Fridays are notable for their total randomness - most of my fun adventures happen on Fridays... Well, this Friday began early in the morning after 3 puny hours of sleep, only the interesting stuff didn't begin till after my 3-hour MidEast class.
My task of the day was to submit yet another internship application, for the Ogilvy Summer School (which sounds amazing!). Deadline? Today of course. What does Marty do? Gambles with time :) I had everything printed and ready at around 3:30pm after a bit of a hectic time, naturally. My grand plan was to hand-deliver the application to their office in shiny Canary Wharf. I love Canary Wharf. It feels like NYC! :D (And I love NYC!)
... After dropping off the application, I decided to walk around the area - I don't get to go to the financial centre of London very often. Sadly, the Wharf is smallish, and pretty soon I was walking towards some dodgy looking east London areas. I was the only girl out on the street; everyone else was either male or, erm, driving a car. No pedestrians. And everyone turned around and stared at me as I walked by. A sensible individual would have probably taken the bus, yet I couldn't even do that as I had no credit on my Oyster card and no money in my pocket. So I kept walking.
Eventually I saw a street sign - Commercial Street. Hmm, that sounded awfully familiar. Oh yeah, I was in Whitechapel. Commercial Street? A famous character by the name of Jack ripped quite a bit in that area. Great. That explained the dodginess of the place. At least it was still sunny. I saw the great Gherkinesque silhouette of the famous Swiss Bank building on the horizon! Aha! I knew the Gherkin marked the end of the creepy Whitechapel area...
I walked down the entire Commercial Street, it was interesting to see that different side of London. And then I entered the City of London - the Gherkin, the Lloyds building, and a whole lot of other impressive buildings... and people on the streets! Whew, the scary-ish part was over. (As a side note, I believe today I was especially cautious and suspicious of everyone because of a really disturbing film I saw yesterday which will likely give me nightmares for the next few weeks...)
The shiny curves of the Swiss Bank building made my lips curve into a smile :) Today was actually the first time I'd seen it from up close. I thought it would be awesome to get a magazine and go into the cafe inside the building, read a bit, and sip cappuccino at the famous site. I was on the lookout for a magazine stand in the area, but I didn't find one... instead, I stumbled upon a Revolution bar. The security guard there invited me to go in (hehe, even though I didn't have my ID on me). I decided to have a drink since I was there anyway - it would count almost as a realization of my 'coffee at the Gherkin plan'... only it would be 'cocktail at the Rev bar by the Gherkin'. Worked for me.
The place was packed! (it was barely 6pm by the way) And everyone seemed to know each other... I was chillin' alone, and eventually talked to a couple of people. When I finally asked how come everyone knew each other - was that a regular hang out spot for all employees of the area? ... the guy replied, 'It's someone's birthday'
Whoops. I had crashed their party..and had managed to skip the guest list guy somehow. On that note, I gracefully showed myself out.
My walk continued through the City of Londontown. Saw some more landmarks, including the monument commemorating the Great Fire of London which started spreading from a bakery on Pudding Lane... cute but devastating. At that point, at 7:00pm, I was tired and hopped on the tube back home (I finally had the chance to top up my Oyster using my Lloyds card).
On the tube I sat next to this gentleman from South Africa with whom we started chatting about various topics. He said he'd heard good things about the Bulgarian seaside. I said I didn't like it anymore because of all the hotels and construction... changed the topic, and eventually came back to the Bulgarian theme - he said he's seen pictures of our seaside. His wife, apparently, is part of the development and planning team for a hotel on the Black Sea Coast. Whoops №2 of the evening... It's a freakin' small world! I don't know why he didn't mention that detail about his wife before I offended 'her kind' haha. Oh well :)
We both got off at Earl's Court and walked our separate ways.
It's a small world.
So that was my Friday, complete with action, suspense, comedy and irony...
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