Sleepy Suffolk

The London City

With Kai's departure to London at the end of last month, Mario's arrival couldn't have been timelier. Mario? Who's Mario? Well let's jump back in time some nine years to summer of 1998. At the time, I went over to sunny Mexico for a month and stayed in a family - Mario's family to be precise.

And now, nearly a decade later, it's my turn to welcome Mario into my «family», i.e. my fellow German roommates. Goodbye kartofen, hello hello pimiento! Guten tag y comó estás?

Mario landed on Saturday in London after a tiresome ten-hour flight from Mexico DF (Federal District) and had to struggle his way through Immigration as her Majesty's subjects were not so keen on letting a pulque-drinking, tortilla devouring man on British soil. To be fair with the Immigration officers, Mario had forgotten my details back home and couldn't provide. A fifteen-minute interview between a charming lady and myself soon resolved the issue and moments later, a few minutes shy of 3PM, Mario came strolling through the opaque automatic glass doors into the airport arrivals hall.

From there on, we kick-started a wild tourism chase through London, its parks and monuments scorning the rain, taxis and wild bus drivers.We eventually ended up a few yards away from Nelson Square, in a British pub, where Mario enjoyed his first pie (chicken 'n bacon) along a pintful of cold refreshing French beer. French beer? Well yes, French beer. Ale will have to wait for its own turn. And a pint of Nelson's Revenge might have been quite a shocker after a nearly sleepless night.

To be continued...

Saint Paul at dawn, reflecting upon the Salvation Army, Saturday Oct. 7^th 2006

London Bridge is falling down? What of Saint Paul? It nearly entirely burnt down during the Great Fire of 1666. But survived nonetheless.

In this snapshot, however, it does seems Doomsday has arrived as the majestic cupola slants downwards in the eerie reflection on the façade of the Salvation Army's glass-walled building. It was about 8AM when I took the picture, the sun was slowly rising above the Thames, eclipsing Tower Bridge. Not a soul was to be seen in the empty streets of the City and the Millenium Bridge had but company, the relentless waves of the Thames incoming tide.

They put me high up as if my spirits needed an extra lift. Eleven floors, some 40-odd meters, and a view over south-eastern London. I can make out all four chimney stacks of the old Battersea power plant. The sky is a crisp blue, this distinct cold hue of fall afternoons, a premonition of the ominous winter.

It's not my first time in this part of London. As a matter it's been exactly a year since I first discovered what even the most cautious observer would dub Franceville. The clean, wide avenues, lined with tall four-storey-high white houses, make way for many a Frenchman: students going to the nearby lycee, or perhaps diplomats jogging to the neighboring consulate.

South Kensington seems to be cut off the rest of the world, not unlike a remote island in a vast ocean with sole link to the outer world the underground. It takes but two stations to reach the outskirts of this monde à part and return to Tottenham Court, Victoria, or the banks of the lazy Thames.

It is now night. I'm afraid my cellphone can't quite grasp the essence of the darkness. I've still given it a shot - pun aside.