Mind the Gap

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Hi all! I had some trouble posting my blogs so there is a build-up of entires.

Well here we are after 5 days in London. The time has sped away and I find myself with the foreboding task of remembering all that we have done. At least I have plenty of content at my disposal, unlike my last entry.

Right, so I managed to keep myself awake until 915 on Thursday evening. My sleep was deep and dreamless. I awoke to a streak of blonde curls as something bounced onto the futon that Sarah and I were sharing. My initial thought was “why is Anna Spencer jumping on me?”, she being the only blonde that is likely to be in close proximity to Sleeping Carlie. No, that was David Branton thinking he’s funny, bounding in to wake us before he heads off to his morning class. Perfect, it’s 8am and I’ve managed to get myself onto London time. I’m awake and refreshed. One small problem, my darling travel partner is neither awake nor refreshed after a late night out in West London eating pea curry. I wait and pace and finally wake Sarah at 1030. My body is now screaming for food. Sarah feigns wakefulness but then promptly falls back to sleep for another 45 minutes. Can’t blame the girl. I’ve had about four more hours of sleep than her.

Finally we’re off to a late start. We head straight to the pulse, London’s shopping Mecca: Oxford Circus. As we climb the stairs from the tube station, a familiar chaos abounds. Having done my share of shopping in London, this particular corner was ingrained into my shopper’s memory. Topshop towered over us. H&M loomed nearby. We spent the afternoon reacquainting ourselves with fashion and mulling over whether or not to spend our entire travel budget on that pair of boots, that coat or those jeans. The thought of India keeps me from slipping into a shopper’s coma and I am content to brows. Sarah, however, isn’t so lucky. The pang of consumerism hits her and she succumbs to a shirt (that can be worn in India, of course). After an inadvertent game of hide-and-go-seek in Borders (UK’s Chapters) with Sarah, we find a delightfully uncomfortable seat on the floor of the travel book section and decide on the most useful map of London. My map pops up and out like a brilliant, tiny explosion of city every time I open it. (Shamefully, I’ve opened it so much now, just to see it pop, that it has fizzled out into more of a slight poof of city.) So we have our maps and off we go to Trafalgar Square. We snap some photos and wave to Canada House and debate our next move. Sarah gives David a ring to see where he is. “I’m at home, love. I’m sick.” Oh-oh.



The day is growing dark and our stomachs rumble with hunger. We decide to head back to make something called a “pasta bake” for dinner. You dump the PastaBake sauce into a baking dish with a bit of water and some uncooked pasta, throw it in the oven, smother with cheese at some point in the baking process, and then enjoy. After many knocks at the door and a few rings of the bell, David finally lets us in. He looks hours away from an untimely death. His eyes are hollow and sunken. There is a bluish hue to the skin on his face and he can barely make it back up the stairs into his bed. We don’t see David for the rest of the night, save for a few dashes to the bathroom.



Soon after we have finished dinner, David’s roommate and fellow AC alumni, Laurie, comes in with more ACer’s, John and Bethann. We enjoy an evening listening to Laurie (London School of Economics and future investment banker) and Bethann (Essex Law School and future human rights lawyer) argue over the (im)morality of the investment banking business. Remove the name-calling and swearing and it would have been a highly intelligent and entertaining university lecture. John (future doctor) played the role of neutral instigator / adjudicator. I fell asleep to the sound of their drunken, though impassioned, debate.



Saturday morning comes and we say our goodbyes to the wonderful John and Bethann, who were only in town overnight for a meeting. Today is Tate Britain day. I had been to this particular art gallery with Anna and her sister when I visited earlier this year and was eager to go back. We took the Central Line to Bond Street and hopped onto the Jubilee line that took us to the centre of London tourism at Westminster Station. Above ground, we were instantly surrounded by Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Thames, and Scotland Yard.



Before visiting the Tate, Sarah and I staked out a place called Thames House. It is a massive, non-descript, old London building lying right along the Thames River. It is also the headquarters for England’s secret service, MI5. Sarah had recently gotten me addicted to a BBC tv show called “Spooks”. It is all about the workings of a branch of MI5 and in its opening credits, there is a shot of a door at Thames House. It is an iconic shot and we were determined to morph into uber-tourists and get a few photos of ourselves in front of the famed door. We circled the entire building, chatted about national security with a couple of spies we met on the corner, were asked to assassinate a few heads of state and had coffee with the Secretary for Homeland Security. We didn’t, however, find the fabled door. It doesn’t exist. Carefully monitored by about a million CCTV cameras, we settled for cheesy pictures across from the large front entrance overlooking the Thames and then headed to the Tate.



Both Sarah and I agree that viewing art is usually meant to be a solitary experience and so we wandered off, agreeing to meet at the café in a few hours. The Tate is massive and houses the works of some very important and influential British artists. It was an entirely enjoyable afternoon staring at masterpieces and learning a few useless bits of information like ‘pomegranates are the symbol of captivity’. About half way through my wander around the gallery, thirst struck and I nipped down to get a drink from the café. I sat in a circular room, save for a doorway. A ledge with stools tucked in below ran the entire way around. The space had amazing acoustics and I’ve since dubbed it the ‘whisper room’ since it gave me the ability to clearly hear conversations that were going on across the room at an otherwise inaudible level. The sound waves travelled freely. I am ashamed to say that I stayed on sitting there well past the point at which I finished my tea. The couple on the other side of the room was having a stimulating conversation. Eventually, I met Sarah and she told me all about the creepy, middle-aged French artist who told her she had an artist’s aura and felt viewing art was a companion activity. It’s those green boots. We returned home, with plans to meet some friends of Sarah and David’s for a drink.



David had emerged from his bedroom by the time we returned and was looking reasonably better. I had awoken that morning barely able to swallow and had been feeling off for most of the day at the Tate. Once cosy on the futon and engrossed in a VOD episode of ‘Spooks’, the idea of venturing out into the cold to be social and go to a pub seemed rather unappealing. We stayed up late, talking, watching and laughing.

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