An American Wolverine In London
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I give up
This was a great idea at first except two months in a foreign city is not nearly long enough for both life & the internet. Therefore, this will probably be my last entry on this blog… BUT FEAR NOT FOR I WILL PROBABLY CONTINUE TO BLOG ON MY NORMAL TUMBLR http://www.martygoestocollege.tumblr.com once my life returns to it’s boring pace and I’m back at University. God that is so awkward to type.
Until then, you stay the internet and I will stay American, Internet.
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It’s really fucking hot in my room. The A/C went out and the coldest thing I have to drink is milk.
Woof.
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The guy with a red jacket! and two of his buddies who I have no idea who they are attended the USA v Ghana match today.
I rather enjoyed this. Made losing that game slightly less crappy. Ah well, at least everyone else at work will be depressed now that England is eliminated.
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So it has been two weeks since I posted anything substantial here. Time to fix that.
When last we spoke, I was unemployed. I think it was the next morning when we were about to tour Parliament that I got a phone call from a company called Dods offering me a job. It was a cause for celebration and I was grinning all the way from one end of Parliament to the other. I really like work, although if you asked me what Dods did, I would probably look like a deer in headlights because I really do not fully understand the full extent of what it does. As far as I can tell, Dods provides the most objective perspective on all segments of the British Government. We put out a bunch of publications that would probably be dreadfully boring to the average consumer, but are probably the most transparent source of government information in the world. I am working on the marketing team for the Government/Civil Service division and we’ve mainly spent the last two weeks trying to get Civil Service members to attend different events to collaborate and examine new methods of government. It’s pretty cool and while I don’t always know what’s going on, I love my co-workers and I feel like I fit in personality wise AND in terms of contributing to my team’s end goal. Plus I got to sit in the corner of this really important meeting and quietly munch on some pork belly.
Although I joined the working class two weeks ago, I have still managed to keep on rocking in the free world. We went down to Brighton Beach the day before our internships started and I had the best food I’ve had since touching down. As in three quid stir fried noodles. Also: it was a beautiful day, I got to hang out on a beach, and eat/drink/be merry. Notable nuggets of knowledge from the day: Britain does not have sand on it’s beaches and sunburn still occurs in the U.K., despite the fact that sunblock is impossible to find.
Other than that, we’ve been doing quite a bit of soaking up the culture. We spent one afternoon in Regent’s park relaxing and enjoying the good weather. We found a wine bar in central London that is kind of catacomb-y/cave-y on the inside and has a really sweet outdoor area as well. There was some night when we all met up after work and then pub crawled home. I went to an event for work where I got to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers of the British Civil Service although I didn’t really do that because they’re really friggin’ powerful and intimidating. Maybe next time. I ALSO SAW QUEEN ELIZABETH at her official state birthday party, although my camera died so all I have a photo of is like the 400 people in the parade before she came around. Oh also, the World Cup is going on and I’m having a hard time caring unless I have money riding on the game and America is playing. Oh, and last night I got to go to a bar in Parliament and have the cheapest drinks in all of London. Jolly good.
Without giving too much detail, I am loving life here. I know it is somewhat unfortunate that I am not working in Parliament, but I really do not care. The job I have now (which I did a piss-poor job of explaining) is much more applicable to my career interests and quite frankly, everyone who is working for an M.P. is not really getting the same relevant experience I am. Tonight/this afternoon, I think America is playing Slovenia or some other country and I’ll probably make a bet and then hopefully I will get some sleep. I think we’re going to see a concert at the Ministry of Sound tomorrow night and I will be putting my hands up for Detroit because Fedde LeGrand will be playing. Also: Edinburgh is in two weeks, Dublin in three, and then our continental trot begins 15 July. Amsterdam - Berlin - Prague - Vienna - Munich - Paris - Brussels in two weeks. Time is flying by but there’s never a dull moment, but most importantly, the cliches never end.
Cheers.
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”I seem to remember a time a little while ago when you Americans dumped our tea into a harbour. What a mess, it got everywhere. Dirtied up the water and everything. Really, this spill is just our way of returning the favour.
one of my co-workers.
I SWEAR I WILL HAVE SOMETHING TO REPORT ABOUT MY LIFE AT SOME POINT BEFORE I COME HOME. THERE. THAT IS A PROMISE I WON’T FAIL TO KEEP.
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I guess the hawks won the stanley cup, eh?
I wouldn’t know because every day is a marathon in working class London and I need those nights to recharge. Hopefully I can manage a real post at some point this weekend because I just KNOW the internet is itching to know about my life (Yes sarcasm/ fake narcissism).
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UnknownUnknown0plays
Tony Bennett - “A Foggy Day”
Yet to have a truly foggy day in this amazing town. Real life update coming tomorrow once I start working at the enigmatic Dods.
(P.S.: wish I had the Sinatra version of this song)
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Pictured above: dinner!
On that note, I’d like to talk about how bizarre living this far away from home is. Obviously, I have lived away from home before, in a house, and had to figure out how to cook for myself… Well kind of. Last school year was full of frozen pizzas, sandwiches, ramen, and macaroni and cheese. I’m trying to do something different here, and as you can see above, I managed to pull off my first legitimate omelette, albeit at six in the evening. It tasted a little bit like crap, but now that I am well versed in egg-ology to know how to properly flip the omelette, things can only get better. Also, I really which I had some goddammed American cheese because Welsh sharp chedder isn’t really cutting it for breakfast cheese.
In addition to the aforementioned omelette, I’ve been making a lot of pasta (HUZZAH CARBS) and if I can find some habenero peppers somewhere in this country, I might even be able to make some of the ol’ secret family recipe sauce. Bread here is really good, but there is next to no preservatives in the dough so if you don’t eat that stuff fast it starts to collapse, and really that goes for most of the food I’ve seen here. Although that could be because all the places near us sell cheaper food because it’s all somewhat close to expiration.
I have yet to really dine out and get some truly British food because I am trying to conserve funds so that I don’t end up travelling around the rest of the continent completely penniless at the end of this trip, but I did go to this Japanese food chain here called Wagamama the other day and while my food tasted like ginger and nothing else, everyone else’s food was delicious so I’ll definitely be heading back there.
Besides food, I am surviving. The four flights of stairs in the flat are keeping me fit and the BT Tower (future post inspiration) is my shining beacon of guidance almost every night. Although, between staying out late at the clubs, getting lost in East London, and watching Blackhawks playoff games streaming across the internets at 4 A.M., “every night” seems to be encroaching on “every morning.” Needless to say, my sleep schedule is less of a schedule and more of a “okay once everyone leaves my room, I can lay down and dream about my (thusfar) non-existent internship placement.
As in, I have been in London a week and a half and I still don’t know where I am interning. About half of the people in the program have heard already and they’re mostly with M.P.’s but I think we have all been aggravated (some more than others) by the process and the fact that none of us were told the truth about this program. In that: we have a surprising amount of work due for what a course that was supposed to be a light introduction to British politics, we were not told our internship placements the day we landed (which was supposedly the latest we would hear), and finally, the people we had been in contact with at Illinois have a very different idea of what this program entails than the people running the show over here.
All in all, I can’t really complain. I’m in London, truly living on my own for the first time and squeezing the most out of each day (and night). It just irks me some (and I think justifiably) that my family has paid for an internship (absurd enough in its own right) and I have been here for twelve days and I am still looking at a summer of unemployment. Now maybe tomorrow will come and the wonderful people in charge of the program will hand me a nice sheet with an M.P.’s contact information, or directions to the BBC’s headquarters, and everything will be okay. Until then, however, I am going to enjoy the heck out of this wonderful city and attempt to “keep calm, and carry on.”
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It’s been a long couple of days here in London. The classes we have every day are supposed to be a crash course in British Politics, but the professor possesses the unique ability to ability to talk for three hours straight on the most irrelevant quirks of the system here, so class has become a chore. Furthermore, the room we have class in is in some sort of parallel dimension where London sits atop the Equator. So heat + vortex of pointless knowledge = disastrous.
When I’m not suffering through all that, I’m busy scouring London. A few days ago we made our way to Regents park, which is absolutely huge and has some sort of Royal Garden in it that you can wander around. The London Zoo is in the park as well, but you have to pay to get in so we just walked around the outside and saw some camels and rhinos from afar. CHEAP THRILLS! One thing I noticed as we meandered: Brits are not shy about getting jiggy with it in the middle of a park.
The highlight of the park is definitely Primrose Hill (although wikipedia is calling them different parks… they’re still connected). From this hill, you can see all of London. I brought my camera, but sadly I neglected to put in my battery or memory card, so all the photographs I took were mental. But really, London doesn’t have much of a skyline, so don’t be mad at me. Up until the last couple decades, buildings never really stretched higher than four or five floors, and it really shows when you look at the city. Furthermore, it appears that the entire city has decided to renovate itself and some of the highest things in the region are cranes. All that aside, it is still a beautiful view.
We’ve hit up quite a few pubs for a pint or two in recent days. My favourite is still the first one I visited, the Court. We headed back there a couple nights ago and I played pool (okay well billiards) for like the second time in my entire life. It was a very laughable affair but I managed to win because my opponent scratched. Good times. Last night we tried to hit up a sports bar called Sports Cafe. How uninspiring. The bouncers wouldn’t let us in for some stupid reason, so we wandered around for a bit and found this other sweet spot called Road House (pictured above). It was nothing like the Double Deuces from the Patrick Swayze awesomefest Road House, but it was pretty rad. Kind of Americana-y, kind of posh, very good. There was a lousy cover band playing every drinking song ever so we all rocked out for a good hour or so and I had my first Whiskey Sour. VERY GOOD.
Any way, the highlight was most definitely the bathroom where the walls were like giant stainless steel urinals with constantly flowing waterfalls and then the sinks washed, soaped, and subsequently dried my hands (at least I think it dried them). FUTURE SINK. Almost as cool as the Dyson Airblade thing I saw at this place called Pizza Express. Anyway, there was also like a bathroom dude who gave me some gum and fully dried my hands. I felt like a prince. And I tipped him 50p. Which is the first tip I have left my entire time here, because YOU DON’T NEED TO TIP IN JOLLY OLD ENGLAND. MUHAHA.
So today the weather has been kind of lousy and I am exhausted after the past couple of nights so I have mostly spent the afternoon lounging in my room. We’re going to see the Crucible in Regents Park’s Open Air Theatre later, but other than that, I plan to take it easy the next couple of days. I think that is everything I have to report for now, stay thirsty my friends.
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