Markets, Meridians and Mayhem

     This week was a really calm week.  I didn't do much other than read and go to the gym a lot until about Friday.  Wait, that's a lie, I feel like I always say that the week was uneventful and then I remember everything that I did!  Okay, so Paul left a little over a week ago, but not before we spent a bit of time with his cousin Matt one afternoon.  This was to my good fortune because I now have another friend in the London area.  We met up Monday to go to the National Portrait Gallery to see the Tudors and to otherwise count how many people we knew in each room (not many); our attention spans got us through a whole hour and 20 minutes before we called it a day and headed for the nearest coffee shop (Starbucks... go figure).  We got lost in Trocadero trying to find a place to sit and then went to Covent Garden for a drink and some WAGAMAMAS!  Oh man, I'm going to miss that place so much.  Saw the new Indy with my friend Chris, his girlfriend and Liz, I must say, a bit disappointing.  Oh well!

     Wednesday I attempted to go back to the Portrait Gallery to see the Vanity Fair exhibit only to find out that it had ended Monday (hence Matt and I seeing a "sold out" sign for it).  A bit bummed but not deterred I spent the afternoon in Camden Town wondering why I hadn't spent more time there in the first place.  It's basically a free for all of every kind of person you can think of, dressed any way you can imagine and it's wonderful.  There are a lot of street markets, vintage shops and food stalls so I had a fantastic time wandering and buying myself a very small medley of salmon sushi for £4, thanks Camden.  

     Friday Liz and I met up with Pete and Sharon at Borough Market and tasted quite a bit of yummy food.  It's like free samples at Costco but better.  We all had lunch together and then Liz and I wandered around Brick Lane for a while, took lots of pictures of graffiti (perhaps a Banksey in there?) and bought a few little things at some of the stalls.  On our way back we saw a shop that was selling prints of Banksey's graffiti and Liz is actually going to go back and buy one, they're so interesting!  This picture is of Liz and I with some of the "wall art" around Brick Lane, it doesn't do the wall justice, but we look cute so whatever!

     Saturday was really the big day out.  In the morning Liz and I got up and headed across the river to Greenwich.  We walked around the market stalls there (I found the most wonderful Rosary, I've been looking for one for ages!) and had a delicious crepe for lunch.  Then we walked over to the Maritime Museum and, more importantly, the Observatory.  We basically made a b-line for the Prime Meridian and had a mini photoshoot doing various poses to display all of the ways you can stand on or around a Meridian, pretty fantastic.
     That night we put on our cocktail dresses and jumped on the tube for the last Circle Line Party ever.  As of June 1, 2008 alcohol is banned on all of London's public transport so we made sure we were there to make history (or something like that).  The party was mainly organized through Facebook and had over 9,000 Londoners attending (I reckon there were far more than that).  At 9pm Liz and I got to Liverpool Street Station right onto the platform where everyone was geared up to party on the tube.  Officers had closed off the station by 9:20 and were not letting people onto the platform.  We hopped on the next train and wandered through the madness trying to find fun people to hang out with.  (Side note:  When we got on the tube at Wood Green we assumed the people in cocktail outfits were going to the same place as us so we went to sit with them, turns out they weren't but they're the most lovely people and they live in Wood Green!  We exchanged information with one of the girls so I may have new friends as more and more people go home before me)  Not long after we switched cars Liz and I got separated, right before Kensington (I think it was Kensington) we got stuck in the tunnel for over a half hour with SO many people and it was super sweaty and gross, I stood on one of the chairs to see if I could see Liz but no luck.  Little did I know she had gotten off already and onto another tube car, so to her good fortune she missed being stuck.  I had met a nice group of guys who were turning football cheers into Anti-Boris songs (Booooooris Johnson, he's a wanker, what a wanker... etc.)  Good fun, although at one point we thought that a guy in very close proximity to us was going to puke all over the place and considering our current stationary position we were really dreading such an event.  Luckily he kept it together for us all, thanks bud.

     It was amazing, people were ripping down adverts and tube maps and wearing them around their clothes.  There were people dressed up as super heros, alcohol bottles, and Boris Johnson (mainly funny blonde wigs).  It was supposed to be a cocktail theme (if you hadn't guessed) so there were a lot of people in fancy clothes and some tuxes.  By the time the train was moving again all of the boys I had made friends with had to pee and really the sweatiness was rather unbearable so we got off at the next stop and found a pub to hang out in.  I called Liz but she was, by that time, at home safe and sound.  The next morning I read about the party and there were 17 arrests and 6 trains taken off of the platforms due to vandalization and damage.  Apparently it got even more rowdy after we left!  Here's one of the few pictures Liz and I got before we got separated, hopefully it gives you even a fraction of a picture of the amount of people involved.  I have pictures of the platform as well, nothing but a sea of bodies!  I'm so glad we went, it really was a fabulous thing to witness.

     So there is my amazing story about the tube party, I suppose reading about such an event is not the same as witnessing it, but believe me when I say it was like nothing I've ever been to before.  Tomorrow Andreas, Liz and I are off to Austria and Czech Rep. for 6 nights.  I'm really excited because Rick Mohr got me in contact with his cousins so we will be meeting up with and staying with them in Vienna and then we will be staying with my elementary school friend, Hamilton in Prague!  It's always so much more fun when you have people to show you around or at least tell you where to go so we're really excited to have some locals on our side!  Hopefully I'll have plenty more to share when I get back!