London post-mortem: part one

Hello there, lovelies! 

I'm back from London, where I was properly initiated into the First Rite of Ladies Who Are Forty by drinking tea with girlfriends, generally being amused by cheeky piano playing, and eating tons of fried things. As far as initiations go, it was highly pleasant and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to usher in 40 by acting like a seriously crusty, old woman. 

I've been 40 for a week now and it's my expert opinion that being old rules. It might be jet lag, or perhaps I flipped a hidden old lady switch, but I find that I'm really taking to extolling the virtues of napping, being dismissive of young whippersnappers, and early bedtimes. And so, while I'm still waiting for my fourth-decade-ration of elder wisdom to manifest, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that 40 is bringing me all the zen... and that so far I'm digging the feelings of giving zero fucks that comes from being long in the tooth. As my friend Holly told me this very morning, me being five months older than her totally shows now. 

Yep.

I could wax philosophical about this milestone and how it makes me so mature and junk all day, but I think we'd all prefer it if we got this blog caught up with a good old fashioned TRIP REPORT! Because, while it might have been ungodly hot... and humid... and generally lacking in infrastructure to support being either hot or humid, London is a fab town with all sorts of things worth commenting on. 

So, where to start?

Let's start with the obvious... how every single man who lives in this city owns the same fabulously cut blue suit.

I did a "crowd of men in blue suits London" Google search and was shocked to find that there weren't a million candid crowd shots of the very blue suit that I'm imagining. Tons of photos of headless bodies used to sell them... but one would think my slightly amended search of "crowd of men wearing blue suits standing outside the pub" would have struck pay dirt. I saw this TONS of times! Thanks for nothing, internets! Life lesson. Next time I'll make sure I catch these cultural things for myself. Which is really quite remarkable because it's my opinion that every Londoner who self-identifies as male and isn't a tourist was probably issued one when they turned 13.

I know this (okay, maybe not the part about being issued a suit, but definitely the part about everyone having one) because I waited an entire week to be proven otherwise. Phil as my witness, if three or more men were gathered (let's say, outside a pub) in any part of the city where people have jobs, you can bet your ass that 2 out of 3 were wearing a suit just like this.

Unless they were Italian. 

I can't believe I'm posting a photo of a royal on this blog, but it's kind of exactly the suit... 

It's a very particular color blue, too. Very striking. Not quite peacock and definitely not navy. Somewhere in-between...Yep. That's the one. Perhaps with a waistcoat. Perhaps with a tie. Most definitely with a long-sleeved white or light blue button down. Never paired with brown shoes, because apparently there is an edict in the business dress code that you should never wear brown in town. I believe the blue suit constitutes all day, every day wear. It did not matter that London was a veritable greenhouse and that few buildings had air conditioning. I looked into several open windows and these men didn't even risk pushing up the sleeves. The punishing heat had no bearing on the unbelievable consistency of Londoners' dedication to the blue suit.

This is not a judgment. It was kind of inspirational.

And so, while I'm Californian deep in my bones, and I swear equal allegiance to vintage dresses, heels, athleisure, flip flops, *and* denim, I gotta give it to the London man for having exacting and unrelenting standards, unabashed love of peacock-meets-midnight blue, and damn fine tailoring.  

That's not to say that it isn't downright terrifying to be awash in blue suits swarming a bridge at 5pm. I can tell you... swimming upstream against the suited masses was an experience i'd prefer not to repeat. It was more than a bit disorienting. Like being given a big, blue, homogenous, totally claustrophobic hug. 

That's a good place to leave off. Tomorrow I think I'll talk about why I think tea tastes different in Britain, which is obviously the next thing worth mentioning. Until then, it's nice to be back in the land of tacos and air conditioning.