‘Some of the buildings are a bit old though.’
The week began with my ass wanting a divorce and now my feet are threatening to walk out on me. I’ve hit the pavement in search of a house. I’ve walked so far that little bald patches have appeared high up on my upper inner thigh. On legs as hairy as mine that’s a lot of pant swooshing. I might have to resort to some vaseline to ease my way through the day. My jetlag cleared by Wednesday (leaving alcohol as the only excuse for these incoherent ramblings) and I set of in search of a home.
My efforts were somewhat intensified by my current living arrangements. My one and three year old cousins insist on waking up very early and very grumpily. This is then followed by getting dressed and eating breakfast, all done noisily and reluctantly, with many cries of ‘Where’s David?’. I, of course, am in bed. I generally try and let this well-tuned team power through their morning ritual before following my own morning practice of doing everything slowly and carefully. The other problem with living in Bracknell is that I don’t have a car. As far as I can tell I’m the only person who walks in this town. The nearest shops are 15-20 minutes away, with the station being another 10. Add a ten pound ticket and a one hour journey into London to the mix and you have an unhappy chappy.
With this mounting incentive to get the fuck out of Bracknell I’ve been looking at some other houses. The first place I went to look at didn’t sound too promising. It was cheap, but located in a main street, above the chemist. Only my growing desperation compelled me to agree to look at it. The room was in Kennington, which is just south of the river, near the Houses of Parliament. I got off at Waterloo and proceeded to walk in the completely wrong direction. The trouble with trying to navigate around London on foot is that there are lots of underground passages where you can completely lose your bearings. Whatever the reason, I never made my appointment. This is probably a good thing, because I had a much better time checking out the Millennium Wheel, South Bank, and various other impressive looking buildings, of which I knew the names of about one.
My next appointment took me to Clapham. This is heading a bit further south, near Brixton and Wandsworth. The south has a larger black population and reputedly more crime but Clapham seemed like a particularly nice area to me. The house I looked at was just off a street filled with little bars and boutique shops. The fact that there was a bottle shop about 10 metres from the front door made me fall in love with it immediately. My description probably makes it sound a bit seedy but it looks a bit like Paddington or Glebe in Sydney. I am under consideration. Another place I’ve seen was in completely the other direction. Holloway is north of the city, above Camden and Islington. It’s up in the air at the moment, but should come crashing down around Monday.
I haven’t had a strict sightseeing schedule but I think I’ve stumbled across more touristy things than most tourists do. I guess they’re hard to avoid in London. After leaving Holloway, I headed to the King’s Cross/St Pancras station. This is a huge building right next to the British Library. It didn’t hold my attention for very long, so I headed of to Piccadilly. This was the first place in London that really hustled. It’s absolutely packed with loud Americans, Euro-Trash, and Japanese tourists. It’s also the home of hustlers, pimps and con-men. I saw one guy get robbed in HMV, but I seem to rebuff attackers by my mere physical presence and lack of touristy attire and behaviour. In fact, people are constantly stopping me and asking for directions. I try and let them down gently by mentioning that I’m from Australia and not well versed in the streets of London either. The professional hustlers in Piccadilly are the mega-stores. There’s a Virgin, HMV, Sega World, Planet Hollywood, and dozens of smaller imitations, designed to take the tourists by the busload and strip them bare. It’s the commerce equivalent of strip mining.
The nice thing about big cities, maybe London in particular, is that if you don’t like an area you can walk 200 metres in the other direction and have a completely different experience. This is how I found myself in St. James Park in the quickening sunset. Early spring in London feels like a late Autumn Canberra day. Very crisp and clear, with the bare branches of the trees standing starkly out against the blue sky. It was a great moment to finally see the city in all its glory. I took a final saunter past Downing Street before making my way back to Waterloo, and Bracknell.
As a quick aside, the food has been pretty good. The British don’t have a wide range but they’re experts in what they can do. So far, all my fish and chip experiences have been top notch, the apple juice is tops as, and the jam donuts are the best I’ve tasted.
Saturday night sees me kicking back with this email, reading some Hunter S Thompson, and drinking some surprisingly good Sainsbury’s whisky. The cold and my aching feet have forced a premature end to the night. I was thinking about joining ‘the lads’ in Twickenham for some rugby chants but I think I’ll stick to what I’m best at for now.
Hugs and kisses (in a manly way),
Dave.
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