London....Chicago

Pop! Six! Squish! Uh-uh! Cicero! Lipshits!

My introduction to Chicago was at a school vocal concert. Heaven only knows how a group of 16 year old girls convinced our conservative staff to let them sing some of Broadway's raunchiest songs, but they did and I was hooked. Ever since, I've been a sucker for the musical (I may have been known to perform a hairbrush rendition on occasion...) But this was much, much better than me and my hairbrush. The cast were all incredibly strong, and the theatre small enough that our R-row seats were ideal. Using the little opera glasses almost made the stage shrink. Blame the alcohol, blame the caffeine, blame my addiction to broadway musicals, I'm pretty sure I bopped in my seat the entire show. I would have hated sitting next to me. Except, I was me, so I had a BALL!

Blondie and I exited to London drizzle, so we tuk-tukked our way back to the bar to finish the evening with more dancing and, shock horror, cocktails, with my cousin. Leaving a show, especially a musical, can often leave you feeling flat, or a little lost as to what to do with all the energy you've just been zinged with. I now have the solution- go dancing! Roll those stockings down, rouge those knees, drink that aspirin and Shimmy shimmy shake until your garters break...

London...Saturday evening

Let. Me. Off. The. Bus. N-O-W!



I'm not typically prone to hysteria, but inching down Oxford Street on the bus just about turned me into the crazy Australian lady who bangs her head through bus windows. No matter that I was stuck inside a London icon, the red double decker; I was looking at my watch so often I'm sure it looked like a nervous tic. I was trying to make it to Reagent Street to fly around an amazing shop that was only in New York and London (Anthropologie), then march onto Piccadilly Circus to buy discounted tickets, in time to see a matinée on West End, so that I'd bounce into happy hour in Soho with my cousin.....not having a phone so that I could change my arrangements on the fly was making me demented!

Despite my nervous watch tic, Blondie was calm, collected and very patient. I know people say that patience is a virtue, but I still think it's an underrated quality. We jiggled my arrangements around and managed to a) survive the muppets trying to sell us cut price tickets b) find another ticket box run by a non-muppet c) choose a show we both liked d) Get a late late lunch e) Make it to Jrinks in Soho the instant happy hour started. We even beat my cousin to the bar.

Once again, the universal elements collided and a favourite cocktail of mine, Espresso Martini, was indeed on special (4£!) for the three hours I would be at Jrinks. Ding ding ding! So just how many Espresso Martinis can a girl drink in 3 hours? Five, my dear friend, five. And I loved every minty, frothy, caffeinated sip. But alas, it was once again time for me and my escort (Blondie) to move on. The Cambridge Theatre, most conveniently located a few blocks away from Jrinks, was about to raise its curtain. Chicago here we come!

London...silver, silver everywhere

My mad search for "the" teacup

Having spent countless hours shopping in Paris, I was determined not so spend my precious London time combing the high streets. Not for Harrods, not for Fortnum Mason, not for Harvey Nichols, and not even for that British fashion mecca, Top Shop. The Portobello Markets, however, were another matter. The antique markets were one of the few things to be carved into my London itinerary from the start.

Portobello road, leading to the said markets, is jammed with people well before you reach the stalls. Ducking and weaving, with my friend Blondie, and her friend Blondie 2 trailing behind, I marched down the hill. Dodging the crowds by trotting along the road may have been a little extreme, but I was a woman with a schedule, dammit! (Also, the crowds were beyond ridiculous. Having spent my past year working INSIDE retail, I forget what peak Saturday morning shopping crowds look like. And that's just in Melbourne. The London crowds were infinitely denser.)

The terrace houses that give way to the markets all shared the same bright, colourful palette, lending to the upbeat atmosphere. And then, it started. I didn't realise that yes, the word market might mean roadstall, but it can (and here, does) also mean narrow shop fronts, six or ten little stores deep. Silverware seemed to be the most prolific item, and every second stall bristled with teapots, ladles, magnifying glasses, hairbrushes, gravy boats, bundles of cutlery and buckets of silver(ish) miscellany. Fascinating, but I just hadn't prepared myself for silverware shopping! My mission for the day was a pretty teacup for my collection and perhaps a not-so-pretty-but-cheaper-and-practical teapot.

The perfect antique teacup had eluded me ever since I arrived in Europe. Preferably in greens and/or pinks and with the classical curved sides, not a straight-sided coffee cup. (The French, annoyingly, seem particularly fond of the angular shape.) At last, I found her. In the dark and tangled depths of chickenwire that separated out this particular set of stalls, she called to me. The perfect shape, with a feature pink rose on the saucer and inside the teacup. Gold-gilded, with just a simple double stripe around the outside of the teacup. Blue is the featured colour, but she's so pretty I forgave her for not wearing my chosen team colours.

I should probably admit she's not the only thing I found. I also bought an old red OXO tin (a traditional English brand of beef stock cubes) and some letters that were once used in the old method of type-set printing, when individual letters were placed in racks to print newspapers.

Next stop, Oxford Street insanity.....

London...to market, to market

This little piggy went oui oui oui oui oui, all the way home. And THEN off to the Portobello Market.



After breakfast it was time to bid H goodbye- she was off to her aunt's country cottage for a long weekend. A quiet one with family and some fashion coffee table books (you know, like that Chanel biography I haven't finished yet or a tome of Manolo Blahnik sketches). Sounded great to me, but the London sunshine was calling. (That is not a typo. It was positively beaming.)

So my entourage of bags and I rolled off to take in Kensington High Street on our way to the Meineger Hostel at Baden Powell House. (Practically opposite the V&A Museum, and directly opposite the Natural History Museum, pictured above.) All was going well, until I double checked the address on my confirmation text, and discovered the last word was missing. This was an issue given the prolific number of "Queen's Gate _______" in a very small area. Fortunately I came across a helpful postie who knew exactly where to send me. (I later found out the postal service was intermittently striking, so I was definitely wearing the lucky pants that day.)

Once there, I used that antiquated piece of technology, the pay phone, to touch base with my awol friend, Blondie. From her I discovered that the Circle and District lines were closed for the weekend, which meant she was on a bus still trying to get to me. So, we arranged meeting point number two, and I headed off to catch my own bus to meet her. This sort of to-ing and fro-ing continued my entire weekend. It was at times incredibly frustrating, because it often made feel in a rush to get to the next meeting point. That, or I was dragging my heels because the other person wasn’t going to arrive for sometime yet. It’s amazing how used we are to continuously tweaking our arrangements. I noticed this especially because I was in an unfamiliar city, with routes and distances that meant little to me in terms of travel time, and I was bouncing between two friends and a cousin trying to fit one of them in with each activity. But, it could have been much worse. I could have had a stroller and Little J in tow!

I got caught out by the double name-game again, this time when I jumped off my bus a few stops too early in my hunt for “Notting Hill Gate”. It seemed London was also going to be a city of brisk walks from place to place! Not that I minded. The weather was gorgeous and the road very English. It is, after all, on this surprise walk that I discovered this fantastical tavern, with its blooming façade.

London...breakfast

La Petite Nicola at Holland Park (Saturday AM, day two of four)


Saturday dawned crisp, clear and blue. Friday night had rained like I’d only seen once before, in Vietnam. I now understand the upside to such a downpour; the streets were washed clean, the sky emptied of clouds and the parks painted an extra lush shade of green.


After our house party on Friday night, H and I tugged ourselves gently to Saturday breakfast. We cut through Holland Park, deserted so early in the morning. The oval, covered in dew, sparkled like an emerald in the sunshine. The trees were turning their leaves from green to gold. Even the park gate made me smile, with its long hinges and wooden cross bar.

Phillies was full of English/Italian charm. Black chandeliers and substantial timber communal tables, paired with a real latte and a real breakfast menu made it very worth our while to be up at that hour. (Well, for her it’s only across the park. For me, it’s across the channel.) I was tossing up between some English favourites, perhaps the porridge or the eggs+bacon+baked beans combination. I asked the waitress for advice, and her response was “It’s Saturday.” I ordered the eggs.


The French attitude often seems to be that they possess all the culinary prowess they need; I would humbly suggest they can’t make a proper breakfast to save themselves. Given that the French don’t eat breakfast, however, it’s no surprise they don’t ‘do’ breakfast. The English, meanwhile, deserve credit where credit is due. They love breakfast, they eat breakfast, they ‘do’ breakfast!

Petite Nicola goes to London....

FRIDAY (DAY ONE OF FOUR)

Finally, that long weekend across the channel I’d been dreaming of. The land where people speak English, and eat baked beans. Land of my vicarious, Enid Blyton childhood.

I emerged at Piccadilly Circus Station, delighted I’d made it this far with my mini suitcase, carry bag and handbag trailing behind me. At 4.30pm, I bought a hop-on hop-off tourist bus tour ticket, thinking I could fill in my spare 90 minutes or so with a visual crash course of London.

I hoiked up the station stairs with my luggage. To at last see the flashing lights, black cabs and big red buses of “old London town” was thrilling. With difficulty, I managed to find the correct bus stop in the grey drizzle. Despite being one of only two passengers, the live tour guide ascended to her booth on the top of the bus. From there, she commenced her stream of sarcastic commentary about London’s heritage.

By 5pm, I was cold (the bus was breeeeeezey), lost (I tried to use the cartoon style map to orientate myself, but the lack of lights on the bus made that a challenge), anxious (my French mobile refused to cooperate with the English system. I’ve heard that story before…) and highly skeptical about the supposed magic of London (Big Ben was disappointingly small, and as for Marble Arch! I peered through the window at their piddly excuse for an arch. That’s not an arch! That’s just a really nice mantelpiece. I practically live on the Champs Elysees. Come to Paris, we’ll show you how to build an arch… The most interesting thing about the arch was that Queen Victoria didn’t like it so she had it removed. And brick by brick, it was deconstructed and carted away, only to be rebuilt out of her sight. I’m not sure they should have bothered.)

And my bus guide wasn’t exactly sprinkling fairy dust on the experience. “Over here we have the Ritz Hotel. You can go to high tea at the Ritz. Beware it will cost you 40 pounds. Per head. But, that is all the cucumber sandwiches you can stuff in your gob.”
Or this little gem, “Here we are at Hyde Park Corner. It’s not actually called Hyde Park Corner, but people nicknamed it that because it’s on the corner of Hyde Park.”
To be fair, however, her favourite view of London was also one of mine. Looking back at the Houses of Parliament, with their lights reflecting into the Thames, was a wow moment.

My bags and I alighted at Westminster, hoping that the iconic red phone booth on the street would help me get in touch with H, my hostess for Friday night. I opened the door, only to be assaulted by the stench. Oh the STENCH! of urine. Peeing in a phone booth is NOT more polite than peeing in the street! Tentatively, I opened the one next door. Really, it was just as bad but when a girl’s gotta call, a girl’s gotta call. So with my bags balanced on top of the mystery puddle on the concrete floor, I tried to scrounge up forty p. Not enough. What about my credit card? Not compatible. Notes? Not a chance. I shimmied my way out of the stink-booth and stood in the rain to contemplate my next move. I was now cold, lost, anxious, highly skeptical about the magic of London, AND wet and hungry. I descended into the tube station, rustled up some coins and called H. Success! A voice I hadn’t heard in nearly five years, but it was just as warm and familiar. So I tripped of into my Friday evening (ops, not West-bound Petite Nicola, East-bound!), confident it would end better than it began.

Chantal Thomass

Bras, knickers, le string, slips, slippers, stockings...
I just had the most fabulous lingerie shopping experience. I am a big fan of bra shopping, and I have made wearing a correctly fitted bra one of my personal causes. I tell all the women in my life how important it is, and also that lingerie is about you, it's not about 'him'.

To that end, I have been looking forward to Paris lingerie shopping immensely. I have browsed through many of the renown boutiques, such as Chantal Thomass, Aubade, La Perla, Eres, Chantelle, Lejaby and some of the smaller ones too such as Princess Tam-Tam, Simone Perele and Etam. It wasn't until this week, however, that the stars suddenly aligned and I found myself with both the time and inclination, during shopping hours.

My standard shopping haunt...
I started at Printemps (with its late-night Thursday shopping, and its proximity to my house, Printemps is one of my favourite shopping locales). With a spare 20 minutes, I plucked some bras in my size from La Perla (is a 200euro bra really worth it?), Stella McCartney (the colours were so gorgeous I broke my rule of not even bothering with non-lingerie brands. For anyone above a B cup they are normally hopeless), Aubade (their ad campaign, 100 lessons in love, has got to be the world's sexiest). Being within a department store, instead of within the oftentimes impressive but overwhelming individual boutiques, makes me feel at ease and comfortable enough to hoist a quick selection off to the change room. (Which, in the case of Printemps lingerie dept., is a couple of unattended cubicles in the middle of the floor.) I didn't have much time and not wanting to hurry through my first French lingerie purchase, I left a tangled pile of bras and hangers behind me and continued on with my evening.


Le Bonne Marche
The next night I found myself at Le Bonne Marche, another of Paris's exclusive department stores. Unlike Printemps and Galleries Lafayette, however, Le Bonne Marche is not centered around catching the tourist dollar, but the French franc. This makes it a much more satisfying experience. To be in Art Deco surrounds, only French signage, a more compact layout and each area feels like a boutique unto itself, instead of just another section of a department store.

The lingerie change rooms at Le Bonne Marche ("Les Salons") are placed in a circle all facing into a large communal space with settees and warm lighting. Each "cabin" has a telephone, so that you can call for help and get it, no matter what your state of undress. This is on top of the helpful assistant who is manning the reception desk at the entrance to Les Salons.

Success!
I found the mature lady at the Chantal Thomass counter to be unexpectedly helpful. She virtually ignored me when I "made the rounds" and gathered up all the bras that caught my eye (only bras with nice bottoms- I love having sets!) This didn't bother me, however, because I felt free to poke around without being pressured. And yet perfect when I "appelled" her on the telephone for assistance, and she even disappeared into a back storeroom for me!

And thus, a gorgeous (yet substantial- no flimsy lace for my girls) leopard print number is now mine. If you go to her website you may just be able to identify the newest addition to my collection....