Anarchy in the UK

Tower Bridge.

On Friday the 10th I traveled from Amsterdam to London. I had been to London before, for about 4 days in 2003, but I had a friend there whom I had met in Argentina, and it was just a hop across the pond from Amsterdam, so I decided to go. During that first trip I did most of the requisite touristy stuff, so this trip lacked a frantic need to run around and see everything. I did some touristy stuff, but it was mainly just a relaxed, and consequently authentic, weekend in London.

I arrived around 7 pm, was met by my friend, and we headed straight to the pub, backpacks and all. We went to what I was told was one of the top five pubs in London and met up with about 15 of her friends. It was really nice. The pub is a gastro pub, meaning that you can eat there too, and is run by the world famous chef Gordon Ramsay (who I have to admit that I didn't know beforehand). The English have a reputation for drinking, and drinking heavily, and my experience that night was a nice introduction to the English binge-drinking culture. I hadn't yet had a chance to change my money, so I was without any Pounds and thus without means to pay for my drinks. No matter: she and her friends were extremely generous and kept my glass full all night. I hadn't had a chance to eat dinner either. No matter: we ordered a pint of prawns (many of whose shells were clandistinely placed in one of her friend's messenger bags). The party moved from the pub to her place and raged till about 4am, fueled by gin, beer, and a 35 Pound order of Dominos Pizza.

Ummmmm, pint of prawns.

The next day we were a bit slow getting up, but finally managed it. After jump starting our day with a few cups of tea, we went and checked out the Tate Modern museum: AMAZING and FREE! She had worked there for a year and a half as an events manager before traveling to South America, and was therefore pretty knowledgeable about the museum and its contents. I had a private tour basically. In the foyer there was also a free exhibit on world cities that was quite good. From there we just walked around the city for a bit. We saw Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, walked through a market, saw the Monumentm which was built to memorialize the London fire and intended to serve as the center of the city, with all of London's roads radiating from it (didn't happen), and also some interesting buildings in downtown London, some old, some new, all of whose names escape me.

Swiss Re (Gherkin) building, with Lloyd's building on the left.

This was really interesting, each level of the building is suspended/supported from the floor above, so they are demolishing the building upwards.

That night we went out to see her boyfriend's band at a local pub. It was a great show. He played drums in an 8-man folk-rock band, and I really enjoyed the set ( www.myspace.com/decadesaudio ). The following act was an all-girl Sex Pistols cover band called the Bitch Pistols. Very entertaining to say the least. They were all joking that they were glad that they didn't have to follow that, as there's nothing like a good dose of folk to kill a raging, anarchic, angst-ridden punk buzz.

Decades and the Bitch Pistols, for the first time ever together and live and on stage...

My friend lives really close to the Arsenal's Emirates stadium, and on Sunday Arsenal played Fulham. The game wasn't televized, but we listened to it on the radio, and since her flat was so close to the stadium, all we had to do was open the windows to feel like we were right there amongst the action. Really, it was tremendous, you could hear the crowd chanting, booing, screaming, it was really cool. Arsenal, who was pre-season ranked 4th, was losing to Fulham, who was ranked to be relegated, 1-0 for most of the game, but in the 83rd minute they got a PK, which they converted, and the crowd, and the friends that I was with, just went wild! I'm pretty sure the flat shook! Then in extra time Arsenal was able to put one more in to win the game 2-1. I think the mood of the day would've been pretty grim had they lost, but as it was everyone left the flat in good spirits.

After the game we went to Highgate Cemetery, an expansive 37 acre cemetery seemingly ripped straight out of a horror movie, with crumbling graves stacked one upon the other and everything overrun by trees and folliage. It was awesome though, beautifully mysterious by day. The cemetery is home to many of England's, actually the world's, elites. Amongst other prominents we saw the grave of Karl Marx, with a tombstone containing about a 10x-larger-than-life bust.

The man himself.

After getting our morbid fix for the day we traveled to Hampstead Heath Park and climbed to the highest point of the city, which offered a spectacular view of London in its entirity. We made our way down and hit up a pub for some cider and a quick snack. We were joined by some other friends and spent a good few hours there. My friend lives with 2 other girls and they were planning on cooking a big dinner that night so she left a bit early to go help them prepare. I stayed at the pub and continued to enjoy the great cider and conversation. Around 9 pm we went back and had a fantastic lasangna dinner, and then watched the British movie 'Layer Cake', with Daniel Craig, and a few episodes of the British TV series 'Extras', with Ricky Gervais of 'The Office' fame.

View of London from Hampstead Heath.

The entire weekend was great. It was great seeing my friend again ad all of her friends were wonderful to me and struck me as extremely witty, intelligent, and engaging. We enjoyed great 'banter.'