Love…For ever. Eat… For fun. Live… For now.

Sunday 16 September 2007
Love…For ever.
Eat… For fun.
Live… For now.

I’ve been in London for two weeks, and it’s seemed like two months. It’s been a crazy roller coaster so far – a ride of memories, of making things happen, of waiting for things to happen. I’ve been without Internet this whole time, which is why I haven’t emailed everyone. I’ve decided, though, I want to make a more disciplined attempt to journal my time here, and I’m really bad at the mass-emails, so I’ve created this blog, which I’ll let you read at your leisure. It’ll be part documentary (what I did on my summer vacation) and part reflection (potentially gushy, sorry). This first entry will be really long, but I’ve conveniently organized it into paragraphs for your easy reading. Take what you will. I miss you all and hope you’ll come visit me in this crazy little city I’m calling home. ;) Okay. That out of the way…

My days have been filled with errand running. Admittedly, it’s been the kind of errand running where you buy things you could probably wait on, but you buy them just so you feel home. I bought cotton balls and nail polish. Hangers. A red duvet, hair gel and a blow dryer. At first, coming back was like being on vacation, hitting all my favorite restaurants, neighborhoods and sites. At Café Forum I order a mozzarella, tomato, basil panini and a bottled water. Down the street, at Pasha, it’s hookah and mojitos. At Giraffe, it’s 2-for-1 happy hour from five until seven and, with a friend, we split brambles (Bombay gin, lemon, sugar & crème de mure) and summer fizz (vodka, crème de mure, fresh blackberries and strawberries topped with sparkling wine). I take the number nine bus from South Ken to Piccadilly, where I catch a show at the Criterion (39 Steps), or I head to the South Bank and see what’s on at the National Theatre. This time, I wonder if they’ll interview me for the Press Office position for which I’ve applied.

My nights, though, remind me it’s not a vacation. I come home to my flat in Islington, and I put away the dishes. With nowhere else to go, and no one to really go out with, I turn on the TV and find myself watching Frasier, Friends, Top Chef and Weeds. I’ve seen all these episodes before back home, and the accents are familiar. With my flatmates, Charlie and Adam, I watch ridiculous British game shows like Family Fortunes (Family Feud), and a number of other slow-moving quizzes like ‘Is that your identity?’. We watch the rugby matches (big fans) and Wedding Crashers (I’ve finally seen it now!) and Takeshi’s Castle (Japanese game shows dubbed over with ridiculous commentary in English). The pub, bar and restaurant scene around here is great, but in the busy week I’ve lived with them, we’ve been out only once.

I’ve met a few other people on my programme, called BUNAC, and we’re supposed to meet up this week. We met at the pub meet last week at St. Katharine’s Docks, which I’d never been to before. There I met Will and Courtney; Will went to Mizzou (we went back and forth on the jayhawks/tigers and Lawrence/Columbia bashing for a while) and Courtney is from Illinois, outside Chicago. She went to De Paul. They traveled here together and are living in a studio near Bayswater/Paddington, on the opposite side of central London. Another acquaintance at the pub meet, Ryan, ended up emailing a contact on my behalf, which then turned into a possible job lead. A friend of his is returning to the States, and so her marketing position with the study abroad programme at Kingston University is open, even if only for temporary cover. I also met two of the BUNAC staff, Loo and Caroline, and we walked to the Underground together.

I’ve also had the opportunity to meet up with old friends in the last two weeks. I spent a considerable amount of time with my high school friend Liz Tiller, whom I hadn’t seen in two years. She and I stayed in a hotel my first three nights, and she stayed with me two days once I was in my new flat. Barbara Varanka, who I know from BU but also from Overland Park, KS, is on the BU London Programme currently, and she graciously kept my luggage for two nights while I was transitioning into the new place. She is living on the fifth floor of the Crofton, which, some of you will recognize, brings back a lot of memories. A lot of memories. Jesse Rogers, who was on the programme my semester two years ago, is completing BUNAC now and is working in the BU London Programme office. He and I went to dinner on Friday near Liverpool at a Mexican restaurant called the Green and Red. Jesse and I sat and chatted for a good while about the BU London Programme and we caught up on the whereabouts of old friends. The restaurant was pretty authentic (and the ‘Diablo’ was great), which was kind of a twist on being in London. With other Americans.

Anyway, last night I met up with Adam Hadas, who I know from Stage Troupe. Adam was in Sideman, which I produced last fall. He and I went to the Zetland Arms, in South Kensington near the station, where we ended up talking to two British girls, who were eager to make friends with every cool person in the bar. Through them, Adam and I ended up drinking and carrying on with a group of six or seven British students who were having a last hurrah before going back to university today. (“School” indicates education under 18, and so “uni” or “university” is the preferred term for “college,” or so we were told.) Though we’d intended to have two drinks tops at the Zetland, we ended up staying until bar close with our new friends, before heading to the Sorbonne House, where Adam lives, to make dinner and laugh about our unexpectedly hilarious evening.

While at the Zetland with Adam, I was reminded of this line from Cosmonaut that Chris and I always enjoyed. Without the script in front of me for accuracy, the line was something to the effect of, “all anyone needs is to sit down with two whiskeys at a wooden table and just talk. If only everyone could just do that, we’d solve so many problems.” The people we were talking with were all from London but had lived all over the world – Cairo, Madrid, New York. One guy, Logan, whom I would’ve sworn was older than me but was only 20, said he’d been living abroad since he was 13. Toward the end of our night, another group of American students sat down next to our now combined British/American table. We invited them to come sit and talk with us, and they really arrogantly rolled their eyes at us. One of them was wearing a Red Sox hat, so I made conversation. He asked me what I studied (marketing), and vice-versa. You know what he said? “I make bombs.” Uh, okay. Way to go, man. Our British friends lost interest in them pretty quickly, as did we. I think that, even greater than sitting down at a table with two whiskeys, people would learn so much from traveling and listening, learning from others. Open yourself up and talk to people, see things from a different point of view, and reexamine your own. “I make bombs.” Please. Get over it. I guess that’s why I’m here, why I’m back. Not only because I love London, and I want to try to work and live here for six months, but because I can’t get enough of this community and mindset where people – people my age – are traveling, learning, and experiencing each other. It’s a feeling I haven’t appropriately articulated yet, but there’s a distinct experience when it happens. A topic that will resurface, probably as it works its way through my head.

Anyway, big rant. I digress.

There were two big events happening in London this weekend. First, Open House is a two-day event where several of the award-winning or architecturally significant buildings in London are free and open to the public. This includes government buildings, theatres, houses, businesses, churches and more.

Yesterday I took a tour of the Almeida Theatre; they’re currently playing “Awake and Sing,” starring Stockard Channing, which I saw Thursday. The tour was excellent, and my group was with one of the architects in charge of the building redesign a few years ago. They discussed the building’s original form and use, showed us where all the old boundaries were, and talked about keeping the integrity of the building’s history in tact while expanding and developing the theatre. We toured the lobby/foyer, green room, wardrobe workshop, dressing rooms, the backstage and lighting workshop, the auditorium, light/sound booth, on-stage and wings. The Almeida is definitely one of my favorite theatre spaces, so the tour was fantastic all around.

Next, I went to City Hall for a tour. I waited in a small queue before going through security (metal detectors and the wand). We took the lift to the very top, where there are great views of London from a small walkway around the building. I took loads of pictures of Tower Bridge, and got some shots of the Gherkin as well. After taking in the view, I walked down the spiral staircase within the building, past all the government offices, until we reached the circular auditorium in the center. From there, on the ground floor, there was a GoogleEarth-type map of London in its entirety printed on the floor. I found Tower Bridge and the South Bank, and I found Hyde Park and the Royal Albert Hall, which allowed me to find Queens Gate, the street I lived on two years ago. Hello, Crofton!

Second (no, I haven’t forgotten there was a second point – did you?), the annual Thames Festival was going on this weekend, and so Southwark was filled with people, vendors, live music, performers and carnival-type food. Luke and I went to this two years ago; the second day concludes with a big parade and fireworks over the river. I checked out some of the booths and music after touring City Hall, and made my way back home.

Today I toured the Young Vic theatre, which I had never been to before. It’s a really, really cool space with a progressive idea of custom creative theatre. The tour wasn’t as casual as the Almeida’s; we had a smaller group and the tour was a bit more guided. They have two studio theatres in addition to their large main stage, and we also toured the set workshop, administrative and education/outreach offices and the lobby/café. The building also had a unique history, having been one of the only standing buildings after bombings during the war. At one time, it was a butcher shop, and the designers made the decision to keep the original tile work and a few meat hooks in the lobby. It was interesting to see where exposed walls marked former boundaries of the pre-expansion space. I was able to get one really good shot of the auditorium, which shows the seating (all general admission and completely movable depending on the director and production designers’ choices), the egg crate lighting grid (very cool), and the balcony levels. I couldn’t get a picture of the amazing set in place for The Member of the Wedding because of the copyright of the designer’s set. Completely understandable, but too bad because it was really, really gorgeous. On my way out, I picked up some more information about the theatre, and they had applications for ushers on their table, so I snatched one of those too.

Speaking of work, I’m starting back at Blend part-time tomorrow. The job search has been pretty positive so far; I have a lot of options open, I think, and I have a lot of promising applications out there.

[By the way, as I’m writing this, it’s 9:55pm and the fireworks have just started to go off over the river for the Thames Festival. Eeeee! I can’t see the actual explosions from the little balcony off my room, but I can see their reflections in the building across the street.]

I have to follow up with the National Theatre about the Press Office position, and tomorrow I’m supposed to call the woman at Kingston University about the study abroad office position. I also need to follow up with a woman regarding a marketing position at London South Bank University for a job that would be very similar to my work at BU Law these past two summers. I’ve had an offer for an unpaid internship at AKA, this arts marketing agency who represents just about everyone in the West End, and I have to figure out if I can squeeze it in somehow. I’m also going to submit an application to usher at the Young Vic, and possibly Sadlers Wells, if they’re hiring, since it’s so close to my flat. (I checked, the Almeida isn’t hiring currently, though they might around Christmas time, I’m told.) I’ve also contacted a recruiting agency called ‘The Talent Business,’ which I read about in AdAge this summer, and I submitted an application for a marketing assistant to a global design company with another recruiter. If ALL this falls through, I still have part-time work at Blend available to me, and there are more jobs I can apply for and more temp and recruiting agencies I can register with as well.

I’m on page three (font size 10), so I should really, really wrap this up. Things are really great, overall, and I’m confident that my situation can only improve as I get more settled in. It’s been a bit lonely, I admit, and I’m very eager to start work. That said, knowing I have my friends in Boston and family in Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis and Munich has been my biggest comfort. You all are my safety net. I miss you all, but remember I have couch space available for you here. I mean, as long as you all don’t come at once. That might be a tight squeeze. But yeah, definitely come visit.

--Jen