Why I like going out dancing better in Germany than in London

During a semester of studying abroad in London during my undergraduate degree (#1), I went out dancing at the clubs quite a bit with my friends. We enjoyed ourselves...but I dropped a ton of money on drinks; I think that made up most of my non-tuition budget! We always had to dress up when we went out because the clubs required smart attire: no tennis shoes (trainers), no jeans, and nice-looking clothes were required.

I have no idea if this is still the case in London since when I went out dancing there was in the last decade. However, I can say this: I enjoyed my time out dancing in Germany better. We went out for Halloween and I asked my friend if there was a dress code. I just wasn't feeling like dressing up (it had been a long week) and I wanted to wear jeans and some Chuck Taylor-style shoes. I was in luck: I could get into any of the clubs in the area wearing that.

We went out as a group, dressed as a wide variety of weird things for Halloween and went dancing at the club. It was much more relaxed-feeling, too. I was not interested in meeting anyone at the club; I was there with my friends and to have fun. Some people tried to dance with me, but I politely excused myself. I'm just too old* for all the silliness that goes along with clubbing/trying to meet people so I enjoyed it purely as time to spend with my friends.


*Okay, I'm not middle aged or anything, but I'm sooo over being a college student in my early 20s.

Seen in London: a bit of "multiculturalism"

London is a very international city. It's so international, in fact, that I saw at least a handful of Mexican restaurants when I was there (I always seem to be on a quest for Mexican food since I moved here; go figure). When I lived in the area in 2000, I only knew of three in the entire London area. Of course I ate at all three of them, too!

Anyway, here are some of the things we saw during our trip in July.

Look! It's Georgie Boy, a gift from the US to GB. Not sure if they really wanted a sculpture of him, with him being all about fighting for freedom from GB, but whatevs.

Kinda cute and kitschy restaurant that sells German food like currywurst, sausages, and the like. However, the name is way off. I assume they're trying to say "Herman the German." Well, you don't say "ze" or even "sie" (said like "ze") to say "the." The three "the"s of German are der, die and das. Sure, die rhymes with "ze" but it's not the same. I know it's supposed to be kitschy, but it's just kind of annoying. Oh, and to say he's German, he would be a "Deutscher." I'm a little shaky on if one would use "das" since "Deustcher" is a neuter word, but I think that's what would be used.

O Canada: the Canadian consulate in London! When I go on trips, I find myself  taking pictures of things because they remind me of family and friends. This picture goes out to my Aunt R, because her good friend is Canadian.

And this? I took a picture of it because it's just super creepy.

The pudding saga continues

Americans viewers might not see the item in the picture above as a pudding. However, to the British, it is a Yorkshire pudding. Can you see why there is cross-cultural confusion when discussing pudding?

I choose to call the delicacy pictured above a "delicious meat boat." There is no pudding in it. However, deliciousness is in it. It was consumed at an international potluck. Thank goodness for such things.

London Trip: Day 4 (July 7), heading back home

Our last day in London ended up being a relaxed day in which we gave ourselves plenty of time to arrive at the airport, which was a good thing! It was also a special day because we had breakfast with my British friend G., whom I had last seen thirteen years before.

It was a lovely reunion for us; the last time we had seen each other was when we went out for some goodbye drinks when I was leaving my semester of studying abroad in a suburb of London. G. and I had met when we were both vacationing in Paris and found out that we only lived 20 minutes from each other in the London suburbs. G. and I hung out some more when we both got back to England. I hadn't seen him since then, but we kept in touch despite his move to Asia and then back to England and my moves all over the place.

Thirteen years later, we are quintessentially the same people at heart, but we have definitely changed and grown up and learned so much more since we were in our early 20s when we first met. We had some laughs at some of the ridiculous adventures we had enjoyed, and also shared good conversation with C.

We enjoyed our lunch at The Olive Garden (not related to the American chain!) in Southfields, but all good things have to come to an end so we said goodbye to G. and boarded the Tube for the airport.

Here's where my travel advice comes in: always give yourself a lot of time to make connections and to get to the airport! I've missed a train once from Paris to Brussels (and had to pay what I call the "stupid tax," which was buying a new ticket -- very expensive!) and a flight to Seattle (thank you, Southwest, for just putting me on the next flight with no stupid tax). Therefore, I am a bit sensitive about arriving early.

C. and I were very lucky that we gave ourselves extra time to get back to Heathrow. The Tube has different stops for Heathrow's different terminals. We didn't remember which terminal we needed and ended up missing the stop for our terminal. We got out of the train and had to look at the listing at the station to see what terminals and air carriers were available at each stop. This wasn't listed inside the train, so it's important to look this up ahead of time; learn from our mistake! It took us about 10-15 minutes to get another train and make the circuit around to the correct stop.  Thank goodness that we had allowed extra time!

Our flight home was uneventful. I had a pleasant surprise when I turned on my phone. My friend D. had stayed at my apartment to watch Moo and he had texted some photos of Moo. They were super cute; Moo loves Mr. D. and I'm very glad he had such a great Moositter.

Mr. D and Moo had a guys' weekend when I was in London.

I took the ICE train home to Kaiserslautern from the airport and then walked home from the train station. It felt good to be back in my quiet, "small" German city after being in the hustle and bustle of London. The long weekend had been an enjoyable mix of art, culture, candy, Mexican food, and friends old and new.

London trip: Day 3 (July 6), Camden Market

Day three saw quite warm weather for us as we prepared to visit one of my favorite places in London: Camden Market. How it has grown since the last time I was in town! Camden Market is located at the Camden Town Tube stop. It's a combination of stores, outdoor market, and an indoor market hall over the span of quite a few city blocks.

It was absolutely packed and quite hot in the sun. As we walked down the road from the Tube stop, we visited some stores. There are mostly knockoff clothes and shoes, though some real versions exist. C. found a really cute shirt for 10 pounds in one store. We then stopped by the open air market, which had even more knockoffs of different brands. Many of the vendors were selling the same design of shirts. Don't let that dissuade you, though!

Cross a side street but stay on the same side of the road along a canal, and there are more stalls as well as some food vendors. We stopped by an adorable little hut  that contained Mimi's Cupcakes. I loved everything about the little hut; I liked the kitschy, homemade signs (that looked like something made for a school project); the super tasty cupcakes; and even the business model: it is family run! The guy behind the counter is the son of Mimi, who bakes all the cupcakes at home. How sweet (hehe) is that? He was super friendly and happy to tell us about the cupcakes. We also had a nice chat about travel. C. and I bought some of the "fairy cakes," which I would just call mini cupcakes. I especially enjoyed the lime cupcake. Totally delish. It made me think of a bake sale at home, except with gourmet cupcakes. It's worth a stop and it's always nice to support family-run businesses :)

Opposite from the stalls along the canal and just before the traffic bridge, there is another block that contains food vendors as well as a market hall. The food vendors are superb and offer just about any type of food a person could want, from Indian food to Ethiopian food and everywhere in between. Plus, prices are rather reasonable for what basically amounts to street vendor food.

The market hall has some great vendors; most are selling hand-crafted items, such as bent wire jewelry, which was quite nice.

View of the market hall.

We had been visiting the market for hours, enjoyed some cupcakes and a spot of lunch. However, it was so hot and the crowds were getting to us so we decided to move on to the Tate Britain. Just as we were leaving, I saw a really cool store: Namaste. I've been wanting to buy some Indian textiles for my apartment since I like the designs and colors. This store had some great, inexpensive items so I bought a bed cover and some pillow covers. I was all set to buy the stuffing for the pillows since it was so reasonably priced, but then C. reined me back into reality and asked me if I'd have room in my luggage. One bag travel is great...if one doesn't buy too many things!

We finally dragged ourselves away from Camden Town and visited the Tate Britain Museum. We did a lot of sitting to enjoy the art...and to try to rest our aching legs and feet. After 3 days of non-stop walking and adventures, we were so exhausted. We decided to call it an early evening so we practically crawled back to where we were staying, had a quick dinner, and an early evening.

Danger on Day 1 in London: The M&Ms store

There was only section that actually sold M&Ms; the rest of the store was souvenir junk.

 
On our first night of the London trip, we had a little time to kill after dinner and before seeing Spamalot. We were in Leceister Square and I suggested we check out the M&Ms store. I'm not sure why I thought that would be a good idea since it was this horrible, swirling mess of tourists/kids/tourists/kids.

It was actually rather creepy (to me, at least). When one walks in, there is a blast of "chocolatey" air. I have heard that some stores actually blast artificial scents and perfumes, both in the food and non-food areas. This blast of air was creepy because it was that total fake chocolate smell that really didn't smell like chocolate at all. Plus, the store was mostly toys and t-shirts so it wasn't even like there were that many chocolates there anyway.

Another creepy part was the tv monitors that one could look at and see what was going on all over the store. It was meant to be kitschy but it was a little bit too "Big Brother" for me.

To top off our experience, I tripped going UP the stairs and scraped my foot. Sigh. After all of that, we didn't buy any M&Ms. In fact, I don't really even like them, so I'm not sure why we went into the store at all! It was a trip doomed from the start.

London trip: Day 2 (July 5)

Friday was the big day of our trip. By the end of it, we were dragging our feet; it was the typical American vacation in which we crammed as much into the day as we could and we were tired.

C. and I started our day by visiting one of my favorite London museums, the Tate Modern. Admission is free to most of the museum (as it is with many of the museums in London) and we were treated to a free tour of the "Transformed Visions" gallery, as well. Many of the museums in town offer free or cheap tours of the collections, so it's a great way to get to know the art better. The tour was very good; the guide was extremely knowledgeable as he highlighted some works from the collection.

After the tour, we crossed the river via the Millennium Bridge. The last time I saw this bridge, it wasn't actually usable because the new millennium had just occurred, the bridge was new, and it swayed too much as pedestrians walked across it. Since then, the bridge has been fixed and it has since reopened to the public. We decided to stroll along and see where our adventures took us.

The next thing we knew, we were inside Hardy's Original Sweet Shop and were oohing and ahhing over the huge selection of English, and even American, candies. C. had been looking for some jelly babies, which are gummi sweets, which she found there. Wine gums were also available; they remind me of Jujubes, those chewy, gummi-esque candies that always threaten to pull out fillings. The clerk gave us a trial of rhubarb/custard hard candies. I was hooked and bought some of those as well as some cherry cola bon bons and some other interesting flavors. I bought a small bag of candies for about two pounds. Prices were reasonable and I would have chosen some more of the interesting flavors but a line was developing and I'm sure my teeth appreciate a limit on the candy.

From there we continued on toward Kensington Park and were totally distracted by the Urban Outfitters store. I wanted to stop in to look at their gag gifts. Well, we got sucked into the vortex of the interesting books they had. After some time passed, we realized that it was very close to the time on our tickets for entry into the David Bowie exhibit at the V&A so we pried ourselves away from the books.

The exhibit, David Bowie Is, was very interesting, and quite busy, as well. It was necessary to pre-purchase tickets because of the crowds; we purchased our tickets the day before. I really didn't know much about Bowie except for some ancillary "knowledge" gained through listening to songs from Flight of the Conchords. I found the exhibit fascinating and I wanted to listen to more of his music. It's so strange to me that Bowie is a contemporary of my mom; I was joking with C. and said that they were about the same age but my mom hasn't done half the cool stuff that Bowie has done. We wandered through the exhibit for about two hours.

After that, we limped on toward the South Bank (we had just about walked our legs off!) for dinner and some cabaret at the London Wonderground, part of the Udderbelly Festival. We were tired and didn't feel like walking far, so we ate dinner at EAT, which is somewhat of a cross between a deli, a small bakery, and a coffee shop. Most of the food was in the cold deli section but some warm meals were available, too. I ordered sweet potato chili soup, which was smooth and filling with a hint of spice. C. ordered mashed potatoes with gravy and a steak pie. She said both were delicious.

With sore legs but full tummies, we hobbled over to the Udder Belly Festival for that evening's entertainment, the London Wonderground. I asked for some directions and was told to walk through the "dodgems." I was completely confused until I saw the area being referenced; the show was set up in what looked like a carnival tent in the middle of a wooden floor with (what I would call) bumper cars. The bumper cars, or dodgems, were actually seating for the bar area. How clever!  I love the set up of the whole thing; it was very old timey looking with wooden floors and old fashioned posters.

The cabaret show, Friday Night Freakshow, was fun. The MC started the show by singing Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana in a lounge act style, which actually sounded quite good. We were then entertained by international comics, a hula hooper, bawdy singers, and more. C. had suggested the show because she knew how much I enjoyed the Detroit arts and entertainment scene, which has many performances like this. I definitely appreciated her suggestion.

It had been a very long, but enjoyable day. We were quite tired and sore so after the show we took the Tube back to the homestay.

London trip: Day 1 (July 4), continued

After we dropped our bags off and giggled at the motorcycle with the piece of paper for a license plate, we left for our adventures that afternoon.

The main purpose of this trip was to see the David Bowie exhibit at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum. It has been a very popular exhibit and sometimes the tickets sell out. On Thursday afternoon, we were able to purchase tickets for entry on Friday evening, when the museum had late opening hours. It's not a bad idea to either pre-purchase tickets before one's trip or buy them several days before while on the ground for popular events; it would be very disappointing to travel all that way to see something special and then be turned away because of the crowds!

That's SOME pig, Harrod's!

We then walked down to Harrod's, which is a famous luxury department store and the biggest in Europe, just down the road. I've spent a lot of time in London when I was studying abroad in college, and I've been to the store several times, but it's always nice to make a stop and enjoy the opulence and the diversity of fine products, from department store offerings to restaurants and delis with gourmet food.

Ceiling tile in Harrod's

We were oohing and ahhing a bit too much over the fine deli selections and realized we were hungry so it was off to dinner. I suggested one of my favorite restaurants from my study abroad time in London: Chiquito, in Leicester Square (pronounced "Lester"). It's a TexMex restaurant. After having German "Mexican" food with Pakistani spices, I was excited to move onto the British version, which at least tastes closer to the American take on Mexican food (if any of that makes sense!).

The food there was good, as I had remembered it; I ordered some enchiladas, with two filled with a bean mix (beans that were whole) and one with pulled BBQ pork. Neither filling is super authentic, but it tasted really good, including the pulled pork. Normally I don't eat meat, but once in a while I'll eat pork, and this was quite delicious, with full flavor and roasted perfectly. C. ordered something with chorizo and said that it was good as well, and the chorizo actually tasted like chorizo. I know that may sound strange, but we've found that how we know something to taste in the US doesn't necessarily taste the same in other countries. She even had some corn on the cob! It's so refreshing to see corn ON the cob and not IN weird places (that I feel it doesn't belong), such as on top of pizza or on a lettuce salad, as the Germans do it.

My enchiladas even had flags to mark the way!

The only downside to our dinner was that the service was quite bad. It seemed that our waiter kept changing and everyone was confused. My friend received the incorrect drink and the waiter had to take it back and get her the correct one. Waiters tried to bring us the wrong food and when we asked for a refill on the water (oh, glorious, free tap water!), it never came so we had to ask again. Service had never been bad like this when I came here in my college days, so I wonder if they had mostly new staff. We heard diners at another table also comment that the food was good but the service was bad. It didn't ruin the meal by any means, but it was a bit of a mess.

After dinner, we decided to take in a show. We saw Monty Python's Spamalot, which is a derivative of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, at the Playhouse Theater. The play was very amusing, and was a condensed version of the movie and included some songs from other Monty Python movies. The actors even ad libbed a bit; the Knights Who Say Ni stopped saying Ni and started singing the Star Spangled Banner instead at one point. The audience joined in and, judging by how many people knew the song, there must have been a good number of Americans in the crowd. We were all wished a happy fourth of July and then the play continued. 

The Playhouse Theater, built in 1882, was quite crazy. We bought our tickets for 25 pounds in the "nosebleed" section, the upper circle. However, I think it would have been more accurately called the "feel like you're going to fall to your death" section! Maybe that's a bit dramatic, but the seating was extremely steep and narrow. The rows of seating were so narrow that I'm not sure how easy it would have been to climb over people to get to one's seat; C and I actually went to the empty row behind where we were sitting and climbed over the seats to get in. Our knees were almost touching the heads of the people in front of us. I can't even imagine how women in their big hoop skirts of the 1800s would have been able to get to their seats (though the seating has probably changed over the century, I would assume). When we first sat down, I had to fight some feelings of vertigo; the seats are so steep that it felt as if I were leaning over a ledge and looking down. When I got home, I read reviews and saw that other sections weren't so bad. I just wouldn't recommend the upper circle. Anyone afraid of heights or not as physically able would find it difficult to get around there. Also, it was quite hot and there was very little to no air circulation, even though it hadn't been a hot day.

We made it through the play, laughing all the way. I commented that it was a bit ironic that we celebrated our country's independence by visiting the country from which it gained the independence. It was definitely a funny and delicious evening, and walking to the Tube stop was a good way to cool off after sitting in the hot theater.

London trip: Day 1 (July 4): Getting and staying there

My friend C. invited me along for a trip to London for a long weekend. I love trips and I love London, so I immediately agreed.

I was charged with finding us lodging since my friend found us a good flight, and was that ever an undertaking! I usually travel on the off season so it really didn't dawn on me that it could be difficult to find a place to stay during the height of tourist season. I spent about three hours on the weekend collecting information on places to stay and I spent an hour calling places. Out of the 15 places I had identified as possibilities, only one hotel had a vacancy and one bed and breakfast knew of a possible homestay situation, which is similar to a bed and breakfast but not as commercial; someone rents out space in her home.

We ended up at the homestay and paid 85 pounds a night with a continental breakfast included for both of us. For last minute accommodation, it was an okay price for a twin room, and it was two stops on the Tube to Wimbledon. Somehow, we chose the Wimbledon weekend so we we were lucky to have found a place as everything was a madhouse. One of these days, I will actually plan a trip out farther ahead so there's not a mad scramble at the end to find places.

We flew with British Airways from Frankfurt. The flight there was awesome; we had center seats and there were only two of them per row so it was quite comfortable. We were even given the little packet of a sleeping mask, a toothbrush, and socks. I felt so posh.

From the Heathrow Airport, we were able to take the Tube, or the London Underground (subway), into central London. If one plans to ride the Tube multiple times per day, it usually makes the most sense, cost wise, to buy a travel card. They are available for one, seven, or thirty days of travel. I did the math and because we were going to be there for four days, it was the most cost effective to buy a travel card for seven days instead of buying it per individual day for four days. We also had to buy a ticket to get from Heathrow (zone 6) to where we were staying in zone 3. It made no sense to buy a more expensive travel card for zones 1-6 for the whole weekend when we'd only be using zone 6 for two journeys on the tube.

It is necessary to decide what zones you'll be traveling in; the more zones you cross, the more the card will be. We stayed in zone 3 but planned to sight see in zones 1-2, but to get home at the end of the day, we needed to include zone 3. The problem is that when we bought the travel cards, the guy at the counter didn't ask us what zones we wanted and only gave us zones 1-2. We realized the mistake later when a negative balance appeared on the gates as we were leaving the Tube after we had entered zone 3. We rectified that by going to the customer service window the next morning and the clerk sorted everything out and we paid for the additional zone. So, when getting transportation tickets, make sure they're for the correct zones! The London Transport website has great maps and information about fares to figure this all out and it's really quite easier than I'm making it sound. I recommend figuring it out before arriving to allow for a less stressful commute.

It took more than an hour to take the Tube from Heathrow to the stop near Wimbledon, where we were staying. It isn't that far of a distance but the journey requires changing lines and there are many stops along the way. Once we arrived at the homestay, we met the owner, dropped off our luggage, received the key, and were on our way.

We saw this motorcycle parked on the road and had a laugh. It was missing its license plate so the owner scribbled the plate number on a piece of paper and stuck it on! I'm not sure that the police would be too amused by that one.

Domesticity fail

I once elicited much laughter from my mother, as well as some aunts, when I complained about a housecleaning problem I was having. When I spent a semester in England, I decided that the outflow of money was high whereas the influx of money was nil. Thus, I picked up two housecleaning gigs for some extra spending money, which worked out perfectly and financed a trip to Paris and a trip to Dublin.

I was often vexed by cleaning the bathtub; in trying to wipe up the random dust bunnies in the tub, all I did was spread them all over. I finally had the brilliant idea to use the vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust, as long as the tub was dry. Sometimes there were still errant fuzzies, though, and I complained of them to my mom. She asked me to repeat the problem and was laughing when I mentioned the vacuum cleaner. I wanted to know how else one would get the fuzzies. Apparently the story has made its way around to my aunts, too. Again, this is a time where I have learned that it is best to laugh at yourself.

We'll sample that, for security's sake

From Nov 8, 2009

I was checking out the TSA website because I am looking to move past prissy travel and forge ahead with a backpack instead of my security blanket of a suitcase, and I came across this gem of a rule:
"Note: You can bring pies and cakes through the security checkpoint, but please be advised that they are subject to additional screening."
Tee hee. I'm wondering if the TSA agents get hungry, if "additional screening" might mean eating a slice. Oh, and, Americans: don't bother bringing Christmas puddings home from England. Trust me on this one. They're not security risks (at least as far as I know) but they are palate risks as they are not tasty.*
*Okay, that's just my opinion, but it might count for something. I intensely distrust pudding that is solid.

An experiment

One day when I was in a London suburb, I was feeding some pigeons some bread. The pigeons did not seem to be particularly intelligent, but that's okay, we can't all be rocket scientists. I spotted a cigarette butt on the ground. I decided to try an experiment, because I doubted that pigeons could be that dumb. I tossed it to a pigeon, and was horrified when he ATE it. D'oh, sorry Mr. Pigeon, I hope it all worked out. Of course, how stupid was I to not think he'd eat it?