Crystal Palace

Spring has been about as glorious as it gets.

I took a quick train ride out to Crystal Palace.  The name is misleading- there used to be the OG Crystal Palace there. The 1851 World's Fair took place (the very first!) in Hyde Park, and this innovation of cast iron and glass was considered a wonder in its own right.  How genius- in the days before electric light, creating glass that could be used as walls was a fantastic solution to illuminate a great hall.  Originally, the building was in Hyde Park, but it was later moved south of the Thames to the neighborhood which is now called Crystal Palace, where it burned to the ground in 1936.  The foundations and statues are still there, and it gives it a slightly eerie sense of space.

It's an easy place to spot from a lofty height in London.  The Eiffel-like BBC tower dominates the skyline of any view south.

There were people in historical costumes trying to get everyone interested in re-building the palace.  Sadly, it seems like that day has long gone.

Maybe I was just feeling a bit moody on this particular day, but I lost interest in the ruins pretty quickly.  It was all concrete and cement, and most of the interesting nooks and crannies were fenced off.  Safety, yo.  

I did have a walk around the big, sprawling park with views of the North Downs and a huge football stadium smacked down in the centre of it.  It was a nice little outing and only took 20 minutes to get to from Brixton.  

Greenwich

A great, cheap day out from London is Greenwich.  Technically, it's part of London still, but it feels much more villagey and royal and splendid than its urban counterpart.  There's a host of free museums: the Maritime, the Old Royal Navy, the Queen's House.  It's just a really nice place to wander on a sunny day, getting great views of the city proper from the hill top and listening to the moans and groans of tourist who just didn't wear sensible footwear.  When will they learn?

There's a fantastic covered market on the weekends right near the Cutty Sark.  Lots of ethnic food vendors, some clothing and crafty things.  The town itself is cozy and cute, with neat little houses and shops and pubs lining the main road.

I had a fantastic falafel wrap at one stand, with the chick peas being mashed and mixed and scooped and fried pretty much to order.

The last time I had visited Greenwich was before the Cutty Sark had burned to the ground.  It was the fasted tea clipper on the sea back when sail power was the only option to quench the British thirst for tea.  It's dry-docked on the Greenwich waterfront still, but they rebuilt it completely after the fire, encased the bottom half in glass and they charge a dreadfully high admission to walk around the base of the ship now.

Now, instead of it looking like an impressive and sleek historic ship, it looks like it is being swallowed by a great kraken of a museum.

The Royal Navy College is a sprawling, splendid building in which you can explore at your leisure.  Darting in and out of its many courtyards and chapels makes for a nice way to get out of the unbearable and unforgiving English sunshine.

 All the rain you get here pays off as you get unearthly green lawns.  Sometimes they are even dry enough to plop yourself down and take a nap without getting soaked through.

The gorgeous renaissance-style Queen's House draws you in.  Haven't I seen that staircase before?

They seems to have ripped this off from Fontainebleau.

It's a free museum inside with mostly stuffy portraits of royalty and naval officers and tall ships.  The Tulip Staircase was lovely though, and worth a quick peek inside:

Up the hill is the Royal Observatory, where the Greenwich Meridian originates.  You can see a line of hundreds of people schlepping up the hill and lining up to get their picture taken straddling the GMT line.

Aside from that bit of madness, it's an excellent park to wander around.  There's lovely views, ancient planted oaks and a landscape created by Andre Le Notre.

Judgmental parrot judges ye:

The park is big enough so you can lose the tourist and relax and picnic, but for whatever reason, all day long, I kept running into a group of four American women in Birkenstocks who were unironically wearing wolf shirts and at least one of them was wearing a joker's hat.  I kept referring to them in my head as the wolf pack, and I bounded around the park like a frightened deer as the pack overtook me time and time again at various lookouts and hidden gardens.  It somewhat made my day.  It reminded me of the time I was taking the ferry to Dublin and got hit on by a guy who had been puking his brains out the whole ferry ride, and then continued to awkwardly run into him at various spots around Dublin.

The Thames twists and turns and loops its way through downtown London, which gives you a unique perspective of the layout, and the city appears to be much more compressed from this view.

At the rate the sun beats down so mercilessly here, I might go through a half a bottle of sunblock this summer.

Another freebie on the lawn: The Maritime Museum.  Great Britain ruled the seas for centuries, and they were pioneers in Arctic and Antarctic exploration as well.  It's a big, modern, shiny museum with lots of interesting artifacts and exhibits.

While there are plenty of rail services getting you to Greenwich, much more exciting and scenic is taking the ferry back to downtown London.  It's one of those high-speed Catamaran affairs that is so smooth, you hardly can tell that you are on the water.  I pretended I was a salty sea wench anyway, just to keep in the spirit of Greenwich on board.

Caffinate me

It's amazing what realtors will try to sell you on.  I've heard a lot of weird assumptions...this one guy was determent to sell me on the fact that it would be pretty awesome to live in the suburbs of London next to a mall.  Yeah, maybe if you liked shopping malls, but I'd rather stare at the sun for ten agonizing minutes then step into one, let alone go shopping in one.  There's just something about the uniformity of mall-shops and the blandness of it all that really makes me long for a root canal.  Ugh, can you imagine if I had to go to a dentist office that is in a mall?  No, just no.

One things realtors all over London kept trying to sell me on was the Starbucks.  'There's a Starbucks close by, it's right near a Starbucks, you must love Starbucks, it's from America!'  While I've totally broken down in major caffeine withdrawal (hello, my desperate moment in Prague) it's not a chain that I frequent or support.  I'd much rather find someone doing something unique and with care and inspiration, and not a minimum wage worker with only real aspirations to clock out at the end of the shift.  Coffee is important, yo.  Starbucks over-roast their beans, giving the coffee too much of a burnt taste for me.  It makes my day when I've started it with a good cup.  I'm a headachy miserable wreck without it.  Frequently, there's a cute small cafe in the same vicinity of a starbucks, and I much prefer to hang out there, have a scone and a flat white and people-watch for a bit.

I was hustling to the office one early morning when I noticed a small ring of food tents set up in a church yard just outside of Waterloo station.  One had a sign that said 'Fresh Roasted Ethiopian Coffee', and I could smell it wafting streetwards, which is much more inspirational than the coffee pods they dole out at the office. I stopped for a cup.

I am so happy I did.  The whole 'fresh roasted' thing was not a lie.

The guy who worked there was having a blast, grinding beans for each cup as it was ordered while blasting happy Ethiopian music and dancing around.  Wow, a real live morning person!

The best part was that he was ROASTING HIS OWN BEANS ON A FIRE.  Right there, in a little cast-iron pan over some coals.  It was totally multitasking madness, and he was super enthusiastic and fun to boot.

The coffee?  It was pretty good.  A little thin maybe, but totally drinkable and enjoyable.  

I am so happy I found my coffee guy.

  

Unsettled

Wow.

So, I got myself haphazardly moved in to my new flat.  It's been kind of a mixed bag.

We choose this place because it's was a lot nicer than the other flats in our budget.  It was owner-occupied and in a snazzy, modern building, with touches like a giant deck with skyline views and a grill, and nicer-than cheapo kitchen appliances and furnishings.  It was just a comfortable, unique place, that we wouldn't be embarrassed to entertain friends, and most of the other places we had seen were small, cheaply made and characterless with features like no closets and odd build-outs.  It's a grown-up apartment, not a glorified college dorm room.  Bonus being our new flat was just a block from a major tube station, which is somewhat hard to find in London as the train stations here are spaced far apart, and many people live within a 20 minute walk to the closest one and are totally fine with that.  Perspective!  

The trade-off being that we knew coming into this that the neighborhood was nothing special.  I won't be finding truffle oil and organic berries and bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape without a big schlep, and even just more everyday staples like fresh bread (oh, never mind) and fruit juices that aren't 90% sugar water is kind of a stretch.  There's nothing here to attract tourist; it's a real neighborhood.  There's pubs and Indian take-aways and bodegas and hardware stores and good practical things.  I looked for the same when looking in Paris and found it (except in food-obsessed Paris, I had three good bakeries and an endless river of good wines and cheese in a few blocks around me.)

I showed up with my backpack on Friday afternoon and the owners walked me through.  We had kind of rushed them out- the flat wasn't technically available for another week as they had just moved out, but they were nice folks and when we explained that we needed to move right away, they agreed.  Except, the bed wouldn't be arriving until next week (whatever!  We camp a lot, no big deal!), and a few minor repairs would have to be scheduled.  Our stuff from Paris would be delivered soon, so our sheets and pillows and clothes and cooking stuff will get to us in a few days, so we'll just be a little uncomfortable and deal with it.  

About 20 minutes after the key exchange happened and I was quietly unpacking, I heard commotion outside and then all hell broke loose.    A fight, a stabbing, a car crashing into a bus, and a young man is dead.  The street was closed down and there were police canvassing the neighborhood in hordes.   I spent a sleepless, uncomfortable night with the room illuminated by police lights, wondering if this was all just a mistake.  

The next day, more of the same as the forensics teams were combing the muddy lots all up and down the avenue.  I had tons of errands to run, my back was in much discomfort from a chilly night on the floor, and as I weaved around police lines and a morbid scene and rumors of gang wars in the neighborhood, I tried to find a bit of good.

 
Pigeons shouldn't drink and fly.

A visit to the nearest Sainsbury revealed much product that amused me.

EEEEEWWwwwww!  Also, they like peanut butter here.  Win.

The local entertainment seems right up my ally.

There's also a Chinese Elvis that plays in Islington.  So much Elvis.  Y'all know where I'll be found on the 21st of February anyway.

I've been haunting the charity shops (they are quite awesome here) for housewares, and I now have coffee (sorry, tea!) mugs that commemorate the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer.  I found a set of  side tables out on the street destined for rubbish that I dragged back to the place- if I get a sunny day I will paint them and polish them up a bit.  Nothing beats free.

All the things you need to make a place livable- bath mats and cutlery and blankets and trash cans- were acquired so far. I'm trying hard to not accumulate too much as I am happy to live in a minimalist fashion, but I'm needing to make a quick and dirty Ikea trip to pick up some shelves and hooks and plates and other things I can't live without.  Our shipment arrived yesterday, and with it, my kitchen knives and pots and the wok and clothes and my yarn stash, our beautiful carpets dickered for in far-off lands, and way too many pairs of shoes.  The bed will get here on Wednesday.  My back will be thankful.  Every time I move, a million tiny cracking noises happen.  I do down dog and my shoulders pop alarmingly, and I have been doing yoga in a geriatric fashion.  



So much for keeping junk to a minimum, but the Buddha found its way back with us as we needed something to pretty up our deck.  He seems happy to be  enjoying his tea with his authentic NYC coffee cup.

Probably the most trying element right now is the fact that it will take 3 weeks to get the internet set up.  I will be scarce until then- I can dart across the street and cafe-sit and mooch some wireless now and then, but I lack the concentration to write while in public.  I have my ritual.  It's hard to break the habit.

So, aside from the fact this might not be the most posh neighborhood in London, it's home for now.  It's 10 minutes on the Tube to get to Victoria Station, 15 to get to Buckingham Palace.  There's a really friendly pub down the street that I've already adopted as my second home. Clapham, with its big beautiful park and coffee shops and wine stores is about a 15 minutes walk.  Brixton is a quick stroll as well and we found good Jamaican food there already.  We found a friendly pizza place that gives off a Bay Ridge vibe where Bryan got punched by a Danish grandmother who was excited to find out he was a boxing fan.  I got my French Press in working order, but there's an Ethiopian cafe across the street that makes an excellent cup as well.



And after a bout of pouring rain, the sky lit up with late afternoon sun and a lovely rainbow appeared over the City.  I'm totally inspired and ready for this new adventure.