mr softee

It's actually really exhausting being a tourist every day running around in fashionable shoes. Yesterday I got up around 10a, after having been awake from 3a until 7a, and got out of the house around noon. I took the tube to Westminster and briefly checked out the Houses of Parliament, but I didn't stay there and instead crossed the river Thames and took a walk along the east side embankment to see the Eye. This is a really touristy walk with a lot of street performers and people running along the river and just generally strolling along. I came across some prep school kids practicing their already honed dramatic skills in a little ad hoc rehearsal (it seemed an attempt at a dramatic portrayal of the the Fall from Grace with teenagers playing the part of the snake and peer pressuring Adam and Eve into eating the apple), a film on location at a bookstall under a bridge (which I think was starring Dustin Hoffman), some skater punks in a graffitti-covered concrete skate park, a Mr.Softee truck outside the Shakespear Globe Theater, and then the Millenium Bridge and Tate Modern.














I spent a couple of hours at the Tate seeing some work from their permanent collection (dissapointingly, the main Turbine room was closed for a new installation and I couldn't even get in to see the space) and then continued along the river until Tower Bridge, where I got lost a little on the way to meet Vanessa at Borough Market... which I loved! Foodie's paradise. The Market is this cast iron and glass canopy covered assemblage of food stalls under a railroad pass. I had a quiche, we checked out some cheese and wandered among the stalls. Then Vanessa and I walked into the old Hugenot area where they had set up their weaver shops, having been chased out of France for religious insubordination. We then jumped on the bus and headed to Shoreditch where we walked along Brick Lane and checked out the Indian restaurants before stopping for a drink at a place called "Lounge Lovers" (a bar with eclectic antiques for furniture and lighting). This area really reminded me of Williamsburg Brooklyn with all the hipsters and galleries and funky restaurants and bars and me not fitting in. After a couple of cocktails (Vanessa ordered a Moscow Mule and I a SideCar) and the appearance of Yoric in casual Friday business attire... not the usual pin stripe suite with pink shirt (standard bankers uniform in "the city"... brown is for the country. Also, apparently if you wear a belt with your suit it means your bespoke tailor isn't any good), the three of us got their car and wound our way over to Marylebone for dim sum before heading home at around 11pm. Crazy full day, but I finally slept through the night except for briefly waking up at 3am in the middle of some crazy dream that I can't remember at the moment.