Pub vs. Club

So apparently, London, the famous London, capitol of Great Britain, closes down at 1am.

You can imagine mine and Mary's disappointment when the bar spit us back onto the street so early. We'd eaten a late dinner at a delicious, filling, and inexpensive restaurant, Tas, right near the Globe, and so were late getting out.

Yes, THE Globe. (I shed my "I'm not a tourist, I live here" attitude in London, because I was, in fact, a tourist.) The man at Tate Modern (excellent art collection), when giving us directions to Tas, said "Go up to the river and turn right. Go just past the Globe. You know, Shakespeare's Globe, and turn right again. It'll be on your left."

Ah, travel.

To return to the point. After just one pint at just one club, we were wandering around Brick Lane looking for an Englishperson to tell us where to go next. Using our carefully honed gathering instincts, we followed a woman who was shouting, "Shooters!" One of her companions, a fine young lad, scoffed at us when I asked if there were pubs open somewhere else.

"Pubs? If it's open after 1am it would be a bar, or a club. Didn't you bring your phrasebook?" Later, much later - the following night, in fact - we learned that if you want to stay up late, you should go to the Review Bar in SOHO. It's apparently famous.

Mary and I on that first night in London did not go to the Review Bar. We had one more beer and then began traipsing our way around the city, enjoying London's thriving late night bus system. Perhaps "thriving" isn't the right word. Perhaps it implies too much frequency. Anyway, we didn't go to sleep until 6am is the point.

And the following day, here was my impression: UK playgrounds - nay, European playgrounds - would make an American child shit his/her pants in excitement. Literally. So if you come, bring a change of clothes.

The playgrounds there are ENORMOUS! The slides are about four times the height and grade of our pathetic tilted planks. The jungle gyms are just that - not the temperate zone gyms we're used to. There's ziplines, high velocity swings, and merry-go-rounds everywhere. The streets are filled with cheese, but I wouldn't eat it.

I think the playground differential speaks to the way Americans are obsessively safety-minded with their children. Mothers in the US see a slide and think: Broken Neck. They see a high jungle gym platform and imagine their child covered in blood. I know, because my mother has oft described to me the terrible things she's imagined having happened to me in the five minutes that lapsed between the time I was supposed to have called her and the time I did. I also know because when Adam and Meyer climb up a ladder, I think: Broken Arm, and get the emergency numbers ready in the cell phone.

In the same way that European women will occasionally enjoy a cocktail during their third trimester but American women doing the same would be forced to wear a scarlet A on their maternity sweatshirts, European parents, it seems, have a little bit different interpretation of their children's heartiness. And why not? The British are hearty stock. Look how they resisted fascism in Europe! (They'll point out to you, again and again and again.)

Mary and I made up for lost time by spending nearly half an hour at the playground, before moving on to our walkabout London. During which walkabout it struck me: London, like Tokyo, like New York, is a modern city. Even if Westminster Abbey is close to 9 centuries old. There's Picaddilly Circus - like Times Square - with the huge TV monitors and flashy lights. There's the enormous, spread-out feel that you can only really appreciate when you're walking around in high heels at 5am looking for a bus. All that jazz.

Paris, in contrast, never got that way. There's no enormous monitors in the squares. Its still about the size of Austin, in geography and in population. There's no supermarkets. I came away from London really appreciating all that Paris has done to maintain its feel of a big city - a city where things are happening - that's a small city. Just like Austin.

Yay, Austin! Which, incidentally, is where I'll be in one week from now! Can't wait to see those of you who live there, or will be passing through. We can visit a bar together, which will close at 2am, and then go to a house which will have a yard. Roll that up in your cigarette and smoke it, Europeans. I can't wait!