oh! its london. week two.
well, how do you do! thanks for stopping by.
another week has indeed passed, and i've been continuing in my incessant lurking of the fine streets of london. soooooooo much lurking. lurked all over the place, one might say. to summarise for those of you who prefer that, this week, I:
1. found out it was "national coffee day." that's dangerous. mostly because, as i would later conclude, london tends to be divided by a 10:1 ratio of crap to not completely crap coffee. i'm sure they do fantastic tea.
2. discovered that the walks preceding the visual gratification of a "tourist attraction," (i.e. benny boy the clock guy, bridge, palace, etc.) are often more exciting than the attractions themselves. photos soon.
3. got stuck on a roundabout during peak hour traffic on a barclay's bicycle for about 3 hours near trafalgar square.
4. took photos of buildings i probably should know the names of but certainly didn't.
5. walked out of a certain well known shopping establishment with a completely full green bag...
6. most importantly, i saw a squirrel. in real life. in a tree. and it did not kill me, not even a little bit.
okay first, there's something you need to know. the new caribou and flying lotus albums are both amazing and if you haven't listened to them yet, you're guaranteed to come out the other end at least 90 percent more disinterested in my opinion on music, replaced by a sense of thrill and entitlement regarding your new personal taste for it. i shall say no more, other than...here are the links. get on it.
Flying Lotus – You're Dead!
speaking of rough trade (and my crate digging ventures), i was lucky enough to wander into the wax outlet in question right as a young garage/power pop/psychedelic/shoegaze/grunge/krautrock band were hitting the small in-store stage for an album release gig. ladies and gentlemen of the interweb, i present "the history of apple pie."
i have a lot of praise to be shared about the history of apple pie. for instance, they were...loud. you couldn't hear the singer, which is totally rock and roll, props to the mix engineer and small room. and finally, they made me feel like i was in a scene from "scott pilgrim vs the world." it took everything in me to not yell "IS THAT GIRL A BOY TOO!?" however i figured because there was in fact, two girls in the band, perhaps that would come off a little more offensive than my quoting whimsy could cater for. so i kept my mouth closed.
national coffee day followed, which upon revisiting, i now realised that the basis of my "national" coffee day was based entirely on information passively alluded to me by people I follow in instagram...who are american.
so, i had my own gosh darn national coffee day, whatever.
among the successes for the day, was workshop coffee. one sip and a riot of gentle bitterness and velvety glory ensued on my highly trained nubbly tongue. it was by far the best coffee i've had in london so far, so i decided to let them know of my completely unbiased praises. as it turns out, they're an australian owned company grinding australian beans with australian coffee blends and a hearty australian bloody attitude. more or less. my tastebuds knew it all along. i then proceeded on a "short walk" to the nearest tube station, which for someone without wifi, a sense of direction, or a woman to yell at me for lack of the former, took many, many...hours longer than it perhaps could have. getting lost isn't such a bad thing in london, i suppose...
let it be known that while the london bridge was within plain sight when taking this photo, however i found it somewhere within my hipster eye to assume taking a photo of the light globes that hung nonchalantly along the sidewalk to be of more worth photographically. plus, it never ceases to amaze me how i relentlessly take unintended, blatantly crooked photos. the bridge looked more like a ladder into the grey mist descending upon london to devour everything in it's path. or something.
and then, one day, i went here.
i was pretty set on taking a photo of the zebra crossing, you see. because there aren't many photos of it around, you see. but, since there were a few others who for some reason had the same idea as me, i had to pull the "i am a musician so i can do whatever the bleep i want" cocky guitarist mentality that in most cases, tends to work. always needing to one up on everyone, aren't we? at least i'm aware of it. anyway, so i went inside. there's certainly a vibe about the place. it felt like important things were happening, like everything outside those doors was subject to be influenced by what was happening there at that very moment. i got away with it, i'm not going to tell you how. greetings were exchanged, documents were printed. hello.
meet "borris the barclay's bicycle."
i decided it wasn't a true london experience without a good old fashioned bike ride. and then, somewhere along the line, i met borris. borris had an immediately noticeable quaint characteristic that attracted me to his services. he had seen many things, had stood the test of...london in general. he was the one, for we would endure many endeavours together, drifting tight corners of cobblestone pathways, gracefully gliding far and wide, wherever the wind would take us...
oh, and getting stuck on roundabouts.
you see, i have not ridden a bike for about, oh, seven or eight years. and obviously somehow i managed to entertain the thought that such a lapse in time without operating this means of transport would be fine when one is simply occupying the peak hour roads of inner city london. there's not much more i will say other than, i learned my lesson, the whole ordeal lasted about 7 and a half minutes (7 in which were on a roundabout) and my 2 pounds merely bought messy pants and a lifetime's supply of vividly accurate nightmares. round and round and round and round and....
hyde park is nice, though. a thrill. it's really on another level of green, orange, squirrel and crooked photo. thanks, autumn.
other ventures this week have included plenty of time in brick lane, soho and a short tour of lord's, lead by quite a proper englishman with the flawless scripted tour guide humour to boot. the guy was like a stand up comedian really, i might post a highlights reel, as i've been recording plenty of voice memos whilst i'm out an about seeing as though it almost impossible to take a crooked audio recording (though I'm sure i'll find a way).
next week i take a short, dodgy air bus ride to a place i've heard merely consists of milk and honey, called "berlin." should be a classic. will get you in on it, as well as my last few days in london, a place that i think will be very hard to leave behind...
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