Search for a T-strap

Being the shoe fiend that I am and given the extensive length of time since the purchase of my last pair (I got some brown pumps my first week of work last September), oh plus the fact that I have worn out the soles on two pairs of work shoes yet again and need to get them repaired yet again, I decided to buy a new pair of shoes to wear to work.

Anyways, so yesterday at lunch I decided my time would be well spent looking at shoes on the Top Shop website, where I was forced to realize that all of my shoes are completely out of style. The hip pumps these days have an ankle strap, if not two, or straps in other places, like across the toes. You can imagine my despair! After work I hiked down to High St Ken and popped into Dune, as it's basically the closest shoe store to the road I walk down to get there. They had a lot of slightly quirky yet not so appealing shoes, but I mentally book-marked a few and then went over to the shoe lounge at Top Shop. After getting past the 8" heal pole dancing shoes, I found some I liked. There were bright red, slightly orange-y t-straps with about a 2" heal. I tried one on and found it remarkable comfortable. However, I was like, this shoe is quite the statement in color, how often could I actually wear these to work? The 'last chance' shelf indicated that the shoe had once been available in black, but they were down to their final pair in a tiny size. Oh, and there was also a cream option. But that just had 'I'm going to look dirty and scuffed within 20 minutes' written all over it. Plus a girl had picked that one up and was carrying it around like a baby.

This morning I tried questioning Mark on what he thought I should regarding this shoe situation. There really aren't that many Top Shops in London, the High St Ken one being probably the main second fiddle to the massive flagship on Oxford Street. Given my work's plucky location, I could hop on the Central Line and conceivably be at the flagship in about 15 minutes. So I asked Mark if I should go back to the local one and get the red ones, or try my luck at the big one. He got confused. So I decided at lunch to hit Oxford Street. I figured it would be much safer and scarier than going tomorrow when even more people would be roaming the streets.

Once I had fought through the crowds to gain entrance to massive Top Shop, I went down to two floors (yes, it's that massive) to the shoe area, where they had the t-strap shoe in bright pink and seemingly nothing else. I did some further looking about and came across a few more on the last chance shelf, in yellow but not my size, turquoise but not my size, and finally, taupe and my size. So I asked to try on a pink pair in addition to the taupe pair, as the pink still seemed like a better option than the orangey red. But they only had the pink in one size smaller than I wanted, and while they fit it wasn't what I would term 'comfy'. So I bought the taupe shoes. Oh, I must also add that one of the further advantages of getting shoes from Top Shop is that they offer a 10% student discount and my student ID card doesn't expire until July.

So what are my fashion intention for my new t-straps? Good question. As they are t-straps and don't have an abrupt top edge ripe for cutting into feet, I foresee them being quite comfortable and thus being able to wear them regularly. To be hip and fashionable, I intend to wear them with black tights. By watching people on the tube I have learned that this is what people do these days, but so far have not been able to bring myself to do it. I think that given the muted nature of the taupe I will be able to carry it out a little easier. And as they are somewhat brownish, I feel I will also be able to where them with khaki and brown ensembles. This taupe thing is seemingly quite the shoe solution. Plus I'm pleased to have shoes with straps so I can be cool. And now I have something to wear while the rest of my shoes are getting fixed again...

The Earthquake

So there was an earthquake in the UK yesterday morning. You may have even seen something in the news. Needless to say, the little shake-up was quite the conversation piece. First off, people at work started asking others if they had felt it. Those unfamiliar with the news just assumed the other person was making stuff up. Because you know, the UK doesn't have these sorts of problems, being mid-plate and all. Well, maybe 1 person in all of London was astute enough to actually notice it as it was like a million miles north of here and not that strong to begin with. But that's not the important thing, it was technically the biggest earthquake in the UK since 1984. An entire chimney collapsed at someone's house. This is big news! On one those little things outside of news stands listing outrageous headlines to entice us to buy the papers there was a headline this morning saying 'Earthquake rocks London'. I was like, oooh, London has collapsed into the earth as a victim of it's fury, then I remember, really, not so much. The 5.3 earthquake had a significant presence on the news last night as well, but luckily was not treated as the beginning of the end.

In other news, I've become one of those people who reads a book while on the tube. I find that reading while waiting for the train and then whilst crammed within one makes the time go by much quicker, plus you needn't pay quite as much attention to the strange people you have been forced into close confines with. The trend began when, a few weeks ago, I bought a book during my lunch hour and was eager to take a crack at it, opting to open it when I left work. It quickly caught on. Once I have finished this first book, I think I shall continue the trend, just making sure I have books small enough to fit into my bag and thin enough so that I can hold them open with one hand. However, reading has it's limits. For example, I can't read while walking to and from the stations. I'm a) not that talented and b) it's too dark on the way home. I would quite enjoy being able to read magazines but it's rare to get that much space to play with during the commute. Plus the balancing of something that size becomes tricky when your other hand is gripping a pole for dear life as the train goes around a bend on 130 year old tracks. Needless to say, I'm still working on my tube balancing!

WAGs

After first hearing this term, it took me a considerable amount of time to figure out what everyone (aka, mainly the media) was talking about. I'll spare you the torment and just tell you what it is, - WAGs is the term used in these parts for referring to the Wives And Girlfriends of sports stars. These are the women with really big sunglasses and big hair often shown in the crowds at England World Cup games. The world's most famous WAG would be Victoria Beckham, and Nadine Cole, the shamed wife of Ashley Cole and member of Girls Aloud, is another well known WAG.

For some reason, WAGs are sometimes treated as celebrities in their own right. Basically, being the arm candy of well-paid athletic types they tend to be busty blondes (or if you are Posh, gaunt brunettes), and society finds these people interesting. In the US we have actresses and Paris Hilton to fill the general role of 'party types we like to look at pictures of getting out of cars in the evening time', but here the supply of genuine female celebrities is a bit short, and aristocrat/socialite types must not be very good looking, so this gap is filled by WAGs. Some, like Posh and the Girls Aloud one, are well known enough to just be listed as themselves in a photo caption, but many others require the name of their HABs (my newly made up term for husbands and boyfriends) to be mentioned alongside their own. A few weeks ago the newspapers got lucky when there was some sort of widely WAG attended event on a windy evening, and so two pages in the London Light showed us the various attempts of these ladies trying to get from the car to the event without getting their hair just totally messed up. It's sad, I know.

And then of course, sometimes these WAGs manage to pick up side jobs based on their WAG credentials. For example, Wayne Rooney's woman has her own show, called 'Colleen's Real Women' where she goes around and tells normal people they are pretty and makes them walk around in very little clothing. Or at least that's the grasp of things I got from the commercial. It's in instances like that where I really wonder about the people in this country. Of course the US gave Jessica Simpson her own show, so I guess we can't really judge.

While I may sound like a harsh critic of WAGs, I must admit they seem to have a pretty good deal. They get money, clothes and attention without actually requiring any talent of any kind. I imagine they spend their days getting their roots touched up, shopping for wind-resistant dresses, and getting their maids to clean up the poo that their adorable little dogs deposit around the house. Oh yeah, and going to the tanning bed. Again, this does not seem like a bad way to go through life.

I'm also going to take this opportunity to point out another, somewhat related topic: the lack of female sports in this land. While the US isn't stellar in this department, we at least have the WNBA, an established professional national women's soccer team, a considerable number of female tennis and golf players, and the odd female race driver. Off the top of my head I can only think of one female Brit athlete off the top of my head - long distance runner Paula Radcliffe, and that's really just because Mark is frequently extolling her virtues as he totally has a huge crush on her. It seems like this country could put a bit more effort into promoting actual female athletes than just the women who date athletes, especially when it comes to promoting positive role models for girls. I mean, who girl's soccer have really ever taken off if it weren't for Mia Hamm? Who, I suppose via her marriage to Nomar Garciaparra is also technically a WAG. Oh dear.

Girl and boy bands

Now that I've wrapped up my tales of Munich, I have to start putting thought into my blog entries again. It's so much work! So, my apologies in advance for those that are a bit lacking. My first effort shall entail diving not so deeply into the parallel universe of the girl and boy bands we find on this side of the pond. As I've come to learn, there are a few groups deeply ingrained into the psyche over here, and if you're going to be living in these parts and don't want to be a total outcast, it's best you learn who they are.

The Big Guns:
Take That - boy band that's been around since the dawn of time, once included Robbie Williams but then he went solo, the group sort of fell apart, they reformed a few years ago and now they are hugely popular and won't take Robbie back. Their with-Robbie classic 'Back for good' is regarded as a classic in a similar fashion as the Backstreet Boys' 'I want it that way' (that both is, and isn't, saying much I suppose). I believe they can dance, but as they are old now they perform sitting on stools and such. They won 2 Brit awards last week, including song of the year for 'Shine', which has been totally overheard by all thanks to being featured in the ads for a grocery store chain for the last six months. Sharon Osbourne was nearly beside herself with joy when they won. She's probably kidnapped them all and keeping a little Take That harem somewhere. The 'boys', who are in their 30s, are not featured heavily in the gossip columns it seems and might be kind of normal.

Girls Aloud - group made up of 5 girls, allegedly originating on the show X Factor, the current UK version of American Idol. They've been around for a number of years and seem to have a continuous stream of radio-friendly hits, including recent songs 'No, no, no' and 'Call the shots'. The videos are played often at the gym. From what I've seen, they have no dancing ability, but can pose in various positions wearing minimal clothing. Who they date and what they're up to are regularly featured in the papers - one of them recently broke up with that guy who used to be on Desperate Housewives for being not cool enough, and one of them is in hiding (skipped the Brit awards even!) because all these revelations have been coming forward that her soccer-playing husband cheats on her constantly and she doesn't know if she should leave him or not. [note: tomorrow we shall go off on this sort of tangent and learn about WAGs]

Second Tier:
Westlife - another reformed boy bond, technically Irish but for some reason featured in commercials for the post office. There are four of them, I think they might have had a song or two that was played in the US some years ago, and originally came about after Take That was established (or so I learned this morning). Perhaps their recent comeback has also been inspired by them.
Boyzone - another Irish boy band, with a lame name like that you can't really take them seriously, I think. I'm not sure which one, but Ronan Keating came from one of those two groups originally.
Sugababes - girl band with 3 members, did a charity remake of 'Walk this way' with Girls Aloud last year. Members not found quite as intriguing as those of Girls Aloud.

Hopefully No More:
The short list of 'bands' I've caught glimpses of but were just so bad the first time I hope to never hear of them again...
- Atomic Kitten - evil for having spawned Kerry Katona, who is now abut 22, prego with her fourth child with her second husband and has a reality show on MTV. Luckily I don't get MTV, but she also does the commercials for what some might call a grocery store chain, but they only have frozen food so I don't think they count.
- S Club 7 - saw some sort of old school video yesterday, think there were 7 people in the group, 2 of which seemed to be able to sing. Dancing and overly happy smiling was involved. Scary. Both boys and girls.
- Steps - another mixed gender group of questionable talent. I think we've learned by now that these groups are best when only one gender is represented. We have also learned that no one has yet been able to come up with a half-way decent name for a boy or girl band.

Munich - Day 4 and stuff

Monday was the last day in Munich. Our flight wasn't until 7 in the evening, so we had essentially the whole day to play with. We headed up to the museum area (not the same, smaller one, we had been to the day before), most of which were closed on Monday. Basically, the ruling family of Bavaria, the Wittelsbachs, had managed to accrue vast quantities of art in various forms and decided to make a bunch of museums out of it. There was the Greek and Roman statue museum, some, um, other museums, and then three art museums - divided into old, new, and modern. The new was the only one open on Mondays, so that's the one we went to. Keeping in mind that 'new' was a relative term as the museum was over a hundred years old, the museum featured European art ranging from approximately 1800 to a little after 1900, with one of the representations of Van Gogh's Sunflowers (we've seen 3 of them so far, out of 8 or so), and a smattering of other impressionist paintings. I enjoyed the museum, but was slightly put off by the fact we were sort of being chased around by a group of about 30 5 year-olds.

After the museum we meandered through the not quite as old as the Marienplatz area streets, walking past the Residenz, the large Wittelsbach pad, and past the like, cutest ever giant yellow church. I think giant churches should be yellow more often. Then, after much ado, we returned to the Haufbrauhaus for lunch and so Mark could get a stein from the gift shop (let's not go into the days of debate this purchase involved). Being mid-day, it was a bit more subdued than the previous Friday and it was easier to get a seat. The band was there, and every so often really big tour groups came in, all walking past the band and stopping to take pictures. Coupling the longing for one last giant stein and the fact that it was mid-day on a Monday, we decided to get radlers to drink, aka, shandy. Apparently 'radler' is the word for cyclist and cyclists can't get plastered while riding around so they go for the half lager/half lemonade combo. I enjoyed.

Our following attempts at shopping were a bit uninspired so we ended up again at a bierhalle recommended by our book in the basement of the new town hall. It was a giant labrynth of rooms with low vaulted ceilings, and we had this strange little u-shaped narrow booth. The only other people in our are were these 3 American guys from different parts of our land, who were clearly finishing up a ski trip and were discussing the election. It's kind of funny hearing southern sorts say 'Obama'. Anyways, after that we went back to the hotel to pick our bags and headed off to the airport. With my spiffy new passport and accompanying visa, I had no issues getting back into the country. Although I think now the process is permanently associated with extreme anxiety.

So what's the deal with Munich? Well, I'm glad you asked. I found Munich to be a very nice city to visit, an excellent combination of history, culture, and fun. While obviously filled with it's fair share of tourists, you were still constantly surrounded by locals most places you went. People could generally speak some English, but you couldn't help but feel a bit guilty requesting they speak to you in it. In the 'things I found surprising' bracket, everyone always paid in cash at bars and restaurants. We got more than one sort of grown when we requested to pay by card in these situations. Then there was the confusion of trying to get around a lot of places - like when we couldn't figure out how to get out of the underground station by our hotel (this actually happened several times as we came out at different places), and then again when we were trying to figure out what the heck was going on at the Munich Staadtsmuseum and where we were supposed to be going at the Jewish Museum. At the Deutches Museum there were seemingly invisible doors leading to major exhibits, making them very difficult to find even with maps. It was a rather strange recurring theme in our minds - this whole lack of signage and clarity of process.

In the 'why don't they do this everywhere category' there were the escalators. At many of the stations, the escalators would a) stop moving when not in use and then magically motor up when you arrived at them and b) some reversed directions! We tried figuring out exactly how this worked, like if you pressed a button or just had to wait in a certain spot, but couldn't quite figure it out. I couldn't help but think of all those escalators in Las Vegas that just constantly run all the time even when nobody is around, and all the wasted energy. There's much more I could comment on, but those were my greatest observences. Make of them what you will!

Munich - Day 3

Our third day in Munich, let's call it Sunday, was a busy one. It was the only day where my feet hurt when I tried standing after sitting down for a short while. Anyways, after lattes and ham and cheese pretzels for breakfast, we trained it over to the Marienplatz to hit a couple museums - the Munich Staadtsmuseum or something like that, and the Jewish Museum across the street. Along the way we got a little sidetracked and decided to climb up the tower of a church called Old Peter to check out the views of the city. It was only a euro, so might as well, no? Well I nearly died on the way up (306 steps is a lot!), but the views were amazing! Like, we were higher than anything, and it was such a sunny day it was really something. Gives you a totally different perspective.

Continuing on to the museums, well, I'm not sure what to say. My general impression that the German's aren't big on efficient signing or things being really clear was reinforced at the first museum, which was supposed to be a history of the city sort of situation. The guidebook listed it as a must see, what they didn't say was that all the signs and everything were exclusively in German. Luckily it was free on Sundays so we didn't bad staying for only about 15 minutes. The Jewish Museum was very new, kind of sparse, and we weren't allowed to walk around with our coats or bags. The museum focused on the lives of Jewish people before and after the war, but not at all during. Like it was going for a happy thing. I think.

It was by then nearly noon, one of the three times a day in which the Glockenspiel on the new town hall does it's little musical dance. So I made Mark stand outside in the cold for half an hour so we could wait for it/watch it. Basically, some music plays and some figures twirl around. It would have been cuter had it not been so cold. Mark as by then dying of cold so we ducked into a place for lunch. I got what is essentially macaroni and cheese. I was looking for something that didn't involve hearty meats and potatoes. Mark got hearty meat and potatoes.

After lunch we went to the Deutches Museum, or something like that. It was absolutely massive, and had all kinds of stuff, generally relating to science and technology. Like there was a large area about building bridges, where I talked to Mark about forces on tresses. Video of the Tacoma Narrows was of course present. We also looked at some boats, some planes, some optics stuff, musical instruments, some prehistoric cave drawings, stuff about textiles, and saw a guy glassblowing. Oh, and stuff about tunnels. The model railway was too crowded to even catch a glimpse.

We then hopped on a U-bahn train to head up to see the 1972 Olympics park thing. Now, the U-bahn system was opened in 1970, and one of the stops conveniently stops at the site of the 1972 games, convenient, no? Oh, the train we were on had clearly not been updated since 1970. It had wood paneling on the walls. The headquarters for BMW are located right outside the underground station in a really nice looking modern building (plus some other buildings, this is just the one you can go in to), where you can walk around and see all their cars and learn about BMW technology and pay €3 for a coke. The park itself is really just that, a park. It's very pretty, and was filled with people just walking around enjoying the sunny afternoon. The Olympic Stadium itself is sort of carved into the ground so you couldn't really see it, but the face that it's carved out like that sort of explained the Disney-looking hills (as seen in background of photo) on the other side of the little (frozen!!!) lake.

For dinner we went to another bierhalle, this one featuring Schneider Weisse beer, where we had some wheat beers. Mark had a salami plate think, and I got sausages with potato salad. Oh, and I have never in all my life been so clearly hated by a waitress. I'm still not sure what we did to make her mad, but I'm assuming it was our request for the English language menus. Alas, there's no way to win sometimes! That wraps up day 3, tune in tomorrow for the recap of the final day!

Munich - Day 2

Our second day in Munich got off to a bit of a befuddled start. It took us while to figure out what to have for breakfast, then we didn't know what we wanted to do with the day. Eventually we decided we would go to the concentration camp at Dachau. But then we had to figure out how to buy tickets to get there. It was just outside the little zone in which we had a 3-day pass. Let's just say it was confusing. We gave up on the machine and just went and asked someone, who made it look really easy.

We hopped on one of the large suburban trains and headed out into the suburbs/countryside, past really new looking roads sort of twisting oddly through fields. They seem to not have the same rigid planning laws in Germany as they have here. A twisting new road through a field here would be sacriligious. Anyways, the train wasn't busy, and the final train station wasn't busy, however, there was one small area that was bustling. The concentration camp is a 50 minute walk from the station, so everybody just takes the city bus. There is a little bus station outside the train station, again rather muted except for the stop for the bus to the camp, which was chalk full of what seemed to be a lot of Americans. Most people just didn't pay for the bus and got on randomly, but being transport types we felt guilty, got off the bus and then went up to the front and bought tickets. The bus took us on a winding journey through the little town and then through residential areas, stopping at a rather indiscrete light concrete area. This was the path to the concentration camp.

A big visitor's center was being built at the street, but alas it was some way from completion so we hobbled into the little temporary building to rent audio guides from a very unrushed woman. Entrance to the site and the museum it contains is free, but it seemed like one of those occasions where you might get more out of it if you had someone telling you about it, hence the audio things. Anyways, it was the coldest day since the dawn of time. If I wasn't wearing gloves my hands actually hurt from the cold. So we might have rushed things a bit and not listened to all the audio stuff before we got into the museum.

The museum was in the old 'maintenance' building, which was the largest building on the site and was wear the administrative stuff was dealt with, it contained the baths, and I'm not really sure what else. But within the building, we learned all about the camp and how things there changed through the years. It was one of the original concentratino camps, opening in 1933 as basically a prison for political prisoners, with the number of prisoners increasing over the years and the range of offenses increasing. These included being the wrong religion, being homeless, not liking the government, leaving the country and then coming back again, etc. The camp was essentially built to house 6,000 prisoners, but was quickly housing 30,000. It wasn't ideal. It wasn't a death camp (there was a separate one apparently not too far away that they shipped people off to), but it was no picnic and the death rate was very high. I mean, it's not like they really gave them food or warm clothing. But even so, it was apparently still preferential to many other places where the work was much more physical.

Leaving the museum in the bitter cold, we walked around the rest of the site. Most everything had been torn down, but the foundations of the old bunks were still visible. They had since reconstruction the two closest to the maintenance facility to give us an idea of what they were like. One showed what the set-up within the bunks was like in different time periods of the camp. There were something like 36 of these bunks, laid out in a very neat symmetrical pattern around a dividing walkway. Most were housing, but some contained the buildings were medical experiments were carried out. At the far end of the site there were a number of religious memorials, and then a walk across the little stream brought us to the crematorium area, which I found quite sombering. After this we had seen all there was to see and headed back into town.

After a late-afternoon respit, we walked around the Marienplatz a bit before opting to check out a fondu restaurant. Although we then ditched the fondu idea and got pork and noodles instead. I think the waitress found us strange. Anyways, it was very, very good. We got Bavarian cream for dessert, having no idea what to expect. It was like half way between ice cream and whipped cream (and then came with whipped cream). Also very good. Being too early to call it a night, we then went to the bar in our hotel for a night-cap. It was a bit pretentious and everyone in there was much more nicely dressed than we were. Mark got a bloody mary, and the bartender was seemingly showing this new girl how to make one. She had a look of absolute disgust on her face. I had a grasshopper, which was minty, green and delicious.

So that was our second day in Munich. Tomorrow we shall quickly go through our Sunday encounters, which involved many more short activities of varying success. I've put up pictures with accompanying captions up on picasa, so feel free to ruin the surprise of what went on for the next few days by taking a peak!