my british tour diary

london is a big english-speaking city, so i couldn't help comparing it to new york. a handy guide for any visitors from one to the other:

leicester square = times square
oxford circus = broadway in soho
drummond street = curry row
notting hill = the gentrified parts of brooklyn
camden town = st. marks place
tate modern = moma
southhawk = queens when moma was there
the tube = the subway
double decker buses = single decker buses
the london eye = the wonder wheel at coney island
london bridge = the brooklyn bridge
chinatown = chinatown

british people are kind of agressively helpful.

denmark is totally different. there are palaces where there were snow piles, faces where there were scarves. everyone is outside. even more people are biking. tivoli is open and the flaming lips are playing there. i'm starting to understand why happy people might live in copenhagen.

smaack my cheese

i'm going to miss iceland. it's the most beautiful place i've ever been. there are mountains everywhere you look, and geysers, and craters. everything is designed in a cold but striking sort of way. everyone is an artist--in every cafe people are working on their laptops, or writing, or advertising their next show. louisa's cousin's hairdresser is also in a pretty well known band. i think it's called "har." the horses are really small and cute (but icelandic people get mad when you call them ponies). when they have to move a large rock to build something, a woman is called in to get the permission of the elves. on the other hand it's cold, and expensive, and people are kind of materialistic alcoholics. at the trendy bar in the hotel where louisa worked, she said men occassionally peed on their stools. the bar closes at midnight.

we went to kaffibarrin, a bar that might be owned by the lead singer of blur, last night. it closed at 12:30 for good friday (long friday here--the people we talked to found the idea of calling jesus' death "good" kind of ridiculous) even though no one in iceland is actually religious (except for the 10% that believe wholeheartedly in elves). i continued to not see bjork. we went to some guys' apartment where one of them played weird icelandic music while the other one lectured us on american politics. so we're going to london.

hidden people

accomodation review: london stansted airport. safety factor: surprisingly high, because about five hundred people a night are as cheap as i am and decide they would rather sleep on cold tile in a brightly lit building than pay for a hotel. comfort factor: low. there is no carpet in the waiting area. i could choose between a chair and the floor. i decided on floor. sometime in the middle of the night i woke up cold, sore, and smelling something sour. the sour smell turned out to be whiskey, spilled by the nice kids from seattle sleeping next to me. the cleaning people made us move, so i tried the chairs, but even at four in the morning people like to talk on their cellphones really loudly in spanish. so i gave up on sleep and read the quiet american.

from what people said about them, i expected ryanair planes to be made of wood and chartered by drunks. but the seats were made of something resembling leather and the crew even smiles at you when they wake you up and try to force you to buy shit. recommended.

i went to barcelona for two days. it was warm there. i don't want to talk about that anymore.

now i'm in iceland. it's sort of like the moon, but more expensive. luckily louisa is icelandic. icelandic guys wear suits and fedoras when they go out. they also believe in elves. louisa's fifteen year old cousin is cooler than i will ever be. i think she knows it too. tommorrow we might go see some volcanoes and geysers and things. if anyone wants a piece of lava let me know, because it's all over the place here.