London: day twenty-seven and eight

This post is going to have to cover both yesterday and today. Yesterday, I got up fairly early and met up with Tula and her friend Mica, we took the Tube and then walked over to Trafalgar Square where we met up with another of Tula’s friends, Payne and his buddy Ryan. The entire square was packed full of people and we perched ourselves on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields so that we could get a good view of the parade. A big stage had been set up in the middle of the square for later events and many places were decorated with paper lanterns. The parade, honestly, ended up being somewhat of a letdown however. It was incredibly short and not very spectacular at all. When it ended, we looked around at one another and said, “That’s it?” 

So we came off the steps and crossed the square, hoping to be more impressed by the vendor booths – which we weren’t. Even the fortune cookies were a letdown – instead of a fortune, there was an advertisement. Could read into that, I suppose…

So we left the festival behind and started making our way over to Chinatown. We cut in between the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and passing a small plaque on the wall of a random building which marked the place in which Sir Issac Newton’s house once stood. You know, I find that to be one of my favorite things about this city; the fact that history is literally around every corner and you stumble across it without intending to, quite often. And it’s not always big monuments, often, there is only a small plaque on a wall with a note and a name. In a way, they just seem like another brick built into the foundation of the city; the city stands on top of it.

In Chinatown, we pushed our way through throngs of people and peered into different shops and sampled different foods, snapping pictures along the way. The place was quite lively, and everyone was shoulder to shoulder. For a while, we just walked, but eventually it turned into a mission intent on finding someplace for lunch. Most of Chinatown’s restaurants were too full, and the others we shied away from just because they looked a bit sketchy and we couldn’t trust them. So we walked for quite some time, back and forth, getting nowhere fast because of the crowd, before we eventually decided that Chinatown was not the best place to be looking for food on Chinese New Year. So we took the Tube over to Brick Lane and tried our luck there. By this time, everyone was quite hungry so we basically just said “what the hell” and went into the first place we saw. That was a mistake, because it was everything we had been trying to avoid; cold food, sticky floors, dirty dishes. Fortunately, earlier I had gotten a snack at a bakery so at this time I wasn’t hungry and decided just to order a drink – something called a Lassi, basically just a mango smoothie, and it was probably the only thing in the restaurant that could be described as being “good.”

Following this, we spent the rest of the day walking through the various Brick Lane markets and stopping occasionally to listen to the street performers (one guy was a beat-boxer and holy cow, he was probably the best I’d ever heard). Here, the food was much better and I ended up with a pork hum-bao bun which was fantastic. I munched on that while we went through the different vendors. Even though I did not get anything, it was a really great way to spend the day, and it was fun getting to know Tula’s friends (not all of whom had been considerably familiar with one another, so it wasn’t like I was the only one who didn’t know anyone). We walked until our feet hurt and eventually sat on a bench in front of the 24-Hour Bagel Shop to rest and talk about the plan for the rest of the night.

Originally, we had planned that Tula’s friends would come to NIDO and we could hang out, maybe drink a bit, and then possibly go to one of the Sport’s Bars in the area to watch the Super Bowl. However, by the time we got back to NIDO, all of us girls had realized that we were too tired to go anywhere else. So instead, the three of us got together, and hung out for a bit with a drink before going down to the second floor lounge here at NIDO where we watched the game. Neither of them were nearly as invested in it as I was, so I was the only one who actually watched. Unfortunately, here in Britain, the game didn’t even start until 11:30 in the evening and it didn’t finish until 3:00 AM. Basically, I am glad that the Seahawks won, because I would have been rather pissed if I’d stayed up that late just to watch them lose – especially with class at 10 in the morning the next day. Also, interestingly, I hadn’t thought of it beforehand even though it makes sense now, but Britain doesn’t have Superbowl commercials! So I didn’t get to see any of them, and I’ll have to Youtube them later I suppose. But the Seahawks DOMINATED and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Seahawks win their first Superbowl. Proud to be a 12^th Man!!!

Also, I found this article rather hilarious – a British perspective on American Superbowl:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/showbiz/news/a548276/super-bowl-xlviii-the-british-guide-how-to-watch-seahawks-v-broncos.html

Unfortunately, a few days ago I picked up a cold which has been messing with my nose and my voice, but by the end of last night, I’d become very hoarse; and then this morning when I woke up, I could scarcely speak at all. I had to write a note to my professor to tell her not to call on me. And the short night of sleep I already had was even shorter from being kept awake by coughing, making it all that much worse. Living in the city is like living in a petri-dish, so I am not surprised that I came into contact with something, but I also have to blame myself a bit because I have been running myself ragged – this past week especially. So today I took it easy, slept for part of the day, and now have to work on homework.