Disclaimer: I write essays – nay, novels – and if you read them you are the best. And, I’d like the think, the intellectually better for it. Oh, who am I kidding.
Today started with some housekeeping (the real kind and also the way professors use the word when we go over syllabi), a too-hot shower (partly my choice and partly because the water supply decided it needed to be scorching), and finally, sitting on my bed for a little, naked and peeling oranges (seriously, having the room to myself for a week while my roommate is off on Tisch’s Spring Break will be AWESOME). But buckle in, kids, because the day just got more wild from there.
I talked myself into pants and even a shirt and set out around 2pm. First of all, I took a bus - OMG Shannon, I know, freak-out max – to Primark. Okay, before I go on, I should go back and clarify that the bus over tube decision was actually not out of necessity; it was just too gorgeous and I wanted to be above ground to take advantage of the sun! I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m glad I took the bus because I had a much better feeling of where I was, once I got off. (But Shannon, it’s not over until I voluntarily get on a NYC bus, so don’t go thinking you’ve won.) Anyway, Primark, for those of you who don’t know, is similar to Forever 21 but huger and more amazing and literally dirt-cheap, like scary, Chinese-children dirt cheap – I am not PC and never will be, not sorry. My goals were a bag to be used for weekend trips, and a cheapo towel for said trips. Impressively, only one other item managed to sneak its way into my bag, so chalk that up as a win. From there, I headed over to Hyde Park, which is literally around the corner from the end of Oxford Street.
I walked down Park Lane, just inside the east side of Hyde Park.
Pretty purple with some fallen leaves; I liked the way it shows that spring really is coming but the leaves remind us of all the fall and hard winter we’ve been through, so we can appreciate the spring that much more! I love this time of year, when we all start coming out of our winter coats and blossoming into bright colors again, and the whole city is full of human flowers. It’s cheesy, I know, but that’s totally what it feels like to me and it’s beautiful.
Seriously look at the sun reflecting off these beauties! If these flowers, whatever they are, were NYU’s mascot, instead of violets, I could totally get behind having a flower as a mascot. (Which I keep typing as “mascat”, LOL since NYU’s fake-out mascot is the Bobcat.)
Judging from my light studying of the “You Are Here” map just inside Hyde Park, I think this might be the Fountain of Youth, but if that’s the case, I’ll pass. If that’s the water you have to drink to stay young forever, I will just take option B and age with grace, thanks. Your fountain doesn't even spit.
Sorry, more plant life. I took so many plant pictures today. I was just so excited to have pretty flowers to take pictures of!
I can’t promise this will be the last one. But these flowers were just sitting on the bench, no one around to claim them or anything! Just such a pretty moment. And it makes you want to know how they got there and why they didn’t go home with someone.
I took a break and plopped down on a bench to consult my Not For Tourists guide just to make sure I wasn’t about to walk myself to Wales or anything crazy like that. I’ve got endurance like you wouldn’t believe, you know, so I have to check myself every once in a while.
The bench was super comfy so I whipped out little ol’ Middlemarch (all 785 pages of it) for some reading. And by reading, I mean taking pictures of my book and playing around with the color settings on my camera.
This gate is at Hyde Park Corner, the end of my stint in Hyde Park. I took this to point out that even when England does modern/post-mod with child-drawn unicorns and intricate molded-write gates (a la Jinnifer Koger, no?), they still somehow manage to make it a little gaudy. I don’t think it translates into the picture as well as it appears in real life, but just take my word for it.
Then I walked under the Wellington arch – for the Duke of Wellington, blahblahblah, we’ve been here before – and down Constitution Hill and made a puppy friend along the way!
You know how I had to check and make sure I wasn’t headed to Wales? Well, (Wales,) I passed that test, but apparently managed to get myself to Canada. And I must be Jesus because I didn’t even notice the water. This here is a memorial to the Canadians who fought in the World Wars on Britain’s side. Constitution Hill was big on thanking people who had done this: at the beginning were some pillars addressed to the Indian subcontinent for the same favor. I guess I shouldn’t be so facetious; I am really working on gratitude so maybe I should take a page from England’s book and erect monuments for all you awesome people in my life. But I call this Canada because of this pretty memorial (that’s water rolling down it, and maple leafs embossed into the stone on the bottom), and then this massive gate with Canada’s name on it. It seemed a little random, but I let it slide.
Oh yeah and then I turned around and there was Buckingham Palace.
Super-zoom, you are too good to me.
The front doors reminded me of the front doors to some of the houses in Nana & Papa’s subdivision. I remember I used to fantasize about owning some of those houses and getting to live in them. I also would not say no to living here. So William (or even Harry, I’m starting to be open to any option), just want you to know I’m still here.
The top of the Queen Victoria memorial right in front of Buckingham Palace. Okay, England. You win. Fine. Victory is yours. Gild everything and eventually something will turn out pretty. Yes, you’re right. But a) your win comes from an assist from the super-blue, super-beautiful sky, and b) your method relies solely on probability and concepts I should remember from Statistics but don’t, so I will instead stress the importance of quality over quantity when it comes to gold crap.
Defeated, I set off down the Mall. But not before the monarchy rubbed salt onto my smarting wound and got me off in circles trying to just get across the freaking street. Eventually, I threw a metaphorical middle finger and snuck through the short rails along the sidewalk, like the trashy American I am. But I figure that was less trashy than getting maimed by a taxicab and leaving my bleeding innards in the Queen’s front lawn.
[Side note: the other flags are South Africa’s; their president Jacob Zuma had been chillin’ with Lizzy the night before at the Palace and that girl knows how to welcome a guest.]
Took another one of my edge-of-the-park jaunts through St. James Park during my walk down the mall; here are some more plants in case you were worried that we might have had a cold snap in the past two hours or anything. Don’t worry, they’re still here and I’m still a rabid plant photographer!
This is the point where I really started to think, “This is Stupid.” It’s Stupid (with a capital S, to signify the "synonyms: silly, unbelievable, ridiculous" usage) that I can just leave my dorm, shop on Oxford Street for a second, walk through Hyde Park and stop by Buckingham Palace, and catch glimpses of Big Ben through the trees. Who do I think I am to be living this charmed life? I am so, so lucky; I am so, so fortunate. I want to shout my gratitude from the roof-tops every day, and I really don’t say thank you enough. So I just want to give a big shout-out to everyone who has been a part of my life, supported me in all the ways you have, gotten me to where I am today. I owe each of you so much more than one sentence in a measly blog post, but for now I hope you know how much you all mean to me!
You do yo’ thang, England. I am totally cheesy, or maybe it’s just the AMURRICA in me, but flags waving get me all patriotic inside.
I made it to the end of the Mall, and to the massive Admiralty Arch. For some reason, it’s been love at first sight for me and this behemoth. Getting a view of the other side from Trafalgar Square is pretty much the only reason I comply with having to go to the National Gallery basically every, single, week for British Art.
Finally back to familiar territory, I got myself past Admiral Nelson’s statch (statue, not moustache) and across Trafalgar Square. But once I had deftly maneuvered this circle (there was to be no trashy gate-hopping here) I was pretty much operating on “I need to be on the other side of the river and I didn’t bring a swimsuit so let’s do this.” I turned down the first street I found, which happened to be Villiers Street, which happens to (after today) be one of my favorite streets. I chitchatted with a corner-stander and acted SO UPSET when turns out I wasn’t going to be over here long enough to help her with her charity, then travelled down the narrow street and came upon a cute natural health store and lots of restaurants that whispered sweet nothings about how all my walking had probably burned off my one slice of bread and two oranges breakfast. As if I wasn’t in love with Villiers Street enough I happened then upon PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ offices and you know how accounting gets me all hot and bothered, so I was sold.
I was missin’ my George Eliot so I took another break at a park right across from PwC and half-read but again mostly tooted around and just looked at the London Eye across the river and thanked my lucky stars that I was in that moment.
I spied my final destination (the suspense is killin’ I’m sure) so I decided to head that way, but not before happening upon a building with a pretty clock and an American flag, and a statue of Robert Raikes. I always did like Sunday School, with the snacks and coloring and Bible stories, so thanks for your contribution, Mr. Raikes.
I finally found a bridge (Waterloo) and made my way across, and found myself in Lambeth. Which means I can cross yet another off my 31 Boroughs Project list (more about that project later, aka once I actually do research about it and confirm that London even has 31 boroughs and not 62 or something). Most importantly though, I got a chicken & mushroom pie and chips (fries) at, wait for it... Fishcotheque. I couldn’t make up something that good. I love Britain.
And the finish line! I closed out my night with Stravinsky, Tchaichovsky, Wagner, and Shostakovich* (they actually couldn’t make it tonight, but the London Philharmonia showed up and they did a pretty good job of standing in for the old guys) at the Royal Festival Hall. Which are the blue words you can’t read since I didn’t discover my “night snapshot” setting until during intermission. I guess the pay-off being an orchestra is really not incredibly awesome in its own right (according to usual definitions of "awesome") which is why I had to build that suspense. You know, like a cliffhanger. Except it’s only a cliff-hanger if you stop reading halfway through, which you probably did since I write epics. I’M SORRY, I LOVE YOU.
* My favorite of the night, especially this section - maybe I am biased (what up 7th grade trumpet class) but the brass are killa.
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