I had to do something different , something new - I needed to fall back in love with my city.
I heard about the mysterious sounding rainroom from a Welshman. As a general rule I avoid Welshmen - years of summer holidays in rainy, miserable north Wales being the very valid reason. However this Welshman seemed unusually chirpy about London - and he raved about rainroom. I did a bit of research, and it was a temporary exhibition on at the Barbican. On the positive it sounded amazing, I've never really spent any time in the barbican and you got to hang around inside away from the snow. On the negative it was closing in a few weeks, queues of 3 hours were being blogged about and I would need to get up before 9am.
My lovely Belgian was over the following weekend, so after talking it through, she was game. We casually got there at 10.30am ( the exhibition opens at 11am) and joined the queue. I'd got my light clothes on ( recommended if you want to keep really, really dry). Somewhat randomly Gok Wan walked past with a cheery hello. That was about the extent of the good news. A nice official looking lady came and broke the news that where we were was a 5 hour wait.
We did the sensible thing, and wandered off to the never not amazing Broadway market and hung out with the hipsters, ate violet cupcakes and got involved some of the most incredible smoked salmon. The Belgian loved Broadway market. We then headed to Colombia Road and indulged ourselves in some Orla Kiely purchases, we also stumbled past Keira Knightly. Seemed nice.
So the 5 hours we could have been queueing was nicely spent.
Over the following week I kept thinking about this room though. How could tourists be getting to see it, and I'd failed miserably? It wouldn't do. I was going back. I needed someone used to hanging around waiting patiently. A fellow backpacker. Helen was roped in. This time we got there at 9.30am - we meant business. I brought my travel pillow and settled in. 3.5 hours later we were smugly at the front waiting to go in. They let around 6 people in at a time. When we got the nod I positively skipped down. It was that exciting.
The actual walking into the wall of rain was a little daunting, the assistant told us to walk slowly if we wanted to avoid getting wet. I'm not sure I do slow walking, and I did get the old drip on me. But the sensation is very, very incredible. If I believed in God, or a weather lord ,then this might be what they get to experience. I/ they walk - rain ceases. To the side, front and back torrential rain, right where I am dry. Very, very cool my friends.
I'd say go, but it's pretty much all over red rover. I can imagining it popping up somewhere else though. It's too incredible for it not to.
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