After a late night spent going to the Concertgebouw, Skyping with my family and packing for the weekend, I dragged myself out of bed at 6 in the morning to go with Conny to the airport to catch our planes. I was going to London to visit Kristin, and Conny was going to visit a friend, coincidentally also named Kristin, in Florence.
Like the rest of Amsterdam the evening before, Schiphol was looking festive and Christmas-y, even though it was barely November (November 5th, to be exact). It was enough to put me in a happy enough mood, however, to sustain me through my uneventful flight to Stansted and my tedious bus ride from the airport into London proper.
Kristin had class until about 5 that evening, so I was originally going to entertain myself for a few hours before she was finished. A few days before I left, however, I managed to get in touch with a good friend of mine from Williams, also studying in London, to see if she had time to grab lunch or hang out for a bit in the four or five hours I had to spare.
As luck would have it, this friend – whose name is Yue-Yi and whose relationship with me I think we’ve managed to keep intact almost exclusively through lunch dates – not only had a couple of hours free herself, but had had a 3-5pm class canceled that morning, meaning she could stay with me from the time I arrived until the time I could meet up with Kristin. I love having friends in so many places.
Yue-Yi and set off through the streets of London, skirting the edge of Hyde Park and then walking down until we came to Harrods. The giant mall was decked out both in Christmas and in 160th Anniversary decorations, and since I wanted to see it and Yue-Yi wanted to buy something “typically London” before she went to visit a friend, we decided to explore inside.
I was obliged by a polite but insistent doorman to check my small carry-on suitcase for a fee, but I think the couple of pounds I had to pay were worth being able to gawk around the place. Unfortunately, I managed to leave my camera inside the suitcase, which means I have no pictures of Harrods’s splendor or any of our afternoon’s excursion.
We strolled through Harrods, getting lost a couple of times, buying fancy candies, sampling Christmas tea, and then getting pasties for lunch (Harrod's salesman: “We actually call them PASS-tees. PACE-tee is like… the complexion.”). We left my bag at the mall and strolled with our pasties (which are savory pockets of pastry dough/pie crust filled with chicken, vegetables, and a creamy sauce) down the posher streets of London, passing fancy bakeries, stylish shops, and of course, a Burberry store.
We ended up at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we essentially just wandered around chatting with each other and admiring art on the side. A special Islamic art exhibition was charging a hefty ₤15 admission fee, but the rest of the museum was free (well, technically “suggested donation” but you know what that means to a college student strapped for cash).
When we had thoroughly toured all of the museum that was free to tour, we reclaimed my bag from Harrods and ventured down to the Tube, where Yue-Yi patiently explained/inquired at desks for me as to how I could acquire an “oyster card” (pay-as-you-go metro pass) for the weekend, waited while I bought and loaded money onto one, and then accompanied me onto the proper train. We were conveniently headed places on the same line, and Yue-Yi’s stop was just one before mine, so there was no chance of my getting lost somewhere strange underneath London.
After a short ride I reluctantly bade goodbye to Yue-Yi, hopped off at the stop after hers, headed up the long and crowded escalators, and found Kristin waiting just outside the station. We embraced, reunited for the third time during our European adventures, and then pushed our way through the busy streets back to the quieter neighborhood where Kristin’s flat is.
I managed to unwittingly pick the best night possible to arrive in London. It was November 5th, and as those of you who know anything about British History (or have seen the movie V for Vendetta), might remember, there’s something rather special about the 5th of November:
It’s Guy Fawkes Day! (aka Bonfire Night) Guy Fawkes Day is the day the British commemorate the foiled plot of a disgruntled citizen (Guy Fawkes) to blow up the Parliament building. The holiday is typically celebrated by festivals and fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes in giant bonfires, hence the different names for the date. Kristin had scoped out a good place to join the festivities, so after I deposited my luggage at her place, we bused over to them.
(photo courtesy of Kristin)After that, we watched some fire-jugglers and sundry performers and little children scampering around with flashing bunny-ear hats, before pushing our way through a massive crowd to get a good vantage point for fireworks.
Fire jugglers (photo courtesy of Kristin)
Child in hilarious bunny ears (photo courtesy of Kristin)The fireworks display did not disappoint either, and I even saw a couple types that I’ve never seen before. The crowd thinned out pretty quickly after the show, however, so Kristin and I decided to make our way back and grab something substantial to eat.
What better meal to eat in England on a national holiday than a traditional meal of fish ‘n’ chips? No better, that’s what. We went to an adorable pub called “The Cambridge” and proceeded to have the most British meal ever: fish ‘n’ chips with mashed peas on the side. It was simple and delicious and very filling, but I managed to save just a little bit of room for our dessert: typically British dish (and “Harry Potter’s favorite,” reminded Kristin) – treacle tart.
Although I’d heard of it before, I actually had no idea what treacle tart really was. I imagined it to be sweet and vaguely toffee-ish, and I wasn’t too far from the mark. We were served what was essentially a very dense slice of brownie-like cake, except instead of being chocolatey, it was rich with some unique flavor. I literally spent a good ten minutes trying to puzzle out just what the flavor reminded me of, cleansing my palette with sips of water in between bites and acting slightly obsessive compulsive. It wasn’t quite toffee, it wasn’t quite brown sugar… eventually it hit me – it was like really mild molasses. I looked it up later when I got home, and discovered it is indeed molasses-based. But I suppose you don’t really care about that – all you need to know is that it was delicious, and that it will surely be given a coveted spot on my “Most Delicious Desserts Encountered in Europe” list.
Anyway, full of hearty English food, Kristin and I made our way back to her flat. It was already sort of late, but we decided we would stay up for awhile longer, chatting and swapping music, because we both had our laptops. Considering I had been up since 6 am, this was a questionable decision on my part, but when I started getting a little loopy around 2 am we called it quits and went to bed. After all, we had to be rested for another day full of London fun in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment