I was out with my colleague and new friend Brad this evening, playing pool and drinking pitchers of Rickards ... and we were both lamenting the depredations of age, the fact that neither of us has quite the drinking/partying stamina we had in our twenties. Or for that matter, the ability to pull all nighters to get assigments done ... I personally blame my comprehensive exams, which completely changed my body clock so that I was incredibly productive in the morning, mildly productive in the early afternoon, brain dead between 3-6pm, and (sometimes) mildly productive in the evening. And after 10pm, intellectually kaput. Prior to the trauma of comps, I was perfectly capable of working at whatever hour of day was necessary. Ah, damn you comps! How you ruin the lives of so many grad students!
Anyway, as I walked home up the insane hills that slope up from the harbour, I started thinking about things I miss about London. First and foremost, I of course miss the people there (well, certain people). But however much I might put down that humid, bland, soulless bastion of conservatism that is London, it did have some high points and locales that I wouldn't mind transferring to my new home. Here they are, in no particular order:
Williams Coffee Pub -- specifically, the booths
Sammy's Souvlaki @ 3am
Richmond Row on a mild, sunny afternoon
The Runt Club
running beside the Thames between Queens and Oxford
Campus Hi-Fi
UWO campus generally
City Lights bookstore
Covent Garden Market, esp. the cheese shop
The Grad Club
And now, for a change of topic: a new picture of my niece Morgan!
3 comments:
i spent a few days this past weekend in london (yes the one day a new grad should probably not go back is the first day of move-in, but im old and weird like that) and now back after the debauchery i too miss many a thing.
-the people first and foremost
-a patio like barney's is rare in all cities though the black bull in toronto is competitive with more seats
- the girls, as shallow, senseless, and stupid as so many of them are, the place is like the stepford of pre-adult life.
- smoking a "silly" smoke on campus.
- my place on central
- my place on brough
- walking richmond
- making fun of people until you come west of adelaide.
- also the grad club, and I was never a grad!!!
theres more but losing my memory because of consumption is also in that list so i cant really remember the rest.
see.. and yet the funny thing is, as much as one misses london once they're gone, being here without the necessary components (ie. those who have graduated/moved out of town) isn't always the same.
it's not the place itself, but the people that make the place so intruiging/exciting/welcoming/comfortable/home.
on top of that, i find i'm incessantly struggling with being the oldest of the undergrads.. i was actually referred to as a "geezer" by a new frosh.. at 22! gasp, what is going on in western's little bubble..
You know, I don't really appreciate London for all that's great...well, I admit, I do miss the UWO campus (except when I drive through it) and who can turn down Sammy's at 3 after stumbling out of a bar...
I'll trade you one London thing for the haunting fog that I always think rolls through St. John's and seems so poetic to my writer's soul...
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