Where Is Katy?: Rebel with a Cause

Day Eight 5/17/09
Rebel with a Cause

This morning Nicole had scheduled to Skype with her parents and brother all of whom were in Shanghai at 10 a.m. At 11 a.m. she was going to brunch with a friend from school named Tomi and she wanted me to tag along.

I didn’t mind having a later morning because as previously mentioned I was a little tired from the frenetic pace of the trip. I woke up around 10:30 a.m., took a shower, said hi to Nicole’s family, and then went to brunch with the girls.

We ate in a place that reminded me of Dean & Deluca in NYC. It had a trendy and cool feeling market with a little cafe upstairs. I had a fairly traditional English breakfast of scrambled eggs and wheat toast. The conversation was fun and easy and I think a good time was had by all.

After brunch Tomi needed to go back and study. Nicole tried ardently to get her to join us on our visit to Primark but she could not be convinced. I had never been to a Primark before but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Nicole described the atmosphere as that of a bridal sale with all types of clothes. That description was fairly accurate. The pace of shopping was somewhat frenzied. The styles range from crazy couture to wardrobe staples. The best part, however, is the the store is insanely cheap. We are talking like Wal-mart prices. If you want to check it out, go here http://www.primark.co.uk.

After our Primark adventure we walked back to Nicole’s flat. She had some homework to do and I wanted to go on another hoop seeking adventure. Since I had spent 5+ hours walking around London on Thursday without finding a great hoop, I decided to do some research before this departure. After spending a considerable amount of time doing research on-line I had a nicely marked up map to use as my guide on my journey. I felt like one location held the most promise for success, so I set off for there first.

In an ideal world the perfect London hoop would probably have Big Ben behind it. Unfortunately London is such an old city that many of it’s coolest looking things are located smack dab in the center of buildings that have been standing for 300+ years. Big Ben is not a super high tower and site lines to him are tough. I’m 95% convinced that a currently standing hoop and Big Ben could not be captured in a single photo frame. Other London sites that I still thought would be good were The London Eye (the giant ferris wheel), London Bridge, Tower of London and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Other items that would do included a traditional red phone booth, double decker bus, or pub.

The London Eye is by far the tallest of any of the buildings I was hoping to capture so I decided to start with a hoop that I thought might have that in its site line. I took the Tube, followed my map and found the court with no difficulty. The court was in a park and surrounded by a cage like fence. I found the door to access the court and unfortunately it was locked with a pad lock. Adjacent to the court was a playground which had a roughly nine-foot high fence around it. I noticed that the court doors were actually opened to the playground, so I decided to try and see if there was a different door to access the playground. Turns out the playground was attached to some type of little community center. The center’s door was locked and its hours were listed as 3:30 - 6:30 p.m. Wed -Fri, which did me absolutely no good. I continued to walk around the enclosed area. I wanted to find out if there was even a good shot and if I could possibly take it without needing to get inside the cage.

As I approached the opposite side of the court, I realized that this was truly a great shot. You could see the London Eye in the background and there was a traditional looking pub in the foreground. The court also had some very bright and fun looking graffitied boards as decoration. I saw a lot of graffiti art (not just tagging but real pictures) around London, so this seemed fitting as well. The only problem was all of those elements could not be captured in a single frame without getting on to the court. A decision had to be made. I knew I wasn’t going to find a hoop better than this. And the likelihood of my getting back when it was unlocked was VERY unlikely, and certainly not going to happen on this trip. I decided to continue my trip around the court to see if I thought there was a place where I could climb the fence.

At about 90% around the fenced area I found a spot that I thought could serve as a point of entry. Really, I was very certain that I could get in. However, this particular entry point would NOT be a suitable exit point because there was nothing to use as leverage to climb back out on the other side. I did notice a place I thought I could get out on the other side, because I looked longingly at it on the way around, wishing it was on the outside so I could use it to climb in. A smart kid would have gone around to the other side to check that out again before making the decision to climb the fence. I on the other hand never claimed to be smart. I remembered the warning sign on the other side of the park that said “use when closed at your own risk”. It didn’t say “no trespassing”. I slid my bag in between the fence posts and climbed over. It was a surprisingly graceful effort that included a quick stop on the top of a dumpster. I actually really wish I had video of it. I was inside the park and experiencing quite a rush.

I spent about 10 minutes trying to capture the exact shot I wanted. Most of the day had overcast skies but there were occasional sun breaks or changes in the clouds that would make for better shots than others. I didn’t have a great grasp on which way was east or west, so it turned out when the sun broke through that it was right behind the hoop. This wasn’t going to give me a better photo than what I had, so I decided it was time to figure out an exit strategy.

It turned out that the fence was WAY HIGHER at my planned exit point than I had thought. I looked at it, laughed a little bit, and thought what the hell have I gotten myself into. It’s also funny to note that I was wearing a pretty nice BCBG blouse on this adventure because I was going out to dinner with Adeline in a few hours. Anyone who saw this decently dressed, twenty something American girl climbing this park fence was certain to have been entertained. After one less than perfect effort, I made it over the fence. In a day or two I will post the entry and exit points so that you can all be impressed by my athletic prowess ;~)

After getting out of the fence I was still pretty much on a high. I had a little too much fun being a rebel and I was very pleased with the picture I took. I decided that I was no longer in a hurry to find another picture. I’m not certain that I could take one that is more iconic and I certainly couldn’t have more fun getting it. The process wasn’t quite was adrenaline filled as East St. Louis but it was pretty dang good.

On my way back to the Tube I did a little window shopping and picked up a few presents for people. I had about an hour to kill before meeting Adeline for dinner so I decided to swing by Piccadilly, the London equivalent of Time Square, to buy some post cards and look for my obligatory country tchotchke. I had success on both fronts but got a little soaked in the process.

Adeline and I had planned to meet at the entrance of the Liverpool Station at 7 p.m. Since I didn’t have a cell phone I was a little nervous about this plan because I had no idea how big the station was or how hard it would be to find someone. As my train pulled into the station I could tell it was going to be big. I followed the “way out” signs. It wasn’t obvious when getting in the main part of the station which entrance would have been the “main” entrance. I decided to just head for one and see if Adeline was there. As luck would have it as I started moving I spotted her walking towards me. This was seriously SUPER lucky and I was very thankful that we spotted each other.

Before getting a bite to eat Adeline gave me a walking tour of East London. I particularly enjoyed this because I had never been there. Our first stop was the “Ten Bells Pub” also known as the “Jack the Ripper Pub” http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/tenbells.html . The pub that Jack the Ripper evidently used to frequent is still serving drinks today. We stopped by, had a drink and then continued walking around for another half hour or so. For dinner we ate in a great little spot in the newly redone and super trendy Spitalfields Market. For my last meal in London I had Shepards Pie. It was delicious.

By the time Adeline and I finished eating and chatting it was already 10:30 p.m. We walked back to Liverpool Station and said our goodbyes. I decided to make one final stop on my way back to Nicole’s. There was a Tube station with a friend’s name in it, so I decided to take a ride over to it and take a picture. On the way I passed the “Wembley” stop. There was an awesome very modern looking stadium in the background. I’m assuming this had to be “the” Wembley Stadium. This reminded me the next time I am in Europe I need to attend a soccer match.

Upon returning to Nicole’s it was about 11:30 p.m. I planned to stay up all night to make sleeping on my early morning flight home easier. I packed my stuff, took a shower, and blogged a bit. That leads us to now. It is 4:15 a.m. and time for me to head to the airport. I’ll write again from the other side of the pond.

Katy