"Captain we've landed the triquarter says that the air is breathable and the water potable but still I sense something strange..." We feel as if we are the Portland away team in London. The Way to Eden episode of Star Trek is almost autobiographical to our experience in some ways Gregory is Chekov, Nate is Spock and I am definitely Kurk.
London has people from EVERYWHERE on every street corner of the city. Only about 45% of Londoners are actually British. It is wonderful. Londoners know Beth Ditto as the media Portland reference not Portlandia. Those who have been to Portland, like the man we meet in Whole Foods (which is far inferior to the stores we have) talked as if it is Eden, because Portland is really. Our beer is better than London, our coffee, our books, and our air, and our water. The people in London is what makes London a really exciting place to be. The beer isn't terrible like some places but it is expensive and well prepared food can be too. Transit will cost you more than $300 a month just to get around.
Busking in London is a bit like playing hide and seek with really spoiled children in the group. Many areas it is completely legal and even supported by the businesses and locals but it takes only one security guard or cop having a crappy day to want to "move you on" some where else. In less than 2 hours in Camden we were asked to leave one stop and told a better one near by and then asked to move again by a different authority (working for the same thing) back to the original spot we'd picked. Here we are playing just off Camden High Street. No one knows the laws or cares maybe, and the advice other buskers have given is don't fight for it even if you are in the right because they can nick you and take your instruments. A lad named Chris from Ireland had his guitar taken and had to borrow 50 quid to get it out for playing in what someone thought was the wrong area of South Bank when actually he was in the legal zone. It is privately owned but there are public not private owned areas and though Chris was following the letter of the law an asshat decided to ruin his day and potentially his life for a while. If Chris had not found a kind person to lend him the funds to retrieve his one way of making a living he could have gone with out food by the end of the week.
At the same time that these areas will want buskers to "move on" they benefit from the tourists coming to the area to see the buskers. They let coupon passing and sign holding husslers bother people all day but often pick on the very artists they need to thrive. Luckily the response we've received has been really overwhelmingly positive both from the stall businesses and patrons in Camden and the passersby in South Bank but always looming in the back of one's mind is whether or not the next "authority" figure who doesn't know what the hell is going on will come over and "move us along" just because he can and because he has no other power in life.
We've made decent money busking when we are allowed to be in spot for a while and have met wonderful very encouraging people who are becoming good friends. London is a very expensive place in some ways. It's not as scary as we were originally led to believe but perhaps those folks only stayed in Central London and didn't get out the boroughs where people actually live. We're in South Harrow which seems a primarily Indian neighborhood though our hosts are from Sri Lanka by way of a 25 year stint in Germany. They are a wonderful family headed by a positive warm pleasant mother who is always laughing. Near to us are stops where brand new beautiful temple competes with line after line of saree and lengha shops with food stalls in between. Needless to say Bianka has found her fashion Shangra la for only 10 British pounds.
The city is filled with many wonders and strange things that would take a lifetime to see but here we do not mean the tourist attractions in a guidebook one might read. Nate is working in High Barnet by day and yesterday played football (soccer) with the German students he is teaching English. He takes the children around to all the "tourist" attractions in London as part of his work so he'll be able to report back if any of them are truly worth the crowds. We've been in London for eight days now. We seem to be as much a tourist attraction as nearly anything else on the street. At least 5 times a day we are asked in strongly accented English "may we take a photo with you" and usually they don't wait for an answer and usually expect us to stop whatever we are doing for the photo opportunity as if we are some sort of paid ambassadors but such is the way of most tourist spots in the world.
Recently Bianka discovered the true origin of punk rock hair. Not a style rebellion against the norms as previously believed but a carefully construed blend of too much time on the London Underground and not immediately bathing. No styling gel can compare to just one evenings lack of vigilance against the grime. Turns out punks were just not keen bathers and really who wouldn't want to shave off various chunks of locks imbued with city slime and dirt rather than touch it. Every Londoner would have punk rock hair in a week if they just stopped shampooing.
Gregory keeps exploring British Pubs as if to report back to the Tardis to store coordinates for to places to shelter from peak time travels.
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