Spitalfields Market

As I moonlight as a tour guide during my parents visit, I figured I’d post this well overdue trip to Spitalfields Market. If everyone is still standing at the end of “Bailey’s Tour of London” (please email me in advance for rates and availability, and plan to bring your favorite walking shoes!) I will detail their visit – but let it be known, they were on a very strict excel timesheet of activities. More to come on that…for now let’s journey back in time a bit to the weekend after the big storm.

Finally a break in the cold weather, I guess I now have to resume my running “regimen.” I decided I wanted to make it a nice long one on a sunny Sunday morning. I chose the route carefully, along the tube line of course, just in case I decided that was enough for me! The end goal – Spitalfields Market! I had heard amazing things about their market, and even better things about their nearby infamous Brick Lane Indian food. Seeing as it was circa 10am by the time I got there, I decided to do the market first and wait for a more respectable hour to try my hand at curry.

 

I got to the market (7 miles later, and a few internal battles with myself as to whether or not I should give up and get on the tube) right as they were setting up shop. Or so I thought. The clientele was a little scruffier than I imagined and a lot of the “treasures” were coming from garbage bags that seemed to have fallen from trucks beholden of some less than legal wares. It was like a EURO Canal Street, complete with your whispering vendors telling you the real goods were just behind the truck if I were to follow him a ways down the street.

After giving it a few more blocks, chalking it up to it being the European way, I realized it wasn’t getting much better the farther I went, and this was certainly no market I had been expecting. Stop in place.  U-turn. Out of there.

So I finally found my way to the real market and began my walk from stall to stall. This place had everything (legally) for sale! Something for everyone!

Yum yums for Kate (on her birthday!!!)

Fancies for Annie! (This may have been were the original in fact came from!)

And a very special little purchase I made which had my very own post code on a card holder – a necessity for my daily commute and Oyster Card holder/work ID. It's cooler thank it looks. Hand stitched from the pages of a London A-Z Guide. 

 

English word of the day: Lorry = truck. Like the ones that housed the stolen wares of Spitalfield Canal Street sidewalks. 

Back to the spreadsheet grind...my parents should have invested in pedometers.

The Queen of Hoxton vs. The Book Club

It was my first weekend night out on the town and I knew I was in store for a good one when I looked up the place my Harvard friends told me to meet them at. The Book Club:

Bringing together wit, wisdom and enough food and drink to see you through from early breakfast to a nightcap at last orders at the bar, The Book Club offers a cultural revolution to the East End’s social scene. The Book Club fuses lively, creative events and late night drinking seven days a week with an alternative menu of brain-teasing and mind-expanding thought for food in the form of workshops, talks, cultural showcases, parties, ping pong, pool and the best in new music.

Typical Harvard, typical…

The only challenge was getting there. Trying to limit my transfers because I hate the triple transfer, I got off a few stops earlier, which lent itself to a bit of a walk. Fine, it was nice out, not raining, would be fun to explore this part of the city a bit more from aboveground. Three wrong turns later and I saw a neon lit sign and a long line with fun music oozing through the window cracks. Unfortunately I couldn’t really tell what the sign said, need to get my eyes checked I guess, but I didn’t think this place was my final destination. I kept walking a little bit and finally asked a stranger if they knew how to get to The Book Club. He laughed in my face and said it’s right behind me, directing me back to the neon oasis. I gave in and went back, thinking maybe my friends were inside at the bar and not waiting outside for me like they said they would be. I paid my cover, and bee lined it for the bathroom, sending a quick “I’m here” text to the people I was meeting. Once my bladder was emptied and we went through the charade of see-saw texts saying I’m standing near x, or meet me at y, and after I had covered every inch of the place, I decided there was no way we were in the same bar.

Marching straight up to the bouncer I say, “Excuse me is this the book club?” Long pause, puzzled look…”No, never heard of it.”

Out the door I went, straight to the nearest taxi stand and I was off, only to have him drive me around the corner to the real Book Club. See map.

Moral of the story, my phone’s gps is the worst, and if something doesn’t appear to be what you’re looking for, most likely it’s not. For a visual…

                                 The Book Club                                 vs.                       The Hoxton Queen

This is where I was trying to go...

This was where I went originally...it looked very different in the nighttime!!

I eventually figured it out, have no fear.

English word of the day: Advice slip = receipt. Here I was trying to take out money at the "cash machine" to pay my nice taxi driver for bringing me around the block and I get to a screen that mockingly asks if I want an advice slip. Hell, I could have used some advice BEFORE I went into some sketchy bar hoping to find friends...but thanks for offering.  

Droids and Maps

So I got a new phone the other day. After a few valuable workdays of internet research and talking to my London-technology-guru (Thanks Glenn!), I set out to bite the bullet. I heard the actual process of picking out and paying for the phone, in a very un-American way was extremely speedy, like 3 seconds or less. I was skeptical. But I set out anyway. The one service provider I needed for the “best plan” was allegedly only a train ride away from work. I set out to navigate the maze that is Canary Wharf Estate…see below…(and I know it looks like a straight line, that’s what I thought, but it is nothing of the sort!) 

 

There are like 200 levels and even more twists and turns in there, I swear! So, whatever, I finally found the rail line I needed. I thought that was the hard part….

I pop up like a little prairie dog, or turtle-head, whatever metaphor you so choose, with no clue where I am. Turns out I had broken my number one rule too, “Thou shalt not leave home without the A-Z London Street Guide book.” So here I am, middle of The City, trying to find an obscure phone store, and believe me it was obscure, because I asked many a passerby and they had no idea what I was talking about. Language barrier I presume. All the while, I'm phoneless!! Using the girl scout skills I never obtained, thanks mom (knowing me, I probably protested the stupid jumper and sash and that’s why I was never enrolled, so I take that back mom), I knew I had to go north, so I read the sun! And then I walked straight into the nearest Deutche Bank to ask for directions because they seemed friendly. Two free printed maps, four more “I’m a lost American” stops, and I finally found it. 

And true to tale, in and out in less time than it took me to explain to the Kebab man what I was looking for in the first place! Fully equipped and phoned, I typed in my next address and went back to work. Only took two hours (nice long UK lunch break) and I was back at work and in touch with reality.

Now, if only I could get used to using the Droid I’d be all set. If my mom can do it so can I! (I just need to work on these fat fingers…)

English word of the day: Cakes = cookies, or really any type of sweets. Guy across the cubicle from me brought in “cakes” which I heard and thought it was extravagant to bring in multiple cakes, only to turn around and see a tin of bite-size cookie things – picture snack bite sized 7-layer bars. Megs, your specialty.