London was hot this past week, with the temperatures spiking well above 80 degrees for 3 days straight. The temperature didn’t stop the adventuring and exploring though. The week began with work and class as per usual on Monday and Tuesday.
On Wednesday my Global Accounting Issues class had a site visit to Lloyds of London which was interesting to me as my mom works in insurance. The building architecture was stunning as well as the business model being very interesting.
On Thursday after work I immersed myself in the culture of England and specifically Camden Town where my friend Mark’s Uncle was playing a concert with his band “John Landau and the Giants.” The venue they were playing at was a local pub which had a small selection of beers and only one option for food, pies. We had both never had a pie before and the menu was confusing to say the least. Once we figured it out, we both ordered some pie with steak and mashed potatoes on the side. The pies came out and they were immaculate. “The land of pies” as Marks Aunt Suzanna described it, did not disappoint. After the bands performance we went home for the night, and I went to bed as I was getting up bright and early to head to the beach.
Friday came along and I was off work with the mercury inching closer and closer to 95. In the area surrounding London there’s a very popular beach town that everyone goes too called Brighton. It has shops and is a very quintessential beach town, but the “beach” is full of rocks. I may just be spoiled by the New Jersey shore but when I think of a beach, I always picture nice sand and good swimming, and Brighton just was not it. After some research we were able to discover Margate, and Margate was a better choice than Brighton. My roommates Alex, Kieran, Justin, and I took the train to Margate and experienced some more British culture, with their loud music obnoxiously blasting on a speaker and their reference to everyone as “chaps”. Once in the town of Margate we headed to the beach where we secured a spot in the sand. Unfortunately, no one had the foresight to bring towels and we kind of suffered in that regard, but we were alright. The water was much warmer than I expected as we were in a sort of enclave from the cold waters of the North Atlantic. Our timing at the beach was amazing as we arrived right around high tide. This afforded us the opportunity to do some jumping off the concrete pier into the water below us. That was a scary but fun experience, and I would definitely go back or recommend Margate to anyone studying or visiting London in the future.
After the beach we headed home on the train where I slept for the entire ride back. Unfortunately, it was still incredibly hot in our apartment which lacks air conditioning and this made it unbearable to sleep in. Embracing my inner Eagle Scout, I headed up to the roof with my blanket and pillow and made a night of sleeping on the roof. I enjoyed my roof sleeping experience and was able to come back downstairs in the morning when it got a bit cooler. Overall, even though it was a hot week it was still a great one.
