Before I begin, I’d like to say a special hello to Grace and Nick, who I’m told have been checking my blog every day. How’s the baby doing? Is it kicking yet? Thought of any names yet? I’d like to remind you that Stephanie is a great name for a girl. No pressure though. :)
We got to see how the other half lives on Saturday. We met up with our friend Karan, who lives in an apartment in Chelsea. As soon as we got off the tube, Shane and I were amazed. It’s beautiful. There are lots of stores, and tons of people bustling about. Karan says it’s London’s version of College Street, but I think it’s a lot nicer, and more posh. As Shane says, it’s London’s version of Yorkville. Albert Bridge is about one minute from Karan’s apartment, and Shane and I went exploring after our host kicked us out of his place so he could make us dinner. The hospitality of this man was overwhelming. He made us salmon and rice for dinner, and then we went to his local video store to rent a movie.
That’s when we met Deuce.
Deuce is the crazy Frenchmen who owns the video store in Chelsea. He knows Karan, and started talking to him and his friend Magna about Bollywood movies, and what films he should be stocking in his store. Then, Dingman and Deuce got into a big Coen-brothers discussion/lovefest. It was really weird. I don’t know why, but we then asked Deuce to recommend a good, light movie for us to watch. Without hesitation, he told us we should watch the Mexican film,
Amor es perros (Love’s a bitch) because, as he promised, “it will change your life.” Uh-huh. This movie is the most disturbing piece of dog-cruelty caught on tape I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing. Dogs killing dogs, dogs getting shot, dead dogs lying in pools of blood, dogs getting caught under the floorboads with rats… I could go on, but I won’t. It was just disgusting. The director is obviously a cat person. At the end of the three hours, the four of us looked at each other, stunned. I don’t know what Deuce’s idea of a bad or dark movie is, and I’m going to keep it that way.
By this time, it was after 2 am, which meant we had to take the night bus to get home. What an adventure that was. The night bus runs every 30 minutes, and is full of drunken Londoners who missed the last tube. The drivers are in foul moods, and when we asked one of them for directions, he just snarled. It’s like riding the vomit comet, except there are hundreds of buses running all night long.
Anyway, we finally moved out of the wretched hostel Monday night. The move took a good three hours, because we had to make the trip on the tube from the hostel to our new digs twice. Yep, twice. That’s because we brought so much shit with us that we couldn’t carry it all in one trip, and were too cheap – or practical, depending on how you look at it – to take a cab. But, it all worked out in the end, and we were settled, sort of, by 11:30 pm.
Leaving the hostel felt better than words can describe. Our fifth and final roommate, an Aussie named Mark, told us he thought our hostel was the worst place he’s ever stayed in – and he’s been backpacking around the world for a year. I would have to agree. What a shithole. The place charges you for everything; use of sheets, lockers, storage – I’m surprised they didn’t charge us to use the showers and bathrooms. But we screwed them good in the end. We got our full deposit back despite losing the keys to the lockers, and snuck our bags out of storage without paying. Score for Dingman and Bomba! Woo.
Anyway, I honestly thought I was going to kill someone the second last night we were there. We were making dinner in the kitchen/torture chamber, where all these rude, loud and obnoxious people were congregating. They didn’t have any reason for being in there, other than they were bored and were trying to make conversations with the people trying to watch TV. Whoever thought putting the TV in the kitchen was a good idea – when there’s a perfectly empty games/rec room next door – should be shot. Anyway, there was no counter space left, and this stupid jerk kept bumping into me as he was walking from one end of the counter to the other. I was standing still, so you’d think he’d walk around me. But no, Mr. Pasta with Ketchup and Red Wine (can you say gross?) thought it was perfectly acceptable to bump into me every 30 seconds. I almost punched him in the face. To top it all off, there was no place left to sit, so we had to lug our food up four flights of stairs so we could eat. Grrr.
Our new place is nice, but our landlady/housemate is a little wacky. She has two cats, who, in the past three days since we’ve moved in, have shat everywhere. So gross. The landlady thinks it’s because they’re old and sick, but I think it’s because she doesn’t empty the litter box. Cats aren’t stupid, and don’t want to relieve themselves in filth when there’s a perfectly clean carpet to shit on. I refuse to clean it, because they’re not my cats making the mess. The landlady can do it when she gets home. But it grosses Dingman out, and he cleans it up. As long as they’re not in my room or messing with my stuff, I don’t care what they do. The cats have also taken to following us around, since we’re home during the day, mostly. Today, I opened the kitchen cupboard to get something, and when I reopened it two minutes later, one of the cats was sitting in there. She had snuck in when I wasn’t looking.
Anyway, here’s where my entry ends. I have a cold, which I have passed on to Dingman, and the more I sneeze and cough, the harder it is to write coherently. Besides, I have a job interview Friday, and I need my rest. Wish me luck!
S.
As I write this, I can hear the sounds of some unfortunate soul offering his love to the porcelain god in the bathroom next door. Thank God I have music on my computer. It’s on full volume right now. This hostel, as our American roommate said, puts the fun back into dysfunctional. But hey, at least it gives me something to write about.
So, here are a few more stories about life in this prison camp. I had an unfortunate encounter with Ilsa on Wednesday. As you may or may not remember, she’s the crazy cleaning lady here. Anyway, on Wednesday, Ilsa closed the women’s showers for about half an hour, so she could “clean” them (ie. have the showers all to herself). There was a sign on the door advertising this, with the notice that the showers would be available at 12:30 pm. So, at 12:45, I headed for the showers. When I get there, I see Ilsa’s stuff strewn about. About 30 seconds later, she comes out of one of the stalls, and starts yelling at me for being there, saying that she was “cleaning the fucking showers.” So there I was, holding my shampoo, while a naked crazy woman yelled at me. It was pretty funny. But because I don’t trust this place, I held back from asking her if she cleans the showers from the inside with her bare ass. What I did say was far tamer. I told her to relax, and that it was after 12:30, so I was within my rights to be there. She apologized, sort of, and asked me to return in 10 minutes. What a jerk.
Speaking of jerks, it seems they congregate in the kitchen here. Since the kitchen doubles as the TV room, it’s always busy. And because it’s smaller than a breadbox, we scope it out for when there’s less than 10 people in there, and have found the ideal dinner time: 4:30 pm. It’s pretty close to empty at that time, and we get full use of the remote control. But it seems that every time our dinner is ready and we sit down to eat, some jerks sit down at a table between us and the TV, and talk really loudly. The other day it was a group of jerks from Denmark, whose meal consisted of four six-packs of beer, a few Smirnoff Ices and a quarter of a bottle of Pepsi. Disgusting. There’s no point trying to watch TV in that atmosphere, as the drunken boors just get louder and louder as they get more loaded. Talk about inconsiderate. Go play cards and drink somewhere else, freaks. We’re trying to eat in here.
Every morning, you can hear the rush of people swarming the showers at 7 am, just to make it to breakfast on time. And our roommates are no exception. We’ve since given up on the idea of getting up early for toast, but the newbies are eager to follow the crowd. So that means that every morning we’re woken up by some rude person slamming their suitcases open, rummaging around for socks, and then opening and closing the door as they parade in and out of the bathroom. But this morning was a little different. We were woken up at 9 am, when a backpacker from Hong Kong opened our door – the beds were all taken in here, mind you – and tried to move in. Both of our roommates were due to check out at 10 am, but it seems as though the mean pregnant lady at the front decided they should be out at 9 am. It was pretty funny.
Anyway, on to non-hostel life…
I had a copy editing test for a job on Thursday morning, and I passed it with flying colours :) To celebrate, Shane and I went sight-seeing. We visited the greatest place on Earth: Harrods. Wow. What a place, although the only thing I was able to spend there was time. :)
The first thing you see when you walk in is either the designer perfume counter, or the luxury jewellery department. It was there that we saw little bejewelled purses ranging in price from 1,300 to 3,000
pounds. My jaw was agape the entire time we were there; oh well, it gave the CCTV guards something to watch on their hundreds of security screens. CCTV is everywhere. I wonder how many times I’ve been videotaped since I’ve been here. There are cameras everywhere: on the tube, the street, at intersections, every two feet in Harrods. Privacy laws? Not here!
You’re not allowed to take pictures anywhere in the store, except at the Dodi and Di “memorial” – which is just a huge picture of Di and Dodi beside a plaque. A group of Japanese tourists were lining up to snap their shot. I wanted to take a picture of them, but I didn’t have my camera with me.
As we wandered through the ground floor departments, we came upon the food and candy shop. All I can really say about it is that I know where I’m doing my Christmas shopping this year. They have everything: gourmet coffees, teas, truffles with “Harrods” painted on them, sugar animals, cookies, Belgian chocolate…. I was drooling the entire 45 minutes we were in there. Yes, that’s right, I said 45 MINUTES. If you’d seen it, you’d know why it took so long.
The only place we spent more time in was the shoe department. No department store I’ve ever been in has Jimmy Choo and Ferragamo shoes for sale. (Jess, I can’t wait to go shopping with you! You’ll love it.) I wanted to try some on, until I looked at the list price. No matter what happens, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to justify spending $1,200 on a pair of pumps, even if they are by Jimmy Choo. Well, maybe if they were Manolos….
On Friday, we walked around the Parliament buildings; they are so beautiful. As we strolled past the gaggle of Germans, the old British couples and other tourists preparing for their tour of the inside of the building, we saw a parking lot entrance. No big deal, it’s a standard parking lot entrance. Except there were four policemen standing there, stopping every car that drove in. As we watched, the driver was told to shut off his engine, pop the hood and wait for the go-ahead. As he sat there, one officer used a mirror to inspect the undercarriage of the car, while another looked at the engine. After about 5 minutes, the driver was given the okay and allowed past the gate. Seeing that really made me think about Canada, and our security. We grow up feeling relatively safe from car bombs, mail bombs and other terror attacks, and remained feeling so despite Sept. 11. But here, where terrorists have left car bombs outside of government buildings, sent bombs through the mail and attempted assassinations on government officials, it’s part of everyday life to take these precautions. On one hand, it made me feel unsafe to be here, as ridiculous as that sounds, because it made me realize that we’re living in a city where the threat of a terror attack is real. On the other hand, I felt relieved that there were so many security measures in place.
After seeing that, we walked to the Thames Path, which is just a little park that has benches on risers so you can look at the River Thames. This park is the home of
The Burghers of Calais, a sculpture by Rodin. It’s really quite something. I was standing there, admiring it, when Shane took a closer look and stepped back, aghast. It seems some vandals had carved their names into the legs of the men in the sculpture, just because they could. That made me so sad. What’s wrong with people that they would think it’s okay to deface a work of art with something as tacky as their initials or four-letter words? The more I thought about it, the more I thought about the culture here in London, where everyone litters. How can you expect people to respect a sculpture in a park when they don’t respect their own streets? There’s garbage everywhere, and the streets are practically black with the filth. A person could be standing right beside a garbage bin, but hey, it’s more convenient to toss that empty cup from Burger King onto the road. I used to think Yonge Street was disgustingly filthy. But here, Yonge Street would be considered a clean and refreshing change. Ah, London, the land of the pig. God love it.
S.
