Jan's and John's Peripatetic Adventure

Strike

The tube is on strike for 24 hours? Bollocks. In Berkeley I normally wouldn't care if Bart was not working but in London the Tube is essential since there's so much to do and see and I'm fed up with walking all day.

Well, today we didn't hear from our estate agent after leaving several messages and stopping by his office. So John called the agency that is representing the loft and we have an appointment with the landlord at 6:00. I am still wondering how one gets a sofa into the loft via the 4 floors of stairs the width of my shoulders. The agent said they haul them up and in through the windows. This I have to see. Ikea can't even keep light bulbs in stock; I'll be curious to see them hauling sofas up to the 4 floor windows.

Today's fabulous meal: The Bank, The Strand at Kingsway Street, Covent Garden - dinner with our lovely friends Melanne and Simon from Avie Records.

Flat Pending

Update: Tonight we decided we liked the flat we saw yesterday better. It's completely open plan instead of divided with separate bedrooms. John walked around the neighborhood at night and the street it's on is much quieter and away from the crowds of Long Acre Street and the Covent Garden tube station. We're going to contact our agent tomorrow and hope we can politely withdraw our offer for the other flat and get this one instead. Lesson learned: think about it before saying yes.

Previously: We saw the loft/flat in yesterday's blog post and loved it. Our agent is contacting the landlord etc. and we should hear tomorrow if we got it. We're very excited and started looking at furniture in various stores. We're going to try Ikea next, as it's pretty much disposable furniture and we can furnish the apartment quickly and then update it with the ultimate sofa, etc. later when we find one.

Today's photo is the market at Covent Garden, about three blocks from our potential apartment. It's pretty chaotic; a mixture of tourists and lowlife shopping for bargains on junk I wouldn't have in my house for free. It's the other (north) side of Covent Garden that we love and the shopping is amazing. More on that (and photos!) coming soon

Speaking of shopping, yesterday we found a wonderful cd store that is not a mega-chain, very exciting. It's called Fopp and it had cd's at great prices, many of them the limited edition version I didn't see anywhere else. I suspect it will become one of my favorites.

Today's fabulous meal: Mash, Great Portland Street, Westminster (off Oxford Street)

The Ultimate Flat

Fingers crossed, on knees praying, lighting candles and sacrificing small appliances to the gods: this is what we're doing in anticipation of getting an apartment.

We are supposed to look at this apartment tomorrow, the agent couldn't get the keys today. We did look at a similar but smaller one-bedroom loft that would do the trick. It's right in the middle of Covent Garden, 2 blocks from the famous market, near several tube stations and too perfect for words.

Today we also discovered a non-smoking restaurant chain that has fabulous food. Wagamama, Japanese fusion, i.e. seared tuna on salad with fried scallions. It was an exciting find because there are locations all over London.

Today's fabulous meal: yep, Wagamama, Leicester Square
Second fabulous meal: Osia, 11 Haymarket Street, Westminster

They Work in a Rocket

Today (Sunday) John and I walked. And walked some more. I swore I would not walk more than 2 postal codes, or one page turn in the A-Z map book. But John read about an up-and-coming area around Brick Lane with an outdoor Sunday market that sounded like fun.

The walk was amazing. We walked through the financial district and saw very old beautiful buildings, a pub that said "established 1757", an enshrined archeological excavation called "Temple of Mithra" (wasn't that a battle in Lord of the Rings?) and the bizarre but fabulous rocket-shaped building in the photos above. Notice the historic architecture mixed with the futuristic rocket building. I wonder if there are any survivors of the committee that let that happen? Personally, I love it. It's like living in the future.

Brick Lane turned out to be EastEnders without the tv stars. It was seedy but with posh restaurants tucked in between the graffiti. The outdoor market exceeded anything you will see on EastEnders. Apparently a lot of stuff fell off the back of a truck the night before. You could buy anything and it looked like people were. I suppose it would be nice to see "Around the World in 80 Days" on video before it's reached the theatres but I'll wait.

Today's fabulous meal: Orso, Wellington Street, Covent Garden - excellent Italian cuisine in a lovely basement restaurant that's 95% non-smoking.

Gameboy with an Extra Prong

Before we left Berkeley I eBayed a second Tetris DX so that I would have one in London.

Now to buy the Gameboy Advanced SP. I thought about shopping in the Virgin Megastore but I already gave Virgin several weeks salary to fly over here so I thought I'd give another company a chance to rip me off. At HMV on Oxford Street I bought a pile of cd's that have not yet been released in the U.S. (at twice the price they will be when they are released there but I had to have them now) and a Gameboy in fabulous silver.

My plan to adopt a fake British accent has never felt more prudent. In the first toy store I went into and asked to buy a Gameboy the clerk informed me that it came with a 3-prong plug and would not work in the U.S. I politely let him know I am familiar with the various forms of electricity. However, he didn't have the color, or rather the colour, I wanted so I moved on.

While I was doing all this shopping John went to visit Alison Crum to talk about viola da gambas: where to buy them, etc. She and her husband, Roy, were charming, enthusiastic and had lots of info. He really enjoyed his visit.

Later in the day I bought a watch at a place called Fossil. I'm not a watch person and didn't own one until very recently in Berkeley. I decided I was tired of pulling out my Palm Pilot whenever I wanted to know what time it was.

When I bought the watch the youthful clerk informed me that the warranty is international. I nearly launched into my Edina Monsoon accent "but I don't care bollocks about international warranties dahling" and managed to restrain myself to keep from embarrassing John. He's had enough Edina but I turn out to be more like her than I knew when I told John that I thought the watch "looks like a piece of jewelry except it also tells the time, what will they think of next."

Today's fabulous meal: The Bank, The Strand at Kingsway Street, Covent Garden. Note that one should not have weekend brunch there as they have a children's menu and the throwing of utensils whilst screaming is a favorite of the not-yet-lingual clientele. All other mealtimes are fabulous.

The Purcell Room

A potential Magnatune musician, Emma Murphy, invited us to her concert at The Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre.

Coincidentally, Adrian Chandler, of Serenissima, one of our Magnatune musicians, was also playing in the ensemble. It was right across the Waterloo Bridge, easily walkable from the hotel.

In this photo you can see Big Ben to the right, the London Eye in the center and The Southbank Centre to the left. The Southbank Centre is amazing, includes the National Theatre and has several concerts and plays all happening at the same time.

The concert was incredibly beautiful. They played Albinoni, Vivaldi and Scarlatti, composers you would rarely hear in the U.S. Afterward, we met up with the musicians for a drink. They were really really really nice and Adrian, the violinist, invited us to another concert he was doing the following evening. Get ready, are you sitting down? Saturday evening at St. Martin-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Square: Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Bach Oboe Concerto, and more Vivaldi and Albinoni. We went, we listened, we swooned.

Today's fabulous meal: Zilli 2, Great Queen Street, Covent Garden - excellent Italian seafood. Update: John went there again a few weeks later for dinner and the meal was not good and the service was terrible.

Harry Potter!

Today we saw Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban, at the Odeon on Leicester Square, the theater where it premiered. It was nice to see the film on a really large screen.

I had a good time imagining which seats the stars themselves sat in for the premier and talked myself into believing Hermione sat in my seat, precisely in the centre of the theatre. My favorite line is when Hermione travels back in time and sees herself from behind through the trees: "Is that really what my hair looks like from the back!?"

Wicked good film!

Today's fabulous meal: Indigo, in One Aldwych, The Strand, Covent Garden

Piccadilly Rain

When we landed they said "Welcome to dark and dismal Heathrow." I thought to myself, yes Heathrow is the ugliest airport in Europe but they meant the rain. Dark and dismal indeed.

We arrived at our usual hotel, One Aldwych. It's lovely, as always. However we made the mistake of reserving a regular room instead of our usual suite. The room is very beautiful but very small. Ok for a few days but I don't know what we were thinking. We tried to upgrade to a suite but the hotel is full. Hopefully we'll find an apartment quickly.

The rain didn't stop us from immediately going to our favorite bookstore, the enormous Waterstones, on Piccadilly. We bought many books, and an umbrella.

Today's fabulous meal: Sitar, 149 The Strand - the most expensive Chicken Tikka Masala we've ever had.

Virgin meets xBox

While waiting for our flight in the Virgin Airlines Lounge at SFO, John vogues to the trendy music.

Jan discovered Galaga, an aggressive version of Space Invaders. The champagne won.

The flight was particularly easy. It was one of those planes with the fiberglass modules in upper class that have flat beds, so we slept nearly the whole flight and arrived somewhat human.

Quality Cat Time

We're leaving for the airport in 1/2 hour and I just had to spend some quality time with Clyde, the neighbor cat. Somehow he seemed cuter than usual and responded to my talking to him by walking up closer. I'll miss him!

London Calling

We've decided to live part-time in London. Why London? They speak English and I don't speak anything else (John speaks French). But also there are amazing concerts, stores, museums, etc. We will still be in Berkeley and will probably spend half our time in the U.K. and/or Europe.

We will be in London for the summer looking for a place to live and, once we find one, getting to know and enjoy the city. It will also be nice to spend quality time with our friends instead of having to rush around because we're leaving in a couple days.

John intends to continue taking lute and viola da gamba lessons. I intend to start creating new music (which I haven't done in a very long time) as well as practice the harpsichord.

I'll be adding to this blog when things happen and/or if I have something to say. Thanks for visiting!

- Jan Hanford Buckman