Biking: The ULTIMATE London Experience

T-Dawg's Bike.

Sunday morning found me up for god knows what reason at about 8 AM. This was after another fun night of dancing with dorm friends and getting to know new people. I had heard from our bartender that there is a "Market" on Sundays on Brick Lane where bikes are for sale. After googling this road and finding it to be about 45 minutes walk away, I grabbed some cash and ran out the door. The walk was good, half-awake as I was. I had some groovy I-tunes to carry me, and a hand-drawn map of poor quality to guess the way. Thank god for boy scout training, as I definitely felt like I was wandering through some sort of eerie wilderness. London is dead at 8 AM on Sunday morning- rather quiet, somewhat lonely.

Dreary Sunday Morning in London

After wandering around for a bit, I discovered a market not quite on brick lane, but it had the right sort of people milling around in it. I wandered through the crowd with an eerie sense of deja vu, like some dream I once had. About a quarter mile into the market, there were the bikes. I was pleased to find that they were mostly crappy, and all very cheap. I don't doubt that many of them were stolen and had made their way into the possession of the market via somewhat crepuscular methods, but I chose the cheapest, crappiest bike I could find that still looked like it would hold up for a year. The bike was 25 pounds (about 50 bucks) and I had to re-tread the tire on the back for another 6 pounds. Not a shabby price! I got a cheap bike pump for two pounds, and a helmet for 10 pounds. Whole shabang: about 90 dollars. What took me 45 minutes to walk to was only about 10 minutes to ride back. I was incredibly stoked, and incredibly tired. I ended up taking a nap, and then grabbed a personal yoga session in my new gym about 2 mins. bike distance from the Hall.

Catherine: The Gypsy-like bike-selling lady.
She was actually really nice.. I think I looked
kind of like the people in the bike stall though-
customers kept asking me how much the bikes
cost. Shaved heads must be a hooligan thing :P

The new gym is awesome! They have a huge aerobic room that I can use whenever there aren't classes. There were some odd people who came in during my yoga practice, but their presence actually helped me to focus on what I was doing. I came back to the dorm, got about 1.5 hours sleep, and then re-awoke to make my way down for the official Roseberry meet and greet party.

This is My Gym. It's expensive, but it ROCKS!

Never have I met so many people at once! There must have been 200+ of us milling about, introducing eachother, swapping phone numbers, stories, majors, etc.. What an eclectic bunch as well! The word COSMOPOLITIAN stamps itself on my mind in big black letters. Cool people from Greece, Sri Lanka, Jordan (all the Jordanians look alike-- something they call the Jordan Frown), the USA (very few of us actually), India, Malaysia, China, France, Germany, Belgium.. have I left anything out? Oh yeah, a few Russians and Canadians too. As the night grew late, I started to realize how very lucky I am to be able to have this experience- it was incredible to meet so many new faces, and to hear so many new stories/ cultures/ points of view. This place, so long as one remains open, will be an incredible experience.

I had one really interesting meeting late at night right before I went to sleep- an Indian fellow introduced himself as Shrek, and knew my name before I even gave it to him! Apparently the story of my bike had made its way around the Hall, and as I write this report on Monday evening, others have come up to me asking me where I found it and how it rides. I'm a biking celebrity! Shrek is a really cool guy from Bangladesh, which is apparently near Mysore. He'd heard of Gyana-Nana-Barrati, my old yoga guru, and told me that if I ever want to travel to India, most especially the Mysore region, he'd be happy to help me out. He's doing his masters in some sort of Systems Management-- he plans to take the knowledge back to his city and .. well.. make lots of money, I suppose. And no, his real name isn't Shrek, but a lot of the Indian people over here give out nicknames, as their full names are rather hard to remember..

Students Chillen in the Halls-- foot massages are good!

Malik, the Trance DJ who spins at the Ministry of Sound.

Monday was mostly a day of chilling, sleeping, and catching up. I met a few cool people and went out to breakfast with some of the students, and took a bike ride to the LSE where I got hopelessly lost, but had a really good time. London streets are a lot of fun to ride in. You have to stay extremely aware of what you're doing, but once you're up to speed, you're basically a slow-moving car. The coolest thing is that at stoplights you can squeeze up through all of the cars and take your place at the front of the line. Motorcycles are too big to do this- only bikes.

In London, bikes rule.

Cheers.

A Sunny Saturday!

Friday night involved a very long wait in a very long line for some "super-cool" club called Fabric. World famous and such. Two hours later, those of us with stout hearts and strong bladders finally entered to find a world famous drum and bass senselessness. For some reason, we weren't into it. Perhaps because everybody was wearing black, ignoring everybody else, and there was nowhere in the club where you could even shout your name. Still, waiting in line was a good time. I had a great time getting to know Tom and Salvas, two of my fellow Rosebery Hall students and very cool dudes. We were hanging with ze Germans.. but for some reason I can't really remember ze German's names.. At any rate, we were up till 3 AM.
I realized what the reason was when I woke up on Saturday with a solid hangover and, interestingly enough, TONS of sunlight! A sunny Saturday in September.. to be said ten times fast. After dragging myself out of bed, I prepared to take a quick hike over to the Elite Fitness Gym to get a membership (only 5 minutes walk). I did not succeed with this mission until 5 PM that evening; instead on the way out I met up with a bunch of groovy post-grads. By name there's Jaime, a 29 year old banker from Kansas City who's married to some groovy chick who's on her way over here to live with him in two weeks. Then there's Elias the greek grad student, Edna the Columbian who's into Buddhism and Native American mythology, and Frederica the Dutch pre-law 22 year old who's taking on the whole world very focused on this task. The group was headed out on a 'short stroll'... Yeah.. short.



I joined in. First we headed over to LSE, making sure to take pictures of the small maple tree that the Canadian Prime Minister planted (note the fence around the tree to protect it).
.. Our journey was just beginning, however. From there we went through Trafalgar square, which looked FANTASTIC on this sunny day. To be fair, I believe being hung over helped make everything seem even sunnier.
We hung out here, took some cool pictures, and then headed to St. James park in front of Buckingham Palace. St. James was amazing- like being in the middle of the British countryside, but in the middle of London!! There were plenty of geese, and rambunctious little squirrels that would eat out of one's hand. The squirrels had no fear- they'd run under our feet without a pause.
Eventually we found ourselves in a wide open space with hundreds of lawn chairs for rent. Apparently the thing to do in London on a sunny day is to sit in the park and sunbathe. It was exactly like being at the beach, just without the waves, and oh so peaceful! I passed out for a good hour or so, and upon waking up not knowing where I was, I was very pleased to rediscover just what London is all about. Sunny days in London are a treat.
After a leisurely two hours in this divine place, we did the tourist thing and headed, in sequence, over to Big Ben, Westminster Bridge, underneath the London Eye, and back around through LSE toward home. The tourists were EVERYWHERE- people from all corners of the globe, speaking every language imaginable. Cosmopolitan indeed- Disneyland eat your heart out. Underneath the London Eye there were all sorts of amazing street performers. I really should have gotten a picture of this one African guy who could balance anything on a small stick that he held between his teeth. I believe as I walked by that he had a small soccer ball, two soda bottles, and a spoon balanced up there. Apparently Emilio walked by later that day, and this same balancing fellow got Emilio to kick a soccer ball up in the air, at which point the African caught the ball with the same small stick, perfectly balanced. It is truly amazing what the mind can do.


On the return trip, I caught what I believe to be a perfect image of London trees in the fall in the park right behind LSE. All in all the day was truly amazing, peaceful, and wonderful. I believe I am in love with this city.

A sunny saturday in September.. good for a stroll, sunbathing, and seeing the sights. I could not ask for a better excursion into London, and to be able to walk back to my apartment only a mile away from it all- what a thrill!

Still, I miss the waves. I find myself asking all of my flatmates where the good surfing areas are in various countries- apparently France has a strong surfing culture. As I cannot surf here, I think I'll have to do the next best thing: purchase a bike. Biking in London is definitely a warrior art- continuous awareness, speed, balance. Perfect! I would say that 90% of the people who bike during the week are young men age 20-30. Nuff said there. Our bartender, Shaun, told me that I could possibly find a used bike in brick lane market on Sunday.. used or stolen, I plan to buy the cheapest thing possible. Well, if I can wake up tomorrow in time, I shall have to do just that.

Peace, Hugs, and love to all my friends and family- If any of you get a chance, you need to come visit this town, and pray that it's a sunny day when you're there.

More to come on interesting philosophical conversations.. I believe this is enough for today :)

The World is Full of Philosophers

Last night some crazy Indian parents (or maybe an entire family) got drunk and ran around the entire Rosebery Ave dorm complex, singing hymns, I kid you not. It was rather ethereal.. I'm lying in my bed after being up 36 hours straight, and all of a sudden I hear the very well-matched, harmonious sound of angels right outside my door and traveling down the hall. The chorus climaxes, and dissolves into laughter behind a just-slammed door. Ahh, but the fun is just beginning; the song re-establishes itself again and again as the night moves on (even at 12:30 AM, local time).

Rosebery is an older brick building just off Rosebery avenue in near-central London (really closer to Camden than anything, but about 1 mile north-east of the London School of Economics and the Houses of Westminster). The same as any city: the cars are always going by, but with more of a London-esque ruddiness to the noise pattern. Perhaps the sound bounces back off the omnipresent, low-lying clouds. Every now and then a siren blares in the distance. People are perpetually walking by on the street, which I do not have a view of from my fourth-floor dorm bedroom. Fortunately (or unfortunately, we'll see), Rosebery has its own pub which opens up into a central commons area near the Southern wing. I live in the northern wing, meaning that as drunken students wander out into the evening, I (as well as everybody else in the adjoining wing) hear every song, every yell, and every young babbling english bloke journeying toward his own room.

Freshmen live in the wing closest to the bar. The drinking age in London is 18. Ohhh UCI, if only we had such an arrangement. Interestingly enough, the youngsters here seem somewhat mature, drinking-wise. But they are as scared and unsure as any group of college freshmen just starting their first year-- I'm aware of what an old man I must be.

I very much like the new room. Quickly I transformed the room into something more comfortable, but the in-room sink is very cool, and the bed is actually somewhat comfortable, barring the continuous inebriated cacophony. I'll have to join in, and then I'm sure I won't care.















I was making dinner yesterday (well, drinking orange juice, which amounted to dinner after bumbling around in a semi-comatose state post-travel) and met a few of my roommates in the common cooking area. The dorm sensibly puts all us grad students in the same area, and so last night was "Meet-the-known-world" night. Two fast-talking Indian dudes, the shy Chinese guy who lives next door and listens to extremely feminine music (totally thought he was a girl at first), Emilio the Canadian who's studying Foreign Policy and likes to cut up pieces of lamb with his new knife, and Peter the Slovakian. We all stood around and talked about mining while Emilio hacked away at his lamb-shoulder (we figured it was the shoulder when he showed us how the joint worked.. I got a kick out of that).

How interesting to stand in a room with a bunch of total strangers and discuss such weighty economic concepts. I found myself referencing Jared Diamond's Collapse in order to keep up with the conversation.. apparently there are 6 canadian mining companies that work in Montana. Slovakia is very interested in mining uranium-- apparently two companies were recently started. Hmm.. uranium.. apparently it's a very complex, polluting process-- lots of acid involved. The remaining acid is stored in some sort of dammed up pond, which, if there is too much rain, can collapse and spew out into the surrounding ecosystem. Very nice. I'm not sure that the economic benefit outweighs the risk, as there exists an economic disincentive for the mining company to care about externalities, such as the water table or soil quality in the surrounding area. The results of this have already been seen in Montana, which has suffered some pretty huge economic disasters in certain mines which, at the default of a bankrupt mining company, had to be dealt with by the local taxpayers.

Such a necessary evil.. I'm going to have to pick Peter's brain more about the mining process and what kind of solutions/ government policies exist to keep the environment clean in the long run.. especially in Slovakia. My prediction: there aren't many.

Today I wandered up to Barclay's (about a half-mile jaunt up St. John's Street) where I discovered that there exists NO WAY to change my American dollars into Pounds, unless I create a UK account, which generally takes 6-8 weeks and is really somewhat useless as B of A charges me nothing to go through Barclay's. Still, I might create the account.. Who knows, the dollar may continue to do well (I certainly hope so), and it may be worthwhile to buy a few thousand pounds in December.

Walking in London is quite an experience: fast paced and totally backwards. I still can't get past the habit of looking the other way first (I can't actually remember which way that is right now.. I think we go L-R in the USA, while pedestrians in the UK look R-L). The backwards traffic also dictates that people tend to want to pass you on the left instead of the right.. walking is an unsure thing. I'm usually really sure-footed walking through people, but the traffic tempo and pedestrian practico-inert field is alien in this city.. alien and yet familiar. I'll come up on somebody and start to shift my body to one side, only to find that she's already shifted her position directly toward where I'm going. Smile and stumble on.. I wish I had a skateboard here, but I think I don't deserve to. I'd probably kill myself and a maim a number of pedestrians. I'm eager to purchase a bicycle, as I'm sure this is the most effective means to navigate the city, but I think I need to walk around a few more days in order to better understand the traffic patterns.

Right now its 5:52 PM on Thursday. I'm about to go to a yoga class just down the street (power yoga), which sounds wonderful, excluding the $22 cost (definitely going to have to perfect the home practice). There is a gym down the street for about $90 a month which might be worthwhile, as they have a perfect space for practicing yoga. LSE has a much cheaper gym located about 1.5 miles away, but the hours are shorter and I'm not sure if they have a yoga space. I'll have to figure out which is more worthwile. The gym has a sauna. I'm not sure if anything can top a sauna in foggy-ol' London ;)

... If you'd like to comment on anything, or just say hello, please feel free to post to the blog, or hit me up via email. Much love to everyone! Tomorrow I venture over to the LSE to register; pics and stories to follow.