After classes started at the beginning of the month I was sick for almost two weeks. Thankfully I’ve since gotten over it, and I still managed to get out for a few trips around London last week.
First, for my travel writing class we took a walking tour around Southwark (pronounced “Suth-erk”) along the Thames. In the shadow of The Shard, one of London’s most recognizable buildings, there are loads of trendy outdoor pubs and restaurants surrounded by cobblestone streets and buildings that date back to the 12th century.
My professor directed us to the Southwark Cathedral just off London Bridge (no not this one). It’s deceptively big because the rear side of it is below street level, but it’s a gorgeous Gothic building covered in pieces of smooth, shiny flint. Just around the corner is what used to be Winchester Palace, now only a garden with two large stone walls and a beautifully designed window.
Southwark is also home to some of the best street art I’ve seen in London. Granted, I haven’t seen as much in Kensington and Chelsea as I would most places in Philly, but I was in shock when I saw a real-life piece from Invader (a French artist featured in the Banksy documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop) out in the wild. I also saw a sticker from American artist RX Skulls and an entire corner with art by a name new to me, Nathan Bowen.
The last stop on our walking tour was at the Crossbones Graveyard. For centuries it a was a burial place for London’s poor. Now, like Winchester Palace, it’s a garden and a memorial site tucked away on a little side street. Unlike Winchester, it’s actually open to the public, though it was closed by the time we got there.
A few days later, as I mentioned in my last post, I went to my first concert outside the US. The Seattle band Chastity Belt were playing the last show of their UK tour for a sold-out crowd at The Garage in Highbury. What I didn’t learn until after I stepped off the Tube was that this was in Arsenal territory, and that night they were playing a home game against a team all the way from Cologne, Germany. I showed up later than most of the shenanigans I would read about the next day, but the station was packed! Once I got up to the street, nearly every level surface I could find had been used as a resting place for open bottles and cans of beer. The venue was located just across the street from the station, but it took me nearly half an hour to find it!
Supporting Chastity Belt were New York pop punks Charly Bliss, but I was most impressed with the opening band Gang, a strange and sludgy band from Margate, UK. Their singer also joined Chastity Belt onstage to play guitar, in lieu of the drummer who apparently hurt her shoulder skateboarding.
Emma and I are off to Brighton this weekend with the rest of the Temple crew, and I’ll be at another show next week to see French-Canadian DJ Marie Davidson. I have some more good news. If all goes well, I’ll be interning at the London based label Blow Up Records!
– Casey
Klein Global Opportunities 