Spendthrift Shoestring

Weekend: Iceland, More Cartagena, Cheap Caribbean, London Embassies, Alesha Dixon

Sarah Lyall's piece on Iceland in the New York Times yesterday documents the fall-out from Iceland's spectacular financial crash. It quotes an Icelandic woman named Hronn Helgadottir who points out that she can no longer afford to travel. She describes a recent trip to Amsterdam, purchased before the krona's collapse, during which she and her husband kept a very tight budget. From the article:

They ate as cheaply as they could and bought nothing. “It was strange to stand in a store and look at a bag or a pair of shoes and see that they cost 100,000 kronur, when last year they cost only 40,000,” she said.

What's remarkable about this description is how it matches my own experience as a visitor to Ms. Helgadottir's Iceland. On both of my visits (in 2001 and again in 2004) the general cost index was terrifying. I ate enormous hotel breakfasts in order to stave off hunger until the afternoon and kept to an extremely parsimonious budget. Hot dogs and supermarket items saved me. I harbor no Schadenfreude in sharing this—it's ironic, in other words, but not funny.

Elsewhere in the Times: a feature on dining in Cartagena by Danielle Pergament—there's that increased attention to Colombia again!—and a round-up of Caribbean hotels and venues by Austin Considine. The latter is weak on affordable hotels, though two shine through: Sea Cliff Cottages in Dominica (from $90 in high season) and Virgin Islands Campground on Water Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands (from $75 in high season).

The FT online carried an interesting piece by Rob Blackburn on Friday on the ambassadors at small embassies in London. It profiles the missions of Andorra, Eritrea, Fiji, Malawi, and Montenegro. The most surprising revelation within is that Andorrans apparently need visas to study and work in the UK.

Lastly, I'm happy to see that a song by Alesha Dixon, one of my favorite gossip column fixtures from this past summer in London, has entered the UK top ten. "The Boy Does Nothing" is at Number Eight this week. Bubblegum fun.

Weekend over and out.

EuroCheapo London City Guide Update

One of my projects this past summer was an update of EuroCheapo's London city guide. The guide is now up and running. It's exciting to be able to peruse my reviews along with those written by others within the expert hotel reviewing EuroCheapo cohort. I also have to admit that I'm proud of my city guide articles. Sue me.

Given the increasingly doable rate of the US dollar against the pound—$1.74 buys you a pound right now, against the terrifying $2-for-£1 exchange rate in play at various points this past summer—I'm hoping the EC London guide will get tons of visitors over the autumn and winter.

Thanks for the gig, EuroCheapo!

Three Departure Boards

Belgrade. May 2008.

Frankfurt. September 2008. (Better Frankfurt departure board image here.)

London Stansted. May 2008.

Leaving London

We leave London in just a few hours. The last few days have seen a visit to Cornwall, last-minute hotel visits, and lots of goodbyes. My mood is more glum than joyful, though I'm looking forward to spending several weeks in San Francisco.

Walking around London the last few days, I've begun to feel that peculiar sensation that settles in when a city becomes something familiar as opposed to something full of specific, discrete sites. I kept having these organic realizations of how various neighborhoods fit into one another. And all I can think is how much more of London I want to see and experience.

Soon, hopefully.

London: Visiting Hotels

I've spent many weekdays over the last few weeks visiting and reviewing hotels in London for EuroCheapo. I've visited and reviewed hotels for the site in ten cities. In chronological order, they are: Dublin, Stockholm, Berlin, Munich, Athens, Krakow, Bratislava, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and now London.

Visiting hotels for the purpose of reviewing them is, frankly, a fascinating experience. In addition to figuring out which hotels in the city in question are any good, you learn about the shape of the labor force, various local customs and patterns, and how hotels fit into the tourist economy. You learn very quickly about management styles, and from a range of sources, too: managers, receptionists, and the cleaning staff. It's not always fun to visit and review hotels, but it's always undeniably interesting.

It turns out that reviewing hotels in London is—how shall I put this?—not exactly a walk in the park. I'll save my reflections on dynamics at hand for the EuroCheapo London city guide hotel scene roundup. For now, I'll just share an experience I had at a hotel (nameless for now, though you'll soon be able to read about it here) I visited earlier today. With its decent nightly rates, original style, and personable staff, it fits the bill for EuroCheapo hands down. But what was most remarkable about my experience there was the fact that I was offered a coffee at the close of my visit by the Greek Cypriot manager. He apologetically acknowledged that he was "crap" at making coffee, unless, he brightened up, I wanted a freddo. When in Nicosia, I thought. He made me a freddo and I drank it there in the hotel lounge, happier than I should have been, all the while remembering with great fondness how much caffeine-driven fun I had visiting hotels in Athens.

London: Walking Tours with Rachel and Ann

Is Liam the Future for Britain?
Stamped graffiti found this past weekend.

Friday and Saturday were devoted to walking tours. Friday's was led by Rachel, who met me in Kilburn and executed a circuitous loop to St. John's Wood, Little Venice, and Maida Vale, areas of London I hadn't yet seen. One completely unexpected highlight was Alexandra & Ainsworth Estate, a 1977 terraced estate by Neave Brown. That some examples of 1970s architecture manage to be simultaneously futuristic and dated has become a personal delight.   

View from street into the estate.

View to upper floors.

We found lunch at Adafina, a Sephardic deli, where I had a salt beef sandwich and tiny desserts, which included rugelach and a slice of baklava. Later we hit Little Venice, which I think should be called Little Amsterdam. What is it about urban canals?

Little Venice.

After skirting Maida Vale, we ended the day with Matt and Ann at Acorn House, a very green restaurant near King's Cross. It was an outstanding meal, one of if not the best I've had in London.

On Saturday, Ann led the tour. Matt and I met her at Hounslow East tube station and we bussed to Osterley; from there we walked to Osterley Park, where we spent some time in the park and the very grand house. Signs of an impending hayfever attack on the part of one of our party shortened our stay, but it was still incredibly beautiful as well as strange to contemplate the fact that the massive park is actually in London.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around central London. We had dinner at Abeno, where we ate okonomiyaki—we were just introduced to okonomiyaki earlier last week by Ben and Devon. Later, on our long walk following dinner, we sauntered down a perfect mews, at the end of which was a pub called The Duke, a cozy spot.

Doughty Mews.

Both days were full of the sort of unexpected surprises that wandering yields.

London: Finally, Deptford

Today I took a little tour to the east, first to see the Canary Wharf Tube station, and then on to Greenwich and Deptford. Greenwich was a bit twee for me, honestly, though the park was dreamy in the perfect heat. Overheard conversation: "Last year, we bought a cottage in Sussex, so lovely, but..." I wondered at the disasters that might have befallen the cottage purchaser, but she and her friends—all three with prams—passed out of earshot before I got the dirt.

Then I moved on to Deptford, a place I've been reading about in various places over the last few years. Deptford High Street completely floored me. It's a treasure-trove of ethnic shops, restaurants, and markets, with a supermarket here and a few one-pound stores there. The cross-section was bewilderingly rich, and frankly I haven't seen any street like it since arriving in London. It's an electric slice of multi-layered London without hipsters—at least for the time being.

And from there I moved on to more central 'hoods to visit hotels for EuroCheapo. What else? I lent my phone to a guy from Kazakhstan who needed to make a quick call. And then I came home and worked on some things.

London's Free Afternoon Dailies

Every weekday afternoon and evening in London, the free newspaper war is on. Copies of two free papers, London Lite and thelondonpaper, are passed out in enormous volume by uniformed representatives at innumerable crowded spots across London.

With their soft news coverage, the two are strictly commuter reading material, though their snappy celeb tidbits are well done. Yesterday's photos in London Lite of Pixie Geldof rolling a cigarette and of Alesha Dixon smiling her ass off in the back seat of a convertible Bentley are representative of the tenor of the publication's coverage of local celebrities.

The best feature of all is thelondonpaper's "24 hrs in pictures," which graces page two of the newspaper. Yesterday's photo of Boris Johnson and Wednesday's pic of Denise van Outen were both snapped earlier on their publication days. The same-day shots make the feature feel extremely current. In turn, the feature imbues countless commutes with a sense of random immediacy.

London: Exploring & Dining

It's been too long since my most recent London chronicle. I've been busy with visiting friends, my short trips, and my current assignment, an update of EuroCheapo's London city guide.

I am continuing to explore London, of course, and doing lots of walking. The southern end of Islington has been a focus over the last week, and I've also been moving eastward into Shoreditch and Bethnal Green and westward into Mayfair, Fitzrovia, and Bloomsbury. There are still so many neighborhoods I haven't seen yet, especially in South London, and I'll be continuing my explorations by foot over the next several weeks.

On the dining front, one recent highlight was dinner at Bistroteque with Matt, Molly, and Alex. Bistroteque is in a sparse, beautiful warehouse space—Alex likened it to an abattoir, though, she clarified, not in a stomach-turning way—and boasts a good menu. I found the starters to be especially satisfying, if microscopically portioned. The restaurant feels like a secret, which always instills a cozy feeling.

Another highlight, and a splurge to boot, was lunch last weekend at the Wolseley, an over-the-top pavilion of posh English food. Matt had an eggs benedict that he claimed to be the best of his life, as well as cause to rethink the dish altogether. My meal was also fine, though not quite so mindblowing.

And lastly, having sampled many of the gastropubs in our part of Clerkenwell—and finding most of them to be quite good—I've settled on my favorite of the bunch, a place called The Coach & Horses. Just thinking about it makes me wonder if I should finally leave the apartment for a late lunch. 

London: This and That

I got back last night from the Channel Islands, where I spent two and a half days with Linda wandering around, island-hopping, swimming in chilly water, hiking, and attaining just a blush of sunburn. It was truly wonderful. I'll write a breakdown of costs and a trip overview soon.

But before I get down to that, here are a few gems—objects and experiences both—from the last several days.

1. "Back to Nature," the Guardian's camping supplement, which came with the paper's weekend edition. Editor Sue George begins her introductory note with an ode to camping, which refers to the cozy sensation of being inside a tent in the rain. The supplement includes a primer on tents, camping sites that can be reached by public transportation, and a long list of camping sites in the UK and France.

2. Another Guardian feature, "London for free," a list of ten things to do in London for free, adapted from a cheap activities guide in this week's Time Out.

3. Georgian food at Mimino on Kensington High Street, which I enjoyed with my new friend Unai. Armed with a list of delicacies copied from Marisa's emailed suggestions, we feasted on satsivi, lobio, and cheese-stuffed bread, and drank Borjomi and bright green lemonade, which, the waitress pointed out to us, wasn't really lemonade at all. So tasty.

4. My trip to Green Lanes, which, in its concentration of businesses and energy, reminded me a little bit of the commercial part of San Francisco's Richmond District. In between gazing through travel agency windows at cheap getaways to Ercan (just £58 roundtrip!) I took a few photos.

Commercial district entrance.

Green Lanes street scene.