Day 10

Monday March 1

Mark:

On the phone to the shop and very little resistance is met. They will send a van to pick up the basses and, once they’re happy we’ve not damaged them in any way, a full refund will be issued. OK. Fair enough.

We ‘celebrate’ Maja’s last night of quarantine and anticipate tomorrow’s London odyssey by ordering in pizza and going for what has become a real treat. Takeout cocktail bags from Ladies And Gents, the underground toilet cocktail bar in Ktown. Basically, they give you six cocktail measures in a large sealed plastic bag, and in another bag, you have the little bits of dried, seasoned fruit they would put in them. Then at home you put them together yourself. This is all a perfect accompaniment for our second attempt at watching any kind of TV – Maja’s favourite – Doctor Who. We get 20 minutes in and give up. It seems TV really doesn’t work for us.

Maja:

I’ve really, really looked forward to watching Doctor Who, because I haven’t been able to watch the latest seasons in Sweden. No streaming service owns the rights to it in Sweden right now. So when it comes to things I want to watch here, Doctor Who is my highest priority. But we just can’t seem to focus. 

Come on Mark. You’re just too much fun to be with. How are we ever going to get anything done?

Day 11

Tuesday March 2

Maja:

What a beautiful day. At least I think so, I haven’t really been able to compare the days to anything, being in self isolation since arrival. I wake up energetic and positive, sending a text to Mark, “Good morning, I’m up now!”. He is already awake waiting on me. Today is the day we’ve been looking forward to, it’s the day of the non-quarantine life starting! I’m quick about showering and getting dressed, since I really wish to get out as soon as I possibly can. And I am going to experience London today.

Shoes are located, and they almost look dusty from not having been used in ages. Or as dusty objects untouched for 10 days get. 

  • Mark, I’m ready to go now!
  • How do you feel, for your first London walk?
  • It’s amazing. Come on, let’s go now!!!

I got my key a couple of days ago, and now for the first time I walk up the staircase and put the key in the keyhole and open up the door to lockdown London. My London. My mood rises even higher as I step out the door, and take a deep breath of the outside air. It tastes like freedom. I grab Mark by the hand, use my other arm to point in a vague direction of the town.

  • Today, I want to go in that direction.
  • Sure, today, you lead the way.

I’ve never been in London, and don’t even have the slightest of concept of where things are, but that doesn’t matter. When I get to a new place, I like to just wander and see things as they come. I’ve done it so many times, in cities all over the world, at times alone, at times with someone else. One of my favorite things to do as a tourist is to go on the underground to a station somewhere and when I get up from the station I just go in whatever direction seems the most interesting. One thing I am careful with doing this, is not to read any direction signs or definately not any maps, since that is going to reduce the amount of surprises I get. If you are going to do the touristing in a Maja way, avoid maps and signs and just go. I recommend it, you might find something you otherwise would never find if you only go for the big attractions. But if you do it like this, you might miss all of the big attractions though. 

So off me and Mark go. In that direction. It is sunny but cold outside, a wonderful spring day. We find ourselves getting back to the Kentish Town area, where a lot of people are walking around. Many of them wear face masks. I find Kentish Town a bit too busy and crowded. And it is all filled with strange people. People who look old. And scary. I’m not that fond of the place, and I can’t really understand the depth of the wrinkles in people’s faces. How can they look so worn out and old?

We walk into Kentish town, where there is this huge bridge, and I take a sharp left turn, walking onto a smaller, calmer street. It’s nice to walk in the calmer areas and I am fond of how the air feels a little bit easier to breathe and there aren’t as many strange people to look at anymore. Being in crowds makes me feel a little bit suffocated, especially right now. So it is perfect that I am experiencing lockdown London, and not full on tourist London. I am needing a little time to adapt. 

The town has turned into a little cute residential area, where just after walking a little while I can see Mark shine up like a little excited tomato. 

  • This is the first real apartment I lived in when I moved to London. 

He points me to an apartment complex. It’s cool that the first place I manage to find is his first apartment. And it isn’t really in a place you pass by that often. Mark stops by the local store next to the apartment to buy some fizzy water. I wait outside not to crowd the store, and as I peek in I can see him searching for something. It takes quite a while but soon enough he comes out with 2 bottles of fizzy water and some chocolate. Galaxy coins in a bag. I love that chocolate, Galaxy. It has rapidly become my new favorite chocolate. And he also brought us a crunchie bar. 

  • I know this chocolate! My friend bought it for me once, when I was young. It’s really good and tastes like caramel, right? I saw you looking around in the store a lot, what did you search for?
  • Oh, they didn’t have it. I’m going to buy it for you later. 

I’m happy with what we got and enjoy my chocolate and fizzy water breakfast, continuing down the road to wherever. 

We walk around a lot of smaller residential areas as I keep turning around at unpredictable times, but I think we are getting ourselves closer to London. Mark has promised me that he won’t tell me any directions. Today it is I who takes him around London, not the other way around. We get to a little open cafe where they have moved the cashier to the entrance door, so you are able to buy a drink for take away. I buy myself a latte and Mark goes for tea, of course. Like the incurable Englishman he is. 

Mark:

While we’re choosing and paying for our drinks, I have a little casual chat with the staff. Just the kind of little pleasant exchanges that happen in places like this. And I tell them we’re off out experiencing Maja’s first day in London and that this is her first coffee shop. As we walk away, Maja again reacts to this. ‘You really do talk to each other here,’ she says. Yes we do. I guess it’s in these little differences that you know you’re in another country. That and the bridge right in front of us which has ‘CAMDEN TOWN’ painted all over it.

Maja:

We take our drinks and continue along, and I see Mark kind of squeaking when he realises where we are. I lead us on a little road that doesn’t look that special, but on the left side of the road there is a little shop that Mark takes interest in. I go closer and realise I’ve found my way to the bass gallery. The famous bass gallery is just here. In front of me. When I’m just casually walking around, expecting to find nothing. Wow. Just amazing. It is closed of course, we’re in lockdown London, there are no stores open here. Expect pharmacies and food stores. We stand outside the store for a while, pointing at the different basses that we’ve looked at online. I really wish the place was open. Oh well, there’s no point in hanging around here for too long. We continue along, into Camden Town. 

Camden Town, oh my what a place, and I have BigNIC to show me around. BigNIC stands for, Big Name In Camden. 

Mark:

I was given this very flattering name in my first year in London by the bar staff at The Oxford. 

Maja:

He is known in every bar, every club. The kind of guy that just can go anywhere and always have people to talk to. Mark really knows his way around here. The town of the crazies. With a neverending nightlife. Everything is closed, of course, and it is really eerie on the streets. When all the cool people have retired to their fancy houses in the countryside or other countries even, it is only the crazies left. The people I wouldn’t really like to talk to, but they just keep on chatting to Mark. The place has a rundown feel to it, it isn’t really that nice right now. All bars, if you look into the windows even the chairs are put away. There’s nothing there. At times even the windows are barricaded shut with wooden boards. It’s a sad sight. This once very lively ghosttown.

We walk around Camden, and get to a big building site at the edge of Camden, so instead of going there I choose to turn around on a little street, which just leads me right back to where I started. So we get to see a little more of this town of the crazies. One thing I quickly notice is that Amy Winehouse is a big theme around here. I find pictures of her just about everywhere. Largely painted on building walls, and just about anywhere. I have to ask Mark.

  • Where do you get out of this town, we seem to just go in circles. Do we have to go to that building site over there past the cat building?
  • Yeah, that’s the way to town. 
  • OK, let’s go then.

We continue on our walk and arrive into an area with a completely different feel to it. Now the buildings aren’t that rundown anymore, they feel more like the modern buildings in Tokyo, a place I know very well and compare to a lot. We go into a building which Mark points out that we are currently next to. 

  • Come on, I’d like to show you where we are right now. 

We walk in a huge building with row after row of shops inside of it. All closed and dark giving of an eerie feel. There is almost no one around. One or two people around the place, and everyone wears masks of course. It’s a train station, and when I go up the stairs to the second floor I realise immediately where we are. This is Kings Cross. We stand looking at the international railway departure hall. And I’ve seen this place before, the first place I’ve actually recognised before. It’s from the scene when Hagrid disappears after giving Harry his ticket to the Hogwarts express at platform 9 and ¾. I know that they should have a tourist attraction with the entrance to platform 9 and ¾, but it seems to be nowhere around here. Oh well, maybe we’ll find it another day. I’m going to have Mark show me the way next time. I guess I am just that nerdy. I love the Harry Potter books. To me they are a big part of my childhood and I love them for all of the wonderful days I’ve spent sucked into the magical world of Harry Potter. 

Kings Cross is a train station, and thereby the only real place where they seem to be allowed to have toilets open. So we take the opportunity to use it, since it doesn’t seem to be the case for the smaller stations. That’s also a handy piece of information for you to put into your box of information you are probably never going to use again, in case you need a toilet in a pandemic, go to Kings Cross. 

We soon find ourselves hungry and tired from walking, outside the empty British Museum. It’s around lunchtime, and it would be great to find a bite somewhere to grab. But everything is closed. We’re now in the centre of London, which means the area that people don’t really live in. So there’s just not that much demand for takeaway restaurants during a pandemic. Takeaway is often not even an option, many of the open restaurants are delivery only, which doesn’t really fit when you’re on a long walk. We’re close to the Marquis so Mark tries to give his friend Tommy a call, but he isn’t available. Mark had an idea it would be cool to meet him up, but anyways it might be best not to. So we need to find something to eat now. We go sit down on a doorstep in a back alley in front of the British museum and rest for a little while. Tommy didn’t answer, so we need to find somewhere else. It’s cold and we’re tired and hungry. Let’s go search for a supermarket or something that’s open. We go and after a while we find an actually decent sized supermarket where we go in to buy lunch. They have a sushi desk in it with store made sushi. For us, that feels like hitting the jackpot. We buy sushi and some mango pieces, and look for a place to sit down to eat it. We settle on a beautiful railing outside a building, finally resting a little bit. 

  • Mark, say aaaah.
  • Aaaah.

And I put a big chunk of mango in his mouth. 

  • You know mango, it’s bass player food. If you’re a bass player, you can’t get nutrition from anything else.
  • I didn’t know that. That must have been why I’ve been losing weight recently. I haven’t had any mangoes!

After our wonderful meal of enough mango to keep us bass players healthy and some sushi for good sake, back up on our feet it is. We’re somewhere central right now, and I have no idea where. It’s not many people out and about the place, but we manage to find a couple of cafes that are open. There is one selling bubble tea which seems popular, but I want to go to the ordinary coffee shop next to it, which is a wonderful fairly big shop where the barista Dario is working. Mark strikes up a conversation and we talk about the different coffee types and I go for a nice brazilian blend. It turns out there really aren’t many customers coming around here, and I suspect we might be his first customers today. And it is afternoon. Not long until close for a coffee shop. We talk about everything from me being new in London to his country in South America. Talking for a while and he says:

  • Would you guys like some pastries?
  • Oh, yes please.
  • There really hasn’t been anyone buying pastries today.

He talks while he starts loading croissants and pain au chocolat into a paper bag, one, two, three. Oh wait what, how many is he going to fill them up with? He fills the bag to the brim, I think it is with about maybe 10 enormous pieces. Thankyou very much Dario. It’s well appreciated. 

We can’t be standing there holding the shop busy for too long, so off we go, continuing left. I’m feeling the left direction today. That’s the way to go. We walk for a while and then Mark informs me that the big building we see in front of us is St Paul’s Cathedral. Oh, cool. I found a famous place! We take some photographs and move in closer, to an almost completely empty Paternoster Square. Or as it looks like now and as we call it, Apocalypto Square. It is perfect for photographing while doing weird poses.  

The cold is biting us, so it is best to keep moving, but stopping for some nice photographs is a must. But I actually don’t feel like I need to photograph everything all the time anymore. I mean, I’m not here as a tourist really. I live here now. At least for now. So I can go to central London whenever I want. Which feels so cool.

We find ourselves walking into Shoreditch, where there is on the sidewalk a little sign saying that they sell wine there. This sounds very much like a bar, so we simply just must go inside and see what they sell. It’s a very nice little wine bar where you can actually buy bottles of wine to bring home. It’s so nice to see a place like this, it must be so cozy here when it’s open. The owner is really nice and sociable and seems so happy to see customers in the store. We ask if we could try any of the wines, and we’re lucky, because we can. So we get a couple of options of the already opened bottles presented to us, the bottles have been open a couple of weeks, but they’re still fine. It’s really fun to be able to try wine like this. This just isn’t a thing for me, I’ve never really done it like this, which makes it all the more special. We end up buying a nice bottle of wine from the owner’s home country, Hungary. They are currently renovating in preparation for the opening up, and at the same time they stay open as a wine store. They even do home deliveries of wine in the Shoreditch area. I can’t really grasp that concept, home delivery of wine. That’s just too good to be true, or am I just too fond of drinking?

Excusing ourselves and going out again, it starts to be time to return home. I’m just too tired. We hop on a bus, and I finally get to try the double decker London buses for the first time. After you get in, beep your card at the reader completely covered in the driver’s plastic cube, then you see the staircase leading up to the second floor. We go up there, and we’re alone so of course we sit in the front. Watching people all around town, going around in the bus that seems impossibly big for London’s narrow streets. It’s like an illusion, a magic trick perhaps. The buses are simply so big I can’t understand how they can drive them on these narrow streets. It must be magic. Like that bus in Harry Potter that magically changes size fitting all kinds of narrow openings. Yes. I’ve decided. That’s how the London buses work. That must be it. We sit and rest and watch the people on the street from the front window on the top floor of the bus, and I see this guy dressed kinda bad with an acoustic guitar without a case in his hand. He jumps on our bus and sits down on the lower level and I can hear him start playing. After a while he jumps off and we’re alone again. I guess these things just happen around here. How cool is that?

Mark:

It’s been a wonderful first day out in London for Maja and I’m not entirely sure who’s shown who around. But really, with the newbie leading the way, we’ve seen a whole different London than we would have done if I’d been in front and brought us to all the usual sights, which I’m sure we’ll see in due time anyway. 

What we can’t do so much anymore is talk about it. We’ve done it so much in the past week or so that late in the day our voices just start giving out. It happens to me first, and then when I mention it to Maja, she says that yes, her throat isn’t feeling quite right either. I know what to do about this and when we pop into a shop for water, I leave Maja to get that while I go hunting for honey and a small bottle of lemon juice. Out on the street and we both have a little of each and instantly feel the relief of the rough throat disappearing and something like voice normality resuming. But really, I can barely talk anymore. I don’t think Maja is that far behind me.

Off the bus and we’re into Kentish Town, getting off a few stops early to essentially walk the rest of the way home through a street that Maja has only seen before at night, on the walk here on that first day from the airport. But there is an ulterior motive here as we use the walk through town as an opportunity to have a look in the windows of estate agents to see what apartments are available around here and what we would be looking at for rents. I have an idea of course, but Maja doesn’t. More significant than the ridiculously high prices is the fact that we’re even considering this at all less than two weeks after we first met, but that seems to be where we are now. Yep, we haven’t even spoken about it, but here we are looking for our own apartment, like something we’re just taking for granted.

Maja:

It’s interesting taking a look at the real estate postings, to see how the reality of living London life will be like. We need at least a two room apartment, so I will be able to work in the mornings in my home office while Mark is asleep and also that he won’t have to disturb my sleep coming home at 3-4 am after playing the bars of London. It won’t be cheap, but is totally doable if I get myself a new computer engineering job here. It’s something to keep in mind for the future, but as of now I have a couple of other things that are more important. Like the impossible list. And also I want to feel a little less sad before looking for a job. Let’s just live life in the moment for a while, I think I deserve that. I want to spend some time looking at options, and see where life leads me. I’m sure it’ll be fine.