An Ode to Londontown

Brick Lane Pizza - where hipsters go to die.

“By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show” - Samuel Johnson

Sing it, Sammy! I feel like a lot of my posts lately have been about mundane stuff like rental agreements and recruiter interviews. This post I will dedicate to why this city is so f-ing fantastic.

Saturday night I went out to dinner with a friend of Jess's to an area called Brick Lane which I am now obsessed with. It's full of great street food, amazing fruit and veg and antique markets on during the week - including a fresh cut flower market! It's a reconstructed manufacturing area that has now become a hot spot for night clubs and the like. It has a great mix of ethnic cultures and as a result GREAT ethnic food (lots of Bangladeshi people here so great curry!). Brick Lane is also a hot spot for fashion and design students so it's full of trendy looking folk. It's also home to some of the best graffiti in London, featuring the works of Banksy. Oh, and The Killers filmed a music video there.

Anyway the place we went for dinner, Brick Lane Pizza was awesome. The place is very rustic and new age in design. The decor is kind of what makes the place - the tables come in all shapes and sizes of re-purposed wood planks, the seats are renovated cardboard boxes, they have candles and antique leather chairs everywhere. In the back they just have a collection of real cool old school nic-nacs, mirrors, wooden beams strewn about. It felt like a bigger, more impressive version of Oddfellows in Toronto.

Anyway. it only serves pizza and wine (what more could you want) and your super-thin crust pizza (I had chorizo and pumpkin and it was amazing) is served on these wooden planks. The place was packed and dimly lit and would make a great date locale. Dinner and conversation was great - despite the fact that I got lost on the way there and was an hour late. Oops. Stupid London Transit. One minute I think I have you all figured out and the next minute you go and break my heart (and force me to take a bus. You know I feel about buses).

Friday night was also a ton of fun but much more drunken. Met up with another one of Jess' friends (who lives five minute away from our [hopefully] new flat) and a group of her friends at a bar called B@1 near Picadilly Circus. They had two-for-one drinks AGAIN (sorry Dad, when I said I wanted to move to London for cultural development and personal exploration I actually just meant 'two-for-one drinks'.) Anyway I had way too many long island ice teas before we moved to Ping Pong for dinner which served the most AMAZING dim sum. We hit up another bar and and then another (I can't remember the name of either of them) and then things get a little hazy but I do remember having amazing conversations and loving how thriving and lively this city is (read: loud and crowded). But whatever, I knew what I was getting into when I signed up so I can't really complain.

Yesterday my cousin Iain and I went on a long ass walk down the Thames and pub hopped. We stopped in the Bull's Head which is the gorgeous old pub with tons of old bottles and tiny little rooms to sit in and drink a pint. It was beautiful out and then all of a sudden it started to pour! I ended up going to Franca's Godfather's place for dinner earlier then expected to escape the torrential rain. We had dinner and wine and it was a most enjoyable way to spend a Sunday night.

Today I helped Franca go shopping for appropriate work attire (those patent leather booty shorts just won't do! Haha. She's going to be mad I wrote that.) This afternoon I had an interview with a recruiter which went well so we'll see if anything comes of that. And you'll NEVER guess where I am sitting right now. Not a Starbucks in fact, but some place south of the river in Parsons Green called Le Pain Quotidien. They're playing Beethoven and I am wearing a scarf and drinking a latte and I feel like a total poser douchebag.

Ah London, it really does change a person.

Alright friends I will keep you abreast (hehe) of any updates. I love and miss you all and glad that you're still reading.

Cheers,

Patsy xoxo