Glee

I was in Enfield Post Office today, helping Dimitris chose a get well card soon for his sick four year old nephew and guess what I saw!



Will you look at that!

Long post of weekend escapades!

You know how some people claim to not remember what they get up to when drunk? Well, I always remember every single excruciatingly embarrassing minute of it. What's even worse, is that when I'm drunk I realise it, and I know I'll be horribly embarrassed next morning, and I realise I'm talking rubbish to strangers and acting ridiculous, yet I still do it. Hmf. Must be something wrong with me. I'm pretty sure it's my english genes that are to blame.

But I am coming before myself here. I had a busy weekend and much happened before I ended up clutching the toilet bowl.

Short story: I walked until I dropped around Hackney and Finsbury on saturday. Then I went to a party in Kingsland, where I drunk too much and crashed. I spent sunday mooching around the Embankment nursing a hangover and had tea on the seventh floor of the Tate Modern.

Long story with images shamelessly stolen from web:
This weekend was Open House London. For the weekend they open up hundreds of buildings to the public and have the architects do guided tours of them. Isn't it a brilliant idea?

I organised myself and made a program of what I wanted to see. Being terminally lazy, I started out a little too late and decided to start from Hackney. I went to a couple of buildings in Dalston Kingsland and then got lost on my way to De Beauvoir Town. After that I followed the canal to Angel and Finsbury where I walked in circles in the rain.


I went to Mayville Estate, where I actually did see this sign.



Yes, De Beauvoir Estate IS that ugly. But the Grand Canal is kind of nice - especially the closer to Angel you get.

I saw a number of interesting buildings and architect's practices (and scored some addresses to sent cvs, hooray!), but I spent too much time walking, so I saw only a fraction of what I wanted. By next time I will hopefully have bought a bike (and got a job and a flat).

Because I was going straight to a party afterwards, I was walking around with a heavy bag with maps, bottles of water, a jacket, pajamas, makeup and god knows what else. Also I was wearing ridiculous clothes and completely wrong shoes to go walking in.

I ended up exhausted and aching and starving in King's Cross, where I proceeded to sit in a cheap place and have a too heavy and too creamy lazagna.

Afterwards I was ready to collapse and there were still a couple of hours to go to the party, so I went all the way over to Queen's Park in Kilburn to find Angela who was visiting a friend, and crashed on their sofa and drunk their herbal tea for two or more hours.

Did I mention the party was an m&m party? Which means we had to dress as m&m colours. Hence my ridiculous outfit. I was wearing a short red dress, with bright red tights, a red cardigan and a red scarf. Totally ridiculous getup to go traipsing around London in.



They certainly took their theme seriously at the party. The food as all coloured with food dye. (Blue penne anyone?) Even the ice-cubes were coloured!

It was a great party! There were people from all over the world, and even a couple of Brits too! And there were loads of architects, yay! I talked about all sorts of random subjects with strangers, from the EU economic policies and farming, to building regulations, to the Smurfs, to whether Denmark has polar bears.

Unfortunately I drunk a bit too much a bit too fast, and I might have just missed the best part of the party. The place was still full of people talking excitedly when I made my hasty exit to the toilet and afterwards the comfortable leather sofa. I remember finding a nice warm woollen throw and curling up under it. Next thing I know there's only five people left in the party dancing drunkenly and it's almost five in the morning!

The awesome hosts let me crash there for the night. (And I wasn't the only one taking advantage of their wonderful hospitality!)

Needless to say, I didn't visit any of the buildings with Open House London next day, like I had planned to. Instead I met Angela at Southwark, where we went to laze on the marvellous Queen Elizabeth Roof Garden Cafe made by the Eden Project.



Then we proceeded to mooch around the Embankment until it got too cold and we took refuge in the cafe on top of the Tate Modern, where we proceeded to have tea with one of the best views in the city.



And now, Monday, I'm still tired and achey. Next time I will wear better shoes and a warmer jacket! Don't let me forget!

Walking the Heath and taking night buses

Now that this weekend is coming close, I thought I should get a move on and talk about last weekend.

Last Saturday, my friend Dimitris dragged me to his favourite place in London - and possibly the whole wide world, you never know with him - Hampstead Heath. This time I brought my camera. With a fully charged battery. Because Dimitris begged and nagged I should because he wanted photos.



Dimitris dragged me up Monument Hill, where we were almost blown away by the strong the wind. And then he snagged my camera and started snapping away like a trigger happy crazy thing.



When he was satisfied he had taken enough photos and I was fed up with the hill, we went for a walk across the heath. We meandered around the place and ended up by a big pond to sit on a bench together and bemoan the sore state of our lives.

After seeing the manor from afar, we decided it was time to get going, because we were invited to a party in Chalk Farm. It will hardly be a surprise to find out we promptly got lost and ended up following the sound of distant traffic.



We emerged on the opposite side of the Heath than we wanted to, and I brilliantly got confused and we took the 168 bus instead of the 268 bus. So instead of going to Chalk Farm we ended up at Finchley Road. Without a map. And neither of us having a clue where we were.

We did eventual find our way to the party, after a little break to eat some indian food and warm ourselves from the bitting wind.

And well, the party was fun! We drunk lots of wine, ate Natasha's gorgeous hand made finger food and talked about all manner of stuff.

And when the time to go home came, we walked to Camden Town with Dimitris and took the night bus to his place. Will you believe we spent almost two hours on that damn bus? I can't believe I spent so long getting back!

Poor Dimitris! He lives in a teeny tiny room in a ramshackle house with a crazy landlady and her layabout cousin who sleeps on the sofa. There truly is no way to describe exactly how unbelievably small his room is! I should take photos.

And because Dimitris crazy landlady works nights - she drives a night bus - I tiptoed out the house in the morning before she realised I had spent the night.

At the RIBA

Yesterday I went to a CDP thingy over at RIBA in central London. The thingy started at 9.30 in the morning. Which meant waking up early and enduring rush hour. I still haven't decided which one is worse.



Because I'm cheap and fares in this country are ridiculously high, I went the cheap way. By bus. Big big mistake! It was absolutely crowded with noisy screeching school girls. (Where were all the boys? Does segregation in the school in the UK extend to getting different buses in the morning too?) Oh god! The noise! In the half an hour I was on the bus I acquired a splitting headache. When I have money I will travel by train on rush hour!

By the way, what's with the short short skirts? I can see how the girls would like their skirts so short. (If I were a straight man I do not know how I would survive all that naked pubescent thigh flashed around. Thank god schools aren't co-ed, otherwise all the teenaged boys would be in a constant state of painful arousal!) But how exactly do the school authorities permit it? Aren't they any regulations about skirt lengths?

Anyway. I went to the CPD thingies. It was OK I guess. Some presentations interesting. Some not so much. I didn't meet anyone, but I did buy a nice big serious book on the British Building Code. Let's see when I read it!

While in the RIBA, I had all sorts of thinky thoughts. I even noted down some of them on this free notepad I was given. But I'm too lazy to transcribe today.

And then I went shopping. See, the RIBA is a short walk from Oxford Circus. And once there I couldn't resist the lure of Topshop. I know, I know, it's a teenagers shop. But I'm poor, ok? It's a dizzying confusing warren of a place. Perfect for the young I guess. Most of the clothes are cheap rubbish. (Their jumpers are atrocious! Not so much the designs as the syntheticness of the materials.) However I managed to score a pair of short black shorts (I know I'm too old, and I'm sure it was a trick of the mirrors, but I looked good in them and have wanted a pair for the past ten years, ok?) and one of those weird straight but sorta puffy skirts that seemed to be called paperback waist (what sort of name is that?)- also black. (I know the belt is awful, I will change it.)

Now I must not buy anything more. Ever! Because I can't spend all my money on clothes and books. Then how will I eat? (And even more importantly, how will I pay my public transport fares?)

Bow-ties are cool!

But do you agree with me?

And if you're having a hard time deciding here's some visual aides:













Feel free to share your favourite bow-tie images with me!