Category: London

We first spot the garden of Hampton Court from the window of one of its grand staterooms. It beckons us. We’ve already passed through Henry VIII’s Great Hall lined with fading floor-to-ceiling tapestries, site of great dinners where plenty of wine was poured and the gossip of the day flowed. With six wives, there would have been plenty of gossip. The pride of the palace were its privies, aka toilets, in each guest apartment and conveniently located throughout. An internal toilet meant the height of luxury in those days. Portraits tell the tale of Henry’s many marriages in the quest for a male heir, while a stunning chapel with gilded ceilings and a balcony for the royals to kneel on plush red pillows reveals Henry’s devoutness despite his break with Rome.  We visit the kitchen, which really is more like several houses–one room dedicated to pies, another to bread and yet another devoted to the roasting of meat. Much of the palace appeared to be dark and at other times light shown through in the most unexpected places.

 It is too gorgeous outside to be closed in with ancient relics, so we answer the garden’s call. We stand for a moment to take it all in –the trees are the most whimsical shape, like gum drop trees, and the bushes are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses. With the colorful patches of flowers, it looks like we’ve stepped into Candy Land.  It would be the perfect place for a garden party. The grass is so soft and lush under foot that you want to drop to your knees and lie down for a while. Some folks have succumbed to the urge and lay prone staring up at billowy white clouds. The setting inspires a photo shoot and Ugo and I snap shots of one another under trees, next to multicolored flowerbeds and near classical sculptures. When we think we have enough shots worthy of Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar, we walk into town for tea and cake.

 

 

After a quintessential British day in the country, we return to the city to the London Bridge area. Standing on London Bridge, you think you could be standing on any random urban bridge in the States. Only the very modern sign on the bridge tells you that you are standing on the famed bridge from the schoolyard song.  Beyond the London Bridge is the Tower Bridge, looking more like a postcard for the city. I want to check out the Burough Market, which is nearby, but we’ve just missed it and see merchants packing up their wares and cleaning their stalls. I can only image what it would have been like with bustling crowds. So, we circle back to the London Bridge to walk along the Queen’s Walk, a scenic promenade along the South Bank of the Thames that stretches between the Lambeth Bridge and the Tower Bridge. There’s lots of activity along the walk on a Friday evening as Brits gather at pubs facing the Thames. Couples stroll hand in hand and tourists pose for pics in front of the Tower Bridge. As we walk, the crowd starts to thicken and we start to hear music playing. It sounds like a Michael Jackson song, so I am immediately drawn towards the bumping bass. But Ugo calls out and asks if I’m seeing what’s around me. We are standing in the middle of a photography exhibit.  The photos depict life rituals from around the world—weddings, funerals, births, even circumcision. A woman in Palau breast feeds her newborn baby in one photo; in another a man in Ethiopia leaps naked over bulls to prove that he is a worthy husband to his soon-to-be bride; and in yet another a Turkish family looks on as their young, festively-dressed, son bravely withstands a circumcision. It’s provocative and truly illustrates its point, which is that we are more alike than different.

 I can tell this fact is true as we turn our attention to the pool of dancing Brits just beyond the exhibit. They’ve been captivated by the music we heard earlier too. It’s a free open air concert at the Scoop at MoreLondon, a sunken concrete concert space in front of London’s City Hall. It reminds me of how DC’s hip crowd fills each corner of the Hirshorn’s Sculpture Garden for its Friday night concert series. At the Scoop some have brought their own libations, coolers packed with wine bottles. An older white gentleman in a fedora and shiny gray suit moves effortlessly to the beat, while not far off a rhythmless black Brit bounces off beat. A couple down below show-off their near perfect salsa moves to the pop tunes. It is a diverse crowd blowing off steam after a long week. The band goes through Michael Jackson’s song book hitting much of the “Off the Wall” and “Thriller” albums, before moving on to popular Duffy and Rhianna songs. Finally, the lead singer encourages the crowd to get to know each other like a preacher encouraging his parishioners to give praise and hug and greet each other during a church service. I introduce myself to a black British woman sitting in front of us. Her name is Anne-Marie. She asks about my accent and I tell her I’m from America and she tells us that there are concerts at the scoop during lunch and in the evenings. The band we are listening to are a popular group called the All-Stars. We talk about music a bit. They mention music that I don’t know and I tell them that they should check out Raphael Saadiq at Camden Town on Sunday. The band swings in to a popular British song that we don’t know, but it calls for audience participation with the refrain, “It’s all about the music.” It certainly is as Ugo and I join our musically entranced brethren in dance.

After we’ve enjoyed the musical stylings of the All-Stars, we continue down the Queen’s Walk to Shad Thames, a narrow cobblestone street with its buildings connected by iron bridges and walkways. This is how the warehouse district looked in Victorian times where workers moved cargo like teas, spices and other commodities from boats and from warehouse to warehouse over the iron bridges inland to their destinations. It’s a wonderful place to take a photo, especially in the fading London light. From there we head to Bermondsey Street, which Ugo says is known for its good, off the beaten track restaurants. Except that when we get there, almost every place is packed. We walk up and down the street exploring the menus and we stop at Village East with a menu with a great range of dishes with chicken, fish, pork and beef, but sadly, they are no longer accepting diners in the restaurant and we are forced to sit in the bar area to have a burger. The hostess has however assured us that the burgers are good, even though I’ve heard on several occasions that Brits don’t know how to do a good burger. We take her word for it and give it a try. It turns out she was right. It was a perfect rare on focacia with watercress and a creamy white cheddar cheese. The fries, or chips as they call them, were pretty good too. Another great end to a great day in LondonTown.

 

Lonely Planet describes the Engineer as one of London’s first gastropubs. It is in North London and not far from where I am now, in Kilburn, so I decide to go for a late lunch. Ugo has gone to work and left me in her gorgeous, renovated flat. When I made it to her place this morning, she was entertaining a pair of guys who had just delivered a rug sample. They stood around it debating the size it should be cut and where it would be positioned. This was no ordinary rug. It was definitely a floor covering and eye-catching one at that. I could see why Ugo would want it as the centerpiece of her living area which was already stunning, featuring a beautiful bay window, honey hardwood floors and an original stained glass window. The rug, a cream, caramel and chocolate patterned piece, already looked at home. This is kind of Ugo’s thing. Her side gig is working as an interior designer (Check out Ugo’s work here: http://arinzehinteriors.com) and she says she’s setting up her place in London as her calling card. I wish I’d seen her place in DC.

Once the delivery men have been given their proper instructions, Ugo heads off to work and we make plans to meet later for dinner. But now I need lunch, so I visit one of London’s transportation sites and get directions by tube and by bus. I found myself in Camden Town in no time. The only problem was finding Gloucester Avenue where the pub was supposed to be located. No one I asked had heard of it or knew where it was. The walking map wasn’t the clearest, when I looked it up, but I thought it would be easy to ask around when I got close. So, I just wander around for a bit, past a couple a vintage stores, past a salon where a stylist was braiding another woman’s hair, past apartments that looked like public housing, Chinese restaurants, falafel shops. Gloucester Avenue unfound, I finally give in or maybe it’s my stomach telling me to give in. I go back to where I started near the Chalk Farm tube station and look at the menu at a bar and restaurant called Made in Camden. It’s next to what appears to be a concert hall that is hosting an iTunes festival with artists like Adele, Moby, Coldplay, Bruno Mars and Raphael Saadiq. It’s a nice place, but it looks like it’s even better later in the evening, especially filled with concert-goers. I pick up a leaflet about the event next door and read that I am practically dining in the birthplace of the British Punk Rock and Pop scene, the Roundhouse. Bands like the Ramones, the Clash and Patti Smith played here. The 90’s group Soul II Soul is from here and most recently the talented and tragic Amy Winehouse. So, I feel like I am where I supposed to be and settle in. An eclectic mix of music plays as I dine on a tasty leek soup, an Asian chicken tapa with gingered grapes with a side salad and sip a cider. It’s the perfect place to people watch. I see a group of teens gather for the evening’s concert and the sidewalk becomes a catwalk of London fashion.

The must have items if you are a teenage girl or a woman in your 20s are black tights worn under cutoff blue jean shorts or a miniskirt. These are likely to be paired with a tank top, cardigan and scarf or a cropped jacket. The tights may also be substituted for leggings so that you can wear sandals or open-toed shoes. I see the more fanciful and fearless side of London fashion down at the Camden Stables Market, a maze of vintage, punk, art and jewelry stores a few blocks away from the Roundhouse. There’s a guy with at least 20 face piercings and folks with hair dyed neon pink and green, all mixing in with the fashion forward and fashion challenged. The best find of the day for me is an accessories shop called Taloola owned by a lovely South African and Namibian woman named Rachel. She’s been in the market for a couple of years selling beautiful bead necklaces and jewelry from Kenya, South Africa and Namibia as well as leather bags and wallets from Morocco. She sources the items she sells directly from the people who make them in those countries including women’s cooperatives. Rachel is delightful, dressed in a blue patterned maxi dress and a matching blue wrap. She almost seems too elegant for the market. Her daughters are her models and show off her jewelry on placards in her shop. She tells me how she hated London at first when her husband first brought her to the city from South Africa, but her daughters fell in love with the place. We talked about traveling in Africa and I told her that I wanted to replace a necklace that I got in Senegal that broke recently. She helped me try on a few pieces and I ended up walking away with two necklaces and a new friend, hugging as we parted.

After more wandering through the market, it’s time to meet Ugo. We’d decided to meet at Covent Gardens, known as the place of the original flower market from “My Fair Lady.” Now, it is filled with street performers, tourists and Londoners on their way to the pubs. Ugo tells me of her path to London as we walk. She is in finance by trade and took a job as CFO of an architecture and design firm in London so that she could be closer to her creative passion for interior design. She seems to be happy with her move so far settling into the African community and finding the local tennis club. In Leicester Square, we are surrounded by London’s theater and arts scene, passing by marquees trumpeting “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Lion King,” as well as high-heeled women and dress-suited men outside art gallery events. I mention Gordon’s Wine Bar, a spot recommended by another friend that once lived in London. In the process of navigating our way there, we see that the National Portrait Gallery is open for late hours and we step in to hear a DJ spinning funky tunes. We have to stop in the Tudor room to see portraits of Henry VIII and the doomed Anne Boleyn. A portrait of a stately-looking African man catches our attention amidst the sea of portraits of white men in powdered wigs. His name is Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and his portrait is Britain’s first of a slave turned freed man.

 Happy to have stumbled upon such a cool event, we move on to have a quick sushi dinner and then head to Gordon’s Wine Bar, which is down a narrow street lined with pubs and restaurants leading to the Charring Cross tube station. Its garden is packed with ruddy-faced Brits and we step inside the bar dating back to the 1800s, London’s oldest wine bar and once a Rudyard Kipling haunt. A wood paneled bar area proceeds a cave-like space, where even I have to duck a bit to enter. Tapered candles are its only light and people huddle together in intimate conversation. Ugo and I toast a lovely day with our glasses of wine.

 

 

 

There is a 100-foot column split in two on display in theVictoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. Naina and I can’t imagine how it got there. It takes the breath of any visitor who enters the cast gallery. Except this isn’t a cast it is the real thing. A Roman column dating back to 113 AD recounting the story of the Emperor Trajan’s victory in a great war in intricate carvings winding their way up from its base. The battle looked fierce and the victory sweet based on the carvings. Across the balcony is a replica of Michelango’s David and we are struck by it’s height, we can almost see into his eyes and we are at least a story up. It takes us a moment to leave this room after marveling over replicas of entire cathedral fronts that have made their way into the massive room. Intricate ironwork in the form of gates, railing, benches, locks, keys and fireplaces capture our attention as well and we morn the loss of such artistic trades. Everyone today seems to want the same thing pre-made. We navigate our way through the enormous halls, art in and of themselves, to the theater and performance exhibit, which features a breakfast dress worn by Dame Edna, the mangled guitar of Pete Townsend from the Who and the Punch and Judy puppets. That gives you a sense of how ecclectic this exhibit is. Naina has to leave to pick up her sister, but I go on to see an Elton John costume, Adam Ant’s Prince Charming outfit and one of Mick Jagger’s unitards. I am equally thrilled to see costumes worn by Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton. I also learn a bit about the first black man to play Othello and make the part famous in England, Ira Aldridge. He was African-American and a stand in for the white actor who suddenly fell ill.

From theater and performance, I move on to the jewelry exhibit that showcases beautiful and not so pretty pieces that date back to early Egyptian times through present day. The baubles are organized by date and what was happening culturally at the time as well as by purpose. Jewelry has been worn throughout time by men and women to bring fertility, protect children, ward off evil spirits or show religious fervor and devotion, as well as just to show off. An amazing emerald and diamond encrusted, crown, necklace and earring set worn by a Duchess is across the room from Art Deco rings that a flapper may have worn in the 1920s. If you are woman who loves her trinkets, it’s worth the trip. Finally, I stop for lunch and I decide not to go far and visit the museum cafe. What a treat. The dining rooms are works of art. I am having a slice of quiche and salad in a room depicting the seasons and months in stained glass and blue and white tile. It is gorgeous. I linger longer with a pot of tea and scones.

I want to stay longer at the museum because there is so much to see, but Harrod’s is nearby and I want to hit the famed department store before it closes. I’ve never seen so many women in berkas or hijab in one place in my life. Some women were dressed completely in black from head to toe with just eyes showing, others had more fanciful head wraps that shimmered or twisted in unique ways. They were mobbing the handbag counters, Louis, Chanel, Marc Jacobs, you name it they were there. The Harrod’s in London may very well be the shopping mecca of the Muslim woman’s world. I make may way to the Egyptian escalator and it is unexpectedly garish in a place that you might associate with staid style. But there it is, full of tourists and shoppers making their way between five floors of luxury and designer clothes, furniture, china, etc. I have to stop at the shoe floor where I spot one of the black-blanketed women trying on a pair of red suede platform pumps matching the color of her painted nails. I guess if you can only wear black and remain covered head to toe, you have got to find other ways to make a fashion statement and a pair of red suede pumps are definitely saying something. I wander around on the designer dress floor through Balenciaga and the British designers like Rag and Bone and Karen Millen. The salespeople looked bored out of their minds. They are dressed in black too and wear kind of hollow looks as they ask if they can help you. They all look similar as if they stepped out of Vogue. In fact, I imagine that working at the Harrod’s maybe a lot like a scene from “The Devil Wears Prada.”

After my luxury shopping encounter, I decide to head back towards the museum to Kengsington Park to see the Prince Albert and Princess Diana Memorials. Making my way down Brompton Road, I spot more Arab folk taking in afternoon hookahs rather than afternoon tea. The Prince Albert Memorial is stunning. You can tell that Queen Victoria’s hubby was well loved and respected as you look skyward at the gold-spired gazebo with a golden Albert in the center. Diana’s memorial is more understated. Maybe she would have wanted it that way. It is described as a memorial fountain, but it is more like a babbling brook and kids have rolled up their pants legs to traverse the concrete loop of running water.

It’s my last night at Naina’s so I head back to Wimbeldon to enjoy a quiet dinner with her, Josh and her newly-arrived sister from California, Sonja. Naina and Josh have made a nice cozy place for themselves despite the challenges of having to hang dry their clothes versus drying them in a dryer, dealing with poor customer service or longing for ziplock bags, band-aids that stick and other things you never thought you’d miss back in the States. But I think any place where you where you connect with good people over food and wine for good conversation can feel homey and their place feels that way. Another London ex-pat perspective to come from my friend Ugo.

 

We aren’t sure if we are watching a marching band at the Macy’s Day Parade or the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace when we hear the James Bond theme music, followed by “Goldfinger” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” But we are definitely in front of Buckingham Palace watching the guys in the big bearskin hats and red uniforms march in tune. They don’t do the dips and formations like a good high school marching band, they just peel off from the rest of their regiment in twos, sometimes groups of six and march past or right up to the gate. Some of the guards carry heavy flags. One guy looked too small for his heavy hat, which was slightly askew. Other guards carry massive riffles with the deadliest looking bayonets on the end that I’ve ever seen.

Yesterday, Naina told me that these guards are called Beefeaters because back in leaner times, they were fed beef and the best cuts of meat because they had the duty of protecting royalty. Folks with less were resentful and called the soldiers “beefeaters,” meant to be a derrogatory term. Times have changed, especially once they appeared on a gin bottle.

When we first arrive at the palace gates there are throngs of tourists and we have to crane our necks to get a peek at what’s going on. It’s like a gathering of the United Nations. We hear Spanish, Italian, Japanese, English, maybe even some Farsi. Little kids sit on their father’s shoulders and narrate the scene unfolding just beyond the gates. “They are coming this way! They went over there!” It’s a little chaotic, but kind of fun.

We are standing behind a family from Portland, Oregon. The wife is from Silver Spring, Maryland. We learn that this is about a half-hour long ceremony. I was thinking that it would be over in about 10 minutes. We guess at what the guards are doing, unsure if we’ve seen the change over in guards or not. There’s alot of passing of guards and because they all look pretty much the same, it’s hard to tell if new guards have come out and taken their place or not. And, there appears to be a lot happening that may or may not be related to the actual ceremony.

At one point, a horse drawn carriage arrives and passes through the gates. We wonder who is inside. We think something important is happening today because we saw a lot of Brits dressed up, ladies in hats or wearing those now famous fascinators. Some men were in suits and even in tuxedos and tails. Maybe it WAS the Queen. A short time later we see a less swanky vehicle pass through the gates, something that looks like a green smart car. Was all this a part of the ceremony? We even think we may be on the site of a crime scene as a woman behind us whispers that the police found a man hanged nearby. As I said, there was alot happening. Eventually, some of our fellow curious tourists start to lose patience and the crowd starts to thin. We are able to get right up to the gates for a better view of more passing guards and marching band tunes. Finally, it appears to be over. Guards process out of the palace gates and start a parade towards St. James Park. We decide not to follow the parade or the crowds and turn in the other direction in search of lunch. We stop at a cute cafe not far away for sandwiches and return to the palace for more pomp and circumstance.

There is plenty of pomp and circumstance at the Royal Mews, the working stables of the palace. The horses snack on hay as we pass through to see the carriages, which are definitely something out of a fairytale, each used for different occassions. One is for the Queen to ride in to open Parliament and another just carries her lighted crown for all her British subjects to view. Then there is the royal Bentley which was built for her to stand up in. Naina and I guess that the Queen must be 4’2, because it doesn’t look like an average-sized person, let alone a petite 5-foot person like me, could stand up in the vehicle. The most ostentatious thing we have the pleasure of laying our eyes on is the Golden State Coach, which weighs 4 tons and can only go about 10 miles per hour with six horses pulling it. It is baroque with a capital B. I like to think of it as the royal pimp mobile. It is only used for the most special of occassions like coronations, most recently for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebration. Only the pictures can do it justice. The tour ends with the carriage that carried William and Kate to Buckingham Palace after their nuptials at Westminster Abbey in April.

 A few steps from the Mews is the Royal Gallery, which houses a rotating exhibit of art and decorative items aquired by the royals over the years. The current exhibit features items based on greek myths and mythology. There were paintings, jewelry and furniture showcasing Cupid, Diana and Apollo throughout. My favorite was a painting, possibly painted by a suitor of Queen Elizabeth I. She is painted into the greek myth “The Judgement of Paris.” She appears to be in the role of Paris, judging the beauty of Athena, Aphrodite and Venus. But the Queen holds the prize, suggesting that she is more beautiful than these goddesses. The next room holds the fanciful collection of King George IV, who apparently had a passion for decorating and just acquiring the most exotic items of questionable taste that he could find. Naina visited an entire palace of his over-the-top collection just outside London recently.

 

Feeling a bit of museum fatigue, we decide to break for tea and stroll through St. James Park, which is home to a bevy of unusual-looking waterfowl like the coot, a small shiny black bird with a white beak and face plate. I tell Naina that Mike Tyson would love the place with all the pigeon varieties strutting past. (He has a thing for pigeons, if you didn’t know.)

The St. James Inn is a lovely place for tea, except that they’ve run out of scones. We make do with finger sandwiches and tasty little cakes. Then it is off to the top London sites. Trafalgar Square is first and it is characteristically mobbed with tourists and Londoners just hanging out between the fountains, on the stairs and in any other open space that we can find. There is a man playing a fire-breathing tuba, headless people holding umbrellas and other odd street performers. From there we make our way over to Westminster Abbey, passing Big Ben and the Parliament on the way. There is a massive line to get into Parliament and we can’t figure out why. A policemen tells us that it has something to do with the newspaper phone tapping scandal. There’s also a small demonstration against the Libya bombings just across the street in a space similar to Lafayette Park in DC. We make it to the Abbey which is quite impressive from the outside, but not more so that Notre Dame in Paris in my opinion. We see the entrance where a commoner named Kate stepped out of a carriage to marry a prince.

We’ve crammed a lot into one day, but it is rush hour and rather than fight our way through the crowds on the tube, we walk along Thames and the South Bank Centre past the Eye, the massive ferris wheel and what one of the writers from Lonely Planet says reminds them of the Eye of Mordor from the Lord of the Rings.

Along the South Bank there is a skate park and I see a group of teens practicing dance moves, maybe they hope to be Britain’s next Back Street Boys. Naina and I end our day in a warm, bustling Italian restaurant famished after about 8 hours of walking, but satisfied with the days events. When we get home, we catch up on London’s news and learn that we hadn’t been invited to the Queen’s annual garden party at Buckingham Palace. We are sure they wouldn’t have noticed us among it’s 8,000 guests. We also learn that a man really did hang himself from a tree just across the street from Buckingham Palace. A police officer covered his body with a tarp during the changing of the guard. And, police testified before Parliament as they investigated the newspaper tapping scandal that shut down the News of the World paper last week. All the people we saw at Parliament were press and spectators. It seems that more than Naina and I had a very busy day.