In the end all you can hope for
Is the love you've felt
To equal the pain you've gone through.
I purchased my plane ticket today to London. Needless to say I am extremely excited.
Been there? Suggestions on where to go and what to see? Love to hear from you.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
London
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9 comments:
Tower of London! Shelley and I both love it ... and you can see where Thomas More was held before he died, the armor Henry VIII wore (he was a slender man at one point), and some tools that were used to torture people which make my skin crawl. I spend a lot of time at the Maughan Library on Chancery Lane ... but it's not exactly a tourist attraction. Spitalfields Market, Southwark Tavern, the Tate Modern, the V&A ...
I s'pose this list is unimportant, since I'll be here when you come.
There's a restaurant in London called the OXO Tower. I think.
I might be totally, totally, totally misremembering that. I had a really good meal there once. I do remember that. Wherever it was.
I'll look into it an get back to you.
Also, I second the Tower of London thing. I loved it when I went. Going out to Windsor is alright if you have time, but only because there's a pub near the foot of the walkway up to the main castle that has the best fish and chips I've ever eaten.
Try to strike up a conversation with a disgruntled cab driver. Ask them their opinions of the Queen and stuff. When we were in London, the Queen Mother was celebrating her 100th birthday or something like that (maybe it was 90) and we asked a cabbie if he liked the Queen Mother, who by most accounts was just a really old, really sweet lady, and he gave us a lengthy, heated political diatribe about the monarchy.
It was pretty great, all things considered.
I've never been to London and I have no idea if I ever will go, but I can say that if I did I would go to the restaurant below. I've heard very glowing things about it from people I trust, and it kinda sounds similar to that place near your house in Austin.
http://www.wagamama.com/index.php
Wagamama is good, but I don't think you need to make a special trip to London to eat there. There are tons of better Asian places - but it's a good quick noodle place, that's for sure.
TOWER OF LONDON! It is, by far, my favorite tourist thing in London. I've always desperately wanted to go on the night tour, but they are few and far between. I am going to try and see if we can go on one while your hear, but I make no promises.
I like Wagamama's. They have really good udon noodles, and I kinda love udon noodles (and I recently learned how to cook them myself, but they're just not as good when I do it).
My birthday 'party' was there (all six of us ... but oh, I was so touched, and this sounds sarcastic, but I was seriously so happy) ...
That said, I agree with Shell. Wagamama's is good - certainly one of the better and more dependable food chains in the world (the world! and, also, the guy who started it is, like, a five-star chef who wanted to make fast-food asian food, and then he made millions, and now he runs five-star-chef restaurants) - but if you come ALL THE WAY HERE, it's more fun to go to little holes in the wall. 'Cause they're everywhere, and they have loads of personality.
And, of course, the Tower of London, but they don't feed you there.
Also, just so everyone knows - I am currently sitting in one of the top two spots in the ENTIRE library, which is huge, so this is saying something. And it's opened 24 hours, and I have red bull, coke, a muffin, two open-faced turkey sandwiches, and water. I'm SET for hours.
In this room, which is totally my own little room in a beautiful Gothic building (OH that my digital camera weren't broken, I could take pictures) and it has an incredible view (admittedly it's dark now, but still) and its own heater and privacy, so no one can see me eat illegally in the library, thus increasing my library time by, like, whoa.
Sorry for pretty much blogging on your wall, Jeremy, but I'm really sick and that sucks and I wanted to share my library good fortune.
Also, this is a commentary on the prevalence of facebook - because I called this a wall. And it's so clearly not.
I want to tell all of you about some of my favorite food experiences in Spain.
The first is a Spanish chain called "Sandwich&Friends". John and I ate there at least three times during the only week we were in Barcelona (brie and veal sandwich!!).
The second experience happened when John and I had exhausted ourselves touring the Sagrada Familia. We suddenly found ourselves very hungry and right across the street was a fucking McDonalds. Of course it was the best McDonalds I have ever eaten, and to this day I am still tickled by the fact that they had gazpacho on the menu.
The third: every time I use the Spanish word for whipped cream (nata) I remember that I learned that word while deciphering the Starbucks menu and ordering a yummy frappuccino in chilly Sevilla.
Now, I love hole-in-the-wall places too, and there were many nice restaurants in Spain like that. But I find myself really wanting to fight for the chains here, because they don't deserve to be outright dismissed, you know? I can't believe I'm saying all of this, but there's something about going to a chain in a foreign country, foreign or American owned, that really highlights the cultural differences for me.
And this might be something very unique to me (and Quentin Tarantino) but anyway, that's my cents.
I sort of agree with you Lauren.
I would agree more if chain restaurants didn't tend to be like viruses - moving to an area and then multiplying like crazy, to the detriment of the local environment.
Admittedly, I would still question whether or not I would rely on a chain restaurant to showcase the beauty and uniqueness of a particular place or area, to help someone fall in love with a city.
But I wouldn't have so much of an issue AT ALL, save the fact that the arrival of a chain restaurant is frequently followed by the bankruptcy of locally owned places.
It's particularly bad where I live at the moment, because Tower Hamlets was selected as one of the Olympics-hosting boroughs when the Olympics are in London. So everyone's clambering to move in here - including the three Subways that sprung up in the last three months.
I'm very close to my neighborhood, and the local-business-owners are (not even exaggerating) an important part of my extended family. And I hate hearing them worry about places like Subway shutting them down. And it's not just the loss of customers - property owners also get a better deal by letting to a chain, because they can usually afford more rent and have more money to open their shop in the first place.
I did have an experience like your McDonalds one, once. I was in Oxford, and my friend Patrick and I were absolutely fed up with everything and pizza hut was the best thing in the entire world. It was delicious! It tasted like home!
So I really do understand your point, Lauren, but I still don't know how to fix the local-business problem, which is important to me personally.
i enjoy how my comment page has turned into a chat room about spanish mcdonalds
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