I'm becoming a Londoner...yeah, in my dreams

So...More time has passed, yet I've still no Internet access in the flat. Argh. Apparently, the same sense of urgency is just not felt here at all. I picked up a bed and a sofabed for the flat. The bed was delivered only days after the purchase (thank goodness, as that inflatable mattress was really for the birds!), and the nice man huffed and puffed it up the three flights of steps to my room. The sofabed, however, is another story. Although it was purchased more than a week ago, delivery is up to 35 days. Good times. I'm still sitting on a bathmat on the floor of my front room for my morning paper and cup o' tea...and will be until the 1st November date they've promised. Grr.

Added to this delayed fun is the fact that my ten boxes o' stuff still haven't arrived, though they cleared customs a week ago. They have to be scheduled for London delivery, which, I've been told, will take 2-3 more weeks. In the meantime, I've made good use of the tiny lil' washing machine (pictured in my kitchen) which holds two tank tops and a pair of socks if I'm lucky.

Onto the good stuff...

My first night, I went down to my local Colliers Wood pubs after Julian had left. The first one, The Standard, was very local and everyone was at rapt attention for the football (no, not NFL) game on the tvs. The second one, just yards further, is The Colliers Tup -- and it's fab. It's friendly, reasonably priced, sells nachos, and has a great beer garden ("the best in southwest London"). There I met my new friend, Steve, another Colliers Wood local...though he can't tell me for sure what a "tup" is, either.

Steve introduced me to his friends and last week, a half dozen of us went to the NBA game at the O2 arena, where the Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls battled it out in front of a packed 17,000-fan audience. The Bulls pulled it off by one last-minute point. Fixed..? Oh, of course not...Note: English fans are not big on the yelling, screaming "wooop! woooop!" thing...

Understanding that I must be the most geographically incompetent person in the world, I set off to find the British Library, where it is rumoured to have free wi-fi access throughout. Yippee! I checked my London A-Z (that's pronounced "zed" -- not "zee" -- thank you!) and saw that it's situated right next to King's Cross/St. Pancras tube station, which is where Harry Potter catches the train for Hogwarts. (No, seriously.) It being so close, I didn't take the A-Z map book. Big mistake. I wandered around for over an hour trying to find it until I finally just gave up, found a book warehouse shop and picked up a sale book of gory fun, Underground London: Travels beneath the city streets to read over lunch at a pub. (It must be noted, however, that I did finally succeed in finding the Library, which is where I'm working on job hunting. How I missed it in the first place, I've no idea. It's huge, with lots of people milling about, and has a big "British Library" sign on it. Um...yeah.)

The funny thing about my geography incompetence is that it does not extend to pubs. Case in point: While wondering around Borough Market/Southwark area prior to meeting up for the NBA game, I very randomly came across The George, one of my favorite pubs. It's actually London's last remaining 16th century galleried coaching inn. Another one of my great pub quest stories occurred just the other night. There was a place that Phil Squirrel and I frequented, typically on the evening before I had to return back to the States. I knew it was somewhere near St. Paul's cathedral, but could never remember where...or even what the name of the pub is. Steve and I ventured out to Central London the other night, grabbing a bite of Greek food at a place on the Thames. Over dinner, I told him how desperately I wished I could find my pub, and he shrugged and said he was up for the quest. Rock on.

We stopped at a pub on the way, met up with some older, drunken rugby/business man, Frank Wright (no Lloyd), who called me attractive -- until he learned I was American. After our quick drink, we asked the pubmaster lady for a pub called The Black Friar, which magically popped into my head. "I know there's a pub called that," I told Steve, "but I don't know if it's MY pub." Sure enough, it was. Yay! And as you see in the pic on the right, we found it!

Steve proved to be a better tour guide than I'd originally thought. (Most times, it must be pointed out, I'm quite sure I know more about London than he does...and that's definitely not much!) We went up to Camden Town, the funky/punky market area where I was hoping to pick up my £1 lucky bracelets (no luck there), and then went further north and wandered through Hampstead Heath, a really pretty green park area. One of the ickies I saw, however, was a bathing area (swimming area) part of a lake that was roped off for folks to use. (See pic on right.) Ew, ew, ew. It was near the sledge-y side where the swans and geese also were swimming and I can only imagine the blue scum and algae that would eat one's skin and make one glow in the dark were one to actually jump into the lake. Indeed.

We continued through the Heath and up to Parliament Hill for the city's best view of London. It was truly magnificent. The fact that the day was crisp and blue didn't hurt, either. You can see for miles up there, including all of the familiar landmarks of the London skyline, from St. Paul's to King's Cross and, of course, the gherkin. The opposite side of the view (er, other direction...whatever...See? I said I was geographically challenged!) was this super-quaint little town, which proved too fab and inviting that we could hardly resist following through the park and into the village to see if we could find (of course) a pub. We did, in a little place called The Bull and Last. One of the things I found truly interesting herein was that the blackboard highlighting its suppliers were all UK ones. That is, this tiny island is so incredibly self-sustaining, from the beef raised nearby to the fruits, veggies, herbs (pronounced with the "h," remember), seafood, olives, vinegars, whatever. That's pretty cool, I should think. The only thing they don't have and can't get? Petrol. But really -- who in the world can? No wonder it's so costly to drive here!