Sunday, April 8, 2012

Bayswater Mansions

By moving into Bayswater, I accepted that I have switched classes. While I always envisioned that I would greet this change as an achievement, as something to be proud of, I now realise that this transition actually serves as the single largest conflict of my time in England and perhaps the eventual driver of my departure from this country.

Growing up, I labeled the upper class as the few doctors who could afford to live in the aptly name community--built atop a pile of low-grade iron ore--called Pill Hill. At the time I could not comprehend that a class of people existed somewhere that could make the Pill Hill doctors appear as Wellfare bums. Even harder to believe would be that I, myself, would live amongst this class.

Then I moved to Bayswater. I used to think Bentleys were a relic and that Lamborghinis only existed in movies. Now I see at least one pass by my window into Bayswater each minute. I, regrettably, have switched classes by moving here. I used to aspire to make more money and to move to a nice neighborhood, but now I have guilt. As I watch my neighbours walk by below with their Gucci bags and Jimmy Choos, I am reminded of the Temporary Like Achilles lyric "as helpless as a rich man's child."

In order to feel a member of this community, I will either have to embrace this ostentatious, wasteful lifestyle or will have to find another side to it. I feel pretentious discussing class in a blog, but this dominates my thoughts when walking and observing my street. I am not preoccupied with people having money but with how they treat it. I perceive that many of my neighbours have no clue how the rest of the world lives and that many of them really have no concept of the value of money...they have always had so much it doesn't matter and they know no other alternative.

Why do I state this? What is the relevance aside from it being a constant conflict for me? I suppose I want to be honest and straight forward. In London, each building has a name which is used in the first line of the address, before the street name and number. My building is Bayswater Mansions. I live in Flat 1 Bayswater Mansions.

There. Now I won't feel that I'm misleading anyone.

Friday, April 6, 2012

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Arancina

My old flat mate Peter held the distinction of being the only person to wear out his Collector Edition's DVD boxset of the failed US sitcom Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place (later referred to simply as Two Guys and a Girl, probably renamed with the intention of deceiving people into thinking it was a different series). I can't admit that I ever watched a whole episode but based off the overly verbose title, I gather that Two Guys.. is a highly mundane, fictional portrayal of the everyday, real happenings at Arancina, the Sicilian restaurant directly across the street from my Bayswater window.

Arancina employs a cadre of young, presumably recently immigrated, Italians who serve pizzas, pastas, and arancinas--fried balls of risotto and other stuffings such as mushroom and ham. To these Italians, Arancina serves not just as their place of employment but also as their social sphere. At any time off-duty employees represent a solid percentage of the restaurant's customers. These employees mill around all day, taking frequent smoke breaks and occasional trips to the corner pub, the Redan, waiting for their friends to finish work for the evening.

I have tried to become friendly with these young Italians, but despite having completed multiple loyalty stamp cards, I have yet to be invited into their circle. I predict that my inability to speak Italian impairs my chances but probably not nearly as much as my ability to speak Midwestern American English. For example, the other night I requested three arancinas of any variety ("Surprise me.") for "take-away". After much confusion and clarification, I left with two, very cold arancinas of the same flavour.

Each night, shortly after closing time, a mini, comical looking car parks in front of the restaurant. I assume this is the boss coming to pick up the receipts for the day. Normally he parks right on the sidewalk, and after he leaves, a party ensues on the street with the workforce celebrating the end of their working day (or waiting day), occasionally handing out leftover food and always smoking a healthy portion of cigarettes. I have met people who were able to infiltrate the Arancina crowd and, after this post-work smoke, be invited into the restaurant for an after hours party, an enviable invitation for any true community member.

I imagine Arancina will make a number of appearances in this blog so I will not comment any more at this time.

Mission Statement

In the past three years, I have lived in three countries and spent time in well over a dozen. For over a year of this time period, I documented this rather fantasy-like lifestyle in my retired blog, the Voyage of the Miller. In that now defunct blog, I started each entry by listing my current location and--until the final days--would not create a new entry unless I could announce that my location was in a different city than in my prior post, reflecting my transient life and ideals towards flexibility and risk-taking.

I ultimately quit blogging not because my views change but because I wanted to spend my final year living in Barcelona not writing about other cities but becoming a member of my neighbourhood, allowing me to feel that I truly experienced the city and my barrio, not that I just slept there for two years.

This leads me to my new project, Window into Bayswater. Bayswater is a neighbourhood in west London, sandwiched between the more famous neighbours Notting Hill and Paddington, where I have been living since moving to London more permanently in August 2011. While unable to vote here, I intend to become a true member of this community (becoming a recognized regular at the local establishments, becoming an authority on the area's eccentricities and establishments, and becoming an expert on its history), and and plan on documenting the challenge in this blog.

Two East-West thoroughfares traverse the neighbourhood, Bayswater Road and Westbourne Grove. While Bayswater Road lends its name to the neighborhood and represents the southern boundary with Hyde Park and Kennsington Garden, Westbourne Grove serves as the primarily commercial street and will be the focal point of this blog. I live in a corner apartment on this street and arguably have the most intimate view of the activity occurring on our community's main street, one level below me. From my living room couch, I can literally communicate with the pedestrians on the street and the passengers on the double-decker buses. Due to this unique perspective, the window from my living room will serve as my window for sharing with all of you this community and my attempts to join it. All photos will be taken from my windows into Bayswater, and I trust most inspiration will come from them too.