Considering it’s exam prep season, I’m keeping up appearances rather well. And I think it actually helps with the concentration. I don’t know how people do 8-hour days in the library week in, week out. I am really thankful for my friends outside University, though – they know what it feels like to go through your finals and offer me support, advice and relaxation all the while keeping the distance that I probably need. For that I feel quite privileged. And it has helped with this strange feeling of chilled-out comfort that I’ve had for the past two days or so.
I went to a house party in Putney on Friday, which was fun, and my first time in the area. There were a lot of journo types there, and we had a nice conversation in the back garden about scary movies and stuff. It’s nice to be able to use the literature analysis skills I have, if only to keep up with the conversation. And boy was Putney posh. I’d taken the District Line over the river, listening intently to these two Finns heading home after work. Though there were some apartment blocks the big front gardens of most houses really told the story.
On Saturday I ended up braving the Finnish Students’ May Day Party, which was held a week earlier than it technically should have. A substantial group showed up, though to be fair a lot of them were young professionals, whose organisation had put together a picnic earlier in the day. Though I had to cough up a £5 entrance fee I think I had enough of the forageable food on offer to make up for it. As it happens, I ran into the same two Finns from the tube the night before. One of them told me that they admired “young Finnish people” who “stood for what they believed in,” probably meaning my programme of study differing from the norm. Which to be fair was true – most professionals I talked to at the party were somehow affiliated with the banking and finance industry. I still felt a little awkward, which characterised my feeling of the night. It really was hard to do small talk with Finns – even throwaway comments like hers seemed somehow… weird, as if there was some kind of insinuation behind it. Ah well, no matter. At least I got to talk to some of the people I had met earlier in the year but hadn’t had a chance to meet since. Turned out a lot of us are from the same part of town back in Finland. In the words of one guy, “I probably beat kids like you up at school”. Heh.
Sunday at work was maybe the quickest full-day shift ever. I managed to write a bit of my essay (due next Saturday) but ran behind on my reading target. Our revision session scheduled for after my shift kind of descended into sociological discussion so we headed home considering it was already 8pm. As, for some stupid reason, all the supermarkets close early on Sundays I needed to grab some food before bed. I settled on Chop Chop, the cheap noodle bar in Kings Cross, considering it’s kind of half way home. I ended up having these two American businessmen, Steve and Joe from Chicago, sit at my table. They asked me if I was “from around here” but I told them I wasn’t. That pretty much launched the conversation, during which I learned that they’d been on a bit of a weekend in Paris (with €300 dinners) and that married-and-father-of-two Joe, who looked somehow a bit like an older Lem from The Shield, had totally fallen in love with the Londoner girl (”who was… more beautiful than I expected of British girls”) sitting across from them. I let them know that considering they only had hand luggage they were best off just taking the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow and not bother with going to Paddington and grabbing the expensive train from there.
I kind of want to write Steve’s story for posterity, too: We were talking about Universities and how students in London live in shared houses. Steve, fifty-two, balding and with a bit of a paunch, commented, “yeah I remember it being strange to move on my own to Boston” or something similar, to which Joe said, “You were, like, eleven!”. Shrugging, Steve turned to me and said, “yeah, I skipped a couple of years in high school.”
I asked where he went to University in Boston, was it BU or Boston College. Actually, he’d gone to MIT, which I did think was pretty cool. By this point I was being offered their spring rolls (they had ordered a massive amount of food) and wine. I did accept, so we kept talking until Joe started looking a little like he needed to lie down rather soon. We spilled out onto the street (after they’d offered to pay my £6.60 bill “since you’re a student”, to which I said Oh come on I’ll pay my bill) and shook hands goodbye. I do hope that their company prospers and their “beautiful” newly-hired copy editor enjoys working for them.
It’s encounters like that, completely unexpected but very welcome, that I love about London. I love the energy and the buzz and the weird randomness. Yes, it takes energy to keep up with it, and if you’re feeling down the noise and the traffic and the effort that is required tread you down to the dirt. But if you can coast on the wave and feel the buzz, it’s a fantastic place to be.