So, life in London is continuing as usual. I still haven't completely unpacked (typical), school has yet to start (atypical), and I've started to make some lovely new friends!

I never thought I'd say this: but I'm actually really, really looking forward to the start of classes, which is the day after tomorrow. I think this is due slightly to the fact that I only have classes on Wednesdays and Thursdays (SCORE) so this means that I don't think I'll be falling into a pattern of monotonous lecture, seminar, homework routine to which I have been so unfortunately accustomed for the majority of my semi-adult life. I have trips semi-planned to Morocco, France, Norway, Denmark, Scotland, Germany...er, the list goes on. However, it's incredibly nice to completely create my own responsibilities and answer only to myself. I have, however, begun to answer to the calls of my consumerist ways and have amassed many new, beautiful, totally (un)necessary additions to my wardrobe. At the unfortunate expense of my ever-diminishing bank account. Fuck the exchange rate. Fuck the fucking economy. Fuck fiscal responsibility, dammit! Anyway, excuse my less-than lady-like thoughts on that whole ordeal.

On a more positive note, here are some more of the many things I love about England:

-Vacuuming. Yes. Really. When you clean with something as adorable as Henry, how could  you not? Every time I'm hooverin' around a dusty corner, no matter what my mood, loyal  little Henry is right on my heels, smiling away, inhaling all the dirt off the floor through his gargantuan stretchy nose. His schnozz has a fiendish habit for dust and floor debris  analogous to  that of a coke fiend, except instead of having a clenched jaw and crazy eyes, his expression is just marvelously innocent and charming.

-Laundry. Those who know me know about my wildly passionate love for the intoxicating, warm and wafting odours that are emitted from clothes drying out of the dryer vent,

especially when it's the smell of Bounce dryer sheets. My love for this smell is borderline obsessive, and here there exists the even MORE magical Fairy laundry soap. It is even  fresher, crispier, cleaner, happier and more addictive to my helpless nostrils than  Bounce. After washing my clothes in it, my nose is suctioned to their fabrics much like  Henry's is to the carpet while I'm vacuuming with him.

-Tea. Tea and McVities. Tea and toast. 

-Tesco's Vodka. As cheap as Cossack, or Dubra, or Liquor Locker, or Ruble, or any other plastic-handled, super high class (I kid) drink of choice for college students, except it tastes almost like nothing! And is about 50% less caustic and toxic tasting than its American counterparts! Huzzah!

-Camden. It's a big, terrifying, wonderful party. All the time, 24 hours a day. And the music! The music! I'll be seeing  Noah and the Whale and Bat for Lashes within the next week...then Girls, the Flaming Lips and Cymbals Eat Guitars at the end of October/early November. Huzzah!  My cousin Paul is playing in  Dresden on the 10th. So I'm SO there, too. He's super cool, super talented, super awesome. Check him out here. Also on the note of my super awesome and talented kin, Paul's sister, my cousin Sarah, was just played on the BBC1, which is fantastic! She's amazing, soulfully singing and playing piano, check her out here, too!

-Greenwich Park, right near where I live.

It's gorgeous.

Oh, yeah...

Did I mention that London Fashion Week is taking place literally RIGHT next to the main campus buildings of my college??!?!?!? 

Or before class, this is where I'll be drinking my morning coffee?

The Embankment Gardens are one of my favorite places here. 

Also a favorite: sausage rolls, (in my opinion) an English delicacy of sausage inside a flaky pastry. So bad for the arteries. I ate a particularly delicious one today that I got from a farmer's market down the road from my house. Other food products that I've been feasting upon: all this dairy: homemade cheeses, butter, yogurt, clotted cream....My diet hasn't been the most health conscious, but when in England....

Please note: the tags I labeled this post with. An odd couple....made me giggle a bit. 

Les jours premiers

            After much anticipation, a lovely summer in Gloucester, and some very skillful packing, I have finally embarked upon a true, long-winded and glorious adventure living in my home away from home, England, for the next half a year. It seems like the journey to get here has taken about nine months to make, really, after continually feeling nomadic and desirous to escape my normal, learned surroundings and wander out into the bigness of the rest of the world after being tangled up in New England for a tad too long.  Hence, this first entry about my first full day being here is going to be equally as long-winded and attempt at being glorious in its own small, blog-contained way.

On the contrary, the actual flight itself here was incredibly quick, amounting only to around six and a half hours, excluding a relaxing layover in the middle where I ate a ridiculously good croissant and some really creamy, wonderful yogurt in Iceland. I feel inclined to add that while in the Reykjavik airport, I decided to listen to Sigur Ros, reminded of them by being, for however briefly, in their country of origin. Their music made sense in a very place-oriented way as I looked out over rolling green grasslands, dotted with purple and yellow flowers over blue-tinged grass, and in the distance, ICE. And mountains. With ice caps. I think it was a glacier.

Anyway, I flew Icelandair, as I have done a few other times in past years, and each year without fail, ALL of the cabin crew first addresses me in Icelandic when initiating a conversation. A language, I might add, that is very beautiful, and one I would like to someday learn. (One word I find particularly amusing in my infantile stages of self-schooling, and am attempting to incorporate into my daily vernacular as a really cool, abbreviated version of our verbose, much less aurally pleasing English “blueberry jam”: blaberjum. It’s actually Icelandic for “blueberry,” and I am probably mistakenly pronouncing it as “BLABBER-jum.” Also, I don’t find myself talking about blueberry jam/blaberjum very often, so I resorted to buying some at Sainsbury’s today and enthusiastically announcing my purchase to my family, then going to describe how excited I was for tomorrow’s breakfast of toast laden with delicious English butter, and…. blaberjum (!) ).  Back from that long side-note, I am (rather vainly) flattered to be mistaken as a native Icelander, a land to me of pristine natural beauty and a rich Nordic heritage. Settled by the Vikings over one thousand years ago, it’s remote geographical location has actually lead for the language to be preserved in a state almost identical to what it was at that time.  Me being me, all interested in language and other such sundry pastimes, became rather jumpity and excited upon learning this from my seat-mate on the plane to Reykjavik; thus solidifying my decision to one day learn the Icelandic language.  (A very quick questioning of the possible inbreeding that most probably has occurred over the last thousand years of isolation also popped into my head, but no matter.)

So I ecstatically arrived at Heathrow, however my mood turning quickly as I waited in a stupidly long line at Passport Control, horribly cursing the British Embassy for taking so long to issue me my British passport that is presently en-route to my parents’ house, and was herded, cattle-style, by a wartish, pruny old hag behind me with a grating Midwest accent and bad perfume down the long line to the Customs officials who stood guard at the Pearly Gates of My Magnificent Entrance Into the United Kingdom. Then a nice stop in Uxbridge and a rush-hour ride through the Paddington, the West End, Hyde Park, zipped by Buckingham Palace, down the Embankment, over Lambeth Bridge, and finally home.  My wonderful cousins, Paul and Sarah and I stayed up late into the night talking and catching up and laughing a lot, eating really good vegetable pasta and drinking really good red wine.  After not having slept for well over 24 hours attempting to avoid jetlag, I finally passed out after finishing just over the first half of Kerouac’s Big Sur.

I awoke in the morning rather late, sublimely happy and a bit groggy, after having some sort of bizarre dream about biking and slugs, showered, had some toast with delicious English butter and blaberjamun. Then, Sarah and I ventured off to Brick Lane, which is a really interesting and funky part of East London in search of some fun, a possible Indian meal, and the promise of rummaging through the vintage market that comes through there on the weekends. Brick Lane itself is part amazing Indian restaurants, part hipster bars, part underground music clubs, and part outdoor markets.  I would liken this area in today’s London to be something of what SoHo was to the city in the 1960s, or Camden during the 70s though the height of the punk scene: a formerly industrial, formerly forgotten and overlooked neighborhood that was once considered a “lower-class” area, but has since been re-discovered, in a way, by a lot of younger people… musicians, artists, students, entrepreneurs, thus creating a different outlet for social and economic growth, and a different forum for the primary types of businesses located there. This pattern seems to erupt into an eclectic, interesting neighborhood, where the presence of people of the so-called subculture of the time catalyze a transformation in the ever-changing environment of a city like London, one that is already so full of influences from all types of culture—from myriad global ethnicities, a thriving artistic and musical scene, and the richness that comes from the melding of people from all different walks of life in a contained, yet amorphous and abstract “place.” Under all this, though, is this pervasive sense of transience, that one day, at some time, a new “place” will usurp this one in popularity, notoriety or

 infamy, and its heyday will pass on, and the energy of the “scene” that goes along with it will instead become part of the living history of a place that is continued always by the evolution of society. 

Ruminations aside, I thrifted myself some very, very cool coats, shirts, a skirt, hand-knit sweater, and a pair of shoes, had a great cheap pint of cider at an outdoor pub while doing some intense people watching with Sarah. ALSO! We saw Pete Doherty, Kate Moss's ex, member of The Babyshambles, infamous for public dabbling in hard drugs...He was looking through some old military jackets at the same stall of the market we were in. I saw a bit too much of him...as in his bum crack when he bent over to pick up a hat...(!) 

While there, I also spotted and took note of many, many bikers weaving through foot, car and moped traffic, thanks to my newly-garnered eye for bipedal locomotion so taught to me by the ever-knowledgeable Luke H. Berry. Some were stylish, sporting suits and ties or heels

and purses, respectively, on various frames, old and new. Many a bright and bold fixed gear looking sleek and simple. The prevalence of which I think was definitely due to a warehouse sized fixed-gear bike shop located on a parallel street. I arrived back home after a joyous ride in the efficient, bright, clean and wonderful London underground and now am tired, happy and very much in love with London.