Last Sunday and Monday (the 15th and 16th respectively) I journeyed down to London as my good friend, Zock, was coming over from Austria to pay me a much overdue visit. Of course being the pauper that I am I travelled in style on the Megabus (£8 and a free return journey! Cheers Megabus!) at ridiculous o’clock for more many hours than I wish to count; but when I finally arrived (early I might add) I was overjoyed! I couldn’t wait to see my friend and get my mini holiday started.
Needless to say we discovered, rather quickly, that Sundays (and unfortunately Mondays also!) are terrible in London! Nothing is open! Well, that’s a lie, I’m sure a lot of regular tourist attractions are actually open/running, but not the things that we wanted to do and therefore, London, I shake my fist vigorously at you.
But anyway my list of missions consisted of:
- Go to Collinge & Clark (more fondly known for being the BLACK BOOKS SHOP/SHOPFRONT) (Closed, but due to my geekiness it was still a SUPER SUCCESS)
- Go to Gay’s The Word bookshop (SUCCESS)
- Take a picture of Sandwich Street (for it’s hilarious name; sadly this is something that, due to the greatness that is C&C/Black Books, I forgot about)
- Take a picture of Jew’s Walk street sign (forgot about)
- Go to the Globe Theatre (SUCCESS)
- Revisit the Hunterian Museum (closed)
- Go to The Old Curiosity Shop (SUCCESS)
- Go to Victoria Park and listen to Apologies, I Have None – Sat In Vicky Park (SUCCESS)
I can’t remember much of Zock’s list, but I’m pretty sure his missions were more spur of the moment and not freakishly (of the most control-like nature) written down in his notepad with pages of directions to each one... In the end we chose to meander the streets and tube stations (mainly, as we can now look back at and laugh about, Holborn) and have fun along the way.
Now I don’t want to prattle on and on (because I could end up writing an essay!) so I will bullet point my favourite moments:
- Coco Momo’s and the bet! Zock thought it was ‘Loco’ Momo and I knew he was wrong, but being a typical man he just wouldn’t believe it, and as such we marched into the cafe and discovered that he was DEAD WRONG! Glorious victory was mine! I got to gloat AND I won a drink. Hooray!
- The fatality of the Nerds! Zock’s face when he tried the delicious, childhood, sweets was priceless and his continuous cries of dismay (I really do not understand how he didn’t like them!) just didn’t get old.
- Getting drunk and educating each other in our favourite comedians. Bill Bailey for me (“But is it an oud? Oud!”) and George Carlin for Zock (that had me, repeatedly, shouting “RUFUS” in as close to a Bill & Ted voice as I could muster).
- The creepy as hell receptionist being in the unisex toilets. Now this isn’t actually a ‘favourite’ moment as much a moment where at the time I couldn’t lock my cubicle door fast enough, but afterwards I’m pretty sure I collapsed laughing.
- Also, arguing with a man in the toilet because he was in the girl’s cubicle (‘It isn’t the girls toilet! It’s everyone’s’, “Then why is there a picture of a girl on the door?!”) leaving me with a bidet. I didn’t use it! I made Zock help me find the other toilets (I didn’t know where I was going and I feared bumping into the creepy receptionist again.)
- All Ages Records
- Giving a phone booth in Camden the gift of a MOUSTACHE! And taking pictures with it.
The main reason I wanted to write a blog post about my trip to London is because, at one point during the two days, I proved just how much of a massive geek I am (in hindsight, I probably did this A LOT, but this is the main example I have). Zock and I went to The Lyric pub for a sit down and to collect my winnings (somehow being victorious made the pint taste so much sweeter) and I begun rambling about language; mainly, how certain words are beautiful to say. As such we ended up sat looking at various websites devoted to exactly that:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/beautiful-words-2
I’m pretty sure the sites have most of the same words on them, but please look at them and tell me whether you agree or not! I try to work as many of these words into my every day diction as possible, not because I want to elicit cries of pretention from others , but just because of how mellifluous (which is one of the words right there!) and rich they feel when I say them. My favourites are:
- Effervescent/Effervesce
- Labyrinthine
- Susquehanna
- Tintinnabulation
- Penumbra
- Insouciance
Oh I could honestly list forever, but I won’t. I feel like I should owe my friend an apology for just how much I geeked out on him, but I’m sure he didn’t really mind.
A picture of me during my geek-tastic moment.
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A picture of me during my geek-tastic moment.
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