Good Times in Soho: Part the First

I dropped the ball a bit after my last post so I need to get back into the habit of posting.

On Wednesday evening, I met up with a friend of my parents in Soho. I had never met J before, but she was a lot of fun. She currently teaches middle school at The American School in London. She's also taught in Venezuela (sidenote: I mispelled that word so badly the spellchecker came up with "bungalow" as a suggestion) and Budapest, and she's moving to Amsterdam to teach their next year. I must admit, I'm very jealous. Granted, there are downsides to living abroad--missing familiy and friends, cultural and linguistic isolation, different living standards/comforts, etc.--but I do think it would be fun to live and work abroad.

Random sidebar: J mentioned that American peanut butter is one of the things she brings back from the States every chance she gets. Now I quite like the peanut butter here, but that got me thinking about what particular foods I would miss. I definitely crave certain foods already--Chipotle, "regular" Pizza (even the Pizza Hut pizza is not quite the same), James's chocolate chip cookies. I'll be curious to see what else I start missing.

Anyway, we met up in Soho and had a pint at a traditional pub and then ventured to a larger bar for more drinks. It was fun to talk about our experiences in London and get more insider tips. And I am even more keen to travel to Amsterdam after hearing more it from J. (Fun Fact: The Netherlands has the tallest population in Europe.)


We befriended some "locals" (a term I use loosely as they are all foreigners working in London) with whom we were sharing a table. They were great fun, and we actually tagged along with them to a club--Ain't Nothing But the Blues--later in the evening.

The club was cramped and smoky (I sure miss smoke-free Lawrence), but I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. The house band played a couple sets; they were excellent. The lead vocalist looked like Paul Simon's long-lost twin, and the sax player was good fun.

All-in-all it was a great evening. I have a new friend in London, and the blues club was an unexpected find.