All anyone needs to survive in London
11 February 2017
I think I must have slept enough on the plane that one large cup of coffee at the airport was enough to keep me on my feet all day. Before the caffeine was an hour-long line at UK Border Control, during which Jack and I caught up with stateside digital ephemera on our UK phones (a new SIM card in an old phone and £12.50 will get you more data than you can burn in a week).
I have overseas travel packing down to an art form, including the knowledge that, no matter how much or how little my luggage weighs the evening before, it will feel ten pounds heavier on four hours of sleep. It was with this feeling that we opted for the train instead of the tube (which would have required a change at a crowded tube stop that we just weren't feeling) and a quick taxi to our hotel, which is bigger on the inside.
We had a lovely view of the inner rooftop. Being of London, the picture is better in black and white.
The lobby has two chandeliers
and two sheep.
We set out for a pub lunch, passing TAP Coffee on the way. They think they're being urban cool by linking the bike with the bean. They have no idea how spot on they really are.
When in London, it is necessary to obtain as many native UK sweets as one can stuff into one's luggage to dole out in tiny portions later. So it was that we Googled a shop we'd never been to, within walking distance of our pub lunch, and set out towards it.
Our path took us through Seven Dials in Covent Garden. Here sits a candy cart that I've visited before. It is run by a somewhat gruff fellow who Brits himself up quite nicely, for tourists or for himself we'll never know.
He has, among stacks of boiled sweets, the impossible to find in the States blackcurrent and candy-coated licorice torpedoes that make Good and Plenty weep in jealousy.
When I told him that we can't get blackcurrant back home, he said, "Americans have peculiar tastes."
"Speaking of which," he added, "What do you think of your man?"
"That man? I did not vote for that man. That sensitive little man. That man-baby. That FUCKwit!" I was relieved that he mostly agreed with me. He was sure that 45 is going to start a war. I wondered what odds Ladbrokes is giving on his remaining in office past this year. (As of 11 March, Ladbrokes gives him a 50-50 chance of serving a full term. You can see today's odds here.) I told him that we spend half our time laughing and the other half in a panic.
"Good luck with it," he said as we departed.
"Good luck with Brexit," I replied.
"Oh, I'm not worried about that." English sweets are dead. Long live English sweets.
The Royal Opera House is being restored:
We poked our head inside stores here and there, made notes of wine bars for later, and eventually wound up on Russell Street, at Sugar Sin. They have the super-sour boiled sweets that are so strong they'll always be the last piece of candy you'll eat that day. Next door is gelato, and next to that a bakery. For a sugar fix, there's no reason to be anywhere else in London.
We stopped in a bookstore, where I found two Irivne Welsh novels in paperback. Somehow I missed these when they came out in 2014 and 2015. The pound being $1.20 now, the price of a book here is no longer outrageous.
For a friend, by request, I bought a couple of packs of Tesco fig rolls, at a whopping 50 pence each. If they're as good as he says, I might have to stash a few away for myself. Meanwhile, though, I'm content with a week's supply of Digestives and a bottle of Ribena.
It's never a good idea to let me loose around brightly-colored objects when I'm jet-lagged. Whether beads or books or pens or some other form of easily-stashed memorabilia, I have little willpower when my main goal is to remain vertical.
My bag full, we walked back to the hotel. Our room, hot when we left, the controls unresponsive, the front desk alerted, was every bit as roasty when we returned. Maintenance had been in to poke around, and, in doing so, made the squealing fan in the bathroom, which we couldn't turn off, louder than it had been before.
"Welcome to tinnitus," I told Jack. I closed the bathroom door, but the heat and the blower noise were too much for him. We went down to the front desk again, and this time they gave us a new room. After dinner, we re-packed and re-unpacked.
Now we have a view of a community playing field, a little fenced-in pen that hosts friendly soccer matches and, this morning, a cross-fit class where I watched a woman hurt her back doing dead lifts. The park, operated by the city, closes at 9:00 p.m. sharp, when an official-looking official appears at the gates in a bright yellow vest to usher people out and lock the doors.
Today we'll be walking around again. I don't plan to buy anything that I'll need to carry home, although I think my fig roll friend is willing to try a Tesco versus Sainsbury's taste test, so we'll see about that.
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