Well it’s been a few days and still all I can report is that this is definitely as different as you can get from where I just left.
It’s surprisingly hot in London and I understand there’s a heat wave to hit us come Sunday.
It’s been interesting, the last few days. First off, I really didn’t have any jet lag. After my girl, monilove23 met me at Gatwick, we lugged my suitcase and heavy ass duffle through the airport and onto a DLR (Docklands Light Rail) train then switched to tube.
We got out at North Greenwich station and got a cab to Maryon Rd, where she (and well now I do to) lives.
She lives with one of her best friends from Barbados, T and T’s boyfriend an Italian dude M. They were both very cool. We hung out talking for a couple of hours and then well, I crashed. I got very sleepy, but I think it was just because the seat on the plane were so fucking uncomfortable, it felt like I fought with it the next morning. We arrived at Gatwick at about 6AM, so you can imagine I was tired. I only slept for about three hours.
After I got up, we talked some more and watched TV most of the afternoon.
My mother called to make sure I got in without any trouble, and then I made out to the pay phone and called YMK to let him know I got in. I’ve given up trying to reach my father, the phone there just keeps ringing and no one answers.
Then monilove23 and I went to Sainsbury’s to get a proper phone card, then we were hoping to catch a movie. By then it was about 9pm, and there were no shows starting that late, so we came back home and well I knocked out early.
The next day (Wednesday), M took me into Central London! I was so excited. I stopped first and got my travel card. I decided to go with a full month pass, because I hate the nuisance of weekly purchasing. Then we were off!
We travelled the Jubilee line from North Greenwich, then switched to the Northern Line at Waterloo, getting out at Tottenham Court Road. It was marvellous! I was out and about in the city!!
It still feels like a dream, but with the smell of reality.
I didn’t get to explore much, although I did find a store selling Apple computers. It was a spiritual experience for a Third World Mac junkie… to have so many Macs sitting in one place and (omigawd!) a 40GB iPod! Shit, I told Michele to hold me back because I nearly fucked the G5 and the iPod in a cluster fuck. I left the place fanning myself to cool down…. shhiiiiittttt!
I’m going to get that 40GB iPod. I’m just not going to be able to stop myself. I am madly inlove with them and the scroll wheel is back on the new models.
That first day though, apart from the G5 and iPod highlights, we had lunch with monilove in Russell Square, sitting on the grass and soaking up the sun. Then we made our way back to moni’s job, then to Borders! Another spiritual experience for a Third World book slut. I bought £32 worth of books, including the 2005 Writer’s Handbook, Eats, Shoots and Leaves (which is absolutely hilarious and is making me giggle out loud) and The Opposite Of Fate by Amy Tan.
Then we went across the street to Foyles, where I bought nothing, but geeked out on the computer books floor.
A few doors down was a bargain bookstore (I forget the name) where I got a very interesting Tarot deck, the TarotSutra, a deck designed for couples to use as a tool to developing intimacy and sensuality.
On the way back to the tube, because by this time my feet were killing me, I saw a sex shop. I have never been in one before, although one would hardly find one in either uptight Barbados or Catholic Christian Trinidad. I didn’t stay long but it was vvery interesting. I paid no attention to the racks and racks of porn stacked up against the walls and went straight to the sex toys. My eyebrows raised a couple of times, but I grinned wickedly. I’m definitely taking YMK to this shop when he gets here.
Then it was off home. Later, I called YMK again, because the day before we got cut off and when I tried to call back, the cell phone was off. I told him about the sex shop and declared me a freak.
“Like I lied to somebody!” I replied insouciantly.
He was on his way to Tobago for Great Fete Weekend, where he’ll be working with his uncle and his childhood partner Lizzard Blizzard.
“So you are going,” I commented. There had been a lot of talk about me going up to Bim, then going back to Trini to go. Much talk of us going together. However, in the end I realised I needed to be in england before the end of July, because I need to get a job before September. As it is, I have very little money at all and as much as I am going to buy an iPod, that’s all I can buy before I start to work and it means sacrificing on a lot of other things. I figure it’s worth it, because my life has not been the same since my first Gen iPod died.
“I’m only going to work,” he replied. “Not to party.”
“Oh gorm, throw ya waist nah! Do it for me,” I protested. I wanted him to at least have a little fun on my behalf, I really wanted to go to Great Fete.
“I started writing in my journal again,” he changed the subject.
“That’s so cool,” I replied. I really think it is cool. I’ve been encouraging him for a while to start writing, because he has some talent.
“Well now that I have something to write about, I’m writing it down.”
“What are you writing about?” I asked.
Silence for a second or three. Then, “You know stuff I don’t want to forget, and what’s been happening to me.”
I didn’t push.
He was on the boat over and I’m trying to stretch out a £20 phone card, so we only spoke for a couple of minutes and there was no mushy, “…missing ya” comments.
Yesterday I went into London on my own, and roamed indeed. First, I had some real out of the way adventures on the tube, missing my stop, then going in the wrong direction and having to double back, getting out two stops after the Tottenham Court Road and walking back.
All that said, I saw more of London than the previous day,
Then I went to see monilove @ work and we went to Nando’s in Soho for lunch. She bought.
I made it all the way down Charing Cross Road and knocked about in the second hand book stores, getting another copy of The House Of Spirits by Isabelle Allende. I read it years ago and want to do it again, it was such a good book.
I walked around a little more, but then my feet got tired so I made my way home.
I’m trying to get a cell phone organised, because I really am going to go to war against the pay phone near the building where I am. It’s been eating my money in the most indiscriminate way. You put in a pound, use thirty pence, it doesn’t return your change. You put in two punds you get twenty seconds. WTF? British Telecom see? The parent company of Cable and Wireless, so what does one fucking expect. Gotdam teefing motherfuckers!!
**deep breath**
Well I’m off to meet the dude with the phone. Going back into Central London and will try to meet monilove for lunch again. I’ll pay this time.
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