Transitioning...

(Picture uploader is working, but very slowly, so pictures will come later.)

We got back from Edinburgh and that very day Stacy and I set out to finalize our housing plans. We contacted our housing agency, and after several long dashes across London on the Underground, we finally had a place to stay.

It was going to take a few days for our flat to be cleaned for us to move in, so we spent those days sleeping (resting from Edinburgh), hanging out with Bob, and generally being lazy tourists. Oh, and Indian food, did I mention that before? I really apologize in advance to everyone who loved Indian food in Nebraska, but the next time we go eat Indian together I'm going to be a total jerk about it. I mean seriously, you're supposed to use naan as an eating utensil, not an appetizer! Meh, I'll get over it. What I probably won't get over is actually paying for Indian that isn't nearly as good as homemade... but I'll be emo about that later.

Eventually we moved into our flat. And, as Stacy has said, it's a charming little place. Our address, for those of you not on Facebook is as follows:
(Name)
55 Sedgeford Road
Middlesex W12 0NA
London, United Kingdom

But if you want whatever you're sending to actually reach us, you need to plan in advance. Surface/sea mail takes FOREVER. You need to send it by the second week in OCTOBER for us to get it. Air mail is faster, but you need to send it to us by the last week in November if you want us to get it before we leave.

Our very first day living in our flat (which is as-of-yet unnamed), our friend Nick from New York (the guy we hung out with in Edinburgh) called me. He was in London, which is awesome. We picked him up from the tube station and wandered around. We ate some shish and doner and a local shop, and then got ready to go out. Andrew showed up from Central, and we headed down to Piccadilly Circus... which was ridiculous. So many people. Yes, I know it was a Friday night in London, but it was nuts. We got wrangled in by a lady who works for a club ticket agency, where we got VIP Passes and cheap tickets to get into a club. We were fine with that, because it saved us about ten bucks on the cover.

It was a pretty decent night, but we left early because there were tons of 18 year old running around (drinking age is 18 in the UK). Andrew and our new friend Drew from Georgia went back to Tottenham Court Road, and Nick, Stacy, and I went around to find food. We explored a little, then headed back to Shepherd's Bush and crashed.

In the morning we went to the grocery and bought food, and Nick made us English breakfast. It was delightful, and filling (which was the best part, we're so poor). Then after a bit we walked Nick back to the Underground because he was leaving to go back to the States. It was a bit sad, saying goodbye for the first time to a friend that we had met here. It's odd, we'd known Nick for a grand accumulated total of less than a day, but completely got along great and have an established friendship. (And now we have a place to stay in New York... score!)

Since we moved in, we've spent the five days crawling around London, exploring the terrain. Sometimes it feels like we're mountain climbers or jungle treasure hunters, but in a good way. Streets in London are definitely NOT set up in the lovely grid pattern we enjoy in Nebraska. Sometimes the streets move in straight lines, but don't expect them to keep the same name for more than a few dozen blocks.

Mostly we've been spending days in Central (Zone 1), wandering around outside of our school, finding coffee shops that offer free wireless (which is rare), and just generally getting to know the place. We've mapped out direct and alternate routes home (sometimes the Underground lines decide to quite suddenly get severe delays, like when someone gets sick on the line, or when a signaller falls asleep on the job... doesn't happen often, but the King's Cross station has been up and down for three days because of signalling problems), found three used (second-hand, "charity") clothing and bookstores, and determined cheap places to eat. Yesterday we went down to the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. We were in the Gallery for THREE HOURS and only visited about a quarter of the place. Definitely a place to re-visit several times. (Check out this webcam of Trafalgar Square.)

In the evenings we've been looking for slam poetry. Sad to say... we have no idea where these Brits keep their poetry. We've been all over the internet and the city, and have come up empty -handed every night. Sunday we went to The Foundry, this hot little indie bar east of Camden Town. Sure, the bar was hot. There were lots of indie kids hanging out. But the poetry... wasn't there. There was an open mic, but it was music, comedy, and wretched foul words tossed together and called poetry. We called it "Oh-Noetry". Plus one dude wrote a poem about breasts and then read it at Stacy, improv-ing it with lines about how he didn't care how big her "bearded" friend is, he still thought she was hot. Luckily people disliked his crap enough that he immediately left after his set was done. However, one good thing of the night, we met a dude named Louis ("like the kings"), who shared us his knowledge of the area, and told us about a spoken word reading on Tuesday nights at a place called "The Distillers". We took that information as good enough reason to have gone.

Monday night was a total bust. Went to two different places (in two different parts of London) and there was absolutely nothing. At the first one we had the wrong night, but the barista also said that it was comedy, not poetry. Then, dashing across the city to the Water Poet Pub, the baristas there had NO IDEA what we were talking about. So we took a long tube ride home and didn't even get to bed early because we wanted pizza... and then our oven didn't work, so we went and got take out at this cheap little pizza place down Uxbridge.

However, Tuesday didn't end up being too bad. Following the directions from Louis (who didn't show up the whole night, even though he said he never missed it), we found The Distillers, which was surprisingly close to our house. There, we paid a 5 quid cover and slid into a gold mine. We "slid" instead of "walked" because we didn't actually find slam poetry. But what we found was good. There's an arts organization in London called "One Taste" which hosts musical festivals weekly and monthly. We saw some amazing musicians. There was a Scottish band named "Blue Rose Code" which was awesome (plus they were Scottish). The host was named Jamie Woon (or something like that) and he played guitar and then did acapella with a loop machine, and it was great.

Possibly the best part of Tuesday night: there was a poet. Granted, he was a foul (that's British slang for "He was REALLY BAD"), but he was still a poet. Stacy talked to him after his set, and he gave us his myspace, because he's not a slam poet (we knew that already), but he's FRIENDS WITH SLAM POETS! So today Stacy sent him a message and now we're waiting in anticipation to see if he's going to hook us up. Seriously, being away from slam poetry this long is making my face hurt (cause it's not getting melted, obviously). I've gotten to the point where I go to Podslam and stare at Ken or Jen or Katie just to get my fix for the day.

Anyway, Stacy and I are about to head home. I think we're mostly caught up with "We did this today" and so I can get over my OCD and start actually writing about what I think of this place. Obviously we'll still tell you what we did today... but now with a lot more rambling and philosophical diarrhea.

Cheers!


(PICTURES WILL BE COMING SOON!)