Plucky Survivors See Europe Day 33: London

Today was about as perfect a day as one could ask for and I’m so happy that it happened in London.

I’m feeling a lot better and while the Great European Unpleasantness is not fully gone, it seems to be heading that way and I’m grateful for it.

I spent the morning working and got stuff done, which always pleases me, then headed out on a day I had planned with specific purpose.  I wanted to be away from the madding crowds, to see different neighborhoods, and to experience some of the more off-the-beaten-track things you can do in the city.

My first stop was a walk into the previously mentioned, utterly charming Marylebone neighborhood to the Cartoon Museum.  It’s run by a charming older couple who take great pains to set the stage and make sure you get everything you can from the experience.

The museum traces the art of cartooning, from Victorian days all the way through the modern era with specific focuses on things like humor, politics, war, caricatures, and more.  Each cartoon comes with an explanation and its origin, which is fantastic.  It’s one thing to look at a piece of art but to get context on when and why it was created adds so much to the story.  I took a bunch of pictures.  Enjoy.

Then it was on to Notting Hill, where I stepped out of the Underground and passed a fresh produce market.  The man outside yelled “Fresh fruit” and I replied, “What did you call me?”  I think he chose not to hear it.

My destination was the Museum of Brands, a facility dedicated to examining the ways in which products, services, and entertainment are packaged and sold to consumers.  It, too, started in Victorian times then marched through Edwardian and into the 1900s by decade, with cases full of products and merchandise that showed the evolution of marketing and how it reacted to the times.  It was fascinating.  I took a lot of pictures here, too.

I decided to go take a quick picture of the storefront that served as the bookstore in the movie “Notting Hill” and discovered a street fair, which I absolutely love.  It was mostly clothing, jewelry, and handcrafted accessories so it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea (how British of me), but then I discovered the food area.

The heaven on earth, this mecca, featured about two dozen stalls with street food from almost every international cuisine category you can think of.  Caribbean, Italian, Mexican, Turkish, Lebanese, American (hamburgers, natch), Venezuelan, and even French, in the form of duck confit sandwiches.  I was overwhelmed because I wanted something from each of them, especially after trying the samples everyone was handing out.

I finally settled on Venezuelan arepas, a thin corn bread pocket stuffed with boldly spiced chicken, cheese, spinach and more.  It was absolutely delicious – the meat was perfectly tender and insanely flavorful, the bread was a little sweet, a little salty, and the cheese added a nice twang to the proceedings.

It made me want more, so I pulled a classic Plucky Survivors trick with the notorious “Second Lunch.”

I went to the Lebanese stand to get a chicken taouk wrap, which is kind of like shawarma but also not in that it was more elegantly seasoned in garlic, lemon, and a hearty marinade.  Add some roasted onions and peppers, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, and some garlic and tahini sauce and you have yourself a meal.  I could eat this every day of my life.  The flavors were so perfectly blended and complimentary that it was hard to believe this was cooked in a pan in a tent on a street.

I took the subway once more to the King’s Cross neighborhood, mostly elegant and newer buildings, wide plazas, and charming canal-side bars.  If you can’t tell in the photo, everyone was watching tennis, not the World Cup, surprisingly.

My destination was the Queer Britain Museum.  It’s Pride weekend here so I figured what better time to take a look at the history of being gay in the UK.  It’s a small facility with only a couple of rooms, but they have some great exhibits on things like club kids, print media, and AIDS.  They had a set of panels from the AIDS quilt, which always makes my emotions run high.  I sat on a bench and appreciated it, the people that were memorialized in it, and the people I remember so fondly.

The next subway ride took me to the much more working-class neighborhood of Hoxton and a place I would tell everyone to visit if it wasn’t closing next week.  It’s called Hoxton Street Monster Supplies and it has a series of products designed for the living, the dead, and the undead – enough to satisfy any monster in your life.  They had Human Snot and Olde Fashioned Brain Jam, Cubed Earwax, salt made from the tears of hope, fairy dust, wands, and more.  The only reason I will tell you that it was stuff like marmalade, biscuits, celery salt, and toffee is because you won’t be able to go there to appreciate it yourself.

The store is the front for a charity that is designed to get young people into reading and writing and they were forced to relocate.  The charity is moving around the corner, but they couldn’t find a storefront to continue the monster supply store, so they have to shut it down.  Hopefully it will come back someday, but until then I had to satisfy myself with Brain Food (made from bits of real brain according to the label) and Impacted Earwax.

By this point I had walked over five miles and climbed the equivalent of 20 flights of stairs, so I called an Uber to take me to the next destination in Hackney, and even more working-class neighborhood that seemed to have more immigrants than Brits. 

My sights were set on Viktor Wynd Cabinet of Curiosities museum.  Viktor is an artist, author, and curator who has had exhibitions all over the UK devoted to seeking beauty in the weird, arcane, and offbeat.  The place is a bar, ultimately – I had a rum punch with absinthe – and the main floor is filled with taxidermy, bones, and art, while the basement is filled with oddities.  There were cabinets with crystalized flowers and a Ronald McDonald figurine; bones and vaguely voodoo-esque iconography, butterflies, creepy dolls, and so much more.  It was like a carnival sideshow of weirdness and I couldn’t get enough.

But I had one more stop to make.  I took another Uber in bumper-to-bumper traffic to God’s Own Junkyard in Walthamstow.  This is a very family-oriented neighborhood with cute streets and tidy homes, but at the center of it is the facility filled with neon (and other) art.  Most of it is for sale, but it really seems to be more for the display and wonder of it all.

One final subway ride took me back to SoHo, where I walked through the streets looking for my third lunch, AKA, dinner.  I found it at the Mediterranean Café with tzatziki and pita bread and a chicken kebab with a roasted pepper, rice, and salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber in tahini and olive oil.  Another absolutely perfect meal.

By the way, on Google Maps in London right now, instead of the icon of a little guy for Street View, it’s a little cartoon of Dua Lipa.  Odd.

Tomorrow is the Pride Parade and celebrations.  Wish me luck.