8/5/09
Well, once again I can’t sleep and I have to go to the insufferable Victoria and Albert Museum bright and early in the morning. Fuck, how cultured can one become? I feel like I need to learn something, anything, after sitting through about a good three quarters of The Ugly Truth. No, I did not walk out of the theatre, that’s far too classy for me. I accidentally clicked out of the website I was watching it on, and didn’t feel it was worth the effort to try and pick up where I left off. Imagine your cliché, attractive successful woman with the crippling social disorder commonly known as “the commanding bitch syndrome.” Granted, she cleans up well and does one of those stupid happy dances whenever something goes her way. Hey, I have one of those. It’s called the robot and apparently Natalie has to physically stop me from doing it in certain social situations. Granted, I’m probably blacked out and stroking my pretend beard when asked a difficult question, so it’s already a lost cause. The only winning feature of the piss-poor written film was Gerard Butler. And that was only because he was in 300. All in all, it was the sort of movie your date would take you to post Olive Garden. After they only allowed you to order the never ending salad and bread sticks meal. A girl can only dream.
Speaking of Natalie, I just booked my Megabus ticket from Boston to Philadelphia, for the grand total of fifteen dollars with a fifty cent booking fee. That equates to about two cheap drinks in London. G-d bless America. Granted, the entire trip is going to take around ten hours, and a good two years off my life. I think I’ve sworn to never take the bus again about six times, but I can allow myself to sacrifice morals when it saves a couple of hundred dollars. Amtrak, do I bleed gold? No, just Tesco instant coffee. I leave for the grand city of Philadelphia on the twelfth of September for her birthday and my junior year, which I’m quite excited for. Seventeen credits and two minimum wage jobs? HELL YEAH.
Today I did my usual class work and lazing about with crappy literature in Kensington Gardens, this time at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. I told my roommate I wanted such a monument in my honor, if only to memorialize my impressive and steadfast apathy towards everything.
Yesterday we ventured to the Tate Britain, across the Thames from the Tate Modern. It was rather nice, except for the vast majority of the contemporary exhibit. Don’t get me wrong, I love weird modern art. Sadly, I feel like I "get" most of it, but this was just pure crap. I can’t empathize with sticking a Costco receipt to a wall and getting paid quite a bit for it. It was supposed to indicate the inherent human nature to categorize and list everything. They could of at least made the items inappropriate to make a point, but it was just boring and supercilious. For example, that ample wall space could have been used for portraits of me. The entire exhibit was more or less equally lacking, and it was reminiscent of being too hung over to think of anything intelligent to say, so you grunt and make up some bullshit excuse as to why you had taped two Happy Meal boxes on top of one of another for your 3D final. Because it was delicious.
The only cool room was the very last one, which contained many fake African wooden sculptures, most of which ambiguously depicted McDonalds characters. My personal favorite was the Hamburgler/tribesman nailed to a cross. Unfortunately they had no souvenirs replicas in the gift shop.
Last night we went to Sports Café, and it was bleh, the only thing worth mentioning was most of the TV’s were turned to the fashion channel and the Versace winter line was breathtaking. Not like I would even consider purchasing anything, my Philly bank blocked my card when I ordered something online at Coach to make up for a painful week. They said it was excessive spending, and they held the card because it showed up as an alert. I only spent forty dollars. I had to put my entire life in perspective, and then cleaned popcorn off the floor. Scintillating, I know.
Sunday, Sarah and I ventured to Shoreditch to go the flower market and see the place in daylight. To our delight, the bus stop was right in front of the kebob place we had found when the bus driver didn’t know where he was going and dropped us off at a random station after the techno club. Public Education strikes again.
The entire street was filled with vintage and art and jewelry shops, and reminded me a lot of Newport, RI. The street itself was filled with flowers and it’s vendors, and it was actually quite cheap. If we were staying here longer, I would have loved some shrubbery but at this point and time I would rather eat. The Robert Ryan store was on that street (he’s the artist that uses cut paper to make quaint messages and scenes, Urban Outfitters is quite fond of him and carries his book) and in the vintage store next to it, I ended up purchasing a squirrel poster. To be fair, it was copyrighted in 1818 and I only paid two pounds for it. How many of you can say they own a vintage squirrel?
That night we went to the Ministry of Sound for Sarah’s twenty-first birthday, and I was sadly disappointed. It and Fabric are supposed to be two of the best clubs in London, and this was in the complete hood. I like the music, but not really the crowd and I was already in a bad mood because Keith had to leave that day. (Penn’s program is half the length of ours) The only plus was seeing a bunch of drunk high schoolers bopping about (they can drink at eighteen, so they get good fakes around sixteen) so I was basically in the company of blacked out children younger than my brother. Woohoo. I ended up missing the first wave of people that left, and I didn’t want to wait until 5 in the morning when I had to wake up for class for the others, so I left on my own. In the hood, in a sequined mini dress, with the wrong bus directions, mind you. Luckily, bus drivers love me and I had a great chat with one of them about his son’s goals for University while he instructed me in how exactly to get home, and then drove me to a better stop. On the next bus I had a great time chatting with some belligerent American post-grad students, and I ended up getting home about an hour and a half earlier than the first wave of people because they hadn’t realized the directions were wrong. Burn.
Friday night we went to a hipster party in Shoreditch, and it was incredibly amusing. I miss playing dress up, and it reminded me of a hipster themed party I went to earlier this year. The only difference was these people weren’t intentionally trying to look like assholes, it’s sadly just their way of life. I’m allowed to say such things because I’m sure they point and laugh at me when I’m wearing some pastel monstrosity paired with my Vera Bradley backpack. Get over it, I’m from New England and by default a better person. The featured band was dressed in some sort of Red Riding Hood get up, and they were post-industrial and quite good. Towards the end of the night some skinny British men dressed only in briefs came out on the dance floor wearing Orlando Bloom masks. It was the bastardization of some high school fantasy, but they had accents so I’ll allow myself to forgive them.
For all the shit I talk about the hipster population, they pretty much rule the fashion scene over here, and I hate to admit it’s rather freeing. One can wear whatever they want and no one will bat an eyelash. There was a much older woman wearing a clubbing outfit and wig in Tesco the other day, in broad daylight, and it could have been the Queen for all I know. Picture an entire city dressed like design students. No, it’s not the apocolypse, it’s London.
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