Traffic Update

We're just about used to the driving-on-the-wrong-side thing by now, but there are still a few things that make me think twice about getting behind the wheel here.

1) I still check the pavement at most intersections where it's painted "look left," "look right," or "look both ways." Apparently either there are enough foreigners here to merit the heads-up, or else even the locals haven't quite got the hang of crossing the street yet. I've already witnessed one poor bloke who hadn't quite mastered the art. Paramedics were treating what looked like a broken leg as a horrified driver looked on.

2) There don't appear to be any stop signs here. Someone with a little more UK experience might correct me, but at least in London, I haven't seen a single one. Traffic lights yes, stop signs no.

3) They take parking offenses very seriously here. Signs are all over the place saying that unauthorized vehicles will be "clamped," they won't hesitate to tow either. They have these flatbed trucks with a crane on top that picks up cars by the four wheels and lift them out of the forbidden area on to the truck bound for who-knows-where. Picture to follow - as soon as I can get it off my phone.

We're scooting off to Bath tomorrow (by train) to take advantage of my last two days before school starts. Mmmm, hot springs, Roman style.... sssssssssssssss

Where to begin?

Two weeks from the landing strip to the first post is murder for a travel blog, but here goes.
Fine print: I reserve the right to revisit any of these points in further detail later.

We've seen more sights than I can keep straight in my head at the moment, from the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, from Piccadilly Circus to Trafalgar and Leicester Squares. We've had more culture-shock moments than I would have expected - nothing drastic, but lots of little stuff. It's not hard to figure out, for instance, that 'white' coffee is just coffee with milk in it, but when you're at the counter in the cafe, you still feel a little of an outsider. So far though, London is awesome. Awesome in the contemporary, superficial way as well as in the ancient and powerful sense.

As Melissa implied in her post earlier, we've been doing the pub thing quite a bit lately, not having any dishes to cook for ourselves at home. That part's sorted now, but last night we had our first really real English pub experience - Manchester United squaring off against Arsenal on a Saturday night.

The Crown & Pepper, across the street from our house, has been nearly deserted every time we've been in so far, but the little chalkboard outside reading "Man U / Ars / 5:00" told us that this night, things would be different. Inside, every seat was full and the bar was lined with punters (that's patrons) staring up at the tv screens dotted all over the walls. We managed to find an empty table way at the back, where we could see the large projection screen well enough.

The crowd was more subdued than I had expected, until Arsenal had a big scoring chance some way into the first half. A great shout went up and all - men, women, and yes, children - were on their feet, arms in the air, only to sit down with a collective sigh as the ball sailed mere inches wide of the goal. Arsenal did manage to score a short time later, and I was reminded of playoff nights at Dominion Pub when the Habs managed to give us all a little hope.

Back home, any crowd watching a hockey game will usually have at least one noisy group of supporters for "the other guys." In the Crown last night, though, if anybody was rooting for Man U they kept their thoughts to themselves.

I happened to be up at the bar when a bad call left Arsenal's only goal scorer with a yellow card, and the uproar was even bigger than the goal that had just preceded it. I really thought guys were going to start lobbing pint glasses at the tv.

In the end, Man U won the day 2-1, so I didn't get to partake in a celebratory beer-fest, but that's ok, there's plenty of time for that later.

I came here really looking forward to getting into English pub culture, but as with any highly built-up expectation, part of me knew that it was perfectly likely that the real thing wouldn't live up to the legend. I'm happy to report, however, that I'm thouroughly enamoured of the London pub scene, and I know I've only scratched the surface. I have yet to catch a live band, although I hear them warming up at The Edge (another local pub) most afternoons.

This Friday there's a show at The Green Dragon down the street, featuring a band described as 'for fans of Tool' and belonging to a genre whose name I can't recall, but is six or eight words long and includes the words 'schizo,' 'crush,' and 'core.' The opening act appears to be a fat lady in a leopard-print bathing suit.

I'll tell you all about it on Saturday.

Big Leap. Check.

So, we arrive from the colony to resettle the homeland – in hopes of experiencing the density of cultures Europe has to offer and jetting off to a different country every other weekend. That’s the plan. First, to establish ourselves in London – job search for me while Tom starts his first real / paid teaching assignment.

We bear 42kg in checked backpacks (only 2kg over the max load - mercifully, they did not weigh our carry-ons). We’ve managed to cram a year’s worth of stuff into this small amount, including sleeping bags and camping dishes. Not sure how much outdoor camping we will do, but there’s an unfurnished flat to survive in for now.

London greets us with blue skies and hot, humid weather - we left one heat wave for another. London further welcomes us with 20 pages of fine print on little sleep at our 4.00 (their 9.00). Don’t they have those standard leases available at the depanneur? In fact, we’re still attending to some of that administrative madness. Not less than five different companies are somehow involved with the management of our building - either it’s a make-work project to curb the recession’s job losses or it’s part of the greater, decades old, make-work project that makes it possible for England to employ vast amounts of people without producing any goods... (seriously, the service sector accounts for 73% of their GDP).

As expected, we are not suffering from any severe culture shock. Everything’s the same, except:
- We’re trying harder not to get run over... or walk into pedestrians – they keep left, too.
- There’s cider in the fridge.
- We’ve been immortalized countless times (until rewrite) on London’s extensive CCTV networks. Don’t worry, they’re watching us for our protection.
- ...

I’ve mostly stopped freaking out when, at a Canadian / almost-anywhere-else-in-the-world glance, it appears that either a child or no one is driving...

England is a gambling nation (brokers every couple of blocks – next to the pub!) and I think there must be pretty goods odds against us being able to give directions here any time soon – street names change every few blocks. It seems their slightly (!) longer history leaves them with more people to recognize – it’s either that or they have another make-work project for street signs. These signs are, however, quite elusive and involve some kind of hide-and-seek you probably shouldn’t be making time for while driving.

Almost two weeks in and I am still enchanted by their accents (of course, some are rough, but that’s much less romantic...) And, I think their ‘yeah’ is pretty good competition for our ‘eh’ – “nice day, yeah?” Tom is forcing their expressions into his regular speech and hamming it up with their accent – not sure this is the natural evolution accents are supposed to take...

We celebrated our first anniversary last Sunday. A deserted City (the Sunday factor) is great for touring and the coveted ‘people-less’ photos, but not for attending to those basic needs of food and drink. So, we ate lunch around suppertime at the first place (pub, of course) that we found open where an admittedly “pissed” patron explained to us the importance of winning the Ashes (which happened while we ate) and some cricket basics while trying to remember which sports it is we Canadians play and how he enjoyed Due South. After a long day of walking, we thought better of joining the standing-room-only crowd at the Globe Theatre and opted instead for the more romantic (?!) viewing of Tarantino’s latest flick in Leicester Square.

We have, of course, seen many sights (full tourist report later). We rarely found that grimy, sooty London with black skies and billowing clouds of smoke popularized in film (ok, period films...), so I’ve picked up an Oscar Wilde to fill that void. Really, there’s almost too much to take in. Guidebooks mention only a fraction of the fascinating sights. Thankfully, we have a year to absorb it all. And we’ll likely head to the country soon to some lone castle in a field where we will 1/ catch our breath and 2/ give the artefact our full attention and appreciation which does not always seem possible in the overwhelming, over-stimulating city.

Otherwise, we are managing to settle in. We’ve got our library cards, so that either means we’re official members of the community or just plain geeks (free internet!). And, our steady diet of pints and pub food has tapered off as we acquire cooking paraphernalia...

Signing off for now.