And the living is easy
Week 6 on fortylove.tv: “How to Live Slowly”. A gorgeous break from the British winter. Found a Final Cut plug-in to create the old crackly film effect, so this one was a joy to edit.
Archived entries for going places
Running home, running home
I’m back in London, this time for six months. Week-long work trips have previously been a breeze: flit in and out of nice hotels, make wishlists of must-eats (then actually go), laugh and sit through meetings where I rub my chin and nod intelligently.
But living here is a different bag of tricks.
Refusing to stay at a hotel through all of autumn and winter means that I’ve taken the smartass route down real estate hell. I decided to get a place of my own. Which has meant talking to 20 different agents, trawling through websites that look like someone shat HTML and yellow serif fonts all over them, and most harrowing of all: de-jargonising real estate talk.
For the benefit of all those who come after me, I present thee my two-minute guide to understanding property in central London:
Excellent views
This is London, not the hills of Nepal. If excellent views are a side note, then fine. But if they are a selling point then you should have your doubts. I drew the curtains of a fancy studio in a fancy serviced apartment building to get a breathtaking view of the construction outside. Plus, isn’t it a strange concept to begin with? Saying ‘excellent view’ is like saying ’sweet candy’.
Within walking distance of _______ Underground Station
Sure. The same way Beijing is within walking distance of Calcutta. I mean, this walking business is all relative innit? My advice: Googlemap the damn thing, and you might feel that 37 minutes is a bit of a trek to get to public transportation.
Quiet, private settings in the heart of the city
Harley Street: posh neighbourhood and playground for the city’s most famous surgeons. I’d been quoted a ridiculously sane amount for a flat with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. What they forgot to mention though, was that I had the basement unit and the only scenery I’d have was the five-inch slither at the top of my window that offered a great view of the pavement.
Newly-refurbished Victorian building
This could mean a renovated property, restored interiors, new fittings. But it could also mean that they gave the walls a new coat of paint and replaced the rotting carpets. And that pesky old lift? No one’s gotten stuck in it lately!
Fully-anything / fashionable
Ah. The mother(s) of all real estate terminology. Furnishing and equipment, as with distance, are relative. Sometimes a microwave and some cutlery constitute a fully-equipped kitchen. Which wouldn’t be completely untrue – you do need a fork to stab holes in those microwave dinners before you heat them up. Fashionable could be Mayfair, but it could also mean Bayswater or Shoreditch. All a matter of opinion.
All that bitched and done, I did find a place I’ll probably move into by next week. It’s a newly-refurbished building in the West End with great views, just a stone’s throw from the nearest Tube station. I also get cutlery.
Here comes the summertime
It’s that time of summer in this part of Europe, and my weekend took me through the curious, narrow streets of downtown Amsterdam.
The last time I was in this city, I was 14. Walking through the infamous De Wallen district in the north, I remember staring at the strange naked women standing in shop windows and thinking “wow, they’re real!”
A decade later I find myself back here again, fascinated by people buying fast food from a wall. Evolution knows no bounds, my friends.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=505_LW7mFZE]
Shot in all its one-minute-glory with the delightfully nifty Nokia N78. *flips hair*