Julianna and London: Part 1

The first day in London was a wash. You may have read that I got to my hostel late, tired, angry, and a wee bit hung over.

I'm pretty sure I detailed the course of events that got me to London, so I'll spare you. Needless to say, it sucked.

So I want to take this chance to throw a big "Thank you!" to Christine, my former commander at that place we worked that I won't mention...

Shortly after I left for Europe, Christine sent me an email with the contact information of her cousin who lived in Europe. I thought, "That's nice. Maybe I'll give her a shout while I'm in London, but I'm not expecting anything."

I had emailed her the night before, but I figured it was probably a work email, and it was Friday night, so when I got up in the morning, I text'd her. Again, not expecting much, I made up a plan of attack for London.

As I was walking out the door, I got a reply. Julianna had nothing going on for the day, and offered to meet me for a late lunch and show me around London. Very cool.

She wanted to meet at 1:30, so I still had a few hours to kill. She suggested a place called "Borough Market", near London Bridge. Before I left the hostel, I looked it up online and got a couple snapshots of the map of the area.

As a quick aside... I don't have a printer here. No where I've stayed has one available. I could probably go to an internet cafe, but they'd probably charge an arm and a leg per sheet. So, I've started taking pictures of the maps with my camera. With the right settings, my camera can capture quite a decent version of the map. And since it has a large screen and a zoom function, I can use it to navigate the map quite well. Poor man's iPhone, I suppose.

So with some tube instructions from the person at the front desk of the hostel, I decided to get an early start there. I thought it'd be best, because I honestly only had the slightest idea where I was going. My hostel was actually quite close, only two tube stops away. Unfortunately the London Bridge station is probably the biggest in all of London.

Armed with my camera maps, I found my way to the Market in short order. Wow...

It was an amazing place. It reminded me of a farmer's market back home. But unlike back home, the stands were filled with wares from all over. French cheeses, exotic fruits and vegetables I've never seen before, even fragrances and incense. The smell... well it was quite an assault on the senses at first. But after the initial shock, you really get consumed by the amazing smell of all of the exotic goods intermingling.

I chanced a quick look around, and took a few pictures, but my first order of business was to figure out the place Julianna had designated for us to meet. Her message read:

“Ok. If you take the borough high st. exit toward the mkt theres an exit in front of nat west ATMs and near the southwark tavern. And Ive got v long brown hair.”

Well, since ATMs here are all over the place, my goal was to find this "Southwark Tavern" near one of the entrances to the market. After a few minutes of walking around, I came to the place. Even took a picture. Don't know why... but it's a landmark now. :)

Still, I wasn't entirely sure if this was right. Obviously there weren't many Southwark Taverns around, but the ATMs didn't really seem too close. They were actually closer to another entrace. So I designated that as my backup location. It was just about a minute away.

So with our meeting point found, and another hour to kill, I started exploring the market. This place seemed quite the popular spot. People were all over the place. There were dozens of options for food, and plenty of people eating at them. I could see why Julianna picked this place to meet.

You can follow my hour long trip through some of the photos if you like. It was a really neat place. I saw a guy riding a black Ninja, so I took a picture of that for Dwayne. Sorry man, it wasn't mean green.

At about quarter after, I started working my way to the tavern. I waited for quite a while, keeping an eye out for "v long brown hair". :-\ After asking several people standing around if they were Julianna to no avail, I decided to just sit tight and wait. I was a bit more descriptive about my appearance in my return text, so I figured I'd just let her find me.

Well, now it was 15 minutes past our meeting time, and I was beginning to think that my primary spot wasn't right, so I went to check out my back up spot. Of course, you know what happened. Just as soon as I got to my designated backup location, I got a text:

"Sorry just got here. Though can't see you?"

Dammit...

So, back I went. And of course, standing right in the exact same patch of concrete I had been standing for the last 30 minutes, was Christine.

Well, not really. But Julianna, you look alot like your cousin back in states. Had she said, "I look like my cousin" in her text, I would not have disputed it. I mean, obviously, as perfect strangers, I wouldn't have singled her out in the crowd and said, "Oi! I bet she's related to Christine." But yeah, there's resemblance. Check the pictures, call me a lair.

Anyway, Julianna was apparently quite famliar with the market, and had several suggestions for food. The one that immediately caught my attention was a fish and chips shop near the river. See, this beautiful market is situated on the southern shore of the River Thames. Unbelievable location. The weather was an unusual sunny for London, so I was sold. Fish and chips along the Thames? How much cooler could a trip to London get?

The fish and chips were ok. I had better in Scotland. Julianna commented that they've gotten quite touristy, so they lacked in the "authentic department". But for me, it was the overall experience that I enjoyed. Along with the fish and chips I had a Bulmers.

I think I've commented on cider. Cider... is awesome. I'm surprised really. I would think something like this would be huge in America. It's quite sweet, a particular flavor that Americans seem to indulge in rather freely. Most cider is made from apples, but there are others! Bulmer's has a pear cider, tho I haven't tried it yet. (Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. Pears...)

Lunch was nice, and it was just too epic of a moment not to take a bunch of photos. We squatted a great table, which were in fairly high demand.

All in all, an awesome lunch. It was nice to have some connection to home. I didn't realize how much I missed it until I met with Julianna.

Julianna has a very similiar story to that of many other people I've met over here in my travels. She grew up in the states, in AZ specifically, and came to London one summer for a school program. She fell in love with it, and decided to move. We talked quite a bit about that choice, because it's one I don't think I could as easily make, but it seems to be thing to do. After 6 years of living here, Julianna has even picked up a subtle hint of a British accent. Too funny...