London

It was a long couple of flights that got me to London. During my two hours in San Francisco I bought a New Yorker magazine and a bag of peanutbutter m&ms... and the rest of America will have to wait until I get back there on the way home. The customs procedure at San Francisco airport was incredible. Everyone had to remove their shoes, belts and jackets, and we were herded through the metal detectors by officers who yelled like drill sergeants. I found the hostel in London easily enough but my bed wasn't ready yet so I went out to find some breakfast before crashing (having not slept for 40 hours or so). It was still early on Saturday morning so the streets were pretty bare but the weather was sunny and not unbearably cold. After coffee and a croissant I didn't feel like sleeping. And I'd already been charmed by the quaint shopfronts, the cobblestone streets and little winding alleyways. So I kept walking, through Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, down to Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and across the bridge of the same name. The fog of tourists was pretty getting thick down there, all bumping into each other, taking photos of people in front of buildings. I followed the Thames along South Bank, past the London Eye (which smelled like Liquid Paper - smells are one of the unexpected joys of travel). I came to the Tate Modern and whizzed around the collection. Lots of Jackson Pollock and Picasso... and some grotesque Francis Bacons that caught my attention. After bangers at mash in a pub I must have gotten back to the hostel at around 4pm (I'm still without a timepiece), and slept until 3am. So I strolled up to Oxford Street, where the nighttime crowd was just dispersing via pedicab and bigredbus. I ate a foul beef cornish and sat up watching telly with a drunk lad from Cambridge who kept telling me how shit London is (he'd just had a fight with a bouncer). This morning I caught the train out to Camden where the market was just revving up. There were plenty of authentic British punks, and an amazing sprawl of pretty ordinary stalls vending cheap souvenirs and/or goth/punk/new-age gear. Still, a great atmosphere, and a world away from the Camden I know. From Camden I went by tube to Finchley Road, to see the Freud Museum. This is where Freud lived for the final year of his life, and I assume it's where he shot himself in the end (but this wasn't verified by any information offered in the museum). The original therapy couch was there, transported from his office in Vienna. His library of books. And his collection of archaeological artefacts - lots of pocket-sized totems and such that would have been easy to steal, I assume. The halls were lined with various portraits of the man. Two were drawn by Salvador Dali when they met in 1938. What was striking about the museum is that it's a very unassuming little house... and the home movies narrated by his daughter Anna Freud (with lots of coughing, weezing, and general old-lady sounds) show him as a frail but playful old man. I've done a bit more walking today, had a couple of pints in various places, but London is so expensive, I'm going to have to be careful. I was planning on staying an extra night in order to see a play at the Lyric Hammersmith tomorrow - an aerial theatre production of Kafka's <I>Metamorphosis</I> with (get this) an original score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. But, apparently it's sold out. So I guess I'll be training northward to Edinburgh tomorrow morning. My Spanish roommate may be expecting a beer with me tonight. I slept through our date last night, and he used my towel (passive aggression?). I have the feeling that I'm not going to be as prolific with my blogging as I was in Indonesia. It's a combination of internet access being less affordable, and my days being more full. We'll see. Stay tuned.