I have been in London for exactly one month and I thought this could use with a little upgrade. Whaddya think?!

Brighton Beach Memoirs

Brighton is having an identity crisis.

My friend and I discovered this over the weekend when we visited the small beach town for a little day trip. Everyone who heard I was traveling asked if I was going to Brighton to explore the night life. I could only shrug when asked, because I didn't know Brighton was known for it's night life. When I thought of Brighton a crazy clubbing scene did not immediately come to mind.

What did come to mind was a lot like what we found. Brighton Beach is an English beach, which means it's cold, grey, and rocky, with a lot of old glory. There's a beautiful pier, built in 1899, that stretches out into the ocean that reflects the grandeur Brighton once had. It is sad to walk along the beach and pier now. The glory hangs in the air above the white pavilions on the pier and leans on the white wrought iron railing stretching along the walk. The ugly, cheap carnival rides lay abandon and forgotten in the off season, and only the kitschy souvenir stands and "ye olde sweet shoppes" stand open. I hear it can get quite crowded in the summer time, but there was no one there to appreciate the pier and what it has become this weekend.

The personality of Brighton embodied is the old remains of the West Pier.  Off the rocky beach there is a large iron skeleton standing alone in the middle of the ocean. It is a haunting sight, but you can almost make out how grand the pavilion was and how enchanting it must have been when it was first built in 1866.

Remains of the West Pier

Once you leave the coastline, however, Brighton takes on a completely different look. The North Laine area in the downtown of Brighton is home to many artsy, "hippy", gay rights movements. It's a funky little area with multiple boutiques, independent coffee houses, and small event venues. At night, the main road turns into a strip of clubs and pubs that draw all of the young people out. This part of town evokes almost the opposite feeling than the beach gives off--downtown Brighton is very much alive and thriving, making a new name for itself.

The Village Underground

In my last post I mentioned that during Open House London this past weekend I visited a place called the Village Underground.  It sounds like it might be something spooky, but it is definitely not.

The Underground is the London subway system. It is commonly called the Tube (pronounced: tchoob) because that's exactly what it is: a network of tubes running beneath all of London and much of the surrounding areas.

It even looks like a tube!

The Village Underground is not under the ground--in fact, it is quite far above the ground--and it is not even near a Tube station. No, the Village Underground is actually an artists' studio. A group of artists took old, unused Underground cars, had them lifted on top of a warehouse, and converted them into work spaces.

It is a very cool project, and a great idea for recycling the unused space. The insides of the train cars are the perfect sizes for desks along the windows and are fully equipped with electricity, internet, and other things required of an office.

The outsides of the Underground cars provided the perfect reusable canvas for the artists. While we were visiting, some guys were spray painting one of the cars.

This place was just so cool! Haley and I felt like squares there with our cameras and our conformist clothing and our unimaginative ideas and our impressionable minds. Some guys with dreadlocks and gauged piercings were there playing records I'd never heard before with Bob Marley-esque vibes, and electro indie undertones. These artists could not have been older than thirty (because people that old just can't be cool enough to do this kind of thing), and they had already done something with their lives. What have I done? Certainly nothing as cool as PAINTING A SUBWAY CAR.

THIS guy. (please also note the ironic rooster weather vain)

Please don't misunderstand me, these artists are not hipster scum. No, unfortunately my mocking tone is rooted in true jealousy and not simply hatred.

The Village Underground is located in Shoreditch, which is a neighborhood of London known for it's indie art scene. It's the home of the Anti-Design Festival (the counterpart to the "highly commercialized" Design Festival).  My friend and I walked there and we passed a lot of independent art studios and show rooms with some really interesting street art pieces. We also passed a lot of genuine graffiti. I am actually a big fan of graffiti, it's one of my favorite part of cities.

Maybe this weekend I'll head to the junk yard and find myself an old Tube car that I can convert into an office...

I have fallen in love.

This is probably coming as a surprise to most of you. You didn't see this coming. Well neither did I. And some of you might be thinking "she's so young, she doesn't know what love is!" Oh, but I do know what love is.
 It is true. I am in love.

Let me start from the beginning. I first saw my love a few weeks ago when I was in search of a grocery store. The Tesco I was looking for was not where GoogleMaps told me it would be, so I was lost. And that is when I saw my love. I passed my love on the street and could not stop staring.

My love's name is Pancras--St. Pancras, actually. My love is the patron saint of children, jobs, and health...but that is neither here nor there. My love's middle and last names are International Station.

Yep, I'm in love with a train station (you all thought I was serious, didn't you?). And you would be too if you had been to Open House London this weekend.

Open House London is a weekend once a year when many of the architecturally significant or sustainable buildings of London that are usually closed to the public are open for tours.  There were over 750 buildings open this year, from government buildings, to offices, to private residences! But since you can't tour 750 buildings in two days, my friends and I picked the two most interesting sites on the list--Village Underground (more on that later), and St. Pancras International station.

St. Pancras is just up the street from my apartment, right next to King's Cross Station of Harry Potter fame. And the story about me getting lost on the way to the grocery store is true. I thought this building was so magnificent that I had to show my architecturally nerdy friends, and, well, they fell in love with it too. So when we realized that there would be tours of this marvelous building during Open House, we decided that WE HAD TO GO.

So we did. And it was one of the best decisions we've ever made. The inside of the train station is just as amazing and beautiful as the outside. The front, the grandiose castle, is actually a hotel (a Marriott to open in spring of 2011), and the train station is in back. Both structures were designed by William Henry Barlow in 1867. St Pancras just barely escaped demolition in the 60's and was restored in 2007, when the EuroStar moved there from Waterloo station.

Our tour guide was from the marketing department for the company in charge of the restoration of St Pancras International, so of course he talked it up. But, baby, did I fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Sam (that was our tour guide's name) talked about how the company was putting the romanticism back into taking trains, how St Pancras is becoming Europe's "destination station". As rightly it should be. There is no Macdonald's or Starbucks in sight in the station. Instead they have a champagne bar, farmer's market, artisan food shops, and designer stores from around London. The restoration kept all of the original architecture and artistic details in tact, and worked the beautiful wrought iron trussing that supports the glass roof and the below-ground brick arches (originally used to store barrels of beer) into the new lower concourse.

The whole experience made me want to buy a ticket to Paris right then and there, just so that I could sit at the champagne bar next to the train tracks and wait for my High Speed train to Paris (pronounce: Pair-ee) to pull in.

Some day it will happen. Until then I will have to be content staring at my love from across the street.




...Sorry this post is so long.
I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH-OK?! GEEZ!!!

If you go to google.co.uk, you will see a lovely little illustration depicting what I can only assume is supposed to be a Clue-esque murder mystery scene. This is because today would have been Agatha Christie's 120th birthday.

BUT that is not the only birthday the UK is celebrating today.

Today is MR. BEAN's 20th birthday!!!
Ah, Mr. Bean. That loveable, clumsy little British character, developed and portrayed by Rowan Atkinson. If you ask me, it should be this birthday that Google should be honoring with a title illustration.

Here's a pleasurable little Mr. Bean clip for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4cmrMJul1g

For more Mr. Bean, YouTube is celebrating with full-length episodes. They've got their priorities straight!



Today really should be an English holiday,  don't you think?!

Merry Wives of Theatre

I went to see The Merry Wives of Windsor last night. But this was not just any performance of the Shakespearean comedy. This was a special performance. Because I got to see the show performed in the Globe theatre!

...Ok, so it's not really the Globe, it's a replica because the old one burned down a long time ago. But still! It was cool.

I went to the show for my "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Stage" class. Our "seats" were standing room only in the yard of the round theatre (yep, that's how they spell it here). We would have been called groundlings in Shakespeare's time, and our tickets would have cost only a penny. It was a really great experience, and was made even more authentic by the fact that there was a 45 minute downpour as soon as the show started. The show went on of course, and being an open-air theatre, all of us groundlings got soaked.  But it only added to the fun.

 The show was great! Some great comedic actors filled the roles, and the actresses who played Mistress Page and Mistress Ford were amazing.

It was a fun show, and a really cool experience that I would recommend to anyone traveling to London!

The Mighty Thames and Its Watery Ways

This weekend was definitely a "London: f*ck yeah!" weekend.

If you don't know what that means, let me break it down for you. There are some days when you just want to say, "really, London? Really?" (like when you want to go on a picnic in Hyde Park but a torrential downpour begins as soon as you get off the tube). But this weekend was not like that. This weekend was basically awesome.

Because this weekend was the Thames Festival. And this might be the greatest thing ever invented (although, I've not yet been to Spain and I hear they throw some pretty great festivals).  The Thames Festival is a weekend of food, drink, and merriment thrown by the mayor of London, along the River Thames. Tons of local artists, craftsmen, bakers, brewers, and all other types of merchants set up booths that stretch through the heart of London along the south shore of the river.

One of my favorite parts of the Thames Festival was the Feast on the Bridge. From noon until 22-00 (that's 10 PM) the Southwark Bridge was shut down to traffic and long tables were set up all along the bridge for people to sit, eat, drink, chat, and otherwise enjoy themselves. It was definitely one of those things you had to experience for yourself to understand, but it was amazing to say the least. Picture for a second, if you will, that you've just bought the best smelling sausage and onion sandwich cooked fresh, and a half-pint of award-winning Welsh cider (which is kind of like a cross between beer and soda, but with more alcohol) in the other hand, and you are sitting at a huge table with complete strangers in the middle of the River Thames, but it doesn't matter that you're eating with strangers, because you're all there for the same purpose, to enjoy good food and to enjoy the life source of the city (the river), and you're all Londoners.

That is not all that was great about the Feast on the Bridge, though. At 7 PM everyone gathered in the center of the bridge to raise their glasses and toast the Thames. And the River definitely deserves a toast at least once a year, because London would not exist if the Thames were not there. Anyway, it was a nice gesture.

My second favorite part of the Thames Festival was definitely the performance stage in front of the Tate Modern.  This performance stage, one of three at the festival, was called the Lady Luck Jive Stage. And it was swing dancing, from noon to 10 PM on both Saturday and Sunday. There were DJs and live bands playing jive and lindy hop, and an "al fresco ballroom" open to everyone who wanted to swing dance no matter your skill level. I didn't have a partner, so I didn't get out there and dance, but it was so much fun to just watch. I have to say, the old people were the most fun to watch! They were having so much fun--and they weren't half bad. Many people got really dressed up for the event. Women with s-curls in their hair and high-waisted skirts danced with men in fedoras and saddle shoes. I was very impressed.

The weekend concluded with a "night festival" on Sunday night. A parade of beautiful floats, lights, music, costumes, and dancing made its way along both shores of the river and ended with tons of fireworks set off over the river.


Why doesn't New York or San Francisco have a festival like this?! They both could really use one. Maybe I should look into starting it...



I must credit the fabulous Haley Johnston and her beautiful camera for the wonderful pictures.

Everyone who told me that food in London was atrocious LIED! The food here is not bad--in fact, it is quite delicious. London really has become a global city in the way of food and restaurants. There are more Italian restaurants here than in Italy, I think. But besides the international food, the British food isn't half bad either. Their sausages are delightful, fish and chips is a classic, and I've become a big fan of meat pies.

("But I don't want to be a pie!")

And their festival food is to die for! The Thames Festival was this weekend (more on that later), and I ate some of the best food: risotto ball wraps, cinnamon cookies, sausage and onions on fresh rolls, and fudge of course.  And it was all fantastic. By far the best festival food I've ever eaten (except for lumpia from the CTK Festival--nothing beats that). 

I've also been cooking a lot! The NYU London dorms are newly remodeled, and have never been lived in before, so I am breaking in this new kitchen they provided us with. My friend and I have decided that by the end of this year in London, we are going to be master chefs! And we are well on our way. We've made chicken parmigiana and shrimp stir fry. Not only were both edible, but they were delicious, too!!

I don't know what our next cooking excursion will be. Maybe we will try making our own version of those delicious risotto balls I mentioned earlier!

The Beginning of Time

Greenwich is a small town outside of London, it's a cute little suburb about an hour's trip down the Thames from Westminster. Greenwich is also the center of the world. I bet you thought the center of the world was New York City (or, if you're from NorCal, the Bay Area). But no, this pretty little town is in fact the center of the world. Because Greenwich, England, is at exactly 0 degrees longitude. It is where East meets West. And the place from which all time is kept.

The Prime Meridian is an imaginary, man-made line down the center of the Earth for the specific purpose of telling the time. This line did not always run through Greenwich, and some places still do not recognize this time demarcation.  The current Greenwich Meridian was selected by a council held in Washington D.C. in 1884. They chose the point because of Greenwich's long history with time. The Royal Observatory atop the hill in Greenwich is the largest visual time piece in the world (originally used to give ship captains along the Thames an accurate time reading).  It is also where the first accurate modern star maps were produced, and where the first accurate, modern clock was created.

Greenwich has historical significance to England as well. The town has had a palace built on the plateau near the river for hundreds of years. King Henry VIII was born in Greenwich, as were his daughters, Queens Mary (Bloody Mary) and Elizabeth (the "virgin queen").

It's easy to see why so many important historical figures would choose Greenwich in which to live and work. It's a beautiful spot, close enough to the city to not feel disconnected, but far enough to be a little bit isolated.
Also, I want my husband to build me a palace like this one!

This is the view from my window. Doesn't quite compare to the view of the Empire State Building I had last year, but this will do.

Looking south down Gray's Inn Road

Looking north toward King's Cross

Quinn on London's Haute-couture

Ok, so it's not technically "haute couture" if they are selling it to the general public is high end stores on Oxford and Bond streets, but it might as well be.

Tonight was London's Fashion's Night Out, which is basically a night during Fashion Week when all of the high end designer retail stores stay open late, offer cocktails, and host celebrity appearances to celebrate fashion and the new season. It's really a lot of fun. But honestly, I would have to recommend New York City's FNO to anyone new to the fashion scene. Overall, there is more to see and do at New York's FNO. Almost no celebrities showed up in London and most stores weren't offering anything very special.

But that doesn't mean it wasn't an interesting evening! No, it was a fascinating night. You see, most Londoners are more stylish than even the best dressed American. It's true! I noticed it the moment I stepped out of the airport. Men here know the power and sex appeal of a good suit, everyone understands shoes, and women take beautiful risks with their style and understand that it is not always about the clothes you're wearing but about how you wear them.  In Europe it is not a bad thing for a man to be stylish and care about how he looks. If a man dresses well, he is not "gay" or even "metrosexual", which is really very refreshing.

Now, why Europeans are so much more fashion-forward than Americans, I don't know.  My marketing professor actually addressed this in class today and said that it is the US's "gym culture" that was the downfall of our fashion senses. He observed that in the US looking good is based on 80% body and 20% clothes, whereas Europeans base appearances on only 20% body and 80% clothes. 

If we lived in a perfect world and I got my way, everyone would understand and appreciate the importance of both a fit body and good fashion sense.

Today is 08/09/10 in England...and everywhere that isn't the US.

...think about that for a second...


Now think about this: I have gotten to experience this day TWICE this summer.
Crazy.

My first home-made dinner in London! So what if it's just a peanut butter sandwich? At least I remembered to eat at all.

Quinn Leaves Home

There is a cliche that I have heard many times that goes "you can't know where you're going until you know where you've been." I don't know how true that is, but I like my memories. So let's take a look at where I've been before we talk about where I'm going.

I grew up in the East Bay, a suburb of San Francisco, California. If you ask any kid between the ages of 10 and 30 from the Bay Area, they will all surely tell you, that this is the greatest place on planet Earth. Now, I have not seen most of this Earth (although I do plan to), and neither have these kids, but they might actually be right. I am incredibly lucky to have grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I am a little spoiled because of it. Every time I leave California, I scoff at the lack of fresh veggies, glorious sunshine, proximity to surf and snow, and mix of cultures and ideas that are all so prevalent in the Bay. I am so grateful for my childhood there, and I would not have wanted to grow up anywhere else in the world. I will always be a flip-flop and wayfarer wearing California girl and won't be able to pass a single summer without returning to Cali (tell my mother that, it will make her supremely happy).

However, 18 years was enough of the Bay Area for me. After that I popped my little suburban, private school bubble and moved to big, bad New York City. I love New York.  Ever since I first visited the city at Thanksgiving in 2005 I knew I would live there some day (it was a feeling like I had found the piece of my heart that had been missing). And I did just that. The 8 months I spent in New York during my freshman year at NYU were incredible. My dorm was in the heart of Greenwich Village, right between Washington Square Park and Union Square, and I had a view of the Empire State Building from my tiny window. Not everyone (in fact, very few people) are privileged enough to have such living arrangements--and I was only a freshman! Plus there was the Divine Nine that made the academic year especially awesome, but that is a story for a different time.

And so now I find myself living in Bloomsbury, London. Where our story (as it relates to this blog, anyway) really begins.

So I am a California girl, whose heart resides in New York City. But I must admit, I have never met a city I didn't like.

Quinn Lives Here

Wow. A blog. What the heck am I doing with a blog???

Well, I honestly never thought that I would start a blog. I'm not a very strongly opinionated person, I don't generally like updating the entire world about my every move...but I figured that because I have this amazing opportunity to do, learn, see, and experience amazing things I should share it with people!

You see, I am in London. Yes, I packed up all of my stuff (100 lb of luggage makes navigating Heathrow airport very difficult), flew across the Atlantic, and transplanted my little self in the United Kingdom.  I'm doing this as part of my studies in Business and Political Economy at New York University. It's required for everyone in my major, so luckily I do know some other people here. Going from my little suburb of Pleasant Hill to London, England is sorta a big deal, and I plan on having lots of adventures while I'm here, so I thought I would share those adventures with all of my friends and family still in the States who, unfortunately, could not come with me.

I'm also kind of doing this for myself: as a way to record my experiences, and to practice my writing. I am a student after all! And I thought it might be easier for me to keep a log of my experiences (I never was good at keeping a journal) if I put it on the internet for other people to read.

So here it is. Quinn L H. My blog. Maybe something will come of it, maybe not--maybe I will stop posting after a few months (I will try very hard not to do this)--but it will be an interesting experiment in the meantime.