- Familiarity with the Boulangerie Assistant
- Tony Shaw's Tour of London
- Ligretto and Game of Knowledge, a 80s children's trivial pursuit
After checking the election results, I packed quickly in the morning (did I mention that I'd washed and folded all my clothes already?) and then went for a quick farewell to the Boulangerie. Turns out she knew my order already; two croissants and a baguette tradition. I've only been here ten days. I 100% believe I haven't eaten 20 croissants and 10 baguettes. That's insane. I also stopped off for some journey supplies, and accidentally became involved in one customer's annoyance with the staff. I made some French sounding 'ooh la la, non, merh' sounds in response which seemed to satisfy her though I had NO idea what she was talking about. I went to take a quick photo of Mavis (below) and then went back to tidy up and listen to another Bernstein.
Like all international high-flyers, I was getting the Megabus home. On Wednesdays, if you're under 26, the maximum you pay on any journey is £5. If you have £2.50 of T*sco club card points, this doubles in megabus vouchers and pays for the entire journey. So for this bus ride, I only had to pay a 50p reservation fee. Seriously. 50p to get home from Paris. The bus station was at Porte Maillot just slightly north west of where I was, so I grabbed my final Metro and then an RER line (which I think is their overground?). It wasn't exactly clear where you had to go as you came out of the RER station, but I asked and found you had to just walk past the Palais des Congres, and then turn right and you can see a few buses parked up. Not an obvious, huge bus park, but a little common sense will get you there. I don't know why I thought the driver of the Mega Bus would be French, but I started trying to say "J'ai un billet pour Londres" when in his best southern accent said 'You're going to London? I'm going to London too!'. What a joker. He greeted all the passengers like they were long lost friends. Calvin, his name was. He made a few more jokes and then we were on our way.
So after trying to defend English humour to Isabelle, I was somewhat struggling as Calvin told an anecdote about how he saw a man give a homeless guy some food. The guy's face lit up then fell as he realised it was some Pedigree Chum for his dog. The driver thought it was classic. He laughed for ages. I felt like crying for that poor man. The only thing that cheered me up was discovering the free WiFi on the bus. 50p for a half-full bus with toilet (I didn't try it, but the whole bus looked pretty clean/modern), a Ferry crossing and free WiFi. Brilliant. We raced through France, which was looking pretty grey and miserable, and at some point along the way when I must have been napping, Calvin got off and someone else started driving us. An easy bit of passport control at Calais, and we made the earlier ferry crossing than planned.
Not really much to say about ferries, is there? We were on the Spirit of Britain if that's of any interest? You can read more about it on this informed website (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345529/Spirit-Britain-Biggest-cross-Channel-vessel-steams-Dover-port.html). Look at those pictures and just imagine me and some strangers sitting there, charging our phones. I bought some Fireman Sam tissues (he's Welsh, you know) and then had to defend myself to the shop assistant for my choice. He obviously thought we were kindred spirits and broke into an anecdote about Andy Pandy or something. He was trying out Movember but definitely fell into the looks-like-a-sex-offender-who-lurks-in-park-playgrounds category.
We pulled into Dover. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for miserable England (Facebook updates from my UK friends over the past few weeks have been mainly about the weather) and looked out above the White Cliffs with a sense of foreboding only to see a nice blue/purple sky, with the sun just setting. Beautiful! It didn't take long for that feeling to fade though, and I felt myself descending into post-holiday blues. I sulked as it got dark quickly, and I put on some Bon Iver to match my mood. But as we neared London, I decided to fix up. I spotted Canary Wharf in the distance and I put some big songs on that would bring the city to life. Elbow, Arcade Fire, Alabama Shakes, Beck and then as we drove properly into the centre, I put on some solid music*.
So despite having been all over Europe and seen so many cool cities, London is still an impressive city to come into. Landmarks aside, other features had all of a sudden developed a nostalgic warmth. Never before have New Cross Gate station and Elephant and Castle roundabout looked so beautiful. The big Tesco near Old Kent Road looked like some sort of architectural masterpiece. The kebaberies and insert-any-word-here-FCs (Fried Chicken) houses looked mouth-watering. The bus crossed the Thames (probably the best European river?) and I could see Big Ben (Is it Elizabeth Tower now?) all lit up and the London Eye in all its Ferris Wheel glory. What a sight.
We pulled into Victoria Station around 6pm, and my brilliant housemate Tony was waiting in his car ("Barbara, call me Barbs") to pick me up. It was peak rush hour (yeah, so London is the worst city in Europe that I've seen for traffic. Paris second worst), so we ended up taking a slow tour through central London. It was just as good as, if not better than, arriving in the European cities. We drove past Buckingham Palace (Tour Guide Tony 'That's Parliament), down the Mall (Tony - "That's Marble Arch"), across Trafalgar Square, seeing the National Gallery and Nelson's Column (Tony - "That's Cleopatra's Needle"), along Embankment seeing Somerset House, the National Theatre and the new Blackfriars Solar-powered Bridge (which is actually really cool if you haven't seen it - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/picture/2012/jul/05/blackfriars-solar-bridge). Up past the Crossrail works near Farringdon (apparently even with this super-fast new train, it's still going to take 46minutes from Shenfield to Farringdon. That doesn't seem much more of a timesaver than the current train service....), seeing St Paul's (Tony - "That's the Shard) and the Shard lit up with red lights (Tony - "That's St Paul's").
So an interesting development; we passed a bus which advertised the PQA (Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts). Seems somewhat niche. Also, seems people have mastered the Boris Bike Wheelie since I've been gone? That was pretty impressive. I also listened to my first ever Zane Lowe (WHO'S ON BOARD?) as we drove up through Angel. He announced that they're playing Arcade Fire's 'Neon Bible' in full next week as part of their 'Masterpieces' segment. Apparently mixed in with interviews with the band. We headed to Becka's house just off Essex Road. Wednesday night is normally Dodgeball night (we're in a league, and our team seem to have suspiciously only started winning since I've been away...), but there was a week off (following the Fancy Dress special the previous week) so the team had congregated at Becka's for a games night. There was a beautiful reunion with my friend/editor/landlord Abbie, and then after dinner we got on with the serious business of Ligretto (http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ligretto). This is actually a really fun game, if a tad aggressive with certain players, so I'd recommend it. Then we played some 1980s kid's board game that we found in the corner of the room called GAME OF KNOWLEDGE. It was a bit like Trivial Pursuit but instead of cheeses you got planet rings. The questions might have been easy in the 80s, so even by answering the kids questions, it was a bit tricky ("Who is the current pope?" etc). I've found a link for it but bear in mind, this version is MUCH more modern than ours. Our cards were all crusty and dusty. The game asking about English 1980s general knowledge was perhaps slightly more difficult for the Canadian players amongst us (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3514/game-of-knowledge).
After a few serious hours of gaming, we up and left, passing this creepy mofo on the way out:
Back home, I found my new Kindle Fire waiting for me, but even better, a new hob. A hob that can heat up in under 20minutes. What a treat. Tony is probably the only 20something guy I know who could fit a new hob by himself; he's a total DIY marvel.
I went to bed on my MEMORY FOAM (which I'm pretty sure remembered me. It seemed to sigh with relief at my return), wearing new pyjamas and fell asleep watching an episode of Red Dwarf on my Kindle Fire.
End of Day 37.
* A selection of my Driving-into-London playlist: Talking Heads (Naive Melody), Blur (End of a Century), Django Django (Default), Arcade Fire (Rebellion), Alabama Shakes (Hold On), Elbow (One Day Like This), Jamie T (Sticks and Stones), Supergrass (Moving), Beck (Think I'm in Love), De La Soul Presents Plug One and Plug Two (Must Be the Music) and Bloc Party (One More Chance)
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