[Day -28] Mother

I was originally going to just go back and edit the posts that I need to add more to, but that just seems silly at this point. If I had actually written when things occurred they would be much clearer in my mind so it's just not right to try to do that now.

I think the two most important things I have left to talk about are Mother and the cab ride to the airport.


Let's see, I left London on Thursday morning Dec. 23 so I believe we went to Shoreditch on Tuesday, Dec. 21. I can't remember exactly, but I don't think that we did much during the day. It's possible that that was the day we went to Winter Wonderland. For dinner, Vivek, Vijay, Hannah, Erin and I went to Brick Lane again. It was so good. I think I had chicken tikka masala and vegetable pilau rice, all so delicious. That dinner was much spicier than my food the night before, so I loved it. I even ate some of Vijay's chili nan. 

We all walked Hannah to the bus stop so she could go back to QM because she was leaving the next morning. Then Vijay, Vivek, Erin and I tried to find Anna because we were all going to go to Shoreditch.


Before I saw it spelled out, I thought Shoreditch was Shortage. I also thought it was a place, like a bar or a club, but actually it's a neighborhood. It's somewhere near Bethnal Green and Brick Lane, but I couldn't tell you how to get there because we got lost. The four of us walked to the end of Brick Lane and ended up turning the wrong way on the perpendicular street. Anna had no idea where we were or how to tell us to get there, so we called Talhah, who was at home. While we were on the phone, we walked down Rhoada Road.

Rhoada Road may have been the creepiest place I've been to in Europe. The area around Brick Lane has some unsavory characters, to say the least, and we felt like we had stumbled upon their homes. I felt like I was walking through the projects that are in Dravosburg/West Mifflin by Kennywood. It was dark, no one was around, and we were lost. It was so creepy that Vijay and Vivek started discussing how they would respond if someone tried to attack us.


We made a left turn and walked back toward the main street. A cab driver offered us a ride, but we just kept walking. Talhah was barely any help, so we figured it out on our own. We went the opposite way down the street and then Vijay recognized where we were. We passed a few bars and clubs, definitely the area where the hipsters hang out which is probably why Anna was there so much. We ran into Anna and two of her friends on the street. One of her friends was extremely drunk and talked to me and Vivek about how he hears voices in his head.

We walked across the street to a club called "Mother." The drunk friend was in front of me to get in and the bouncer gave him a hard time, so I was stuck outside in the cold for about five minutes. I finally went around him and Vijay and I walked up the stairs into the club.


The atmosphere was something that I've never experienced before. There was a Christmas tree in the corner of the room and big couches surrounded coffee tables. The furniture and wallpaper looked antique, something that I'd imagine was in a grandma's dining room.

We put our coats on a couch near the Christmas tree and went to the bar to get drinks. There was an adjacent room that had music and dancing. It reminded me of walking from a living room to a dining room because of the doorway and the decorations. The walls had similar, antique looking wallpaper and there were strange paintings and photos hanging on the walls in picture frames. The dj was in a booth raised up on one side of the room and all I could see was their hands waving around. The music was good, it was different. I recognized all of it, but it wasn't the everyday top 25 that you hear in other clubs. It was a really strange assortment of people also. There was a Jewish man with a really long beard, a lot of drunk British kids, a few Indians and a bunch of black people. At one point a circle formed in the middle of the room and a few people were break dancing and doing all kinds of stuff like that. There was a girl that reminded me of my sister with her dancing, and some pretty skilled break dancers. It was a great find that night and a good way to end London.

Although I was the resident picture taker that week because Erin's camera didn't work, it didn't feel right to take any pictures in Mother. It was one of those moments that only belongs in your memory, almost as if you could've made it up in your head.

Oh and the bathrooms were interesting...some of the stalls didn't have doors, none of them had locks. They were small and crampt and there were signs all over the place that Mother didn't tolerate drugs, however Vijay was offered coke (or something like that) when he was in the bathroom. It was very fitting for that place though, I wouldn't have expected anything else.

Even though we only got there around 12:30 we were still planning on leaving at 1:30. We ended up having so much fun that we stayed until it closed at 3 and then took the 25 home.

M