a city like london

"...for a city like london, as we have seen, could not easily be described in a rhetorical gesture of repressive uniformity. on the contrary, its miscellaneity, its crowded variety, its randomness of movement, were the most apparent things about it, especially when seen from inside." -- raymond williams, the country and the city

in the depth of winter, i finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

it's been a week since katie came to visit. i can't believe how quickly time passes here. katie and i had a perfectly exhausting time. london's been atypically sunny lately (sorry to rub it in, new yorkers), and i've been taking full advantage: we went to oxford street and hyde park on the first sunny day. i hadn't been to hyde park since i was in london last year, and the sun and the dogs and the birds and the green everywhere and the lake were perfect. we passed by buckingham palace on our way home--or what we thought was our way home--and inevitably got lost in the depths of soho, which i've discovered is one of my favorite parts of london. we went back to oxford street the next day with a strict goal to buy shoes, and after about 3 hours of unsuccessful shopping, we finally both found the right pair in the same store. go figure. i loved having katie here, and i love having people here in general, cause it gives me a reason to 1. neglect my homework and 2. explore and get ridiculously lost.

what i really wanted to post about was my first british culture class this week. we listened to our first guest speaker, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a journalist and regular columnist for london's the independent...she was so incredibly charismatic and insightful, especially on the status of the british cultural dynamic. since i've been here (and i remember thinking this last year, too), i've noticed a certain comfortableness in social situations among all londoners--regardless of the race, ethnicity, sexuality, whatever. but i couldn't really reconcile that with the fact that on a more official, legal front, london doesn't seem to be too far past new york. yasmin brown opened on this exact point, saying that "although society is much more open [in social settings]...when it comes to power, to the people who we have up there [in government], it is going to be a very long time until we have our own obama." mrs. brown's lived here for quite some time now, so it was really interesting to get her take on it. the rest of her talk centered mostly around immigration and national identities within london. i'm actually really excited for this class, despite its taking from me my otherwise free mondays, as we have the opportunity to hear some insightful, important, and respected people throughout london.

today's once again sunny, and i've already walked down to the oxford street/st. james park area and back. i'll be doing homework the rest of the day, going to a few pubs tonight, and continuing to be really excited that jay sean is british and listening to his songs! i can't believe i just found this out, but now i love him all the more.

some pictures of hyde park/katie's weekend here, at your leisure, below:

"wow, dublin."

i think it was on about the second day, as kristin and i walked along grafton street (one of the main shopping/pub streets there) that i said this. i knew dublin would be a great experience, since kris and i come from a pretty irish family, and we absolutely love the UK in general, but i had NO idea how charmed i would be by this city. the trip began really smoothly, with a great plane ride and a super easy and cheap commute to our hotel (which was in an incredible location in temple bar area), and now that i think of it, i dont think we hit a single bump throughout the trip. we jumped right into the local flow of things, heading immediately to trinity college, just up the block from us, and watching a college football match (pic below) with some of the local students. we met some people who told us a few of the hot spots for local college kids around the area, two of which we went to that night.


the days following were filled to maximum capacity with both live contemporary irish pop music and traditional irish jig music. the river was in the center of everything, so that we were forced to cross and appreciate it numerous times a day. there were a ton of local cafes and coffee shops. our favorite was a seeming hole in the wall, panem
, that had delicious coffee and belgian waffles that we ate while overlooking the river. kristin and i fell in love with a pub call Quays Pub, which had live music thursday through sunday from about 2pm to 2am. every single guy (it was mostly guys with acoustic guitars playing some irish pop classics like u2, van morrison, etc) was so talented. and yes, i did get asked by one of the musicians to sing with him, and i did so (i never thought i'd do anything like that, but it was actually incredibly fun--i sang u2: "one.").

we ventured to the financial district--or what we found out was a lack thereof--one night to see if we could mingle with some corporate locals, but it turns out that dublin's financial center pales in comparison to london's and manhattan's. oh well, i guess dublin can't have it all. we wound up returning to the temple bar area, which we could basically count on every night to be filled with locals, good food, and good music.

probably what i loved most about the weekend was the fact that we combined uber-touristy things (dublin castle, guinness storehouse, grafton street shopping, james joyce landmarks) with some awesome mingling with the locals. i'm proud of us for taking the initiative to really immerse ourself into the irish culture, which we found out mostly consisted of drinking and music. this weekend made me realize how awesome it is going to be to travel on the weekends here. next trip is prague during the last weekend in february to visit my friend from nyu studying there! kristin won't be my travel buddy, so it wont be AS epic as it was, but i can't wait to see prague. i'm attaching some pics below!



a seaside town called howth thirty minutes outside of dublin. absolutely gorgeous!




will be blogging about katies visit (room mate from home!) sometime at the beginning of next week.

happy birthday robert burns!

deciding which of these events to go to for the celebration of the scottish poet's birthday! my friend justin and i were thinking of going to one tonight after our class. i have to go to one tonight since i'll be in dublin this week while the rest of the events take place!

finally got my hands on a usb cord for my camera, and wanted to post first these pictures that i took of my first-witnessed london sunset! quality's not great because i had to take them through the window in my room, but you get the idea.

wake up in the morning...

feelin like pdiddy? not so much. but i do wake up and relish in the fact that my hugeeee window with a great view is right in front of me, and i can pull my blinds up and greet london without moving anything in my body except my arm. i decided i'm going to do it every morning, as long as my room mate's up before i awake. today, she was, and i pulled the blinds open and said "hey cutie" to london. i hope i didn't freak her out. yesterday was an awesome day. despite the rainy weather, i took a great trip to greenwich for one of my classes, the english novel in the 19th century. turns out that a bunch of my friends went just for fun, and after getting a tour of the historical landmarks of greenwich (the castles of the queens and kings have now been turned into facilities for the university of greenwich -- imagine your dining hall being the former dining room of the queen!), we decided to venture up to the observatory, where the prime meridian is. we all stood on either side of the prime meridian, standing in two hemispheres. it was a really cool feeling, and i took tons of pictures, most of which i'll post here as soon as i get my camera chord from kristin. last night, i decided i'd better stay in for the first time and catch up on some much-needed sleep. i paid a visit to camden town first, though, which i hadn't done since st. patrick's day last year! kristin and i revisited our favorite london pub, the world's end, where we spent st patty's day last year, and reaffirmed our love for it. we also discovered a few other really cool places just around the block. i absolutely love camden -- it's sort of the hipster/ rock n roll center of central london nightlife. there's a place called the dublin castle that has a pretty awesome lineup of bands over the next couple of months, so i plan to frequent it.

tonight, kristin and i are going to the brand new concert at the wembley theatre! it'll be sweet to get out of central london again, and we're going to head over a few hours early and check out the area. some friends are going back to camden town tonight, so i'll probably meet after the concert. other than some reading and homework, today has some possible camden-market shopping in store for me! can't wait to go back there: the markets have awesome finds for clothes and jewelry (and candles if i remember correctly, which i'll love!)

home sweet home

for the next four months! i've been in london now one week exactly, and i figured it's time to document all of the havoc i've been wreaking on this wonderful city. i think this may be the first time i've sat down and had about twenty minutes to myself. i sit here in my incredibly small, but nonetheless charming, dorm room in kings cross london. the area's vaguely reminiscent of the lower east side--unimaginably fun during the night time, and a bit difficult to look at during the day time. i live just a "stone's throw away," as they say here, from angel, though, and i'm slowly realizing, as i tackle more and more areas throughout the city, that angel is in fact my favorite. living in a city that borrows not only certain names of areas from manhattan but also streets (i ran to regent's park the other day, and travelled along delancey street!), it's difficult to refrain from comparing every single experience to its counterpart in my mind. i've promised myself that i'd try to stop doing that as much, though. while i explored the local pubs/cafes/coffee shops the first few days solely in kings cross, i've recently branched out to a ton of more areas: i've gotten to know many of the areas that branch off of tottenham court road, such as bloomsbury, soho, leicester square, and picadilly circus (from north to south, respectively). i was really excited to find out during my orientation that bloomsbury was the "intellectual center of the city,"--it only makes sense that i go to "uni" there--and that right below it began the theatre district. when i visited london a year ago, i measured distances and locations solely by pubs and cafes and actual venues, so it's just about the craziest feeling to revisit places from last year while understanding how far north or south or east or west it is. i still have a LOT to get to know, though. soho, only about 4 or 5 blocks, was incredibly quaint and charming. before meeting up with some of my american friends in the nyu program in picadilly circus (the tourist center of the city) to watch the jets game, kristin and i went to a pub in soho completely infiltrated with locals. i haven't had too many chances to talk to native londoners just yet--i'm embarrassed to say that thus far in an attempt to settle myself into the nyu lifestyle here i've mainly gone out in obnoxiously large crowds of americans--but i'm learning the places that they frequent and i can't wait to learn their culture. i did meet one person who bartends at the local restaurant down the block and who's pretty knowledgeable about the local "underground music scene," whatever that means. in any case, i'll be in touch with him to find out certain local music events going on so that i can go to some. speaking of music, this weekend i'll be going to the "brand new" concert on saturday at the wembley theatre. it's not in "zone 1," which is the center city, so it'll be a bit of a trip. kristin's going with me, and she and i decided we'd venture over to the area a bit early and spend some time in the area since we don't know a thing about it. other than that, i've already been assigned two books to read this weekend, but i'd still like do conquer a few things before classes start up again on tuesday:

- do some shopping on oxford street
- take another run to regent's park -- it's so beautiful!
- book my trip to prague to visit my friend sarah, which will most likely be the last weekend in february!
- i also have a required day trip to greenwich tomorrow for my class, the english novel in the 19th century. it shouldn't last the whole day i don't think, and it's another excuse to get out of central london, so i can't complain.

this is the first of MANY posts in this blog, and i really want to use it as a way to 1. allow people who i may not talk to as much as i'd love to at home to stay in touch and 2. allow me to have another medium besides my moleskines to document my experience here, so please do comment/suggest/recommend anything to me!

cheers!