The Other Side of the Other London

I visited Spain this past weekend. It’s been well over a month since I visited another country, which was the UK. In typical Marshall in Strange Places fashion, it’s taken me that long to get around to writing about my London visit. Expect a similar wait for a Madrid post.

Two work-friends and I tagged a visit to London after some client presentations on a Friday in Bristol. It was one fun trip, and I would jump at the chance to visit London again. All the more since I didn’t get to visit a few places I wanted to do, like the British Museum, HMS Belfast, all the history nerd stuff.

I could write about the mighty Thames, the Tate Modern and Big Ben and what not... But I won’t. Here’s a quick recap of the real, sometimes strange London we saw.

It snowed a lot there!

Great food that’s bad for you too

Regular visitors to this blog have heard me harp on my love of fresh fruit and vegetables. I admit I have an unhealthy side that bubbles up often – after all, I am someone who proudly mentions he has been 7/11 Tacquito-free for over 15 months.

With so little fresh produce and almost no flavourful food but curry, I’d have trouble living there but visiting when you’re in gluttonous holiday mode is dangerous (which I often am). Everywhere I went fish and chips and the famously fatty English breakfast were all lurking around corner, waiting to give me love handles.

The Second Spanish Armada

My London travelling companions included a Spaniard and a Mexican, both are not native English speakers. When possible issues arose over our hotel reservations, the role of chief negotiator fell upon me as the sole English speaker of the group.

Both desk dudes at the hotel turned out to be Spanish. While the Spanish speakers negotiated, I stood there, smiled and nodded, and looked like a clueless English-speaking tourist. When we hit the pubs that night, a healthy chunk of the bartenders were, you guessed it, Spanish. 

Spaniards were waiting tables, walking down the streets, and generally just about everywhere. At one point of the trip, my Spanish travelling companion leaned close and said, “Marshall, you are the minority in this country.”

Barfing

After pints on our first night, we went to an Indian restaurant. I happened to turn my head at the wrong time and saw this:

Surprised, I looked around to see if anyone else had seen this Semi-Stealth-Sleeve-Vomit and made eye contact with a waiter. Without missing a beat, and acting nonplussed about the now pukey floor, he caught my eye and shouted, “Yeah! That just happened!”

A London Friend from the Other London

Of course, I have a friend from London, Ontario living in London, England. Like any good friend, it might have been years since we had seen each other but we still picked up where we left off and hit the pubs and pints like we’re in the Other London.

Taking Back Saturday

Great cities have multiple personalities. You don't know who they are. One minute they are safe. Others times they seem like they might hurt someone. They are rich and they are poor. Boring and exciting. Cool and not cool. This way or that way...

They are difficult to get to know, but easy to judge right away.

But take a discovery walk down a new street. Climb out of a cab when you see something strange. Those snap judgements you made earlier will change quickly. The best cities reward those who abhor routine.

So, with this in mind, what do you do when you have your first Saturday off in two weeks?

Everything you possibly you can.

A work friend invited me to the fights, so I went. These are mixed martial arts fights, and are technically unsanctioned. Like Muay Thai in Canada, these are demonstrations, and can take place anywhere. 

These are held in gyms with a few dozen people attending. Sometimes there are chairs, often not. You’re closer to the action and get a greater appreciation of the athleticism and technique displayed in the ring. Some of the best fights you will ever see are club fights. 

When we were initially invited, we were told it might be in some dank basement.The venue changed to a sports complex near the airport. No basement. It was the main floor of a small building with a high ceiling and big windows on the front to let in the light. No dank.

Nine fights in all, but this one was great.

  

This fighter just found out he must fight an extra tiebreaker round. 

There were nine fights in all – eight were bouts between young fighters. The first fighters looked like they were 15. The rest ranged in age, experience, and skill level. The fights were two three-minute rounds and then a third tie-breaker round, if necessary. In one fight, when a third round was announced, both fighters slouched their shoulders and visibly sighed. Neither wanted a third go-round.

The last was a great bout between two pros. Both were patient, waited for opportunities to present themselves and struck in combinations. The sort of stuff a Muay Thai-Boxing guy would love.

Then we climbed into a cab to return to downtown Budapest. Taking a different route, we passed the “Chinese Market” in the Kobanya neighbourhood, which roughly translates to rock mine or quarry in Hungarian. The hood looks like it sounds. It’s a gritty, industrial neighbourhood.

Clearly, we had to jump out of the cab as we passed and explore.

How do I describe the “Chinese Market?”

It is a shantytown built from shipping containers crammed between a brick wall running along the street and the train tracks. During its business hours, it’s a pickpocket’s paradise. Tight walkways, very few exits, and cheap, flammable polyester clothing everywhere. I suppose it has potential to be an arsonist’s paradise as well. It is like a rusty ramshackle-modern-day bazaar.

Knock-off sneakers, flammable T-shirts, brass knuckles.

They had more market madness across the street in an old factory.

But we survived, and some of us even plan to return for the bargains on brass knuckles and things.

The long, eventful day did not stop there.

After a three-and-a-half-hour “nap” I unpunctually visited a work-friend’s house party. It was a fun, if a radical departure from the fights earlier in the afternoon. There was music, nice people, a bartender making cocktails, and a lot of muscular gay men dancing together in the living room.

These guys were circus strongman big. I think the proper non-straight nomenclature for them would be gay hunks. And they were still dancing and carousing when I left the party at 2am.

Anyway, that was my Saturday with Budapest’s multiple personalities.

Work/Life Imbalance

Sorry for being away for almost three weeks. Most of January has seen a huge shift in my work hours from sensible to non-sense. That work/life balance I enjoy so much hasn't existed this month.

A few weeks ago, I wrote the notes for a blog about maintaining a work/life balance when you’re an expat in a strange country, working a job you enjoy, and with no grasp of the local language.

I felt I was doing pretty well, until I finally got around to editing it into a post-able piece earlier today. Work has been pretty rough all month, and after working late it’s tough to do anything more mentally strenuous than stare at a wall, let alone writing a solid post.

I will try to be better. This moth, I went to London (Not that one, the English one) a few weekends ago and I have stories about that. I've been exploring more of Budapest: the baths, the museums, and, yes, the bars. For now I doodled some Marshall Arts of my more mundane January activities. Enjoy.