London Calling
I had been writing a fairly long journal entry about once a week, usually posting it on Thursday. I realized that I should be writing shorter journal entries and posting more often. So I wrote an entry the next Tuesday with the intention of writing another one later on that week. Two and half weeks later I am writing my next one. But now I have so much to write about that I should write quite a few in a short time.
Anarchy in the U.K.
Last weekend I took a trip to London with Norah and Wylie. We were going to go to a London club for a halloween party and stay at Wylie's friend John's place-someone she knew from when she lived in London before. I had to leave late because I had class, so when I got into London I headed for John's place. Much to my surprise, John was squatting. You may be wondering why I was surprised that John was squatting, or why I even chose to mention it. If this is the case, then let me clarify: John lives in a flat that he does not own or rent from someone, he, along with two other residents, is a squatter. He lives in an abandoned, yet still owned house. At first I was naturally (although not visibly) taken aback, but within a few minutes I was cool with the idea. I now find the whole squatting culture fascinating. I bombarded him with questions, trying to learn more about it.
I will now relay some of the things I have since learned about squatting:
• Squatting is not illegal, only breaking into the house is. (I still haven't made complete sense of this)
• Many of the squat owners (as in John's case) are aware of the squatters.
• The signs to look for when scouting potential squats are an overflowing mailbox, unkempt front lawn, a lack of lights on at any time (all obvious I suppose).
• Squatters still have all their utilities just as long as they pay the bill.
• Some squats look like shit (it's hard to motivate yourself to repair stuff, when you may lose your residence status at any time) and some are indistinguishable from any other residence. As far as I can tell, the bedrooms are not very different from any other bedroom, it's not just a few filthy mattresses laid out in a rat infested room.
• Although John has only been in the squat for about a year, it has been a squat for ten years.
• Most squatters hold down normal jobs-they are, contrary to popular opinion, not usually drug dealers-to pay for their expenses.
• Although most squatters are not drug dealers, drug use (not necessarily abuse) is a relatively common part of squat culture.
These are to the best of my knowledge (which is limited) true. Although I can only make suppositions about drug use and overall squat conditions.
People Are Supposed to Dress Up for Halloween
Before getting ready for our Halloween Party/Rave we walked down to the local market where they have stalls and stalls and stalls of cheap fresh produce and I am insanely jealous. We buy ridiculous amounts of fresh vegetables for little cost and head back to John's where he cooks us a fantastic vegan (I think) meal.
Then we donned our costumes. (Click to picture to enlarge) If it's not obvious Wylie (left) and Norah (right) were pirates. If you can't figure out what John and I were, just shoot yourself. All of my makeup was done by myself (with some later touchups in photoshop, although they were just on the ears and around the collar). I knew all those theater performances would pay off somehow. Then we headed out, getting a fair amount of turned heads on the way, as it was Friday and Halloween was Monday, so we were probably the first people anyone had seen dressed up. We we not surprised to see no one else dressed up as we were walking around London. But when we arrived at the Monster Halloween Rave II we were understandably upset to see that only one of 10 or 20 people had dressed up. Come on people, the flyer said "dress to distress." Assholes. It was a very fun night of dancing and good music, although it would have been nice if there was a place where you could actually talk. There were two rooms: one was insanely loud; the other was slightly less loud, but you felt like your makeup would sweat off after 10 minutes of sitting. We didn't leave until 4:30 or so and didn't get to sleep until 6.
Being a Tourist in London for the Third Time in Five Months
Waking up at around one, we grabbed some food and headed out for a (half) day on the town. We went to the Tate Modern, an art museum, and saw the installation (pictured)
which was a bunch of plastic boxes stacked and piled together. To see kids running around in the space, a plastic box wonderland, with such joy and amazement was heartwarming. Then we wandered/got lost walking around London. That's what I get for confusing Covent Garden with Russell Square. We ate at a great vegetarian restaurant that both Wylie and I had in mind, although neither of us knew we were talking about the same place, until we arrived. Synchronicity. That gave us a chance to rest and stop being disgruntled. Deciding that there was no way we could go to another party that night (this one would have been a squat party) we decided to head back into Norwich. After the two hour train ride we got back around 12:30 and had to make our way with our luggage through the throngs of drunken college students out on a saturday night.
As I laid down to sleep, I noticed that there is little difference between my bed and the mattress I had slept on the night before-John's bed (which Norah, Wylie and John slept on) rivals the quality of my queen-size back home-and I started to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of squatting in Norwich.
Anarchy in the U.K.
Last weekend I took a trip to London with Norah and Wylie. We were going to go to a London club for a halloween party and stay at Wylie's friend John's place-someone she knew from when she lived in London before. I had to leave late because I had class, so when I got into London I headed for John's place. Much to my surprise, John was squatting. You may be wondering why I was surprised that John was squatting, or why I even chose to mention it. If this is the case, then let me clarify: John lives in a flat that he does not own or rent from someone, he, along with two other residents, is a squatter. He lives in an abandoned, yet still owned house. At first I was naturally (although not visibly) taken aback, but within a few minutes I was cool with the idea. I now find the whole squatting culture fascinating. I bombarded him with questions, trying to learn more about it.
I will now relay some of the things I have since learned about squatting:
• Squatting is not illegal, only breaking into the house is. (I still haven't made complete sense of this)
• Many of the squat owners (as in John's case) are aware of the squatters.
• The signs to look for when scouting potential squats are an overflowing mailbox, unkempt front lawn, a lack of lights on at any time (all obvious I suppose).
• Squatters still have all their utilities just as long as they pay the bill.
• Some squats look like shit (it's hard to motivate yourself to repair stuff, when you may lose your residence status at any time) and some are indistinguishable from any other residence. As far as I can tell, the bedrooms are not very different from any other bedroom, it's not just a few filthy mattresses laid out in a rat infested room.
• Although John has only been in the squat for about a year, it has been a squat for ten years.
• Most squatters hold down normal jobs-they are, contrary to popular opinion, not usually drug dealers-to pay for their expenses.
• Although most squatters are not drug dealers, drug use (not necessarily abuse) is a relatively common part of squat culture.
These are to the best of my knowledge (which is limited) true. Although I can only make suppositions about drug use and overall squat conditions.
People Are Supposed to Dress Up for Halloween
Before getting ready for our Halloween Party/Rave we walked down to the local market where they have stalls and stalls and stalls of cheap fresh produce and I am insanely jealous. We buy ridiculous amounts of fresh vegetables for little cost and head back to John's where he cooks us a fantastic vegan (I think) meal.
Then we donned our costumes. (Click to picture to enlarge) If it's not obvious Wylie (left) and Norah (right) were pirates. If you can't figure out what John and I were, just shoot yourself. All of my makeup was done by myself (with some later touchups in photoshop, although they were just on the ears and around the collar). I knew all those theater performances would pay off somehow. Then we headed out, getting a fair amount of turned heads on the way, as it was Friday and Halloween was Monday, so we were probably the first people anyone had seen dressed up. We we not surprised to see no one else dressed up as we were walking around London. But when we arrived at the Monster Halloween Rave II we were understandably upset to see that only one of 10 or 20 people had dressed up. Come on people, the flyer said "dress to distress." Assholes. It was a very fun night of dancing and good music, although it would have been nice if there was a place where you could actually talk. There were two rooms: one was insanely loud; the other was slightly less loud, but you felt like your makeup would sweat off after 10 minutes of sitting. We didn't leave until 4:30 or so and didn't get to sleep until 6.
Being a Tourist in London for the Third Time in Five Months
Waking up at around one, we grabbed some food and headed out for a (half) day on the town. We went to the Tate Modern, an art museum, and saw the installation (pictured)
which was a bunch of plastic boxes stacked and piled together. To see kids running around in the space, a plastic box wonderland, with such joy and amazement was heartwarming. Then we wandered/got lost walking around London. That's what I get for confusing Covent Garden with Russell Square. We ate at a great vegetarian restaurant that both Wylie and I had in mind, although neither of us knew we were talking about the same place, until we arrived. Synchronicity. That gave us a chance to rest and stop being disgruntled. Deciding that there was no way we could go to another party that night (this one would have been a squat party) we decided to head back into Norwich. After the two hour train ride we got back around 12:30 and had to make our way with our luggage through the throngs of drunken college students out on a saturday night.
As I laid down to sleep, I noticed that there is little difference between my bed and the mattress I had slept on the night before-John's bed (which Norah, Wylie and John slept on) rivals the quality of my queen-size back home-and I started to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of squatting in Norwich.