Crayfish and Fairies and Lambs, oh my! or Things I Love About London So Far

(in no particular order)

The Free Evening Papers

Every night, on the way to the Tube, I am accosted by some well-meaning but aggressive man handing out newspapers. At first, I ran from this man and his countless clones. (I have been conditioned over the years to avoid two types of people on the street—those handing things out and those who say, “Excuse me, can I ask you a question about your hair?”)

Then one day, I realized that these men are not in fact threatening purveyors of excessive litter and/or peddlers of porn, but rather, are Information Fairies sent to Earth to make my Tube ride home more enjoyable. The papers provide just the right amount of sensationalized news and celeb gossip (what WILL that Pixie Geldof get up to next??) to distract me from the 8,000 armpits (some smelly) in my face. They also tell me what will be on my TV that night….if/when I have a TV, I imagine that will be useful information. Ahh, junky journalism, how I love thee.

M&S Simply Food

Happiness Thy Name is Healthy and Convenient Dinner Options. I cannot get enough of the full range of easy, healthy takeout sandwich/salad/easy-to-heat-up-dinner places that line the streets in London. They even have picnic sections—that’s genius I tells ya. People say the food in London is bad. I say they haven’t tried the crayfish and mango salad from Marks or the spicy shrimp and soba from Planet Organic. Also, I’m totally digging the plethora of Vietnamese, Thai and Indian options. Fish and chips be damned.

Monthly Pay

At first, I wasn’t sure I’d like getting paid at the end of every month rather than every two weeks. I didn’t know if I’d be able to effectively budget for thirty (thirty!!) days. In fact, it turns out that I think it’s much better! For months, Alex has been trying to spreadsheet me (it’s much less fun than it sounds) and get me to figure out how much I should be spending per day. I have been resisting mostly because, well, ignorance is bliss, but I’m finding that it’s actually a quite effective way to manage me money. Well, gosh darnit, look at me all growed up.

Tights

Like every perpetually cold girl out there, I love me some thick opaque black tights. As those of you who worked with me in Baltimore know (if you’re out there….who the hell is reading this thing anyway?), I wear tights and dresses from the moment the weather turns marginally cold until about a month after it warms up again. For this reason, I love that the women here wear tights and leggings year round.

It makes me think of wearing my school uniform from grades 1 to 12 and how ridiculously comfortable and warm I was in my wool skirt, tights, just-peeking-out boxers, and big ugly stretched out sweaters and turtlenecks. Those were the good old days of clothes; and here, not only do I get to hearken back to those days (with a few adjustments), I can be semi-fashionable doing so. Incidentally, I’m also liking the look of these new genie parts I’m seeing everywhere (and yes, I took a pic of some unassuming girl with my phone as I walked down the street).



So what if they’re not the cutest? Comfort and warmth is the name of the game, people. Stay focused.

Pub culture

By the time I left Baltimore, I was about THIS CLOSE to tiring of the Irish bar. The no smoking thing helped, but can’t they just change up the décor a little? Maybe replace some of those beer signs with, I don’t know, art or busts of dead people or something? I just wanted a change of scene, but I’m never going to be a club person. So what’s a girl to do?

Enter the pub, the definitive, varied, and low-key but high-brow solution to my public drinking woes. Obviously I’d been in many pubs before, but there’s a culture surrounding them that I don’t think I ever fully appreciated. See, pubs in London are not just for Friday and Saturday night debauchery or buckets of cheap watery beer (don’t get me wrong…I’m not knocking the Miller Lite, but stay with me for a minute here). Instead, they are stops on the path of life. See, London sucks time…getting from point A to point B takes a significant investment of your day and with so many people (and so little customer service…see Things I Hate list to come tomorrow), nothing is ever quite as easy as you expect or hope it to be. The pub is where you stop to rest in the middle of it all…meet a friend here, follow up to a Sunday lunch there, get out of the rain, tired of walking with your shopping bags, suddenly the sun came out and this place has outdoor seating, I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, I’m tired, I’m wide awake. It’s great. The fact that the beer is 10 times stronger helps too.

To illustrate, I include a picture of the view from my window. You can’t really tell, but there are three pubs lining the short road to my house—The Sutton Arms, The Slaughtered Lamb, and one whose name I can never remember so we’ll just call it The King’s Men or The Horse and Cock, because either is pretty likely.


When I walk home in the evening, there are people spilling out of these places—men in suits, women in tights/leggings, natch—and I don’t know, the casual drinker in me just feels happy to be young(ish) and in possession of expendable income.

Double-cheeked kissing

I’ll admit. At first, I hated this. We Americans are huggers after all. For women, this means one-arm-above-one-arm-below hugs and for men, it means the requisite “I’m not gay” hand clasp and two pumps on the back (crotches as far apart as poss). Here in the UK, the action of seeing/meeting someone requires slightly more finesse. For starters, it’s hard to know what someone is actually going for….is it the single-cheeked kiss? Or will he/she be coming back for to take care of the other side? Misinterpreting the action can be awkward and/or embarrassing, so you have to have your wits about you. Then, when the double sided kissing is actually occurring, there’s this weird moment when you pass in front of each other’s faces. If someone moves too quickly for the other there’s the risk of accidental lip plantage and that’s just no okay.

All that said, I’m getting used to it, and in fact, I’m starting to even get on board with it….not fully, but I’m getting there. Maybe it’s because I see it as a challenge—you will not out-sophisticate me, you European! The other day, some guy did the double-cheek plus one to me. I’m trying to adjust, but that’s just wasteful.

I was going to attempt to put my hates in here as well, but I THINK I’ve given you enough to chew on for today. So provocative, my blog. Life-changing, really. Who’s reading it again?