Lucia Viglietti - What I love about London

While we're in the same place for the next few months we've invited guests to contribute to There & Here by telling us what they love about their favourite place in the world. Our guest this week is Lucia from Cape Town, South Africa.

What I love about London is it's a global village.

As a South African-Italian girl I’ve always had a heart divided quite strongly and loyally in two. South Africa is home and Italy is my favourite place to go on holiday. But the city that has my heart right now is London. Why? It’s the perfect balance of creative, quirky and worldly. It’s history and charm holds its own mixed in with the multicultural energy of the city. The first time I visited London I was 16. It was my first overseas and my first European experience, and I fell in love with the bustle, the red busses, the sights and (of course) the shopping! Having returned after more than a decade, it is like meeting up with an old friend; something special. And after living in a small town in Italy for a while its big enough for me to ‘get lost’ in, all the while knowing you’re never really lost in London. I get my fix of markets and exhibitions, designer cupcakes and charity shop gems. Whether a Friday pub night with the family or a day of museums and markets with lovely friends there is never a shortage of fun to be had in London town.


Photo captions (clockwise from left): 1. Borough Market in South East London: one of my favourite food markets in the city with delicious everything! 2.Three Bobbies in front of Big Ben (couldn’t resist the alliteration there, sorry). 3.The Book Club in the creative Leonard Street – from ping pong to a cup of tasty coffee with a friend. This is the place. 4. A rhino for sale at the Sunbury Antiques Market (every collector’s dream – there is SO much choice!) held at Kempton Park Race Course twice a month. Bring a car to carry away all the great stuff you’ll be tempted to buy! 5. City of London sign near Tower Bridge 6.The view from the Tate Modern across the Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral: one of my favourite views of the city. 

Lucia Viglietti is a designer who has worked in publishing in Cape Town, first at Real Simple South Africa and then at Marie Claire South Africa. Last year she moved to Italy for five wonderful months and has since spent time in London, New York and The Hague. She has plans to travel some more before calling London home. For freelance design work or just to get in touch you can email her on lucia.ottavia@gmail.com or find her on Facebook or Pinterest.

Al Higgins - What I love about London

While we're in the same place for the next few months we've invited guests to contribute to There & Here by telling us what they love about their favourite place in the world. Our guest this week is Al from Dublin.

What I love about London is that it was an inspiration for me.

My London and my reasons for loving it are slightly more dour than one my expect from ones favorite place. London was an inspiration for me to get to where I am now. It crippled an ego, spent all my money and got me quite lost, but I love it for doing that. I no longer live there, though I may again in the future.


London for me was shopping in markets, drinking strange beer, learning to cook,blagging housesit's, sneaking into student bars, underground burlesque & caberet clubs, buying old cameras, haggling, polaroids, trips to Brixton, Portobello Road, lunch in the park, walking the Thames, having my own bar in the attic, cream tea, avoiding galleries, avoiding art, being broke, having friends from home stay over, playing far too many computer games on sunny days, London Bus, 'staff' Underground tickets, the bus and train and boat journey over and back to Ireland, knowing where I was going, not looking like a tourist all the time and being jealous of Londoners dress sense.

Al moved to London within a few weeks of finishing his Fine Art degree in Dublin, to become a photographer. He'd been working all through college with relative success, enjoying parts of photography and hating others. He shot mix of fashion and portraits, corporate, events and weddings. And everything else in between, wherever he could get a job. Having landed in London with great ambition, he soon realised that what had worked for him in Dublin was far from what would work outside of his comfort zone. His degree and college and friends back home meant nothing to job prospects. He couldn't send in quotes for jobs and assume they were going to come back to him. He didn't have a portfolio, he hadn't studied over there and hadn't made the contacts his competitors had, he didn't have experience in commercial work, and he didn't want to work where he did have experience and his ego had held him back from assisting. London changed that, and made him realise where he wanted to be, it put him a rough path on how to get there, it was an experience, and in the end, he loved it.

portfolio: www.alhigginsphotography.com 
blog: alsphotos.tumblr.com 
twitter: @fajitasgtr

Our Weekend - April 13-15, 2012

Coffee to Stay - Chelsea

latte & black filter, Monmouth Coffee

Our Weekend - December 2 - 4, 2011

Our Weekend - November 25-27, 2011

Chelsea is abroad!

"Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!" - Dr. Seuss

This quote was the first thing that popped into my head this afternoon as I sat down to write this post. I am so excited, proud and mostly jealous of Chelsea's decision. She decided it was about time to pack up her wonderful little apartment in cozy kensington, quit her job, work her butt off doing freelance to save cash and book a one way ticket to London.

It feels like yonks (ages) ago that I received an excited WhatsApp message from Chelsea in the middle of the night to inform me of her travel plans ( or should we say "non-plan" travel plans). Yesterday, at a decent hour now that we are in similar timezones, I received another very excited message to say she has arrived at her hostel in London!

So her adventure begins. Where this adventure will take her, she still has not decided; but isn't the power to determine your own path and not know where it will lead you, the most important part of an adventure? or did I read too many "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as a child? either way her adventure has begun and I couldn't be any more excited for her. Who knows, her travels could even lead her to me which could turn her adventure into OUR adventure!

With all that being said, we promise to keep you up to date on Chelsea's voyage. The There & Here pair will continue to do our weekend posts ( ok so we messed up this week - give us a break, I think we needed it), weekly snapshots as well as our weekly design comparisons. The only difference will be that we won't be comparing South Africa and Canada for a while. We will be comparing South Africa to whatever place that Chelsea may find her self in. If Chelsea turns up here, we then promise to bring in some more guest contributors and introduce some crazy stories of our adventures together - but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

For now, I will end off with saying I wish Chelsea luck in all her travels and hope that she spends time sitting back and soaking in what each place has to offer her.... and to all the people that come across Chelsea and possibly our blog, Isn't Chelsea wonderful?

Lots of love from here
Charlotte

Live Music Venue - Paul (London)

This is the sixth week of our guest blog series to compare other parts of the world while Charlotte is visiting Canada for August & September. Our guests this week are designers Paul from London & Corinne from Auckland.

The Shacklewell Arms, Shoreditch. Owned by Jamie xx from the XX.

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Paul is a Graphic Designer and Art Director who works in advertising in London. He lives in Dalston, East London which is hipster/poverty central. The worst of the London riots broke out in Hackney, a few streets over, and spilled down his road into Dalston. Paul has only lived here for a few months now but wouldn't change it for the world. Paul loves London!


You can read his blog and view his portfolio at paul-price.net.

Song Lyric - Paul (London)

This is the sixth week of our guest blog series to compare other parts of the world while Charlotte is visiting Canada for August & September. Our guests this week are designers Paul from London & Corinne from Auckland.
 

The lyric is from 'What Became of the Likely Lads' written by Pete Doherty and Carl Barat. They formed part of The Libertines, a notorious London centric band who split up years ago due to Pete Doherty's drug addiction and imprisonment.

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Paul is a Graphic Designer and Art Director who works in advertising in London. He lives in Dalston, East London which is hipster/poverty central. The worst of the London riots broke out in Hackney, a few streets over, and spilled down his road into Dalston. Paul has only lived here for a few months now but wouldn't change it for the world. Paul loves London!


You can read his blog and view his portfolio at paul-price.net.