Parties and Visas

A bunch of parties have crowded into the last two weeks of January for us. We had two parties last weekend, and this weekend, two more. In both cases, one was thrown by Grace's friends, and one was thrown by my work. Last Friday night, we went down to Tooting Broadway (yes, it's really called tooting) in South London for a birthday party for one of Grace's friends. Although Tooting Broadway is only about 10 miles from our house as the crow flies, it still took me an hour to get there. And that was on the tube. If we had taken a bus there... just forget about it. Anyway, the party was with some of Grace's friends from her course at UCL, and it was good to see them all again, as its been awhile.

The next day, we had another party, this one for a work colleague of mine, who had gotten engaged. This time we had to trek out to the Isle of Dogs in East London, a 40 minute journey to move 7 miles.

South, North, Central and East London all have a very different feeling, at least the parts we visited this weekend. I haven't been to far west London. Anyway, central London is very recognizable - it's where all the monuments and famous buildings are. It feels very 'nice,' because, in general, it is. It has tons of grand old buildings, expertly kept up. In contrast, where we live in North London has a bit homier feel to it. Things are still very old, but the scale is smaller, with few buildings more than three stories tall. South London - Tooting, in particular - doesn't feel very old, and the buildings are also smaller than in central London. Tooting, I think, feels more like regular towns and cities in Britain.

East London is totally different. It's brand new, and has a completely different aesthetic from the rest of the city. The architecture and building design are all modern, and the layout of the city strongly hints at its planned nature. Walking around, I felt like I was in a modern part of Hong Kong, or maybe Tokyo (though I've never been there). It's also extremely quiet, and there are few people out at night. It's the banking district, where all the wealthy city boys live and work, but it doesn't seem to have grown it's own personality. Maybe it's too new. Maybe it's too expensive for poor students or artists who would otherwise patronise and open interesting shops and pubs.

We had a good time at my work colleague's party also. The next day we pretty much stayed in, as the weather was rainy. We used the time indoors to put the finishing touches on our visa applications. Grace's student visa runs out at the end of the month, and we've been working on getting new visas since last November. It's been a long journey, with lots of hours spent reading the fine print of visa rules, and filling out tons of applications, but we finally mailed in our completed applications today, celebrating this evening by renting a movie and opening a bottle of wine (it's the end of the month, we're cheap). For awhile, it looked like we wouldn't be able to get it done in time, and we would have to come home to make our applications from the USA. Things came together in the last two weeks though, and everything is out of our hands now. Now we wait for the UK visa office to decide our fate. With luck, we'll be allowed to stick around, and we can begin to think about spending some of my holiday. We have a list of places to go, but until we get our passports back, we can't leave the country. So, for the time being, we will remain on this Northern island during the gray and dark month of February.