I'm in love with London. I'm not sure if I came to London for the right reasons. Like the neo-conservative decision to invade Iraq in 2003, my mind was made up to go to London before I searched for some good reasons to justify my irrational move. Maybe I needed to counteract inertia, maybe I felt a need to flee the country and my family, but thats not the subject of this post. Whatever the reasons, now that I am here I realize its a perfect fit. And I have an exit strategy and a timetable. Unless I can find a job here willing to extend my visa, I'll be back in the USA next January. Maybe my love of London is made possible by the fact that I know I'll only be here for a year or so. Not long enough to let the weather make me SAD.
I stepped onto a bus a few weeks ago and asked the driver if the bus went to Victoria station. He answered gently, "Yes, love." My heart melted. I love nice bus drivers and I love "love" as a term of endearment to perfect strangers! I also like the way most people say "cheers" after just about everything, for instance: "Here is your change, love. Cheers!"
I also love the diversity in my neighborhood. I live in Brixton in the heart of London's caribbean community. Brixton is infamous for violence, knifings, and race riots, but its been almost thirty years since the Clash recorded The Guns of Brixton and now the cinema is full of "yummy mummies," and the neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying. Besides, no one has guns here like in the USA. Maybe everything feels safer after living in Washington, DC. This didn't stop a concerned and protective taxi driver from asking me on Friday night (after I said I needed to go to Brixton) whether I had ever been there before. I stared at him and said, "I live there." He was surprised, and intrigued that I was American. We proceeded to have the most ridiculously amusing conversation. He began grilling me about American civic trivia (i.e. what US state was the first to ratify the constitution? what do the stripes on the flag represent? From what two states do you have to drive south in order to get into Canada?) I asked him if he were studying for a citizenship exam, and then asked him if would give me a free ride if I answered all of his questions correctly. He said yes and I did (ha!) but in the end I couldn't not pay him. I told him next time he should abandon trivia in favor of better questions like whats the relationship between soverignty, rights, and justice? Admittedly I was a little drunk but I think he thought I was absolutely nuts. What a conversation for Halloween.
Besides the curious Irish taxi driver, my neighborhood is filled with other colorful people. I was thinking about how interesting my neighborhood was as I got on the train yesterday and had to push my way past these ladies in niqab before this man shoved a flyer into my hand. I looked down at it and read, "Professor Amine, International Spiritual Healer with 36 years experience...Don't hesitate to call the most acclaimed African medium. God gifted and well known for his competence and efficiency. Expert in all occult matters, even the most desperate of cases...For immediate help in looking for love, un-betwichment, court cases, strange illness...Enhance your career prospects! Call today for an appointment!" So if I require the services of Nigerian commercialized spiritual healing, I know where to go.
And the market! I love the Brixton market! Not four blocks from my house there is a giant open-air market. It is fantastic. Its extensive and fascinating and dynamic. I wandered through it for the first time last weekend and it felt like a middle eastern souq. There were caribbean vegetable stalls, arab halal butchers, pakistani halal butchers, colorful plastic chinese trinket pedlars, etc. I want coconuts, or plantains, or apples, or pig's feet, or zaatar, or cheap linens...I now know where to find them.
Also down the street is a church with a bar in the basement. What could be better? Or indeed, more British?
Also down the street is a church with a bar in the basement. What could be better? Or indeed, more British?
Oh sure, I also love my graduate program and the world renowned school, but what I REALLY love are the curious laundry packets they manufacture here! In the closet near the washing machine is a box of individually-wrapped packages of laundry soap that one just tosses into the load of wash as if it were another piece of underwear. You don't have to measure anything, and you don't have to get all the drippy drippy goopiness of blue laundry soap running down the side of the container. This little square of plastic (?) dissolves on its own. There is a similar invention for the dishwasher AND for fake-dry-cleaning clothes in the dryer. Its amazing. I've no idea if its ecologically sustainable...but I'm not sure I really care.
Of course, no love affair is perfect. London has its faults and there are some things I hate about living here. For example, I hate the Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) that is an ubiquitous presence throughout the city. Londoners are watched on camera around 44 times each day, in the supermarket, in pubs, on the sidewalks, in buses, in the train, even in taxi cabs. I think its creepy and has the potential to be misused in the future. On the other hand, my flatmate told me the first day I was here that if I walk down such and such streets to the tube station, I would be safest because those streets were covered in CCTV cameras and everyone knew it. "No one will touch you," he assured me. But the more I study things like deterrance, I'm not convinced that there is any significant evidence that deterrance does indeed prevent crime. We'll see.
I also despise the gossipy newspapers and tabloids that are aggressively distributed daily. Newspaper vendors thrust these thin papers with loud headlines into my face from all sides of the street at all time. At first I politely declined, now I just walk past, annoyed. I dislike that the tube closes at midnight. Even in DC, arguably the lamest city on earth, the metro stays open until 3am on the weekends. But here every weekend is a Cinderella story, and if I don't leave parties by midnight, the train turns into a pumpkin. I HATE the way my hot and cold water don't mix. Even in Egypt the hot and cold water mixes. Occassionally.
The jury is still out on London fashion. I'm currently neutral. Not sure what I think of the cropped bomber jackets, jeans tucked into boots (its not really flattering...it just kinda makes everyone look like they're running off to the stables after class), royal blue tights with everything even when they don't match, ditto with the scarves. I'm not saying the world needs to be matchy-matchy, but I am saying that if people are intentionally trying to stand out from the crowd, well, maybe they shouldn't dress like the rest of the crowd. Just a thought. Maybe its this analytic tenacity that got me into the Mick Jagger School of Economics. I'm also not yet sure what to make of the fact that my former fiance is now living a stone(henge?)'s throw away from here in Oxford.
Not everything can be perfect. But have I mentioned the dissolving laundry soaps?
2 comments:
1. London seems like a good place to invest in individual fashion-y pieces. You don't have to tuck your jeans into boots, but it is nice to have an assortment of boots from which to choose, for when you need boots. (I LOVE BOOTS.) Or, like, someday you might need blue tights. I'm just saying. Think "investment."
2. I do not know the first state to ratify the Constitution. Delaware?
3. Hot and cold water-mixing technology should be the universal standard.
4. Church + Bar = a good idea. As Luther said, "Better to think of church in an alehouse than to think of the alehouse while in church." I could be paraphrasing.
Thanks for the highly entertaining read, love.
hahaha. As a matter of fact it was Delaware. You are very smart. That must be why they let you into Georgetown. Love the Luther paraphrase. I miss you! If you come visit we can go boot shopping. Just saying. Need any more temptations?
Post a Comment