I was promised free wireless internet on the bus to London, but it was rather fleeting; gave up on it after a while and settled down with the iPod. Thankfully Ben, a friend from Hamilton who is now a lawyer in London, rang during this trip, and I arranged to meet him on his way home from work.
Ben lives in Rotherhithe, right on the Thames; this is an area of docklands that Maggie Thatcher renovated (with her bare hands, I hear) in the 80s, and is now a really nice area. There's a Hilton down the road, but there's snotty nosed kids down the road in the other direction. The Thames wiggles around a lot in central London, so it's close to everywhere, but you can't really get to it because the bridges and tunnels aren't where you need them to be.
I stayed with Ben, his girlfriend Tania, and his flatmates Mike and Graham. Their apartment was in an old shipping warehouse that had been beautifully converted.
Ben's friend Jeremy was celebrating his birthday the day I arrived, so we went down to Canary Wharf and played some football on a caged court down there. To say I was totally outclassed is an understatement; not only was almost everyone else a social or club player (one of the guys has just moved from NZ to the UK to go professional!) I only had casual shoes.
The rest of the evening went fine, but after an hour or so asleep I woke up with pulsating pains in my foot, which needed a day of ice and elevation before I contemplated doing anything more with it.
We went out in Soho the next night; a lively entertainment district, but with a hint of Amsterdam about it. I managed to find a Kwai Teow for dinner! I then promptly got asked to leave the vegetarian kebab store Ben and Tania were waiting in because my dish had meat in it.
As a newcomer I was dared to walk down a particular street, and I was disappointed that I only got asked if I wanted to "go upstairs and see some ladies" once. We went to a huge multi-level club called Tiger Tiger and, around 3am, I decided against going out for the all-night poker at Gutshot.
We had some great meals out in Rotherhithe - the Old Salt Quay was a nice pub on the waterfront; we also had dinner at a beautiful little restaurant called Simplicity, with a small menu consisting entirely of excellent food made from local ingredients, and three staff, alternating between chef, waiter and counter clerk.
A trip around the South Bank is a must if in London, and we went to the Tate Modern, where they had an exhibition about cities, recreating London in biscuits, and a Dali exhibition we decided against paying £11 each to see. There are a bunch of strange statues of men on top of buildings, which seem to be more art, and we found one closer to the ground also.
Monday was a public holiday, and the day of the Notting Hill Carnival. I headed out, along with 2 million of my closest friends, but I can't say I was that impressed. There was a street carnival feeling, with lots of capoeira, tents selling Carribean food and lots of DJ platforms with huge speaker stacks, but other than one troupe of drummers, the part of the parade I saw was "groups of people wearing big feathery things" and "truck with DJ playing 'Trini To The Bone' (sweet sweet T and T)". However, I did also see a guy in an Exponents t-shirt.
Tuesday, I caught up with Sammy again, bode farewell to friends old and new, and departed from Heathrow to Boston.
Tags: travel
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