City Life Moments

A random discussion I have been having in my head the past few weeks.

Why is it that everything I love screams water and beach or snowy peaks and big old endless horizon, yet the places that continually attract me are concrete jungles with no space to stretch out your legs? I think it's the reflection of other people and their lives all around me that prevents me from taking the laptop to that hut in the Pacific in order to run a pina colada stand. I do want to run a pina colada stand one day, but right now it's just too intriguing to see all kinds of people all around and catching little moments were everyone coexists in one place yet they are all in their very own place at the same time. I think I need the actual visual reminder and the actual daily observation of the crazies around me to gain some sort of saturation and who knows, maybe wisdom so that one day (maybe) I can plop down somewhere, very pristine and calm and be entertained and thought provoked through the little self alone.

Oh yeah, definitely not there yet. Next big concrete city here we come.

1939 Gazelle "A"

1939 Gazelle "A"
Originally uploaded by andrekoopmans

This is a black version of Pride & Joy. I love her so much.

Pride & Joy

Before my yuppy ankle injury which has reduced me to a common morning bus commuter and before this morning commute has increased my novel reading behavior (we are onto London: the novel, 1299 pages of easy entertainment) I lived and brathed the cliche every girl from northern Idaho to southern Georgia dreamt her summer in Europe to look like.

I rode a bike through windy European streets that fit every criteria of awesomeness. Let me tell you the tale of how she, Pride & Joy, found her way into the family.

First off, I got her for free, satisfying the thrifty requirement that is quite central to the coolness of her. Everyone can walk into a super special bike store and buy a fabulous bike, but not everyone can find one. After locating her through gumtree (craigslist but better), I walked her all the way from her home, a boutique store, where she served as a decoration for a few decades, back through parks and busy intersections to my scenic home in Notting Hill where I lovingly chained her to our patio railing. I was a trooper right then and there because her tires were flat and my arms hurt after pushing her up the Notting Hill, which turns out to be an actual hill, who knew, cause she is made of solid something. Like metal. Metal does not go smoothly on concrete.

After looking at her for a few days lovingly and introducing her to a few people in the neighborhood, I realized my luck because for a few quid a loving bike mechanic in a store that repairs ancient bikes, who happened to reside around the corner, was able to fix the non existent brakes and after much oooing and aahing about her amazingness, assure me that she, a gazelle of Dutch make, is an absolute gem. Where does that leave me? Lucky, living in a super awesome neighborhood that is just retro enough to have this ancient bike repair shop and it makes me super smart too, cause I totally realized that this bike was so awesome that I walked her clear across London with no air in her tires. To definitely a check here on the hood, the bike, and me.

To make things better, she is all white. Some0ne painted her handlebars to inner tubes white. And it's so badly done that it looks good, it looks the perfect mix of coolness and shittiness that prevents her from looking like someone tried too hard. Also, I never fail to point out that I did not in fact paint her that color, very satisfied that some boutique lady propped some model into her saddle, tucked a sunflower behind the saddle and painted her, in acrylic, badly, yet wonderfully fresh and shiny.

It only gets better. I realized she had come with a white wicker basket, equally badly painted. When I popped this basket in front of the handle bars and slowly, with no care on my mind made my way across Notting Hill every morning as the vegetable and fruit vendors unpacked their loot, the summer dress shop guys opened their stalls and people sat around little scenic (chain) cafes as I rode by, I could almost feel the baguette under my arm, the rare stinky cheese in my basket and the wine that would be drunk in the leisurely afternoon once I had finished my Italian lessons. I was living the European dream and satisfying every cliche I was supposed to satisfy (by the way, this link is so entertaining it is a bit scary).

It's not just that Pride & Joy is good, she also has the ability to bring the best out in me. One day, between the picturesque hood of my work and my home, on a grey and unpicturesque stretch of London roadways, her tire popped and I had to completely dissemble her,her new brakes, her whopping 3 gear box and the rusted screws that hold her togehter, only to put new tubes on. That is how complicated and well made she is. But I am really complicated and well make too and I fixed her all by myself while the tourists from Portobello market stream by and look, point and smile.

Oh what will I do with her when we leave London? Do you think my Mom will ride her back to Germany for me? To have and to hold until my return?

Second Adolescence

Adolescence
Originally uploaded by Christiane B

I wish I could write something, but I can't. I am reading "Water for Elephants" and I can't stop. I need to stop because I am at work and the non-scary boss is in a scary mood, grumbling and mentally throwing plates and cakes. The room oozes repressed violent desires. We need a boxing pad downstairs and I need to stop reading, but I can't. Lately novels have dominated my life. Maybe my brain has gone mushy, maybe I want to be entertained, maybe it's because we don't have TV, maybe novels are good and academia has made me belief that non-fiction is only worth reading when it deals with genocide or Truth Commissions. Eat, Love, Pray; Beloved; White Noise; Seabiscuit and some Ayn Rand for good measure, and that's only February.

Some call it quarter life crisis. Some call is second adolescence.

Phat Duck

She is phat, she is more delicious than chocolate sprinkles, she has country charm, she will pour liquid nitrogen all over you and then bombard you with quacking seagulls on foamy beaches. She will leave you tasting with all your senses. She is what you should do with your time just in case you found one month's rent in a long abandoned jeans pocket.

No more speaking in mysterious ways. Fat duck and heston blumenthal are my officious London fling with fine dining. Staying true to my latest desire of living life like an armed and dangerous tourist, let me tell the tales of the fat duck like a wide eyed wanderer.

One is greeted by a beautiful cart made of beautiful wood loaded high with beautiful big bottles of beautiful vintages of beautiful champagnes. If one is me or anyone me associates with, one will desire a serving of such a beautiful offering. One will at this point shut off one's brain and go for the tasting menu which will descend upon one in rapid successions of appetizers. Each group of appetizers one will notice has its own attending scientist. The lady serving the egg white, lemon and vodka doused in liquid nitrogen will not return until dumping a large plate of moss onto your table over which she will pour more liquid nitrogen, which will roll in even waves over the table and immerse you and your champagne drinking pals in a forest feel as you gently place your oak moss and truffle toast with overstuffed liver of a sad chicken (fois gras) bits into your mouth. This comes after mustard ice cream and oysters with passion fruit jelly and represents the first highlight of the evening.

Things then become a bit hazy because you probably chose to do a wine pairing while you were at it. You probably contemplated this a few days back and decided that it was decadent and completely unnecessary, but there you are, in the here and now, sipping some awesome whites and reds and the faster you sip, the faster they refill. So then there comes more fois gras this time in a miniature chair fitting for Elvis house after some snail porridge. Dude, the snail porridge is so where it's at. It's probably the best thing since the sad chicken liver, God, it's so good I might start plucking the suckers off our basement flat walls. But onwards you go and it's already time for the next main attraction: Sound of the Sea, read: mini ipods plugged into a shell, emitting quacking seagull voices and ocean waves and a mish mash on your plate that tastes like you just fell on your face on the beach straight into childhood memories of summer outings and scraped knees. It's so good and so salty and your knees don't really hurt and you are allowed to eat as much ice cream as your mother never let you have in real life.

This puts us not even half way through the evening, and the pigeon steak and more nitro scrambled things keep up the steady excitation of the taste buds, but things simmer down now. You are simmered down. The whites have given way to the reds and you have developed an entitlement to the little darling things that continue being plopped down in front of you. That is until the violet tartlets at which point you may just wish that they get rid of these ridiculously manicured mini servings and dish out the damn pie. Fuck the tartlets, you want the violet pie. I want the violet pie.

And that is why usually I go to places where they give you big servings of one thing: pasta say, or curry. It's not that I don't appreciate the amazingness of what ended up on my place, but I just simply always want more. As soon as one amazing thing is given to me my brain stops being able to understand that other amazing things will come, all it wants is moooore. I want more violet pie. Before the violet tartlets I wanted more pigeon, before the pigeon I wanted more snails or sad chicken livers. I think with hindsight, most of all I want more snails with violets. They make me feel so good.

Mental Flask in my Pocket

As established, I did a bit of growing up on the old continent, in a country full of castles, festivals, old cities, cold cities, churches, lakes, mountains, ski resorts, lake resorts, charming farm houses, imposing walls, more castles, gates, monuments, plazas and various important festivals relating to beer and love. But I have never been to any of them. I made it to the capital at the ripe age of mid twenties hood, long after having lived on three other continents and having racked up most South American capitals with an urgency that bordered on manic. It's just not that interesting when it's close to home or worse yet, when it is home.

Home can be anywhere, but this attitude problem of "bored with what's on this side of the fence" plagues me always anew. Being a tourist means looking at intricate details, enjoying complex weirdnesses, observing unfamiliar habits of the locals, snapping pictures, behaving outside the norm of what it accepted and expected and getting away with it. Being a traveler is the same as above but with a non-chalant attitude and a bottle of booze in your backpack. Living somewhere tends to awake in me a tendency to fight the weird, get annoyed with the complex and disregard the detail.

Now that I am re-introducing the wanderlust into my life, more specifically now that the suitcases are being dusted and an eye is kept open for cheap airfare eastbound, do I finally look up when I walk and am I finally able to enjoy the interestingness of the things I don't understand. That is a rather stark contrast to the "head down, elbow out, rushing along with the crowd, fuck the fucking fuckers" attitude. Now that I see a departure date being written somewhere in 2008, do I put my mental flask into my purse, do I walk slower, take a swig before crossing major intersections and do I finally stop repeating my five hates (transport, weather, cost, taxes, food). Instead I love the fact that bankers, bums and yummy mommy's alike are stuck in a metall tube every morning that exhorts a price per mile higher than the Concord ever did in its flying days, chubby girls cheerfully wear off-the-shoulder t-shirts and belt-sized mini skirts in the freezing morning mist, happily chewing on stale sandwiches while shelling out their little life savings on glitzy accessories. Also, the beer is cheap, the glasses are big, the lunch crowd is hilarious and I am stuck in the middle of it. I mean what is there not to love? And why does it take an exit plan to enjoy the show?

I am superstitious to the nth degree, but it appears that stars are aligning and that we are Asia bound (knock on wood), a job in the bag and some adventures on the road. God, I hope I didn't say too much.

P.S. Spell check is broken and I need to tell you about FAT DUCK. Tomorrow.

The Thought That Counts

Dear Friends, Dear Family,

On this Valentine's day I went to "Baker and Spice" to buy you heart shaped cookies. My options included ginger bread, sugar coated, chocolate springled and then some. But then I had to leave the premises without them.

I wanted many of them. I wanted to be generous. I wanted to give love and calories, but I also wanted to be able to pay rent tomorrow.

Three quid a pop! How big you ask? Small I tell you. The diameter of a mini twix bar. I asked the reasonable question: "What is in them, surely they must be made of gold?"
Shop girl: "I don't know."
Me:"Surely something special."
Shop girl asks other shop girl, her own eyes wide in horror: "These are 3 quid, what's in them"
Other shop girl: "Short Bread".
Me: "Short Bread?"

Me leave store, me buy Ritter Sport Nougat, me ate it all on the way back, me sorry, but no cookies for you. I mean they were heart shaped...but STILL.

I hope you know it's the thought that counts.

Iced Tea Get Off My Ass

Sometimes I feel like I am mentally pouring myself a cup of sugared ice tea, turning on the telly, putting my feet on the coffee table, ordering pizza from the place on speed dial and having them deliver it through the window so that I don't have to move at all. I am no master of mental stillness, but some days feel like I am holding my breath, sitting it out, waiting for life to overtake me and make things happen so that I can start moving again.

This was one of those weekends. I moved all over the city, mug shooting as many strangers as possibly, eating big meals, even getting all up in tourist attractions, but in reality I am waiting. Waiting for nothing in particular, but not wanting to invest too much time, energy, like or dislike into anything that is in front of me NOW, because I feel like something is about to happen. An illusion most likely. I am not the kind of person who is rewarded by sitting on her couch via large packages of goodness spilling into her lap but rather I feel like I may have spend too many moments of my life already taking a time out, when I should be doing something, like chasing a giant package of goodness. It just appears that there are so many goodness options out there I am confused as to which one I want to chase because I AM known to be the person who is rewarded very fast for getting her ass into action, so I just need to make sure the action my ass is getting itself involved in is the action it wants. Not literally speaking may I add.

Me Not So Amused

P.S. Why doesn't anyone else think a giant banner of Yoda in front of the London Eye is a hilarious composition for a photograph? I thought it was so funny I took at least 20 versions of it. However in my comments group, people actually refused to comment. Like turning in an empty ballot, they commented by not commenting. That's how Hillary must feel these days.

LOST Without It

Last night i-tunes broke my heart. For one long year I have been able to trust that my LOST will start immediately after the LOST back in the land of plenty has been watched, gossiped about, taken apart and analyzed and I had just enough will power not to "read those cliff notes", not to dig for clues but wait until my very own LOST was going to be played for me, in my living room for the small donation of 1.99 (American money, so you know, like, not very much in real money). No longer, it appears. Can someone please put a functioning non-porn version on YouTube? Please? Stop toying with me like that. I already promised Yankee visitors due in London next weekend that we would all get our fix and now, for the first time it's not the writer's strike, not the drunk actors, not anything but my location that discriminates against me, that makes me feel like I am not as worthy as you. Please, someone, be kind and make this problem go away. 

Update @ 16:52: Dear Yankee visitors of next weekend; the situation has been remedied. We are in business. I-tunes has mended their ways. 

Americana: Let The Border Be Here

Oh let that wagon rolling westward stop right here.

This amazing opportunity for any parent to become the proud owner of a jacuzzi can only be a Williamsburgh hipster's revenge against the bible beaters that cheated him out of his right to wear leotards back in Catholic school, or wait, is there any way this is real?

Do I have any eligible bachelors willing to test the system? Any ladies willing to enter the contest?

Super Tuesday in London

Turns out I wanted to be part of the party. And turns out Hillary is not Bill and turns out I voted for Obama. I did some circling, some crossing out and some more circling. So come on now baby, do something with this grand old following you got going for you. Deal?

Ultimately either him or her will do the trick for me. I feel good about having gotten infected by this fun sweeping movement that deep inside I want to be part of, that I want to buy hook, line and sinker. I want to feel passionate about politics and about change and it all reminds me a bit of how people felt half a century ago and I like that - not just the flowery skirts, but also the belief in something. Something, what exactly? Change, what kind of change really? I don't know. But something. Obama promises that and I want to buy it, gobble it up.

I have heard of people walking out of speeches of his where they are just so blown away by him but when prompted to say what he spoke about they have no idea. It's just how he speaks. So that leads me to the flip side. I don't know that I believe he really has any grand sweeping changes up his sleeve and I am annoyed that I can be persuaded by the idea, by a symbol of something I can't even articulate I want. Obama's campaign managed to push that button, that desire I have to feel being part of a mini revolution, a sanctioned, safe revolution, one someone of my demographic is supposed to buy into. God, I am so easy.

The post-election Budweiser in a rustic London pub with floor to ceiling green carpet tasted just as bad as I remembered. Being an expat in London can be so fun.

I Don't Vote With My Girl Parts or Maybe I Do?

This girl pretty much said it. And what a good point she made: the idea is not to vote with race or gender, but to vote with ones head instead. Sounds smart and good to me. What also sounds good to me is that in the case of a victory of the Democratic party, there will not be another old white man in the White House. Now that is the type of smart, educated girl I am.

Is that so wrong?

America is a slow moving large machine that some have finagled to churn out extreme amounts of shitty decisions and heart wrenchng foreign policies leaving aside economic ones, in an amazingly short time span. But overall we're talking about a thing with the turning radius of an old caddie. If we can't reverse the damange of the past years with one swift Yehaa it nevertheless makes me feel better to gaze at a face of America on the front pages of Reader's Digest and USA Today over the next year and the years after (as we struggle to make that 3 point turn in a dark dark alley), that looks different. I am that superficial. Maybe it's the lack of old white men in my party that seem trustworthy or the presence of old white men in the other party that don't seem so great, but let me just say, for 2008 I don't care who becomes president as long as "it" is no old white man.