Spring in London

Spring has finally hit London...I thought the day would never come. The sun is shining and what seemed like a gloomy city is actually quite beautiful when the weather is nice, the people are even better too. The parks and gardens are in full bloom and booming with people everyday. Its almost like living in a whole different city than the one I've been in for the past three months. Everyone is outside, enjoying the sun, and in as good as spirits as ever. This is the London I've been waiting for and I can't get enough of it. Two weekends ago when the weather just started to get nice, Brendan, Matt, and I all headed to Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens to drink and lay around in the park. It was so nice and relaxing and afterwards I made a little trip to TopShop (similar to Forever 21 in the States).
Lately, I've actually been walking home from work, which is about a 40-45 min walk, but its not so bad since the weather has been so good. The first couple times I walked home I kept noticing this gate for the "Royal Brompton Cemetery" on the street I take towards home. I was always curious about it, so one day I just decided to walk in and take a look around. In all honesty, I have never seen such an amazing cemetery in my life. First off, it was HUGE...there had to be thousands of gravestones there. But, the best part about it was how old the stones were, some dated back hundreds of years. To me, it was what I envisioned an old European cemetery would look like. Half of the stones were so old the writing had eroded away to the point where you couldn't make out what had originally been written there and some gravestones were completely taken over in ivy. Some stand as tall as 10 feet whereas others are small simple statues with one name and date carved in them. There are even above ground crypts like you would see inside of an old church. The artistry put into some of the graves were unbelievable, with amazingly detailed statues of angels or people. The first time I was there I walked among the rows of the graves reading some of the peoples names and inscriptions. I found in the midst of some of them there was a bench that I sat on and just took a look around. I realized how quiet it was and quiet in London is hard to find. I mean you just felt so calm there...it wasn't creepy or eery, just calming. I found myself just thinking about everything. I guess when you think about it, a graveyard can be a good place to reflect or pray or whatever you decide to do spiritually. In a place like this, where thousands have been put to rest, you seem to be able to have a clearer mind on things in your life because your staring the reality of what will happen to all of us in the face. You tend to realize how much meaning your life really has, since we only have one of them. I couldn't help but think about the people's lives around me...what their lives were like, did they do all the things they wanted, were they really that different from us. Ever since that first time I actually went into the cemetery, I've gone back several times just to relax or clear my mind. Its nice to find places like that in a city like London, one that just pushes people to move quicker and never slow down. My own little reflection spot..
On a lighter note, one of my co-workers/cooks is from Latvia and loves rap music, so he always asks me about American rappers, music, etc. His name is Dimi (its really something like Dimichicka...totally wrong spelling, but I really have no idea what is full name is), and he is so intrigued by American culture, especially college life which he always loves to hear stories about. Anyways, the other day as he was leaving work he called me over because he wanted to ask me about some English words that he couldn't find in his Latvian/English translation book. He told me he would just write them down and asked that I could explain what they meant. Knowing Dimi and his love for rap music, I was curious to what words he didn't know. The first word was "Swagga" :) How do you explain "swagga" to a Latvian with about 5 other Eastern European looking on as well? The only thing I could think of (besides how hilarious this was) to explain it was the way a person walks, and I proceeded to "swagga" throughout the restaurant like a ghetto rap star. Oh but it didn't stop there, the next word(s) was "groove on". He said he heard it from the title of a song lol. I told him it was like dance movies and he laughed. So glad I have now turned into the new American urban dictionary for my European co-workers. :)
Lately on my days off work I have been exploring the city on my own, going to places I haven't been yet in London. One day I went to the Covent Garden markets near Soho where they were having an antique market that day. There were all kinds of antiques from old books, to silver, to jewelry. I actually bought a 100 year old ring from some British woman that is in the shape of a heart with a crown on the top. I thought it would be a nice little trinket to have so I could always be reminded of my time here. The Covent Garden market is actually a really cool place bustling with people and street entertainers. I actually went back to it today on my day off (it was a clothing/crafts market today, it changes everyday) and as I was watching one of the entertainers whose trick was to escape from a straight jacket, he asked me on stage. Ughh..the thing was he was looking for volunteers and I was the only one NOT raising my hand but he picked me anyways. He was some French guy and when he asked me my name he repeated it back to me as "Herin" with an 'H' on the front. So, he kept saying it over and over on stage that way. My job was to put him in the straight jacket along with some other random guy who helped me. Oh and he made me do a funny dance on stage. Yep. In front of a crowd of about 70 or so. It had no relevance to what he was doing, but he made me do it anyways. lol Thank god no one I know actually saw me. Also, when I was watching another performer today who was a unicyclist, his English bulldog who was entertaining the crowd by chasing a ball beforehand decided to take a nice little poo in front of a group of about 10 or so little kids. The performer was so embarrassed and proceeded to pick up the poop right in front of everyone...hilarious, I was laughing so hard I was crying. Good day at Covent Garden. On a side note, I also found Benjamin Franklin's house right around the corner from there, that he stayed in for around 16 years in London. It's actually one of the oldest houses with the original flooring and walls in London. Kinda cool little discovery.
On another day I went to the British Museum which is actually a really great museum. They have artifacts from all over the world, but some of their more famous stuff is the Rosetta Stone and parts of the Parthenon in Greece. I shouldn't even say parts of the Parthenon, they practically have the whole thing...I guess they have like 60% of it in the British museum that they refuse to give back to the Greeks. Besides that all of their exhibits were amazing from Egyptian artifacts to old Europe. One of my favorite exhibits was titled "Living and Dying" that displayed ways cultures from all over the world envision medicine and sickness. They had one long display in the middle showing the amount of medicines described to one person from the moment they were born to the moment they died. It was really cool to see other culture's approach to sickness, whether it be with old herbal medicine or dressing up in masks to scare the evil sickness demons away. I also liked the exhibit that explained Britain from its beginnings all the way through now, as well as the portrait gallery that showed old English art and cartoons..some were actually pretty funny. All in all, the museum was pretty nice and I'd recommend it for anyone coming to London.
Yesterday on my walk back from work, as I got closer to my house I started noticing that there were a lot of people on the street. At least a lot more than normal. Than I started noticing that a lot of them were wearing Chelsea Football Club shirts and then shortly realized a soccer match was about to go on and I was heading straight into the mass of it. For those of you who don't know, I live about 5 min from the Chelsea Football club stadium and when there's a game its craziness. Well yesterday was Chelsea vs Liverpool to see who would continue on in the Champions League...a HUGE deal for London/Europe people. I soon realized as I was walking in the sea of Chelsea people and that Liverpool's colors are red..and I was wearing an Ohio State t-shirt proudly displayed from under my zip up hoody. Once that realization sunk in, I immediately zipped up my jacket and tried to cover all the remaining exposed parts. This is Europe and people are nuts about soccer and I'm not about to get messed with over nothing. As I walked closer and closer to the stadium the mass just grew and grew. The street was completely blocked off and the pub across from the stadium was booming with fans screaming the cheers of Chelsea. Cops were all on horses moving people along and camera crews were everywhere. When I got home and the game started, I actually could hear the stadium and the cheering from my room. When Chelsea won the cheers from the stadium was so clear and loud that I couldn't believe it. It was cool though to hear it...even if there were Chelsea drunks outside my window at 2 in the morning.
Hope all is well at home! I'll keep updating this on all of my mini adventures! Keep the e-mails coming.