london

Cityscape

American Radiator Building, seen from Bryant Park. Photo belongs to me.

American Radiator Building, seen from Bryant Park.
Photo belongs to me.

This past weekend, I took the bus from Boston to New York City to meet up with my husband, who was there for work reasons. Now, I know this probably isn’t the most common view in the world, but I kind of hate NYC. I’ve never lived there, but I usually find myself visiting once every couple years, and every time I arrive with high hopes and depart feeling angry, stressed, and overwhelmed. I hate the ubiquitous skyscrapers that block out the sun, darkening the streets even when skies are blue. I hate the garbage piled on sidewalks; the smell of piss and trash in alleyways; the scaffolding and construction on every other street. And most of all, I hate the crush of humanity elbowing me aside, reminding me that I am nothing, as important as a single drop of water in a vast ocean. In New York, I am anonymous, meaningless, and hopeless.

But something about this visit was different. Maybe it was because the weather was perfect. Maybe it was because we had no stressful itinerary, nothing we had to do or see or visit. Maybe it was because we avoided Times Square like the plague. But for whatever reason, I actually enjoyed myself in New York City. Relaxing in Bryant Park, I could close my eyes and hear the rhythms of New York: the steady heartbeat of a million footsteps on pavement; the thrum of a thousand subway trains rushing through underground tunnels; the syncopated beeping of hundreds of impatient yellow cabs. Gazing at the skyscrapers, I didn’t see ugly monoliths but the syncretism of history, architecture, and industry. Instead of a pockmark on the face of a nation, I saw instead a beating heart, vital and alive.

I wasn’t always a city girl–I grew up in a small town in the South. But since I graduated college I’ve lived in Washington DC, London, and now Boston. I’ve come to love cities, with their contradictory personalities and fast-paced cultures. And the longer I’ve spent living in cities, the more I’ve realized that each one has its own identity, individual and unique. They are like people, complicated and hypocritical and beautiful, and you never stop learning new things about them.

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Leaving London Cookies

 

Rainy day cookies.

Rainy day cookies.

Let me tell you a secret about London: the weather is terrible. I know, I know. This is hardly a secret, you think at your computer screen. Everyone knows that. But I’ll tell you why it’s so bad. It’s not because it rains most days, and the sky is usually a flat expanse of dark, unrelenting gray, or because it’s cold nine months out of the year. Those things are all true, but that’s not why the weather is so awful. No, that would be too easy. The weather in London is so unbearable because sometimes it’s actually quite nice.

Yep. Approximately seven days out of the year London gives us glorious, warm days with cloudless skies and cool breezes. Everyone goes outside and picnics in the park and throws around rugbys and plays with their children. And for those seven days you find yourself forgetting that for the other three-hundred and fifty eight, the weather is, to put it kindly, pure shit. 

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Onward! Upward!

A lovely sunny day on the Thames

A lovely sunny day on the Thames

Hello again! It has been quite a busy month, but I am happy to say that I am still alive and am ready to start blogging regularly once more! Furthermore, I am able to report that spring has officially sprung in London! Blue skies…tulips blooming in Regent’s Park…sunshine! O, frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

Ahem. Dear me, I fear I’ve gotten a bit over-excited about the reappearance of that beamish substance known as sunshine. I’m afraid it has been a long, cold, wet, gray sort of winter here in Her Majesty’s England, and considering the fact that May is just around the corner, I think I’m entitled to a bit of childish glee when faced the with the prospect of short sleeves and bare feet. Pardon me while I take a moment to gyre and gimble in the wabe.

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Review: The Cat’s Table, by Michael Ondaatje

The Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje

The Cat’s Table, by
Michael Ondaatje

In the early 1950’s, a young boy raised in Sri Lanka boards a massive ocean liner bound for London–a ‘castle that was to cross the sea.’ At mealtimes, Michael is placed at the dining table farthest from the captain’s, nicknamed ‘the Cat’s Table’ by the eccentric group of adults he dines with. Michael soon builds friendships on the Oronsay with two other young boys; weak, philosophical Ramadhin, and tough, betel-chewing Cassius. Although initially wary of each other, the boys soon band into a gang, roaming unsupervised around the liner, slipping in and out of strange and dangerous situations, ‘bursting all over the place like freed mercury.’ As the ship makes its way across the Indian Ocean, through the Suez Canal, and onwards towards Europe, the boys find themselves entangled in the eclectic lives of the grownups they observe from their vantage points of youthful invisibility.

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Snowfall

It has been a rare, snowy weekend here in London. Most years, snow is rare, even in the dead of winter. Last year, I don’t think we got more than a few snowflakes that failed to stick. But Friday and Sunday were both delightfully snowy, leaving quite a few inches on the ground.

Clapham Common, just before sunset.

Clapham Common, just before sunset.

Both children and adults were out in droves, making snow angels, snow men (and more adult-themed snow-sculptures, ahem), and generally having a blast.

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