restaurant… which is also confusing in itself. Do I even want to eat there? Or do I just want to leave?)
3.
Are you alright? = How are you? (Just another
way to greet someone but it’s confusing at times. Yes, of course, I’m OK. Why, do I look sick?)
4.
Mind the Gap = Watch out (I love this one. Sounds so proper when the automated voice on
the tube says “Mind the gap between the train and the platform” Surely, automated lady. Thanks for the heads up!)
5.
Canapés = Hors d'oeuvres (I guess this is more
of a French-to-French translation but the English say canapes rather than our
preferred French name when little food items are served)
Another thing that I want to mention because I am proud of
myself: I can now convert Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head without using an app
or google. Small victories.
Monday was a long day.
But TUESDAY… Tuesday was a great day.
Work was very productive and concluded with some other larger victories,
only to be interrupted by a fire drill.
Ya, they do those here too. The
funny thing though, is that the alarm went off twice with another automated
lady saying “the alarm is going off. We will
let you know if you should evacuate the building”. HA!
Hold on a minute while our automated lady checks to see if there is a
fire and then she’ll let you know if you need to run down the flights of
stairs. Eventually she told us to get
out and not use the lifts, but it was a drill so don’t fret.
That night was absolutely incredible. A couple of my coworkers were invited to an
event put on by London Partners, featuring Deval Patrick, the MA governor. It was just the two of them but they kindly
extended the invite as I am a fellow Bostonian and would be able to “translate”
for them. Pahk tha cah in Hahvahd yahd
does get a bit tricky sometimes… but at least Deval is originally from Chicago. We took a taxi to Vinters Hall after work,
over by the London Bridge area, where the event was being held. Our name badges were waiting and a glass of
champagne was too. It was quite the
networking event so I’m glad I had a suit and some business cards – really came
in handy. Before mingling with the big
wigs, I took a moment to check out the room.
It was old-fashioned London – giant burgundy room, adorned with chandeliers,
a ceiling outlined in gold and velvet accents.
We saw the podium set up in the back center so we stayed around that
area as we chatted with business professionals and enjoyed the canapés that
were being passed around. One of them
was a single spoonful of lobster and mini asparagus… like holy crap, right? I don’t even like lobster but I ate it of course. A few spoke at the podium and then introduced
Governor Patrick who made his speech brief but memorable. My favorite line was “We make friends before we
make money”. This was the reason he was
here – his goal is to join forces between MA and other strong, educated, and
motivated countries, cities, and organizations so that we can all be successful
together. Bravo, Mr. Patrick. I was fortunate enough to have a quick chat with
him and take a picture to commemorate that special occasion. He was a really great guy – he is definitely
a politician.
Today I finally was able to unlock my phone and get a UK SIM
card through O2 so that I can actually use it off of wifi. If you haven’t gotten my new number yet and
need it, make sure to message me on Facebook and I can get it to you! Otherwise, my work number, email, Facebook, Instagram,
etc. are all still the same. Before I
go, I want to give a quick shout out to Steph Whitney – I’m currently wearing
my “home” shirt, outlined with the shape of Massachusetts. Love it, thank you.
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