Jack the Ripper

As it's Monday morning, it's time for the recap of my weekend. My apologies in advance if you find my weekend uninteresting.

On Saturday morning I was signed up for 'group cycling' class at the gym. It was my first venture into anything resembling spinning, so I was nervous. I stopped on the way to get a bottle of water and sat in the back corner so the fewest amount of people could laugh at me. It was certainly an interesting experience. Despite my expectations of something at least resembling gender equality, the only male in the class was the instructor. Perhaps they all just go to the more intense spinning class instead. Anyways, the class involved the overhead lights being turned off, some color-changing dance-club-esque lights being turned on, and loud music. The warm-up was to the BeeGee's Night Fever, for example. The instructor told us when to add resistance, when to remove it, when to stand up, when to sit down and how we should be feeling at random points in time. Some songs were sort for recovery, some were for 'climbing hills'. It was a good class and I thought the instructor did a very good job, but that doesn't mean it was easy. By the end my hair was basically drenched in sweat. It wasn't ideal, especially when I had to stop at the grocery store, the dry cleaners and Starbucks on the way home. I was expecting some leg soreness, but perhaps I didn't use enough resistance for that. Instead I just have soreness from sitting on that horribly uncomfortable bike seat!

Late in the day, Mark and I headed east to eat some chicken at the Nando's under a railway bridge by vinopolis and then went on our long-awaited Jack the Ripper tour. While Nando's is a big chain and includes normal looking branches both at Fulham Broadway and across the street from my work, I was assured that this was a special one, and indeed it was. It was built into the arches under the old bridge, so it had basically two rooms with very, very tall arched ceilings and chandeliers hanging down. In this dramatic setting we had chicken burgers and fries with, somewhat unique in this land to Nando's, bottomless self-serve Cokes.

The Jack the Ripper tour was quite the enterprise. Basically everyone checked in at the same tube station, and we got sort of broken up into smaller groups of between 25 and 30 people, and then remained spaced out for the tours so we didn't come across each other. We had a group with what seemed to be predominantly English people, mainly couples (at one point we looked ahead of us and then behind and it was basically just a parade of couples holding hands, was rather amusing at the time). Anyways, we walked around a variety of random locations, learning about what life was like in that part of London in the late 1800s (to sum it up, it sucked and everyone had fleas because they bathed once a month), about the crimes Jack the Ripper committed, what the press was like at the time and what the police were doing to try and solve the crimes, and the tour capping off with a run-down of potential suspects and the one the tour endorsed as the actual killer. While many things have changed in those parts over the years, there was still quite a bit that remained. We passed some really old pubs, went down some old-style streets and saw some dark alleyways. We also walked down Brick Lane for a couple blocks and were inundated with offers for the nearby curry houses. The thing I found most interesting was on a street just off Brick Lane with period houses that for the most-part had been done up and were worth massive amounts of money, there was one house that looked run-down and quite derelict. According to the tour guide, that house was left like that on purpose and rented out to film companies in need of a worn-out period house. Interesting indeed. Anyways, the tour was pretty neat and a way to spend an evening that was a bit different. I'm intrigued to find out what other sorts of walking tours are available now in other parts of town.

To finish up the weekend, yesterday we went and saw No Country for Old Men (a bit strange that one, and I didn't really understand the end) and then went and used a buy-one-get-one-free coupon thing at Wagamamma's. Both these activities took place in Putney, aka, the opposite direction as Fulham Broadway. We took the bus. It was a bit strange but it generally looks like a lot of good things go on over that way so will have venture that way more in the future!