London Pride

June 3 was London's Pride March and celebration. I've never been able to get to a Pride event in Halifax because of working in Antigonish during the summer, so this was one hellava first! I didn't see the march, but ended up in Trafalgar Square among wonderful people who were thoroughly enjoying the day celebrating people of all stripes and strokes.


Uniformed cuties :)

My former flatmate Richard is a drag queen, and I'd never seen him all done up as Kylie Z'ass. I got to the square and called him to find out where he was. The instructions to 'look for the glittery queen with blond hair' at a Pride event were quite useless, so we shouted back and forth on our mobiles until we found each other. Thus began the day of being asked every two minutes if someone could get a picture. We met up with Richard's friend, Sean/Noleen Colan, and with Sean's partner the four of us tried to get up the street to a bar. It took literally 20 minutes to go three blocks with all the pictures!


The incomparable Kylie Z'ass.

Once at the venue, which I can't remember the name of, Kylie and Noleen crashed the act onstage.


I think this was during 'Proud Mary'...

After watching the cabaret show for a while, we headed back down to another bar right across from the square for more cabaret. On the way we stopped for more pictures:


Noleen, Kylie and two lovely police officers


Two queens with the Queen.

The cabaret was amazing, the place was packed and I had beer spilled all over me. A great end to a great day.

CANADA DAY!!!

Hands down, this was the best July 1 celebration I've ever had! Trafalgar Square was taken over by a crowd of red and white wearing Canucks, and I joined some friends I'd met from SWAP there for the day. Well, sort of. There was a good deal of bar-hopping thrown in as well! We roamed around the square for a while, then wandered over to the Canadian High Commission next to the square, where PETA was protesting the seal hunt. I wish I had taken a picture, but I was carrying what looked like a leather bag and I didn't want to give them reason to attack me with flour or some other idiotic thing that they are known to do... A description shall have to suffice. They had a table set up, slanted forward slightly, with two red strips of colour on the outside, imitating the Canadian flag. In the middle, replacing the maple leaf, was a woman in pasties and a bikini bottom, covered in a red paint-like substance that dripped down to suggest blood. I guess she was pretending to be the seal. Two women stood on either side of the table with signs that said something to the effect of 'Don't go to Canada this summer, they kill widdle baby seals!' This set me off on a PETA rant right in front of them that had something to do with the fact that so many of their ads and protests objectify women's bodies for the sake of saving animals and that I thought they were idiots, but thankfully they didn't throw any leftover paint at me.

After viewing the PETA display we spent a few hours at The Maple Leaf, which is a Canadian-themed bar near Covent Garden. It was already packed -- I think the locals were confused by the presence of bouncers at the door at noon and rowdy Canadians going in and out (one Brit stopped us and asked, 'Is this, like, National Canada Day or something?') It was just so great. Everyone was happy and completely willing to talk to complete strangers, simply because we were all from the same country. I think it was my favourite Canada Day so far because we were all excited about being able to unite over our country while away from it. Felt like that to me anyway. It was awesome. Anyway, because of the happiness (inspired, I'm sure, by booze at least as much as patriotism) everyone was in a great mood. We stole a few people away from their tables and took them back to Trafalgar Square, where they were serving POUTINE! Delish. The exchange between me and the British chick dishing up the poutine went something like this:

Me: 'Could you put a bit more gravy on that, please?'
Chick: 'Sniff. You don't want it too soggy, you know.'
Me: (thinking) 'Hon, I actually eat this stuff. Trust me, it's not too soggy. I want more gravy! Please.'

A Tim Hortons stand was also in operation, and although the coffee tasted exactly the same as the nasty stuff at home... it was the best tasting nasty taste of home ever. And a Timmies Bostom Cream donut. Bliss.

Music got under way later in the day, and the highlights for me were seeing Hawksley Workman and Jully Black. That woman is fierce!

The day ended, sadly, without fireworks, but with what I can only describe as a cute attempt to create a maple leaf out of people on the ground. Security was not amused. It was awesome.

Here are the pictures...


The Maple Leaf decked out for Canada Day


Us with two random guys we picked up


Us again with the two random guys and a random girl we picked up!


Matt (in the middle) is American but we dubbed him an honourary Canadian for the day - especially since he wore the closest thing to a red shirt he owned.


Timmie's coffee!


Canada House, one of the locations of the Canadian High Commission, is right beside Trafalgar Square.


That's how many people were in the lower part of the square. Just the lower part. And look - Mounties! (Or people cunningly dressed as Mounties.)


Hawksley!


Jully!


The sort-of maple leaf on the ground as security bellows at us to leave.

What to do when broke...

So other than some events that I will post separately, this update isn't very exciting. I had work for three weeks shortly after I got here, and after that my luck ran out. I spent three weeks calling temp agencies without any success, and since there was no money coming in, I tried very hard to curb the money going out, which means I spent a lot of fun but uneventful nights with friends either at home or at a pub nursing one or two drinks. Basically, my £5 limit nights aren't much to blog about! I don't see this as a particularly bad thing though. I am having fun, even if it's cheap fun, meeting new friends and looking into ways to get out of the house (museums are free!) so as not to go crazy. Trying to keep positive and just enjoy being here. And for the most part, it's working.

Scissor Sisters

Last week I realized one of my favourite bands would be in London, and since I could literally just take a short bus ride to the venue instead of, say, flying to Toronto as I'd probably have to do in Halifax, I immediately got tickets for SCISSOR SISTERS!!!!


Photo credit: someone who can take better show photos than I can

My housemate Richard went with me. And I think we were literally the only people who dressed up! This was us, amid a sea of golf shirts and jeans. Boooo!



I mean, really! Look at them. How could you NOT dress up?



Anyway, we had a fantastic time. I think I still have claw marks from Richard's first glimpse of Jake Shears from 30 feet away! Since my cell phone camera is crap, I didn't get any good pictures of the act, but it was incredible. They're actually way better live than recorded - my ears are still ringing. And I will never, ever, ever, EVER ever wear heels to a concert again... but such a great night.

Everything up to now

A lot has happened in three weeks! I found a place to live, have a temp job (for one more week, then scrambling again for work, woohoo) and am settling in pretty well. Here's what happened between the last post and now...

Les Misérables
!!!!!!!!!!! After 10 years of being in love with the music and thinking 'someday I'd really love to see this show' I got to see the show! I met an American named Matt at the hostel who wanted to check out west London on his last day in the city, so we went exploring together and decided to see a show. It was awesome.



Greenwich
I spent a lot of time with a woman named Julia from Germany while in the hostel, and one weekend we decided to look around Greenwich.


We walked along the Thames to get there in a roundabout way. It was a HOT day - I got my first sunburn of the year.


The Royal Naval College.


Taking a break in the shade.


Our mission: to reach the top of the hill without passing out! There were hundreds, if not thousands of bright white Brits out sunning themselves all over the hill. There was also an ice cream stand at the bottom of the hill, and it was only when we'd reached the front of the line that they mentioned they were out of ice cream. I almost cried.


Mission accomplished! From here we could see the Naval College and the London skyline. There was another ice cream stand at the top, and again we stood in line only to have our ice cream hopes dashed. But the view was so lovely we didn't care.


One foot in the east and one in the west - straddling the Meridian line.

All in all a great day. We did eventually find ice cream too.

Highland Games and Strongman Competition
I'd never actually been to the Highland Games in Antigonish, despite having worked there for 3 summers, so this was a first for me. My landlord, Katharine, was going with her friends and brought me along. Again it was a hot sunny day, perfect for sitting under an umbrella with live entertainment. Oh, and eating. Lots of eating.


The opening ceremony. The guy to the left was the event host, and he just kept getting drunker and drunker as the day went on. It was hysterical...




The Highland Games competitors.


The Strongmen.


The 'other' band... they were actually very good, but... ok, picture a pipe and drum group that wants to evoke that sort of 'wild spirit of Scotland' vibe. Then take 5 people with tattoos, shirts from the Gap and kilts made from the same discount plaid from the local department store. Add strategically place faux dead animal pelts and a road manager with a mullet who hawked their musical wares up and down the field. But yes, they were very good :)


New picture-taking strategy: stand next to a Strongman! They were really sweet actually, everyone flooded them for photo ops and you could tell they were absolutely spent but they dutifully lifted kids up on their shoulders and signed autographs. Iceland kindly posed for a picture with me.

London Tour part IV

Westminster Abbey.


I think this is part of the Parliament building.


Definitely the Parliament building. Of course we heard the story about Guy Fawkes and all I could think of was the scene in V for Vendetta where the train crashes through the building and how one might go about filming that!


More random Parliament building shots.


And again.

And that was the tour! Sorry for the forgotten bits - if I had to make my living as a tour guide after obtaining my useless arts degree, well, I'd starve ;)

Lond Tour part III

Big Ben clock tower. I learned that Big Ben is the name of the bell, not the tower itself.


Argh... this is what happens when you post pictures two weeks after the fact! It's the London Eye in the background, but I can't remember what's in the foreground.


I'm just gonna start making up names for stuff. This is an alternate entrance to Buckingham Palace.


This one I know - Trafalgar Square! I found this again today by accident and had an hour-long chat with some random British guy who plunked himself down next to me and started talking. All I had to do was nod and smile. It was awesome.


Nelson's Column in the middle of the square honouring Admiral Nelson. It's surrounded by four statues of lions that were carved by looking at the head of a dead lion and the body of a dog. Ah, trivia.

London Tour part II

Bad side shot of Buckingham Palace during the Changing of the Guard. There were hundreds of people in the way of a better shot!


Our tour guide with the palace in the background.


Red phone booths!


A very prestigious "gentleman's club" with a 15 year waitlist. I'll just go to the next pub, thanks.


Bah, what was this building? A former home of a member of the royal family - it also used to be a mental hospital, I believe. Or maybe I'm inventing history. In any case, it had good little booths for photos!

London Tour!

On my second day in London I went on a walking tour of the city. We hit a lot of the big places like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc. Our tour guide, who is probably a huge fan of Eddie Izzard, was hilarious and kept going on about how he has a degree in English Literature from a prestigious university and is now doing guided tours for a living, then asked everyone in the group who else had a useless arts degree. It was a brief moment of solidarity among the few of us who sheepishly raised our hands.

Anyway, on with the pictures. It appears this blog format will only allow 5 pictures in one post, so there will be a few posts just about this trip:


These elephant pieces are everywhere in London. It's part of a campaign to raise awareness that there are very few elephants left in the world. At the end of the awareness part of the campaign they'll be sold to raise money, presumably for elephant... conservation? Protection? Anyway, it's a cool idea. No elephant is alike, and there are a LOT of them. Kind of like the mermaids in Halifax, but actually cool.


This just amused me. I didn't open it to see if people follow the rules.


A statue of Wellington, who I'm quickly learning was great soldier material but lousy politician material. He still gets a statue though. I'm lousy politician material - I want a statue!

Some great edifice, the significance of which I don't remember at the moment. I think there's a bigger one of these in France. It's late, I'll do a google search later...


Me in front of mounted officials of some description. The Changing of the Guard was happening just up the road, so they may have been part of that. Pic by Matt from San Diego.

To be continued...