Britain: Bath and Beyond: London Bridge is Still Quite Sound, My Fair Readers

...just in case you were wondering.

I had the opportunity to ascertain this fact for myself this weekend, when I traveled to London for the first time (if you don't count when I landed at the airport) in order to visit my aunt and uncle. I had a wonderful trip-- one which will likely be often repeated, considering how close London is and how much there is to do there.

I took the train from Bath to London, which was a relatively short 1.5 hrs (or 60 pages of Sense and Sensibility). Once I got to Paddington Station though, things got a bit confusing. I had to take the bus to East London, which should have been easy enough, given that I knew exactly which bus to take and on which street to get off. However, I did not quite understand the way that one is supposed to get on the bus, and consequently embarrassed myself three different ways in front of three different bus drivers before managing to correctly get myself on a bus moving in the correct direction. By the way, I've finally found the only unfriendly people in Britain-- the bus drivers in London.

Anyway, I wound up making it to East London with relatively little difficulty. I met my aunt there, and we dropped my bag off in her flat before heading out into the center of town. East London is the trendy, club-y area of the city, a decent distance away from the historic center, but still pretty central (this doesn't make a lot of sense unless you look at a map of London-- it's a pretty enormous city). It was interesting to discover that London is made up of lots of little neighborhoods like New York City is-- but I think that London's neighborhoods are much smaller and have very different personalities (though I could be wrong-- I haven't spent much time there).

We took a walk around East London first, in search of somewhere nice for lunch. As most places were strangely not open for Saturday lunch, we decided to venture into the city, so we took a bus across London Bridge (over the Themes River) into the center of town. On our way to the restaurant, we passed the entrance for the "Dungeons of London" or something-- there was the longest queue I've ever seen to get in to something-- at least two blocks long. Ridiculous. Anyway, we went to eat at Platform-- a restaurant which serves locally-grown food. We started off with a cocktail (it was a birthday lunch, after all), and had an absolutely fabulous lunch, made all the better by the fact that it cost more than three pounds, which up to this point, was all that I could afford to spend on lunch.

After lunch, we headed to the Borough Market; basically, the best farmer's market that you can think of, hopped up on steroids:

Big enough that you actually need a map... and this is a rather excellent map.

Typical market items, like produce,

And then some less typical things, like totally gourmet cheeses and meats,

And then some really unusual things, like gourmet juices.

Not to mention the artisanal chocolates that we bought, or the Turkish delight that I got to try (verdict: very yummy), or the delicious-smelling Greek food stand, or falafel, or the world-class pastry shop, or.... I think you get the idea.

We took a little stroll through some cool-looking buildings on our way to the Themes Festival:

London, more than any other city I've seen, has the most striking combination of very old and very modern buildings, butting up against each other with little rhyme or reason.

The Themes Festival was this enormously long collection of delicious food stands and crafts vendors, situated around the --- Bridge (it's the one right after London Bridge...and of course I've forgotten the name. Bad Vanessa). They actually shut down this bridge, and turned it into a gigantic communal eating space (the entire bridge was lined with tables on both sides) as well as the center for all of the main festivities (with the exception of a concert that was going on a little ways away), which seemed to center around the idea of organic/local/non-wasteful-use-of food.

The something-or-other Bridge.

And the whole thing was full of these tables on both sides.

And an awful lot of people.

Highlights included:

A replica of the bridge and its occupants in cookie form.

Pumpkin carving.

And people in ridiculous hats.

We then had to speedwalk through much of the festival because we had theatre tickets at the National Theatre (we were meeting my uncle there), but we did have time to stop for a quick dinner from a Venezuelan vendor (really tasty), and I got to take pictures of lots of pretty things as we walked by them:

Like the Globe Theatre.

The Millennium Bridge, with St. Paul's in the background.

The Tate Modern Museum.

A pink bridge.

A pink-legged man.

A very cool lamppost.

Then we went to the theatre, to see the closing performance of "Welcome to Thebes," a modern interpretation of "Antigone," set in 21st century West Africa. It was extraordinarily well done, and was incredibly intense-- I'm still trying to sort out all of the implications about world politics that were going on in that play. Its last line, "Greed which eats must eat itself/ Athens' time will come" is still ringing around in my head-- it is particularly damning, as Athens in this play was essentially the United States (or maybe the Western World in general.... but either way, not too optimistic).

Anyway, once we stepped outside of the theatre, some of my doom-and-gloom meditations were wiped away by the gorgeous views of the Themes at night:

The London Eye, with the Big Ben Clocktower and the Houses of Parliament in the background.

The National Theatre.

Then we decided to have a drink at this cool outdoor bar situated right outside of the majestic-looking Somerset House along the river:

And then we took the bus home. I got to ride in the top of one of the double-decker buses, which was actually rather fun. Then I totally collapsed once we got back to the flat.

The next morning, I spent a good deal of time sitting around in a heap, as I was still rather tired. But we eventually got moving, and headed first to visit my uncle at work, so that I could say goodbye (he's currently spending a lot of time getting this little film ready to be released-- you might have heard of it, Harry Potter 7?). Then we had a quick lunch, and headed to Neal's Yard (prime shopping district) to look for some shoes that would spare my poor feet from hurting so much from all of the walking that I have to do in Bath. Sadly, given my pickiness, I didn't find anything that fit the bill, but it was still a lot of fun (anything that involves shoes is fun). We then dashed to the tube (the underground) to find a little deli in a (very American) neighborhood that carries these incredible little chocolate cakes that my aunt had heard about that we decided we had to try (and boy was it worth the effort-- they were to die for), and then dashed back to Paddington Station so that I could catch my train home.

Once I got home 1.5 hours, or 50 pages of S&S later (there were these two obnoxious girls sitting near me who wouldn't shut up, which distracted me so much that reading was very difficult), I finished reading Heart of Darkness (which was better the second time I read it, but infinitely more depressing), and Clay and Ali and I made our first "family" dinner-- chicken parmesean with pasta and garlic bread (delicious!!!)-- a lovely end to a wonderful weekend.

Now it's off to another week of classes.... and then Oxford! More to come soon; but in the meantime, I leave you with this: