11:28 a.m. 27 August 2002
So I’m back at work after a long weekend occasioned by the famous August Bank Holiday.
I’d tried earlier in the week to make myself plan some great journey, seeing as I would have an unprecedented three days off of work, but, being as I am generally ineffectual, that didn’t happen. It’s a great barrier to living a jam-packed, cosmopolitan, adult life if you can’t make up your mind to do anything with it. This is a corollary to the other thesis developed during the weekend, which is that a bank holiday isn’t much good if you can’t do anything on it.
Nonetheless, there are activities to report for each of those Weekend days, so I did better than I thought I would (being as I suspected in the back of my mind that I would actually end up doing nothing but sleeping and maybe going to the grocery store).
Friday night, Carrie and Chris and I went out with Helen and friends from the job Carrie worked at for a week right when we got here. Helen is very, very hip, but not in a mean way. Just in a stratospheric way. It was fun, though Carrie wandered off (she says she did not wander off, but very purposefully went to get some air) into the night at one point. Funniest was Charlie, also from Helen’s company, who kept saying things like “It’s a meat market. All the people are like meat.” He has been to a rave on the Circle line of the Tube.
Saturday Carrie and I went to Greenwich, which neither of us had seen, while Chris looked at apartments. Greenwich was nice. We perhaps had a bit long there, being as by the time we got down there the museums were closed, but we did get to see the area, which counts for something. The most exciting event of the day, though, was probably that before we made it down there we stopped in the charity shop right near our house and both got lots of nice things. I am wearing one of the shirts I got, which is a shirt I like. (you can see how exciting everything here in London is.) After Greenwich we went to Nadine and Perri’s and watched Swingers, which neither of us had ever seen.
Nadine has a game wherein you’re supposed to figure out “which kind of girl you are” based on the characters from the movie: that is, whether you tend to go out with guys like Mikey or guys like Trent. You can choose the other guys, she says, but they’re boring. You’re really just supposed to select based on nice guy or player-guy.
I thought Mikey was clingy and boring, though, and Trent is such a sleaze. So Carrie and I decided that, if forced to choose we would go with Charles. You don’t remember him, do you? That’s because he’s only in like fifteen minutes of the movie – an advantage. He goes away before too long. Also, he’s funny when he says “Man, this place is dead anyway,” and he tried out for Deep Space Nine. Making him the obvious best choice.
Sunday we tried to go to the Notting Hill Carnival. The Notting Hill Carnival is reported to be the largest street party in Europe, and is a huge deal over here. It goes on the whole Bank Holiday weekend and involves dozens of reggae, hip-hop, rap, and salsa performers and thousands of partiers, all making a whole lot of noise, drinking a whole lot of beer, eating a whole lot of Caribbean food, and generally being rowdy. It is reputed to be the best time of your life.
About the Notting Hill Carnival, however, I can only say, in the immortal words of Jesse from Full House, “Interesting, but highly overrated.”
Or, in the words of Chris as we struggled through a horrible, impassable, loud, drunk crowd, “This is like Mardi Gras, but without all the fun parts.”
Basically, what happened was this: we met Nadine at Bond Street station, quite a ways from Notting Hill, because we’d heard public transport was impossible around the carnival area itself. We walked an hour to get into Notting Hill, passing several stations that seemed far from impossible, but there was nothing we could do about it at that point. We were heard to utter “well, we got some good exercise, anyway.” Watch this phrase. It’s not the last time you’ll hear it.
So finally we got to Notting Hill itself. There didn’t seem to be a lot of people – just a normal Wednesday on Oxford Street level crowd, and a lot of men selling whistles at ridiculously high prices. We followed the crowed in the general direction of Portobello Road, thinking this was where the actual carnival events must be.
We found the crowd.
We came down a hill only to find ourselves in a completely jam-packed mass of loud, smelly people, all of whom were variously pushing or standing in the street for no apparent reason. There was, that is, an enormous, uncomfortable crowd and nothing to see, look at, do, or listen to. Nothing, that is, except the piercing and uncomfortable shrieks of whistles blown by the people standing right next to you as they try to pretend they’re doing something fun. It was probably a parade route with no parade at the moment, but we never really found out, being as it took us about an hour to get halfway down the street and realize that there was still nothing to do, look at, listen to, buy, drink, eat, or dance to. Just people. Loads and loads and loads and loads of people. It was really dumb.
So we left. (a feat which sounds simpler than it was, but eventually we got out.)
“Well, at lest we got some good exercise,” I said.
Right.
We decided to walk to another station (since they weren’t impossible after all), get the Tube, and go do something actually fun. Nadine figured if we walked down that street we’d get to Holland Park Tube and be able to go somewhere.
So we walked, and eventually (longer than we expected, but at least we got some exercise), we got to Holland Park. Which turned out to actually be the only impossible tube station.
“I think if we walk down this street we’ll come to High Street Kensington,” Nadine said. “We should be able to get in to that one. And at least we’ll get some exercise.”
So we walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. We walked for around two and a half hours. We saw, during that time: one bus going back towards Notting hill, which we missed anyway, a whole lot of Holland park, which appears to go on for impassable miles, a subway (underground walkway, not tube station) with sheep on it for some reason (we hypothesized that this was where you walk to be murdered, as it was that dingy looking), a whole lot of streets that seemed major, but of which we had never even heard before, and, eventually and completely confusingly, the highway. We did not see: High Street Kensington Tube. Or food. Or bathrooms. All of which things we were, by the end of two and a half hours, desperately looking for. We got hopelessly lost.
At the end of the story, we finally did find High Street Kensington (waaaaaay down at the end of it, where we didn’t even know it was High Street Kensington anymore). It felt rather as if we’d been wandering in the wilderness for days and had finally found civilization again, complete with Costa Coffee Shops, to one of which we ran with tears streaming down our weary and begrimed faces. I must have seemed very, very, lost and out of it by that time, because when I purchased my sandwich with olives in it –I had really wanted French Fries, but this was the closest I could come, causing Chris to say “that’s not at all like fries,” and me to say “yes it is!” (But that’s the least bee-like of the toys you’ve looked at!) – the man at the counter, who spoke with a heavily Spanish accent, asked me “do you speak English? Australian, yeah?”
So that was Sunday. And the Notting Hill Carnival. Best time of my life, right? At least we got some exercise.
So Monday, the Bank Holiday, we decided we definitely should not go back to the Notting Hill Carnival. Chris wanted to stay at the flat and work on his music, so Carrie and I went to Dover.
Which is very nice. I have never seen such beautiful water in my life, for one thing. It’s green. Beautiful, calm, clear green. Not dark green or algae green, clear clear green like the Caribbean if it were only green instead of blue. Carrie says this is because of the chalk. The cliffs themselves are also lovely, rising high and lonely above the water and grown over with ancient-looking moss. We got up to the castle (also a lot of good exercise) only an hour before they closed, so we got in half-price, too, which was cool. We got to see part of the Secret Wartime Tunnels and the castle (which is huge) with not too many people in it. We almost stayed and let ourselves get locked in – which would have been scary, but so cool, but we both had work in the morning.
And on the ride back we got to talk to a lovely drunk gentleman who’d been in prison for 25 years. He asked Carrie if she smoked three times. And kept telling us he loved girls. He told me to get a tan and Carrie to smile more. Regular fashion guru, that guy.
So that was the weekend. Certainly not a loss, but a mixed bag. I might say they’re interesting, but highly overrated, bank holidays.
Argh. Now I have to do some graphic design work. Why do they keep asking me to do graphic design? I’m not a graphic designer! I have no background whatsoever in it! This job is like Mardi Gras, but without all the fun parts.
So I’m back at work after a long weekend occasioned by the famous August Bank Holiday.
I’d tried earlier in the week to make myself plan some great journey, seeing as I would have an unprecedented three days off of work, but, being as I am generally ineffectual, that didn’t happen. It’s a great barrier to living a jam-packed, cosmopolitan, adult life if you can’t make up your mind to do anything with it. This is a corollary to the other thesis developed during the weekend, which is that a bank holiday isn’t much good if you can’t do anything on it.
Nonetheless, there are activities to report for each of those Weekend days, so I did better than I thought I would (being as I suspected in the back of my mind that I would actually end up doing nothing but sleeping and maybe going to the grocery store).
Friday night, Carrie and Chris and I went out with Helen and friends from the job Carrie worked at for a week right when we got here. Helen is very, very hip, but not in a mean way. Just in a stratospheric way. It was fun, though Carrie wandered off (she says she did not wander off, but very purposefully went to get some air) into the night at one point. Funniest was Charlie, also from Helen’s company, who kept saying things like “It’s a meat market. All the people are like meat.” He has been to a rave on the Circle line of the Tube.
Saturday Carrie and I went to Greenwich, which neither of us had seen, while Chris looked at apartments. Greenwich was nice. We perhaps had a bit long there, being as by the time we got down there the museums were closed, but we did get to see the area, which counts for something. The most exciting event of the day, though, was probably that before we made it down there we stopped in the charity shop right near our house and both got lots of nice things. I am wearing one of the shirts I got, which is a shirt I like. (you can see how exciting everything here in London is.) After Greenwich we went to Nadine and Perri’s and watched Swingers, which neither of us had ever seen.
Nadine has a game wherein you’re supposed to figure out “which kind of girl you are” based on the characters from the movie: that is, whether you tend to go out with guys like Mikey or guys like Trent. You can choose the other guys, she says, but they’re boring. You’re really just supposed to select based on nice guy or player-guy.
I thought Mikey was clingy and boring, though, and Trent is such a sleaze. So Carrie and I decided that, if forced to choose we would go with Charles. You don’t remember him, do you? That’s because he’s only in like fifteen minutes of the movie – an advantage. He goes away before too long. Also, he’s funny when he says “Man, this place is dead anyway,” and he tried out for Deep Space Nine. Making him the obvious best choice.
Sunday we tried to go to the Notting Hill Carnival. The Notting Hill Carnival is reported to be the largest street party in Europe, and is a huge deal over here. It goes on the whole Bank Holiday weekend and involves dozens of reggae, hip-hop, rap, and salsa performers and thousands of partiers, all making a whole lot of noise, drinking a whole lot of beer, eating a whole lot of Caribbean food, and generally being rowdy. It is reputed to be the best time of your life.
About the Notting Hill Carnival, however, I can only say, in the immortal words of Jesse from Full House, “Interesting, but highly overrated.”
Or, in the words of Chris as we struggled through a horrible, impassable, loud, drunk crowd, “This is like Mardi Gras, but without all the fun parts.”
Basically, what happened was this: we met Nadine at Bond Street station, quite a ways from Notting Hill, because we’d heard public transport was impossible around the carnival area itself. We walked an hour to get into Notting Hill, passing several stations that seemed far from impossible, but there was nothing we could do about it at that point. We were heard to utter “well, we got some good exercise, anyway.” Watch this phrase. It’s not the last time you’ll hear it.
So finally we got to Notting Hill itself. There didn’t seem to be a lot of people – just a normal Wednesday on Oxford Street level crowd, and a lot of men selling whistles at ridiculously high prices. We followed the crowed in the general direction of Portobello Road, thinking this was where the actual carnival events must be.
We found the crowd.
We came down a hill only to find ourselves in a completely jam-packed mass of loud, smelly people, all of whom were variously pushing or standing in the street for no apparent reason. There was, that is, an enormous, uncomfortable crowd and nothing to see, look at, do, or listen to. Nothing, that is, except the piercing and uncomfortable shrieks of whistles blown by the people standing right next to you as they try to pretend they’re doing something fun. It was probably a parade route with no parade at the moment, but we never really found out, being as it took us about an hour to get halfway down the street and realize that there was still nothing to do, look at, listen to, buy, drink, eat, or dance to. Just people. Loads and loads and loads and loads of people. It was really dumb.
So we left. (a feat which sounds simpler than it was, but eventually we got out.)
“Well, at lest we got some good exercise,” I said.
Right.
We decided to walk to another station (since they weren’t impossible after all), get the Tube, and go do something actually fun. Nadine figured if we walked down that street we’d get to Holland Park Tube and be able to go somewhere.
So we walked, and eventually (longer than we expected, but at least we got some exercise), we got to Holland Park. Which turned out to actually be the only impossible tube station.
“I think if we walk down this street we’ll come to High Street Kensington,” Nadine said. “We should be able to get in to that one. And at least we’ll get some exercise.”
So we walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. And walked. We walked for around two and a half hours. We saw, during that time: one bus going back towards Notting hill, which we missed anyway, a whole lot of Holland park, which appears to go on for impassable miles, a subway (underground walkway, not tube station) with sheep on it for some reason (we hypothesized that this was where you walk to be murdered, as it was that dingy looking), a whole lot of streets that seemed major, but of which we had never even heard before, and, eventually and completely confusingly, the highway. We did not see: High Street Kensington Tube. Or food. Or bathrooms. All of which things we were, by the end of two and a half hours, desperately looking for. We got hopelessly lost.
At the end of the story, we finally did find High Street Kensington (waaaaaay down at the end of it, where we didn’t even know it was High Street Kensington anymore). It felt rather as if we’d been wandering in the wilderness for days and had finally found civilization again, complete with Costa Coffee Shops, to one of which we ran with tears streaming down our weary and begrimed faces. I must have seemed very, very, lost and out of it by that time, because when I purchased my sandwich with olives in it –I had really wanted French Fries, but this was the closest I could come, causing Chris to say “that’s not at all like fries,” and me to say “yes it is!” (But that’s the least bee-like of the toys you’ve looked at!) – the man at the counter, who spoke with a heavily Spanish accent, asked me “do you speak English? Australian, yeah?”
So that was Sunday. And the Notting Hill Carnival. Best time of my life, right? At least we got some exercise.
So Monday, the Bank Holiday, we decided we definitely should not go back to the Notting Hill Carnival. Chris wanted to stay at the flat and work on his music, so Carrie and I went to Dover.
Which is very nice. I have never seen such beautiful water in my life, for one thing. It’s green. Beautiful, calm, clear green. Not dark green or algae green, clear clear green like the Caribbean if it were only green instead of blue. Carrie says this is because of the chalk. The cliffs themselves are also lovely, rising high and lonely above the water and grown over with ancient-looking moss. We got up to the castle (also a lot of good exercise) only an hour before they closed, so we got in half-price, too, which was cool. We got to see part of the Secret Wartime Tunnels and the castle (which is huge) with not too many people in it. We almost stayed and let ourselves get locked in – which would have been scary, but so cool, but we both had work in the morning.
And on the ride back we got to talk to a lovely drunk gentleman who’d been in prison for 25 years. He asked Carrie if she smoked three times. And kept telling us he loved girls. He told me to get a tan and Carrie to smile more. Regular fashion guru, that guy.
So that was the weekend. Certainly not a loss, but a mixed bag. I might say they’re interesting, but highly overrated, bank holidays.
Argh. Now I have to do some graphic design work. Why do they keep asking me to do graphic design? I’m not a graphic designer! I have no background whatsoever in it! This job is like Mardi Gras, but without all the fun parts.
Labels: being dumb, England, friends, quotidian
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