[London] Lovely. Cheers.

It's my last day in London, so I figured I would squander it catching up on the blog. Maybe not the best use of my time, but the best use of it I can think of for now.

I'm here at Kirsty's, Wendy's neice and Elizabeth's cousin, in north London... I think they said it was called Highgate, but I know it is near Hampstead Heath, in case that means anything to you. They just returned from the summer in Greece where they run a restaurant during the high season. They have 3 children (approx ages: 22, 14, and 10?) and usually also let a room out to a foreign student, but for now I am in that room.

Yesterday I went to Bedzed, a zero energy development in south London. Their website doesn't provide much information on their location, which kind of freaked me out -- I wondered if it was even in London. But getting there was actually a breeze. I took the tube to Victoria and then a regional train for about 15 minutes. It's in zone 4 of the public transportation system (I am staying in zone 2, just outside the center). I bought a day pass for 4.40 GBP, only a few pence
more than a day pass for only zones 1 and 2, which makes me think that, if the housing prices decline as you get further from the center, London's public transportation system is creating a perverse incentive to locate further out, ie encouraging sprawl.

This is consistent with my observations about much of England. Maureen (Norwich) and Nick & Morag (near Stanstead Airport) both live deep in the suburbs in completely auto-oriented locations (unless you bike, but they wouldn't consider it, at least, Maureen thought my mother and I were crazy to bike into central Norwich, 6 miles away). Even my London friends all still have cars, but Katriona says she might start leaving hers in Italy bc she lives very close to the center and the congestion charge can be hard to avoid. She said since they implemented the congestion charge, she doesn't even consider driving around town anymore, even at night when the congestion charge is not in effect.

At the station, the attendant knew exactly where Bedzed is (I asked using the wrong name at first, not realizing that everyone calls this place Bedzed). A couple blocks later, the postman (not the usual one for this area) also knew where it was based on my description (he didn't know the name). Bedzed involves a series of buildings with yards and roof decks, plants grow on the roof area. They are highly insulated and the rooms are small for more efficient heating. The south side of each building is comprised of windows to provide heat and light to the units. Obviously, the units are attached, but they have separate roofs. They are equipt with low energy use appliances, shower heads, etc. Much of the building material is reclaimed.

The marketing literature claims that Bedzed is a pedestrian-oriented development, but I found the environment overwhelmed with roads and parking spaces. There were a number of outlets for eletric cars, but none of them were in use and some had been vandalized. I read that there is a carshare pod at Bedzed, but I didn't see it (hopefully bc the carshare cars were in use).

All of the units appear to be occupied, but a few were for sale. The neighborhood has a central park area with benches made of reclaimed wood. I sat on one and ate my lunch, and it got my butt wet. There are live-work units and a few storefronts with offices in them (mostly sustainable development companies involved in the construction of this one). A childcare center is at one end, but I didn't see any activity there. Maybe it was nap time or they haven't started taking students yet. There is a "clubhouse", and I saw flyers for a Friday evening BYOB happy hour. I also saw flyers for book clubs and cooking classes. The game field was wet and therefor closed (fenced off!). I am not sure who is responsible but there is definitely a lot of effort put into building community here. I toured the area before entering the office, taking lots of pictures, only to learn when I entered the office that they ask people not to do that in order to respect the privacy of the residents. Oops! A resident also yelled at me for entering someone's roof garden (oops twice), but I thought this boded well for their community engagement. Jane Jacobs would be pleased.

I did not see a corner store in the immediate vicinity. However there were a few small businesses on the short hike in from the train station. The project provides delivery of organic veggies from a local farm to residents who choose to subscribe to this service, but I wonder if there is a good place to get other food stuffs. I was disappointed by the lack of connectivity between the development and adjacent neighborhoods -- there was a small path leading in from the main road towards the train station, but a fence between Bedzed and the neighborhoods on the other 3 sides and the childcare center yard blocked access to the main road at the other end, so if you were going to/coming from that way you have to take the main road.

I saw Bedzed at midday on a Monday (they told me they do tours on Wednesday and Thursday) and I saw 2 large groups (one from France) and a number of other random visitors meandering around. Odd that this development has attracted so much attention while the rest of the English are driving all around for no apparent reason and not sorting their trash (Bedzed has 4 different bins).

Afterwards I went to the Tate and breezed through their perminant exhibit. We had dinner last night at Linda (Kirsty's mother) and David's.

My plan on Sunday was to see the National Gallery and the British Museum. Silly me -- in 4 hours I made it from 1500 to 1600 in the National Gallery (about 2/5 of the museum). Most of the work was Italian but a few were German or Dutch. The reading materials mentioned that the people in the Italian pieces conform with their ideal of beauty at the time. I concur; the people in the Italian paintings were much better looking than the Dutch and German. That's my deep thought for Sunday.

Afterwards I went to the Transportation Museum shop and bought one of everything.
Sunday night Kirsty had her family over for dinner. I spent most of the evening talking with her Communist Astrologer grandmother Ruth (Linda and Wendy's mom). She moved to England from Hollywood because her husband was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. We spoke mostly about her writing and how easy she finds dialog to write. She was shocked that I had been biking on Friday because I could have been killed given the alignment of the stars. She said I will be moving house
in the next year (my and Kirsty's interpretation: or just spending 6 months abroad), and I should have had a love affair in the past year.
"I haven't met anyone like you in a while." Ruth told me.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean.... You must be upper class." It was very sweet, but I had to laugh.

I woke up Saturday morning in Norwich. We stopped off at Nick and Morag's (the people I stayed with one night on my way to Berlin in July) on the way to Stanstead Airport where my mother and Maureen flew to Pisa for a vacation and I took the train (very fast and efficient) to London. The airport is expanding, and the residents are up in arms about all the sprawl in the community as a result. The town of Stanstead is actually incredibly cute. Nick and Morag used to drive to London for work, but now they both work in Cambridge which is a little closer and doesn't have congestion pricing.

Both at Maureen's and Nick and Morag's you have to drive on roads that have only one lane shared by cars going in both directions to get there. My New Deal American roadway expectations were shocked! That would never go over the our traffic engineers.

London is huge, and it seems quite spread out. The place is lousy with parks, which is nice but also makes me feel like things are even more spread out. Everyone I have met complains bitterly about the public transportation system, but I have
never waited for more than 5 minutes for a subway, bus or tram. Even when I have to transfer multiple times, it has never taken more than 30 minutes to get anywhere. I asked Harry, the 14 year old, to explain why the public transportation system is so bad, and he said the bus never comes and when it does there are 3 of them (sound familar, San Franciscans?). While this may be true, it has not been my experience. I can't help but wonder how often these people use public transit anymore. Maybe it has improved since they last used it, but its bad reputation persists.

It's great to talk with native speakers again. I don't worry that they understand the layers of what I am saying or if I am using a word that is too obscure. However, we are also divided by our common language. It took quite some time to ask for dish soap, for example. Not sure what they call it or why my name for it would have been confusing. "Cheers" is another oddity; why do people keep saying it when they don't have a drink in their hand? (It seems to mean something like "Thanks", but its very confusing. Maybe it actually means you have ink on your face. I wish I knew.) "Lovely" is another: they say it all the time. I figure the appropriate reply to "lovely" is "lovely", but half the time I try to say it it comes out "I love you" (always inappropriately).