London Calling
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by Scott Gilbertson
Wednesday, 10 May 2006
"Why are you choosing to visit your friend now?"
(shrug) (smile)
"How much money are you bringing in?"
"Money? On me? None. I was planning to use that ATM behind you."
"Do you have any bank statements showing how much money you have?"
"Uh, no, I didn't know that I needed…"
"You have onward tickets?"
"Yes."
"May I see them?"
"Uh, no. I haven't printed the receipt yet."
"When are you planning to do that?"
"Soon."
"So you have no money, no proof of onward travel and no reason for coming to London?"
"Correct."
"If I showed up in the States you would turn me around and send me back…"
"Well, **I** wouldn't… and besides why would you want to go to the States?"
This last line elicits the faint traces of a smile and the otherwise very serious and prim border agent relents. She says something about a verbal warning but stamps my passport anyway letting me into the U.K. I try not to run but hurry just in case she changes her mind. I find it highly ironic that of all the borders I've crossed in countries that were only recently at war the one in Heathrow was by far the hardest. That's the west for you. Reasons and rules. Welcome home. You were right Wally; you do have a lot more freedom on Ko Kradan than anywhere else.
My advice, when crossing borders and just generally when traveling, is to learn a bit of self-deprecation, or national deprecation, particularly if your American. By and large the world seems to like Americans, but that doesn't mean they don't enjoy making fun of us. We seem to be seen as sort of hapless idiots who don't really mean any harm, but just aren't very bright. Which is basically accurate I suppose. The nicest thing anyone's said to me on this trip was my friend Keith who looked at me one night and said, "you're the least American American I've met." So it goes.
I don't want to come off as being down on Americans, I'm not, but I do sympathize with the world's disdain for certain, er, character flaws we seem to have, such a tendency to be a bit squeamish and particular about sanitation. And our use of the English language is a bit um, primitive. But you don't need to travel to know that. The English for instance absolutely hate American slang and when you get down to words like, "dude" and "awesome" does make you sound a bit daft.
But I didn't come to England to practice the Queen's English; I came to see Thet who I met way back in Jaisalmer India on the camel trek. Thet and I kept in touch periodically and since my Thai visa expired a week before I was due in Budapest, she kindly said I could spend a few layover days with her in London. Thet and her flatmate live a few blocks off Holloway road in what I believe qualifies as North London (if I'm wrong about that set me straight in the comments section).
Compared to getting through customs, finding Thet's flat was ridiculously easy. After a lovely breakfast and some catch up travel stories, we set out to explore London. We took the bus down to Trafalgar square, walked through Chinatown and snacked on dim sum before making a brief walk through of the National Gallery. Then we ended up in SoHo where we managed to find a bar with £2 drinks at happy hour. Forgive me for interupting the narrative with pointless tangents, but I spent the last three months around Londoners so I had a fair number of expectations, er, misconceptions. The first thing I have to set straight is London's reputation as the most expensive place around. Now if you're coming in with dollars or euros or any currency other than pounds, yes London is expensive. But the expense is in the exchange rate. If you happen to live in London and earn pounds I think London is actually quite cheap. Drinks are rarely more than a fiver, a huge meal can be had for fewer than £10. I can't comment on rent, but in general living expenses in London are less than New York and certainly less than Paris. The key is to earn pounds. If you don't have sterling than yes London will drain your wallet in the time it takes you to work out the difference between pants and trousers.
The next day we set out for the Tate Modern and were joined by Thet's friend Terese who's originally from Sweden (Another friend of Thet's, Joy is from Thailand and her flatmate is from China. I traveled extensively in SE Asia with Londoners and spent my time in London with emigrants, which is exactly how I'd want it). 
After taking the bus down to Bank and having a look at London Bridge, we walked in the sunshine along the Thames. We paused briefly to inspect the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's works were first brought to the stage. I didn't go in because I wasn't in the mood for an organized, narrated walk through. 
Perhaps it's just the nerdy English major coming out in me, but it made me feel good to see that not only is Shakespeare still in print and still read, but the English have taken the time to reconstruct the Theatre as well (the original was destroyed by a fire and then The Globe V2 was destroyed by those pesky puritans). Art isn't dead. And people still read, pundits be damned. And the show always goes on.
The Tate Modern is an imposing, factory like building housing an impressive collection of Modern art. What's most impressive about the Tate Modern is that it's free (anyone been to the MOMA in New York lately? Decidedly not free), well you have to pay for the exhibitions, but the permanent collection is free. Unfortunately the Tate Modern was re-hanging much of their permanent collection (my museum timing has always been awful) so there was a limited amount of art on display. 
There are a number of amazing pieces by Jean Miro and Max Ernst, as well as some Picassos and the usual suspects of 20th Century art. But for me the highlight was Cy Twombly's paintings and sculptures. I have a friend who loves Cy Twombly so I was familiar with his work through books and photos, but frankly it always seemed a bit jumbled and lacking to me. However when you get up close to the actual canvas the detail is amazing and something about the four paintings at the Tate (entitled Quattro Stagioni - a painting in four parts) were spellbinding to me. 
Its as if you can actually feel the swirling chaos begin to envelope you and then settle to produce a calm that wasn't there before you stepped in front of them. I must have spent twenty minutes staring at them. Long enough that Thet and Terese were already outside waiting for me. Eventually I tore myself away, though I honestly could have stood there for a couple of hours.
We walked down the river toward another gallery I have never heard of but which Thet promised me was good. It turned out that the gallery had packed it in and moved to Chelsea but I did get to see the London eye and Big Ben and Parliament and such tourist sites. 
Eventually Terese had to go home and Thet and I stopped in at a riverside pub and sat outside drinking a few glasses of bitter. Oh yes, I forgot the best part, it was twenty degrees, the warmest day of the year so far in London and hardly a cloud in the sky. The atmosphere on the streets was near jubilation everyone smiling and invested with that same strange energy that I used to see after the first true thaw in Northampton. There is something about a long dark winter that makes you appreciate spring so much more. We sat in the sunshine and chatted about future trips and the essential differences between Americans and the British and then we headed home for a bite to eat.
The following day the thermometer climbed up to 25 Celsius and we scrapped our original plans in favor of a barbeque in Hampstead Heath. We stopped by the grocery store and picked up a disposable grill and a few pieces of chicken and sausage and headed for the park. After climbing up a hill that overlooked all of London we sat down in the high, unmowed spring grasses. Luckily said grasses were green and water logged or we would probably have burned down a good portion of Hampstead Heath with our portable grill. We did not, as is suggested in the instructions, elevate the grill on rocks or bricks. No, we just set it on the grass and lit it up. As the flames whipped in the wind and began to light the long strands of grass on fire we started to get a little nervous. I stayed by the grill trying to press the grass down on all sides so it wouldn't catch fire while Thet looked for some stones or something nonflammable to set the grill on. I was a little concerned that the heat from the bottom of the grill was going to ignite the hillside before she got back (we all know the temperature at which books burn thanks to Mr. Bradbury, but I haven't a clue what temperature grass begins to spontaneously combust). Fortunately Thet found a good size log and disaster was averted. I would like to have seen the look on that border agent's face if I had burned down Hampstead Heath.
We grilled chicken and sausage and it wasn't long before every dog in the park was sniffing their way over to our little spot. For the most part they left when their owners called but one lab just stayed. Molly was her name and curiously she never went after the food. She simply sat in the grass in front of us and hung out. Perhaps she was just bored with her owner or maybe she was trying to escape the three poodles that she apparently lived with, whatever the case we had a dog for the afternoon. A friend of mine once suggested that there ought to be a dog rental service for those that wanted a dog, but not all the time. Well if you want a dog, get a grill and head for the park. Just be careful with the flames, London has a bad history of fires.
Later that night we met up with Terese and Joy and hit a few pubs on a street whose name I don't remember but which I gathered was well known for its bars and pubs.
My last day we took it easy. I accompanied Thet on a few errands (by bizarre stroke of chance I have now been to the employment offices of both England and France, but still never made it to one in the States) and then we went to another park. That evening after having the requisite dinner of fish and chips we wandered about to a few pubs and called it an early night since I was leaving quite early in the morning.
All in all I adjusted fairly quickly to being back in the west. Strangely the things that I thought might bother me didn't too much and things I hadn't considered became very noticeable. The most interesting change that I hadn't considered was the length of the day. For the last seven months I have been within a few hundred kilometers of the equator which means that the sun rises at about 6:30 and sets at about 6:30. In London however the sun doesn't set until well past eight at night, which completely messed up my sense of time. The best thing about the west though is that you can drink the tap water. I don't know why I enjoyed it so much, 
probably simply because you can. And true tap water rarely tastes very good, but you don't realize what a great thing it is to brush your teeth in tap water until you haven't for a long time. Wash machines were also a revolutionary idea, too revolutionary for me.
I wish that I had been able to stay in London longer, it's by far my favorite city I've visited on this trip and the only other city I would rank with New York (Paris and Bangkok are both nice and I enjoyed them both, but neither of them is at the same level as New York and London). There is something about both New York and London that the minute I arrive, I feel at home, as if that is where I ought to be, have always been and may well be forever.
Many thanks to Thet and her friends for their hospitality and kindness to strangers; should I ever actually have a place in the U.S. you are all welcome whenever you like (and I'll read up on Manhattan landmarks so I can figure out where they are). Cheers.