F**king Camden Town

Haha I don't think that of Camden Town, it's just that one night I was in The Shed to watch Rumen perform in Thursday's Open Mic Night and some of the guys later improvised a tune about Camden Town and that was one of their lines, which was pretty hilarious.

Well, just like I mentioned in my previous post about UCL, I never did a proper post on my life in Camden Town so here it is!

In mid-December 2008, I had still received no news of accommodation and was getting slightly worried as I was leaving for London on 31st Dec 2008. So after the accommodation office failed to reply my email, I decided to give them a call (my first encounter with a Londoner!) -so the lady on the phone checks my details and tells me I'm staying at "______" -I couldn't catch what she said. So she repeats it and I still can't catch what she says so I ask if she could spell it out, and she very nicely obliges - "I, F, O, R, E, V, A, N, S" and I scribble it down on my accommodation booklet. I then realise that it is quite far off from school even though I had checked "proximity to school" as my priority and that catered accommodation was my last choice (for those who are kept in suspense, this story ends well (: ).

Well, I google Camden Town after that and it sounds like a pretty funky area, with punks and goths and an interesting history, so I do feel quite excited about going to stay there. Even though the first thing 2 people tell me when I tell them that I'm going to stay at Ifor is "Oh be careful, that's quite dodgy". Yikes.

Anyway to cut a long story short I really really really liked staying in Camden, though I find that there are two parts to Camden:

1. The Crazy Funky (somewhat touristy) Part
This is the part I first visited and was quite impressed by because at this point it seemed to have so much more character than the rest of London put together (yes, London didn't grow on me till about 2-3 weeks after I got there). I like going around the markets (when I'm in a mood for shopping), and bringing people around there, and just basically wandering around and looking at random things that catch my eye. Oh yes, and people watching -young punks, old punks, goths -what's there not to like (even though I question how 'authentic' some of them are)? Haha.

The canal actually stretches all the way from Kings Cross to Camden to somewhere else even further away, and is one of my favourite parts of Camden as it is really pretty and serene (it straddles both the funky and the normal) and also demonstrates some verticality in the landscape -it is so different passing under the roads that I usually pass by above the canal!

2. The Normal Part that I live in
Which is Camden Road (The funky part is on Camden High Street)! Look at the picture below, the one on the bottom right. The road on the right is Camden Road, Camden High Street is not in the picture but is where the road branches off to the left before this particular branch (confused? I'm not very good with explaining directions haha). Yep so Camden Road is the road I mostly walk up and down on my way back to Ifor, passing by Huge Sainsbury's (yay -I pay frequent visits to this place to stock up on milk and cereal-my favourite Sains Honey&Nut Cornflakes especially), Camden Road Station (the Overground that not many other people might know about, especially if they don't live in North London -I love taking this except it doesn't really lead anywhere into Central London heh) and some small restaurants and grocery shops (where I sometimes pick up some fruit). By the time you reach Ifor, it's mostly residential.

And okay la, I've never encountered anything dodgy in Camden even though there have been stories of things happening to other people (though we never know who they are), and at some point Mich & I figured that there other people were mostly always drunk. So yes the trick is to stay sober, plus the fact that the people I hang out with are not really the night-life type (and neither am I) so I usually get back at a pretty safe hour!

And now we come to the all-important Ifor Evans Hall, where I lived in for 5.5 months. I was really sad about leaving the last time I tried to blog about this but I think I can do this now because it's all good memories!

Well, let's just say I thought it was quite a shithole at first (haha though I really did hear the head housekeeper describing Ifor as a "right shithole" while arguing with somebody on staffing issues), especially after visiting the spanking new Goldsmid House that Heather was staying in. But as I gradually did up my room and got to know more people, the place became as cosy as can be -and I quite liked that it was old cos it contributed to the overall atmosphere (and I guess I had to be thankful for having good neighbours).

My super ultra cosy room (pictures taken right before I started packing up to move out). On a random note, Dishwalla's Angels or Devils was playing on repeat while I packed up my room, and I'm playing it now because it reminds me of A303 and Ifor (:

The exteriors (pictures taken in winter)

And of course, who can forget the people. In a way I'm glad that UCL separated all 3 of us UCL SEP students into different halls -it definitely forced me to go against my natural instinct and to try to be sociable (thought I still utterly, completely suck at making small talk), and am really glad that I ended up in a catered hall as it provided more opportunities to meet other residents than say, living in a flat arrangement. And I did end up with pretty good friends and fun times! The first month of dinner-times was spent trying to talk to different groups of people, and I made loads of nice acquaintances that way (: It's really nice to have people to smile to, and to say hi how are you to around Ifor.

And what would I do without my regular dinner gang whom I stumbled across sometime in February, after utilising my sit-with-someone-you-recognise-and-have-talked-to-before-no-matter-who-they're-sitting-with 'strategy' haha. And so via Terence, I met Thomas, Mingte and then Rumen who were a fun bunch to have dinner with. Thomas later left us for Amsterdam and missed out on my attempts to 'cook' (okay fine I used pre-mixes) for them on 2 occasions (with no food-poisoning cases reported). We also had some really fun music sessions -plus it's nice to have people knock on your door to talk when you're bored to death studying or to have people's doors to knock on, to have people to watch HIMYM with, or to just look forward to dinnertimes everyday (especially during the dreary exam period when I hardly ever went out). Lucky, lucky me (:

So yes, that's the Ifor experience and the Camden experience and I loved it! (: