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Writing in a Starbucks - At least it's not McD's!

written september 19th in London

London's landscape is littered with cranes - fixing the old, building the new. The energy here is more than palpable, it's a smell, something in the air that makes my eyes water and makes my heart beat faster. I had no idea what a city was. Toronto could be a London suburb. They have the same feel, but here... it's more - Toronto to the power of 4.

The sky is often grey here. People don't shy away from the rain, they don't run from it, they accept it - they accept it the way we accept rush hour traffic.

I have never been to New York City. I wonder if they are the same. I wonder if the streets there feel like the streets here. I'm sitting at Shaftesbury Avenue, the Broadway of London, in a Starbucks. I feel safe in a Starbucks. I expect a friend to come by and sit with me. I'm still working by the social constructs I had in Toronto... that I could embarass myself.

I am having to depend on myself more here.

Tomorrow, in Paris, I will have no one. I'll have a hostel to call home. I'm excited to see Paris.

I forget the first time I heard of Paris - probably in a song - Fait du feu dans la cheminée je reviens chez nous... s'il fait du soleil à Paris, il en fait partout...

Paris is such a mystical place. Sidewalk cafés, endless cobblestone roads, bridges over the Seine, the Eiffel Tower, the history!

I'm sure somewhere London must have this same feel of history, but I haven't had time to find it. In London I decided to forego the history and find its' right now.

I thought the tourists in Toronto were annoying! Last night on my way to the theatre the sidewalks were insane! You could see the excitment in people's eyes, you could taste their origins... Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Algeria...

London is the centre of the Earth - or at least, the centre of tourist Earth.

I saw a canadian flag on a guy's bag today while I was eating my fish & chips. My heart skipped a beat, I smiled. I realized suddenly that Bryan Adams had come on the restaurant's speaker system, I laughed.

As the boy walked out of the restaurant with his take away, he began to sing along.
We're never too far from home.

I must take a deep breath and speak to more people. I really must come back to London - I didn't get a chance to go to Baker Street!

I hope I don't forget this trip. I hope I remember every moment, like now, sitting in a Starbucks across from the Gielgud Theatre with Christian Slater's big face starring down at me while I'm listening to Tiesto loud enough to drown out the café's radio...

Life is good.
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So now, je suis in Paris! I got off the Chunnel train at 5:30pm (the chunnel isn't anything to write home about, although the trains in Europe are awesome in general) and went searching for the hostel that a friend of the London boys recommended called the Peace and Love hostel. (ya.) So I found it and checked in to my "room" (which isn't even big enough to stand in and they put 5 beds in there - 2 bunks and a cot - i dislike hostels). I came downstairs and sat with some Australians... ya. Making friends only got me a hangover.

I sat down and had a nice big beer (1664) and chatted with these people. One beer became 2 which became 3... all of a sudden one of the Australian girls says, "let's go to the Moulin Rouge!" (pronounced Moolann Rwooge when you don't speak French) (so many Australians!) - so off we went. We didn't go in the Moulin Rouge (60 euros to get in) but we took a lot of pictures out front. We hit a bar on the way there and went to another and then went to a club.

My head hurts.
Ya, I won't be doing that again soon.

So I said goodbye to London. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was good. Not exceptional, but it was cool to see Christian Slater so close up. I ended up getting really good tickets! The show was sold out but since I was alone I managed to get what they call a return (which is i guess when someone cancels their ticket).

Then Sunday I walked around. It was really cool and I wrote what you see above. I was walking through a park and there were 4 old guys playing New Orleans type music... a tuba, a trumpet, a clarinet, and a banjo. So I sat there for a while...

Anyway, I don't want to spend my first day in Paris writing this... alors je m'en vais déjeuner... il est passé midi! À bientôt!

posted by Lady @ 3:08 AM