Shit

The Bayswater pigeons have been busy.

The Agony of Defeat

An area woman, distraught by Team GB's inability to pass North Korea in the Olympic medal count, went on a minor rampage on Westbourne Grove, kicking signs and hurling grade school level expletives before passing out under a table outside Arancina. A true British patriot.

Champions League

I'm surprised that my neighbourhood is celebrating Chelsea's win in the Champion's League. Yeah, it is a London club, but I didn't think anyone here actually supported them. It must be the tourists making all the noise.

Update: 30 seconds later...people don't care.

Wine shop + Gambling

Bayswater is allowing me to fulfill a lifelong desire to live directly above a liquor store. For my mom's sake--as it is Mother's Day in some countries--I haven't always harboured this desire. For some time I wanted to live directly above a shop on a busy street, and when I was in college I further refined that goal to live above a liquor store. I suppose that I was getting tired trying to find ways to return a keg the morning after hosting a party, finding transport via my bike and the bus rather difficult--though possible. Simply living above a liquor store would be much more convenient.

Now, I live above a liquor store called Nicolas. This wasn't what I had envisioned a decade ago. Nicolas specialises in French wines and offers no kegs, or even 6-packs for that matter. Though I can't regularly afford to shop at Nicolas, I feel compelled to occasionally browse the shop and ultimately purchase the cheapest bottle available, that is when I'm not too freaked out of being the only customer.

This is not the place where alcoholics come to find a cheap drunk. Instead, they just use the sidewalk outside. Directly next to Nicolas stands a branch of one of the bigger chains of sports betting shops, Coral. I have never entered, but I can get depressed by passing the always ajar door, held open by the "punter" taking a break from spending his non-existent money to have a smoke and to drink a ridiculously cheap, high-alcohol cider. While neither smoking nor drinking is permitted inside Coral, both are highly encouraged...Coral loves inebriated patrons.

Back in the States, I was very bothered by--and still make it a single issue vote--by some of the antiquated liquor laws enacted in some states, including Minnesota. I abhor laws created with religious undertones, yet I understand the state's desire to keep people at least semi-sober. While everything is more expensive on London, getting drunk can be done extremely cheaply...assuming you don't go to the W. Here, cider is not consumed by teenage girls looking for an easy drunk. Instead, it is downed by the biggest drunks as it serves as a loss leader at the local grocery chains which stand on every corner. Cheap cider is ubiquitous in Bayswater, except in Nicolas.

As part of my desire to learn my neighbourhood, I will continue making the occasional purchase from my French neighbours below. However, I will not be frequenting Coral.

Photo: taken from the street of me having some whiskey in my window above Nicolas, courtesy of Christine Ding Huang.

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.