present day

Last weekend was wonderful, as usual. Friday night we had a dinner at a nice restaurant in Soho picked by Juliet -- she took Zach Sam and I out to dinner as a way of saying thank you for letting her stay the summer (instead of trying to figure out how/whether she should pay rent etc). Then we went out and all got a bit drunk at a bar nearby.

Then Sat. I slept in because I was exhausted from a week of waking up at 7am for the FT and then staying out at night with Juliet (who didn't wake up until 11 or noon!). Juliet got called in to work at the New York Times office in London because they were short-staffed and needed help because of the terrorism story (she had met the head of the bureau through a mutual friend). She did some interesting work -- more interestng than anything I've done in two weeks at the FT -- and she even got paid! Then in the evening we went to Farley (juliet's house). We missed dinner because we got on the wrong train...Oy.

Then Sunday was a day of lazy adventures in the countryside. Slept in, went out for a walk picking blackberries, just relaxed watching TV and listening to music.

Now Juliet has gone to Scotland for a family vacation, but Tim and Ian will be in London on Wednesday/Thursday, and Juliet will be back on Friday. Going camping Friday-Monday at a music festival (v-festival).

Still catchup

Not this weekend, but the weekend before:
Firstly, I lost my cell phone in unfortunate circumstances. By ‘lost’ I mean ‘left behind’. Felt like a complete moron, and I’ve lost all of my saved contacts, but there is some silver lining: I haven’t lost my cell number because I still have my US sim card, and we are re-subscribing for cell-plans in Sept, which gets one a discount on cell phones.

Otherwise, spent time with Juliet, visiting Baker st. and Regeant's Park, primrose hill overlooking London, and then we had dinner at a small, nice Russian restaurant. Spent the evening out at Camden bars (Barfly). Unfortunately no bands, just DJ, but it was good nonetheless. Took forever to get back because although we caught the last tube it died at Pimloco, forcing us to continue our voyage by bus.

Sunday morning we explored more of London, including a visit to speaker’s corner, where a whirlwind of crazies (fundamentalists, anti-Semitic nuts, god-saves-preachers) give sermons, attacking a mixed crowd of curious, hecklers, and devotees. It’s a rambunctious living marketplace of ideas (albeit screwy ones). Lunch was our usual favourite, food at Marks and Spencer. Evening we spent exploring a hip Indian-Asian area of East London (Bricklane and Spittalfield's market). Then we cooked some risotto for dinner, throwing in a few interesting herbs for fun.

Almost up to present day…

In the couple weeks after Krakow, Juliet and I spent a few days a Farley (wandered through thunderstorms, ate lots of food, visited Cliveden, mansion where Profumo scandal occured), I got my Nigerian visa after a week worth of attempts, and then I started work at the FT (succinct description in previous post…basically boring and therefore I have time to write these entries).

Two weekends ago we went to Juliet’s cousin’s wedding, which was nice enough. Some ghoulish people, some perfectly nice people. I didn’t really meet that many anyway, because I spent most of my time with her. It was held in a beautiful country estate and took three (!) days – one Jewish ceremony, billed as the ‘intimate’ event (only 50 people), one Christian ceremony (500+ people), and then brunch the next day (which Juliet and I skipped out on and visited stonehedge instead).

Some drunken antics involved, including orchestrating a table place switch, then chickening out, then getting it all okayed above board. Some dancing (poorly). Absolutely incredible fireworks display – by far the most impressive I’ve ever seen…

The Christian ceremony I found vaguely offensive, in that it was very chauvinist – especially since it was juxtaposed the gender-equal jewish ceremony that occurred the day before. Bride being ‘given away’ by her father, speeches from father, best man, etc. Fucking hell, I’m not going to be given away by anyone, and I’m not planning on receiving a bride like a sack of potatoes from her father. The easy answer is ‘oh, it’s just traditional ceremony and meaningless’ but in that case ditching it has no meaning either. The truth is that it does have symbolic significant, and therefore should be opposed.

gloriously late

Okay, so I’ve been quite miserable about posting, but that’s only because I am genuinely enjoying my time here. Life with Juliet has been fantastic, and I’m now interning at the FT.

Past few days have been 6am starts, which I actually like because London feels like London at that time – dreary, rainy, empty grey, looking about for bowler hats, Unreal City/Under the brown fog of a winter dawn…

FT is not particularly interesting, nor difficult. This doesn’t bother me because now focus is life outside internship.

Brief notes on things that happened a while ago:
Caught an underground Babyshambles concert! It was an awesome gig, despite that fact that Doherty was fucked and the mike didn’t work. Just 50 people there at most, in the back of a bar, very very cool. Closed with an incredible version of Fuck Forever.

The next day (I think) Juliet and I left for Krakow, where the first thing I did was buy a Zapekanke (polish pizza) – essentially stale baguette with mushrooms, cheap cheese and ketchup – and Juliet combusted while eating a kebab. Over the weekend we explored a couple bookstores, the Japanese gallery (best sushi in Poland), Kazimierze (the Jewish district – my first visit to a synagogue), lolled about in main square watching birds, wandered amorously secluded areas by the riverside of the castle, and visited a couple art galleries.

We were slightly handicapped by the fact that Juliet was exhausted from Vietnam and completely narcoleptic, which meant that we’d send two hours site-seeing, then be forced to duck into a café so she could get her caffeine fix.

Other events of that weekend: spent a lovely evening but missed dinner because we were off by an hour (still on GMT), met my family who were in Poland (which was nice), battled a dragon at the museum (air conditioner on/off episodes), and ate lovely pierogi

Next time I’ll write about going to a lavish wedding but not meeting anyone because I was with Juliet the whole time, and highlights of a couple weekends.