Greenwich Illustrated

So this is what you find at DLR station 'Cutty Sark for Maritime Greenwich'...



Then I stumbled on to the Old Royal Naval College. This church was designed by Christopher Wren.



Colonade.



Perfect baroque symmetry.



Venetian pastoral or picturesque of the Enlightenment? Probably the latter. This is England, after all.



Ominous dark clouds rolled in over the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich Park. But I still decided to climb the 'mountain' to the Observatory.



I took this photo of the classical-inspired museum with the super-modern Canary Wharf development in the background right before the rain started. Everyone pulled out their umbrellas. Mine was safe and dry at home.

First Football experience / Marathon Saturday

Yesterday I had my first football experience. I finally met up with fellow planner Jeremy Henderson. He invited me to join him and his girlfriend Jill and flatmate Matt to watch the Arsenal game at a local pub. I invite Michelle and the two of us headed up to north London. Jeremy described the experience as 'London at its absolute, proletarian finest' and told me I would be required to 'eat poorly, drink far more than is recommended by the surgeon general'.

I don't really have an interest in football, but since it's such a huge part of British culture, I wanted to check it out. We all met up at Jeremy/Jill/Matt's place and started drinking at 2pm. The pub we went to was packed, of course, standing room only. There was a big screen on one wall. It was a beautiful day outside but all the windows were covered so we entered a dark, seemingly sketchy, smoke-filled establishment. The crowd was wild and loud as they chanted/cheered for the home team. Michelle and I got covered in beer during post-goal cheering, jumping and leaping. After the tie game [1-1, how anti-climatic!], we grabbed some pizza and went back to their place where we decided it would be a good idea to drink more beer and do a few shots of absynthe [also a first for me].

Michelle and I parted around 8:00 at Holborn. Later, I learned that the poor girl doesn't remember getting home but she woke up on her couch, fully clothed at 8am Sunday morning. She also had no idea where her camera was, but it turns out she left it at Jeremy's and not on the tube as we feared.

Needless to say, when I left at 7:30, we were all quite drunk. I had a great time but I had to leave to go meet Drew Mighton who randomly called me on Friday to say he was passing through London on his way to Spain. That's the funny think about London. People are always passing through. No one is permanent. It's the most transient town I've ever experienced. I was late to meet Drew at Poplar but he was later so it worked out well.


Remember Drew? Remember Drew at 241's party on Sherbourne? :) Obligatory kitchen shot.

We continued drinking at my place [I'm not sure why I thought that would be a good idea] and then we were off to the club where we met up with Nik + Owen. By 2am, my marathon drinking day had to come to a close. I haven't left a club that early in a long time but it was definitely time to call it quits.

Hopefully I can throw some photos of football here when Michelle gets her camera back!

From London to Berlin, in every disco I get in...

And we rewind...



Square-framed glasses sandwich.

Finally, you can read about my Berlin adventure with David to visit Steve! For the MESers, it was unfortunate that I arrived the DAY AFTER Andrea Winkler left! David and I got off to a rocky start when we unknowingly hopped onto the first class car of the Gatwick Express train. We boarded and thought 'This is nice, air conditioning, big seats... and a free paper?!' The free paper was the big tip off. Then the ticket collector came and told us we were on the wrong car, unless we wanted to upgrade. Naturally we had no interest in that so we moved. It was a quick ride to the airport and since we had already printed our boarding tickets, we were able to skip the check in and enter the security queue. It appeared to be massive but we got though quite quickly and then we had lots of time to wait around in the airport. Good thing we left extremely early like I wanted! The flight was quick and easy and Steve met us at the airport. To our surprise, he was in a rush saying how we were going out. We ended up going to a club that was in the basement of a cafe and you had to walk through the cafe to access the club. It had a nice terrasse with projections on the wall. It was rock/indie night [someone didn't do his homework] so we weren't big fans of the music, but we just hung out and had a good time.

On Saturday, we had breakfast at an American style cafe [sad face]. Then we checked out Berlin's pride parade [but on the way, I got to see the Bauhaus Archieve!] The parade was pretty busy and very much community-based, featuring floats of local groups, businesses and organisations rather than flashy corporate-sponsored floats.



We had cheap dinner [2 euro doners] in Steve's neighbourhood. Steve lives in the 'Turkish ghetto'. He doesn't like his neighbourhood [but we all know he's a Yorkville snob]. I thought it was great! There are so many cute/cheap stores and cafes centred around the U-bhan [subway/tube/underground] station. There are a number of sketchy characters that hang out at the U-bahn station, but they seemed harmless.





The streets are fairly vibrant with enough sidewalk traffic to provide a sense of security. And you can get a meal for really, really cheap. We went to Berhain that night [Steve's favourite techno club]. The club was a former power plant so it was MASSIVE at about 5 floors. I'm not really a techno fan, but I went with an open mind because it's a big part of German culture. Also, Steve promised me that the smaller room was less hardcore but that was unforunately not the case. I danced for a while but I got bored and HOT, dancing to what felt like the same lyric-free song for an hour, so I went to the 'chill out' room and chatted with a couple strangers.

On Sunday, our day got off to a slow start but we finally played tourist! We had a delicious brunch on a terrasse. I wanted a definitive German meal so I got these meatballs with a German potato salad. It was sooooo tasting + delicious. Next, we went to the Jewish Museum [by Daniel Libeskind]. I had seen it in school and I finally got to visit, which was very exciting. It really was 2000 years of Jewish history, although we were particularly interested in the holocaust artefacts. David and Steve enjoyed the children's table where they both produced stunning works of art in the medium of Crayola.



The facade of the Jewish Museum. I believe the cuts are representative of physical and emotional scars.



A view upwards in the Holocaust Tower by David. It was supposed to simulate the experience of Jewish people in hiding during the war. You were isolated in a silent space, but you had sensations of the world outside: street noise and a tiny amount of natural light.



The 'garden'... 49 columns representing... something...



David and Steven take a break at the kiddie table.

We went to a portion of the Berlin Wall afterwards. Steve had already been there five times so I learned a lot. The wall is actually two walls with a 'death zone' between. The death zone had electric fences, barbed wire, patrol guards and it was watched over by towers. The primary purpose was to keep East Berliners in the east. On the west side, a tower built in the late 80s gave westerners a view to life in the east. I was surprised the wall only came down in 1989. I have no memory of the event.



We took it easy Sunday night and just watched some South Park, ate crips and drank soda pop.

This brings us to the last day. We did a bit of shopping. I really wanted some kind of article of clothing that was unique to Berlin. Unfortunately, I didn't find it. I found one cool tshirt at a store for local designers that had the TV tower on it in a cool, fragmented graphic but I felt it made me look fat AND the fabric was about 5 metres thick. Since it was 40 degrees out that week, I passed. Then Steve convinced me it would be cool to get a tshirt with the... little green man with the hat that tells pedestrians when it's safe to cross the street [there's a word for it, but I don't know German].



But the only place to get the shirt was a little touristy store without change rooms!! What's the point? Alas, I bought nothing. But I did take a whoooole lot of photos, including this one of the world clock. How curious that the world clock features Halifax, but not Toronto.



We checked out Steve's favourite store, KaDeWe. It's pretty much a clone of Holt Renfrew with all the same stuff, which is fine, if you're into globalised fashion. By this time, we had to return to Steve's to pack. I only took that blue MEC backpack. I packed SO light. Y'all would be proud.

We flew EasyJet both ways. EasyJet is the 'Greyhound' of Europe. Seating is not assigned, but you board in groups A,B,C and D. Naturally, David and I were D [Double D!]. By the time we got on, there were only middle seats left. I groaned and excused myself to take a middle seat, but to my surprise, the man in the aisle seat moved over beside the woman at the window seat. THEY WERE TOGETHER! Everyone rides in pairs and then sit at the aisle and window so only the middle seat is free in an attempt to have more space. The funny thing is EasyJet flights are always full. Who are they kidding? In a funny turn of events, the two men in front of us got drunk and belligerent on their own beer so the man and woman beside me moved and I had ALLLLLLL three seats to myself. It was fantastic. Then the two drunk guys passed out. Good times!

So after all my fretting, I am neither going to Brighton nor Nottingham this weekend. Nik and Rich both have to work this weekend, so all my plans fell through. I think I'll entertain myself at the Tate Modern, Shoreditch and Oxford Circus instead.

Posse Out, David.

Last night, David and I enjoyed our 'Last Supper'. We went to Itsu in Soho. We decided to dress up for dinner so we looked fantastic as we strutted past all the crowded Soho bars. Itsu is a sushi restaurant where all the food continously circles the dining room on a long, winding conveyor belt. You just grab what you want to eat and the plates are colour coded so you know what you're spending. It's probably the most expensive, but most delicious [even though the place was a little touristy] sushi I've ever had. Afterwards, we went for dessert at... Starbucks! We split blueberry cheesecake, a lemon tart and a colossal chocolate chip cookie. Delicious! We may have appeared morbidly obese to witnesses, but I figured I could handle it, being on the Lindsay Lohan, aka. Doug Stiles diet.

While at Starbucks, I developed my new pick up line: 'You don't speak English? Is that because you're from HOTLAND?'

Pretty appropriate, don't you think, Brown? ;) Nik, I hope this doesn't hinder my progress on our 12-step program.

Anyway, David will be missed. We had many a good time in London. There was culture, food, eurotrip #1, debauchery and of course HOTLAND. Who's coming next?