London
Ari’s favorite part of hearing that our plane was delayed was the curt, British “sorry” that punctuated it. “Sorry, sorry, surrey,”Ari repeated. We were hours away from landing in London Gatwick airport, and we needed to make it by midnight so that he could stamp his passport as having left the Schengen on March 26th.
The passport control stamped it at precisely 11:55 p.m.
A trip to the U.K. could only start with a proper English breakfast—black tea, orange juice, cereal, and toast the pallor of ivory. Our Greenwich hostel’s pub provided this dizzying array, but it was far from enough to satiate our (always) ravenous appetites and so we began our time in London as nearly every one of our trips do…in search of food.
London’s sprawl concentrates around the Thames river, so our first day became a game of “how many times can we cross the Thames on a separate bridge.” We began at London Bridge after riding one of the quintessential double-decker red buses from Greenwich. From there, we headed directly north across it, passing St. Paul’s Cathedral to the northwest and weaving without much firm direction along the interior of Covent Garden. Our wanderings arched up to Oxford Street and back down into the live-theater rich parts near China Town. (There is no shortage of 5-star, “delightful,” “MUST-SEE,” “Will make you laugh and weep” live musicals in London.) After afternoon tea and warm, buttery (frankly, incredible) scones, we skirted St. James’s Garden towards Westminster Abbey. The setting sun glanced off its intricate ribs and spires right as we crossed the green to sit at the riverbank.
We began our ramble back to our origin point via Westminster Bridge— the bridge that boasts the best viewpoint for Big Ben—only to look over our shoulders, squint into the sun, and see that Big Ben was cloaked in many tons of scaffolding. Like a bundled child in a towel after a bath, its face was the only mournful thing visible. We learned later that, “after 157 years of nearly uninterrupted service, Big Ben will undergo restoration from August 2017-2021.” Poor timing on our part, I guess.
We crossed two more bridges on our way back before ducking into the Underground. I always wondered why Brits called the subway “the tube” and rush hour in London gave us quite an education. “The tube” literally resembles a tube. I felt as if we were stepping into one of those transparent plastic tubes that vacuums letters up tall office buildings from the basement; only, the tube transported people—not letters—on its side. Inside, Ari’s hair grazed the ceiling as we wedged ourselves in, barely escaping the merciless slam of the doors that strained to contain us and a hundred Londoners. When we finally busted out of there four stations later, sweat had pearled on Ari’s temples. We would not be taking the tube at rush hour again.
Day two resembled day one. We spent most of our day strolling and munching, but we did visit the Victoria and Albert Museum after a soggy morning in colorful, majestic, Notting Hill. What we didn’t realize is that the museum deserves a day’s worth of your time. It spans many acres and is made up of an aggregation of palatial halls and courtyards. The moment we grasped its mammoth size was when we strolled through a total of three cafés, tables crowding a pulsing vein of main hall, while searching for the southeast Asia section.
Once there, I found four exquisite pages of the Akbarnama—a Hindu book I studied in an Art History class at Whitman—and wondered where the other hundreds of pages plus various other pieces of art were. An attendant told me that the gallery does not have space to host the thousands of artifacts under the ownership of the V&A Museum, so many of them are available to view by appointment in the archives. A tempting thought, but we needed to continue.
Later that day, Ari appeared to walk in slow motion ahead on the path—except it wasn’t slow motion; he was entirely at ease. We both were. A peacock perched on a stone wall beside him, looking down its curled beak at the gardens of Holland Park, and the sun poked its head out from behind the grey cotton of the cloud. It kissed the floppy bells of the daffodils and the brick arches of the observatory momentarily, then disappeared again. Our favorite moments during our time in London were much like this; walking, we’d spend our time looking up and taking in the many awe-inspiring buildings that checker London and showcase its rich tapestry.
-sofia
