One thing I've noticed while writing is that I frequently talk about my experience being in America, and I relate my political opinions back to things there, but surprise, I live in London. To be fair, I've only "lived" here for three weeks so far, and then for three months when I was here last year, but I feel like most people in my situation might blog about where they live.
I find cities to be a fascinating cultural experiment, and London is certainly cross-cultural in many ways. Generally as a student of theatre, I suppose the thing I'm most drawn by is the artistic culture, but I've been having a blast just toeing the edge of all of the vast resources that living in a major metropolitan area offers.
London has over 1000 times the population of the town I'm from, and while there is a lot of urban sprawl here, the county I'm from is still rather sparsely populated. There is some theatre that happens, but it's pretty easy to see all of the local productions without going crazy. Here, I could never have enough time or money to possibly see every show, and rather than being intimidated, I'm just thrilled by the plethora of options I have at my feet. The phrase "the world is my oyster" comes to mind. Is that why they call them oyster cards? I've always kind of wondered.
I digress. In all honesty, I think it's kind of refreshing to know I always have something to do. This weekend I popped over to Camden Market just for the heck of it, and it was kind of fun to be able to just people watch for a while. I've also given myself London camouflage, since I got a very trendy haircut, and I feel less and less like a tourist and more and more like I've found a city I'd very much like to consider home.
Can I take a second to rave about the fact that their museums are free? How cool is that? If I decide one afternoon that I'm bored, I could hop on the easy-to-use and readily available public transportation and go to see rare artifacts and priceless works of art. Plus there's no guilt about not getting my money's worth, and thus feeling obligated to spend hours looking at items I'm only cursorily interested in. Neat. And the free health care isn't bad either, imagine that.
I do miss Mexican food though. At Camden, my curiosity was piqued by a food stall offering "fajitas", but you can tell by my use of punctuation that I wasn't highly impressed. The man who took my order asked if I was okay with "hot" food, and when I encouraged him to hit me with his best shot, he was fairly generous with Cholula. If you are familiar with Cholula, you may know it's not really spicy, if you're anything close to accustomed to spice. The next thing that worried me was the texture of what they called guacamole. It was more of an avocado dressing, somewhat similar in texture to ranch. The final straw was the lack of salsa. I may not be a true gourmand, being that I have only had limited years to develop my palate, but seriously? At least cut up some tomatos with cilantro and onion and pretend it's pico de gallo. The scandal. There were also no beans (either pinto or black) to be found in the stall, nor any spanish rice. I will have to risk trying a slightly nicer establishment next time, to see if the results are any better. We shall see, London, we shall see. For now, curries and the large collection of foods baked in pastry will have to do.
Now that I mention it, though, those foods baked in pastry will be the bane of my existence. Why are sausage rolls, pasties, and pies all so damn tasty?
In any case, I have no idea if this post is anything close to interesting, but thanks for reading anyway!
P.S. If you ever want an "alternative lifestyle" haircut, or even just a haircut involving clippers in any fashion, check out the Barberette, Klara. Awesome work, as you can see.
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