My aunt and uncle met me at Waterloo Station, their immediate mission to buy me a one-week Oyster card and tickets to The Producers. While Victor scoured Leicester (pronounced leh-ster) Square for the best deal, I tried frozen raspberry tea for the first time at Starbucks (the moment I saw someone with a take-out Starbucks cup, all else faded besides getting a fix).
Following ticket-bargain-shopping and frozen-drink-guzzling, we emerged from Bayswater station into a crowded maze of cheap stores and ethnic restaurants like those around the T in Ingrid’s Cambridge neighborhood--but with a kinky lingerie twist. Only a few blocks northwest, we fell under the shadows of endless rows of white Classical residences with gracefully arced façades. The one at 42 Princes Square, Notting Hill, reachable only though a maze of hallways and heavy doors and filled with suede curtains, couches, and bed cushions, was ours. Although they had warned me that I might have to sleep on a cot, they ended up booking a two-bedroom apartment at the Somerset Bayswater with a little room and double bed for me! In my armoire were gifts from other relatives in Australia: A Polo Sport laptop bag (fancier and gaudier than my preferred makeshift bags) and two Fila sport shirts. Josephine had surprises for me as well--a SwissCard Lite and a leather jacket, both items I'd been wanting for a while. She and Victor do not exude style and sophistication, and even the most fashion-conscious buy clothes only at great peril for me. But somehow she reads my mind when she buys me gifts, and she and Victor are very generous. I wish I knew how to repay them, although I know they don't expect me to.
The denizens of London are eye candy. I finally understand why Belgian fashion drives me insane--I had forgotten what it was like to walk down the street and have my fashion sensibilities inspired or outraged by a dozen wildly different outfits and shades of hair dye. But unlike quirky San Franciscans, Londoners are better dressed, tote black like a religion, and embrace punk unabashedly. The geographical and cultural distance between Belgium and the UK is, proportion-wise, out of hand. I dress boldly only every couple of weeks because I care nothing of sheeple-fashionistas' opinions of my crappy clothes. If I moved to London, I would spend ridiculous amounts of time and money on style. Kids on those streets are judges whom I would respect.
Uncle Victor isn't imposing in height, but he takes charge when he wants to. The moment we stepped into Chowki (recommended by Wikitravel) off Piccadilly Circus, he gave the waiters a stern talking-to about how we needed to be out the door in twenty minutes for the show.
A scrumptious atypical Indian meal of aubergine and other delicacies later, we were on our way in a black taxi to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane right on schedule. Again he took charge, ordering us repeatedly into the street sidestepping cars in order to get the perfect photo of us outside under the theater sign. After several minutes of mortal peril, we infiltrated the deceptively modest building to be enfolded by more eye candy--a splendid interior, splendid crowd, and splendid performance. I couldn’t get enough. And somehow I kept thinking I saw Brian in the cast.On our way to the Tube, hordes of people and nightlife hubs reminded me that I once had no desire to sleep before 3 am. Life begins at night for us young’uns! But I wonder if my recent old-people bedtime isn’t due to getting old, but to living in a town filled with old folks shopping for Armani-priced babywear. I love the newness of living in Mechelen, but I need the city life again.
I need to come back to London. Culturally, it’s closer to America, but with more alternative, more punk, and more Europe--the perfect combination. My internal clock, habitats, and inclinations are reawakening. I'm shoring up on London so I can bring it with me across the Channel, fired with the spirit that drove me to dye my hair blue on the Haight just to add a splash of color to tweedy Yale. These gray Belgian days need the same.
Not that I don’t enjoy Belgium. If there is one thing in life I’m working hard at, it’s enjoying the places and situations in which I find myself to the max. I cannot imagine not enjoying the places I’ve lived in that other people have disliked. But I also have peculiar standards, particularly when it comes to nonconformism. How do Antwerpen fashion designers not go insane seeing the same outfit pass by on every other person? Or is this all their fault? Uniformity is one of the few thorns in my side from which London has liberated me. I can breathe in a different way here than I can in Belgium. I haven’t any other words to describe it.
I’m amazed at how at home I feel. It’s a combination of having accustomed myself to San Francisco, New York, and a little piece of Europe in Flanders and finding aspects of all combined in a city that is therefore familiar from many angles and yet still new and exciting. My only regret is that I now remember what it's like to feel at home in America rather than to feel at home as an expat in Flanders. I'd better beat down this 'homesick' desire for London. No great carillons here!
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