Another World

London is the most difficult part of this trip to describe. I spent two and half days there this weekend and, even now, I have a hard time expressing the trip in much more than generalities. London can be called every big, descriptive word imaginable: amazing, striking, impressive, magnificent grandiose and on and on. But the most tangible way to describe London is to say that it is entirely another world. I have never seen anything else like it.

Entering London is nothing short of what I imagine landing on another planet would be like: the landscape is foreign, the people all reflect the same culture (of which I am not familiar with) and you feel unessential to the place as a whole--merely a bystander.

If you don't keep moving in London you are literally pushed to the side. You could spend an entire day, even longer, standing tucked into a corner in London and the city would operate around you, like a piece of the backdrop of the city. It might seem as though this is the case wherever you go, particularly in a big city; but the difference with London is the feeling that if you aren't careful, you will end up sidelined as a piece of the backdrop. A great example is the tube--the underground transit system that deserves a blog all its own--and when people get on and off the train. My travel mate and London guide for the time being gave me this as one of the first pieces of advice for the weekend:

When you get off the tube, get moving.

And if you don't, you will inevitably catch someone's elbow as they move past you. This is because there are two types of people in London: Londoners, who are all going somewhere; and tourists, who have all gotten there.

The people of London deserve as much observation as the physical landscape; in fact I spent half of my time looking at the "sights," and the other half staring at the people. But look and do not touch-or speak-because Londoners will engage in neither with you.

I spent nearly three entire days in London and I spoke to one native Londoner the entire time. This is a city with 7.5 million people in it, and I spoke to one person who was, in fact, obligated to speak to me and--deservedly so--suspicious that I was shoplifting from his store. In a city where you will find over 3,000 people every square kilometre, I managed to engage zero people in conversation--my hosts being the exception, but they were all South African anyway.

The only two people who approached me were not from London: creepy Italian, Antonio who seemed desperate to take me into the National Portrait Gallery; and a Cuban whose name now escapes me, who was excited to find out I was from Canada because he has "a lot of friends in Canada, in the province of British Columbia."

Oh, well go figure. I'm from British Columbia. Where do your friends live?

It's near Vancouver, very very close ..Sss ...Shhi ...Ssurrrey. Yes, Surrey, British Columbia.

Oh, Surrey. Yes, of course your Cuban friends are in Surrey. Where else would they be?

I managed to fit a fair bit of London into three days; but, a person could spend three weeks in London and still not see everything. I am convinced even the Londoners have yet to discover London. But everyone suits their bill, and mine included:

Big Ben, which is essentially a big clock--but impressive all the same. However, if anyone can manage to nearly walk right by Big Ben and fail to see him looming overheard--it is yours truly. I had only been in London two hours and the culture shock was proving to be most overwhelming, the result being a less than alert me. Emerging from an underground tube station, I was busy trying to digest what I had already learned: the tube has about three different lines, I'm on the green one, we went West even though we want to get to Southfield, insert ticket here--remove up here, get on the train--"mind the gap," get off here. Follow signs, follow arrows, follow people that look like they know where they're going. On the escalator and stand to the right because in London that is where you stand so that people who care to run up the left have room to do so.

Find the right exit (because everywhere in London has fifteen), up the stairs and what is that? Natural light? Could it be ... slam into the back of my tour guide. He got a nasty look from me, to which he replied: "Look up."

And there it was. A giant clock. Big Ben done and a lot more to go so, when in London, keep moving. I saw the London Eye, which is essentailly a giant ferris wheel. And I walked along the Thames into the evening to see London Bridge--it is blue and it is not falling down-- and Tower Bridge, which we walked across under a cresecent moon.

I also managed to experience

-the appropriately named Picadilly Circus: at night it was completely lit up, think an English version of Las Vegas but less tacky.
-the daunting department store that does not befit the classification "department store," Harrods, owned by the family of Princess Di's lover, Dodi Al-Fayed.

Gucci, Prada, Armani, Karen Millen, Jimmy Choo, Versace and the names that, peon that I am, did not recognize. Shoes for hundreds of pounds, coats for thousands and dirty looks from sales clerks that own outfits more illustrious than my entire monetary worth. I got lost in Harrods, literally, and took about twenty minutes to right myself.

-Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Leicester Square, Covent Gardens, another impressive park, Camden Town and Trafalgar Square. Everywhere is literally crawling with people, and everywhere illicits some sort of response along the lines of "wow."

By the end of my trip I was navigating London's tube system with relative ease. I found my way to the bus solo, and thoroughly enjoyed the five hour ride back up to Manchester. Leaving London feels like escaping by the skin of your teeth, escaping what is hard to say.