I think of myself as a city girl. I live in Seattle’s most densely populated neighborhood, after all, and I lament the lack of ethnic diversity, walkable culture, decent shopping, etc, in my second home in tiny Aigen. I don’t use a car much to get around the city when I’m there and I walk places alone at night in a generally fearless manner. Seattle is my city and I’m very much at home in it.
Only compared with London, it really is not so much a city at all.
The first thing that struck me upon getting out of the train station and on to the streets of London was the remarkable crush of humanity. Okay, it’s a Saturday, but it’s the middle of February, people, it’s not Christmas shopping season, it’s not high tourist season, and the sidewalks are packed with humans from everywhere going everywhere speaking everything. London seems vastly denser than Vienna, which I do think of as a pretty big city. Compared to London, Seattle seems downright small town. I guess I’m not so much of a city girl, or if I am, I’m a mere amateur.
The other thing about London – and everybody says this, but it’s TRUE – is that the Tube is a miracle of public works. No, I mean it. It’s a huge network and it goes everywhere and it’s a million miles in the center of the earth while up above, London just goes about its business. You buy one ticket for the whole day and you can go everywhere and back twice, all down underground. The trains come seemingly as soon as you get in the station. And okay, the Victoria line is a string of upholstered tin cans pulled along much too fast by an unseen force, but then, 10 minutes later you step out across town and up you go, a million miles back up, and there you are again on the bustling streets of London. This shouldn’t be amazing to me, hell, I lived in London once a long time ago and took the tube all the time but the monumental scale of the Tube just leaves me stunned.
It’s probably important to decide what attractions you want to see before you go in to town, otherwise you’ll end up boggled by the excessive variety of diversions and spend the day wandering aimlessly – not a bad thing in and of itself, and planning for some of that is good, but you want to pick something so you have a place to start your meandering from. Our choice: The Royal Gallery.
The Royal Gallery has an exhibit on called The Turks, Journey of a Thousand Years. The collection displays 1000 years of Turkish art, minature painting, ceramics, metal work, carpets, clothing, calligraphy… they did it all and they did it right. I finished reading “My Name is Red” not too long ago, so it was like I was walking around amongst the books and paintings described in that novel set during the time that a lot of this work was made. I can look at those tiny paintings with the gold leaf and the patterned borders all day long – and so can hundreds of other London visitors. I wished for a thinner crowd, but that just gives away how much I’m not truly a professional city dweller.
After the gallery we went for dim sum, then we spent a couple of hours wandering the streets and window shopping. Along Shaftsbury Avenue, police barricades separated waiting spectators and papparazzi from the glitterati arriving later that day for the British Academy of Film awards. For context, it’s like hanging around outside the Oscars. “This place is going to be filthy with celebrities,” said Mindy. We went in to Muji, a sort of Japanese Ikea, smaller, minimal color choices, with some clothing downstairs. We went to Monsoon, a clothing store with beautiful clothes for women, flouncy skirts and cashmere sweaters, everything girly but not fussy with just enough hippie to make me want everything I touched. We looked in the windows of Octopus in Covent Garden at toasters covered in bright shiny patterns. And we looked a shoes, shoes, shoes, pointy with high high heels, in windows everywhere. (This blogger, who has no business predicting fashion trends, says there will be a backlash against this shoe style any day now. Why? Because sometimes, you want to kick some ass but you need to look good doing it. Plus, watch anyone running to catch their train in those shoes. Will humans really put up with that kind of pain?)
We stopped for coffee at a tiny pink coffee shop with those iron swirly backed cafe chairs, then wandered down to the river and the government buildings. Everyone here is looking up at that clock, which chimed five times as we were waiting to cross the street. On the edge of a little green plaza across from one of the government buildings there’s a permanent collection of protest signs – B-Liar, US/UK out of Iraq, Pity the Americans…
It started to get cold and my feet, even in their thick soled Seattle shoes, were getting tired. We headed back to Euston station to get the train back out to Milton Keynes. Mindy made cauliflower soup with just the right amount of pepper and we watched the celebrities arrive at the awards. “Hey, look, their hair isn’t moving!” she said. This matters because the weather for the last 24 hours has been gale winds – even in the urban canyons of the city there’s more than just a passing breeze.
This morning it’s cold and there’s a blue sky and the wind continues to blow. No big plans for today, really, just a big breakfast and for me, mental processing of all that city time.
Note: Of course I have pictures. I’ll post them after I get back to Austria on Monday.