Saturday, 26 January, 2008 – The Becky has Landed

So this begins my diary of life in London.  I feel safe in refraining from calling it a blog, as it is being written in a spanking new Original Alice commonplace book purchased today from the British Library.  With all the adjustments I’ll be making and with the new categories I’m to fall in (still waiting for someone to call me the american), I feel adding blogger to the list would be a bit much.

I arrived yesterday morning quite ahead of schedule, as headwinds sped our way across the Atlantic in record time – which I’m taking as a very good omen.  Through customs (never certain if they’re just chatty or if the conversation is only a good-cop form of interrogation), hopped on the Piccadilly line tube and arrived in Hammersmith by 8:00 AM.  Another stroke of luck was that the Hammersmith tube has elevators that take you directly to the street, a boon for anyone laden with luggage enough to support them for four weeks.

The company has put me up at The Express by Holiday Inn.  The hotel is staffed by very friendly and helpful expats from Australia*.  The room is clean, the bed comfy, has pillows with just the right amount of squish and a duvet that has the right balance of weight and warmth.  It’s a bit small – which is fine, but I’m concerned how we (the boxes I’ve sent and I) will fit.

I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to on Friday due to a banking hiccup – confusion on the hotel’s side followed by a duplication of the same confusion by my bank.  The aforementioned lovely staff at the hotel and the always helpful and patient bank customer service staff sorted it quickly, so that by Saturday morning I was able to again feel that rush that comes from being flush when one has recently been other.  I’m very used to this feeling, having experienced it nearly every other Friday in New York, but it is one I always hope to avoid.

With cash in hand, I headed towards the place I like to visit first when in London, the British Library.  While the building itself is not as exceptional as it was when housed in the British Museum, it is still a bibliophilic temple par excellance.  The Sir John Ritblat Gallery exhibits some gems of the Library’s collection – and what gems to behold.  Within this small ell, one can see Da Vinci’s diaries, illuminated Bibles, Koran, and other sacred works representing the world over, music in Mozart’s and Lennon’s (John that is) own hands, um – Beowulf and just so much more.  The original Alice’s Adventures Underground and the Magna Carta are off display for the next few months, but if you are in London, you really must go there (and if you’ve come to stay with me, I guarantee that, with anything less than bald refusal, you will).

Thus endeth my first dispatch, but before I go, some notes and observations:

• You’ll see numerous amusing, and frankly disturbing, signs in shops proclaiming “Real Coffee!!!” and “We Only Serve Fresh Food!!!”.  I’m now on the hunt to find their counterparts announcing “Sorry – it’s Nescafe and it’ll do yer” and “Hey – it once was fresh.  Not our fault yer late in the coming”.
• The UK has every right to feel superior to the US on environmental issues.  Green initiatives are melded into everyday life – not with all the pomp associated with US equivalents with all their “Hey, look at me I’m oh so green, and I only printed 100,000 of these flyers to let you know that”.  Nearly everything has an accessible and affordable earth-friendly version.  If packaging isn’t yet as green as it coud be, there is an apology written on said packaging which directs interested parties to a website with notes on both what the company is doing to correct the issue and their timeline.  Recycling bins are next to their garbage counterparts – and not just one all-in useless bin, but bins to separate glass/plastic and paper – and I’ve yet to see someone mis-sort.  There are even newspaper recycling bins at transit exits.  I’ve seen very little garbage on the street – and mind you I’m staying on a street that is similar to a cross between the Jay Street Mall and the main drag of Forest Hills (for the New Yorkers) and downtown Salem, by the East India Mall, a few years ago, for the Massachusites.   It’s interesting to see action match rhetoric, which is not something we have excelled in in the States.
• In my mind, when I order the large glass of wine option (available on every menu), I will call it the “let’s not be cute glass”, in homage to my friend Steve.
• Friday evening, my television options were Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Simpsons and the Demi More classic Striptease.  If the commercials had not switched the voice over (HERB-al Essences, etc.) I would have thought I was back in New York.
• On witnessing a rather vicious and seemingly pointless (aren’t they all) verbal catfight in Boots (I so heart Boots – no offense to Diane Reede, Walgreens, et. al, but how can you not majorly heart Boots), I learned that cute accents do not mask unacceptable behavior.  Never in my 14+ years of New York living did I ever hear such a ruckus and view such despicable display of humanity.
• Football fans (hooligan it seems is not just an affectionate term - these people – or at least the ones I’ve encountered thus far are real-live-hooligans) on trains and outside pubs are louder and far more obnoxious than even the most rabid Yankee or Red Sox Fan – and I’m talking September/October Yankee and Red Sox fans, during a crucial game, tied in 9th, with Big Papi or A-Rod at the plate.  Score 1 US

*I should note that I’ve since learned that all of Hammersmith seems to be run by friendly and helpful expats from Australia – if I hadn’t already been to work and seen my London colleagues, I might have easily confused myself to think I had been on the wrong plane entirely – which considering, would have made the less than five-hour flight really something.