Day Free

Third Day aka Day Free

My friend Robin has been living in London for about a year now and today we got together and had ourselves quite the adventure.

Our plan was to go to Brick Lane and wander around. We met at Liverpool station around 1pm which is coffee time for me.

Thus far I have had great difficulties ordering coffee in the UK. All I want is a medium-sized medium-roast drip-coffee. Simple? No. Usually they ask me if I want an Americano. I’m not sure if this is because of my accent or that most people don’t order regular coffee. They ask me, ‘a filter coffee?’ Ya sure. Then there’s the confusion around black or white? See in the UK you don’t get to put your own milk in. I suppose it’s very Western of me to want total freedom and control over my coffee while having others prepare most of it for me... but I digress... at this coffee shop I was able to fairly simply order my coffee and when it came time to pay, the sweet boy behind the counter said ‘for free.” And so the wheel was set in motion.

We wandered through what I would call the ‘hipster’ part of London. Beautiful and stylish young people everywhere with their tight pants, interesting hair, and fixed gear bikes. We walked through clothing stores, record stores and a lovely design show- all for free! Ok no big surprise there.

Robin had read in TimeOut that there was an interesting play called ‘Helium’ playing at the Barbican Centre- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbican_Centre - which is quite an impressive arts centre. We tried to get tickets but it was all sold out, however there was a chance we could get ‘return’ tickets aka no-show/ wait-list. So, we hung out and poked around the Barbican for the meanwhile. Wandering the gardens above I noticed a jacket laying on a bench, no one was around, it looked like it would fit Robin and so Free Day item number two was acquired. Right after Robin said ‘I hope this jacket doesn’t have AIDS.” This comment still amuses me.

Helium, the play we wanted to see, is a site specific, multimedia, one person at a time kinda show - info here http://www.barbican.org.uk/news/artformnews/theatredance/helium - we checked in with the box office before curtain time to see if there were any tickets and were told to wait around. Eventually spots became available as people didn’t show up for their alloted time and without a mention of purchase (from the performers whom we told we were waiting to try to get tickets) we were whisked into the performance. Free day item three, the biggest and most awesome one as it would have cost 10 pounds ($20).

Afterward we went out for dinner, where we briefly considered getting a bottle of wine but at 25 British Pounds (aka $50) I opted out since a) holy crap expensive! and b) I’m actually not wanting to drink much these days. Why not? Well, it’s all in vanity; an attempt to avoid gaining weight while I sit around and write all day as soon as I start my course.

After dinner we went to some bar Robin enjoys for a night called Sex.. something I can't remember. Which I thought was quite fitting since my favorite DJs in Vancouver is this group called Sex Attack.

There we saw three very different bands. The first was geeky guy with his MacBook. I guess you could call it a band: his computer played the beats and for like 45 seconds a song the guy would sing from the bottom of his muffin top, then go back to crouching and pretending to be doing something with his computer. LAME.

The second band was this skinny tie, Ray Ban sunglassed, band that sounded like The Clash meets surf rock. They were ok, mostly generic party rock, but they needed more stage presence (this is a critique I will always give bands- probably because I went to theatre school and spent years judging others performances).

The third band was crazy. Crazy and crazy good. I remember seeing the band hanging out before their show. The drummer and guitarist were these grungy skinny, emo blokes with the saddest expressions on their faces. They looked so sad and depressed in this bar on a happy Saturday night that their expression was comical. Well, I laughed at their expressed misery. But onstage they were Shinny Happy People - who were emo/ goth. The cherry on top was their crazy singer who managed to embody both cute and manic like an adorable Joan Jett meets Courtney Love. She would flail herself into the audience, with her long microphone chord wrapped around her neck, embracing guys faces, sliding to the ground then contortion-like back bending to the floor. I was scared and captivated. Robin loved it.

Oh and free day item number four- we found a heart shaped ring on the banister at the bar. Finders keepers. (plus no one came buy to look for it- so it wasn’t missed).

Around midnight I decided to head home. Now nearly 5 hours later I am still up. Ugh. Yay Jetlag! I guess that’s something I got for free today too.