Signs of the times...

So, I walked past the usually sedate and empty Woolworth's yesterday at lunch, and the place is mobbed--people lining up down the block to get in, with the store operating a one-in, one-out policy. The cause of the excitement? Woolie's bankruptcy and their closing-down sale. So, the same crap that no one would touch with a barge-pole just a day ago (hence the bankruptcy), is suddenly a must-have once the price drops--and this was repeated all over the country. I think we see what Woolworth's selling strategy should have been... People never cease to amaze me with their silliness.

Today, the office was supposed to have a sort of international lunch type thingie, where people brought in food from their own countries, but, as with most such things, it kind of fell flat. I, however, brought in a box of Triscuits (the world's most expensive Triscuits, I might add, at £5.35), as well as some spreadable cheese and salami. They were a big hit. I think Nabisco is doing itself a disfavor by not selling them here, based on the reaction in this office (though I'm not so sure that Nabisco actually exists in the UK).

I took the train in this morning. We're having after-work drinks, and, being so close to Christmas, the streets are going to be full of drunk dumbasses tonight (they are even operating drunk field hospitals in the train stations...). I thought perhaps it might be a better idea to plonk my butt on the train. My 45 minute commute suddenly became 75 minutes -- train, walk, tube, walk, train, walk. Waited for the third tube train to come, as the first two were too full, then physically shoved my way in (the British are not very good at this, but I'm not British). Every time I have to take public transportation to work (which, fortunately, is not that often - touch wood), I think, 'Why do people do this?'. There is nothing quite so off-putting in the morning, when, barely awake, I get to have my nose shoved into some complete stranger's armpit while trying to avoid eye contact with the creepy weirdo on the other side of the train and trying to listen to the garbled announcement of why the train is going to be delayed and we are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. I'd much rather be out on my bicycle, being hosed off with grime from passing trucks any day. At least that way I have total control over where I go, how fast I go, etc. Oddly, I feel like a bike, in town, at least, actually gives a lot more freedom than a car--I don't have to worry about parking, insurance, fuel (well, except food), closed roads - nothing. I just go. It never ceases to surprise me the number of people who insist on driving into central London. The few times I did that, I needed several packages of antacids to help me through the experience.

Anyway...

I've also been thinking a lot lately about the process of becoming familiar with a place - of it becoming home. It's funny - I barely remember my first time visiting London, or the places I went. This isn't true of places I just visit, where I tend to remember them in great detail. I suppose it is because my initial, very localalized impressions, over time give way to more a picture of the city as a whole, of the tiny little daily routines within. London has become less a place, standing on its own, then an element, or, rather elements weaved into my day to day life. It has become the streets, the smells, the supermarket, the people I know, the daily gripes of inefficiency, or the occasional slight smugness that I get to live somewhere 'cool'. I never thought I would think of a big, messy city in a foreign country as home, but I suppose it has become that - so much so that I'm trying to get permission to stay here on a permanent basis. I guess it's a good thing...