I don't know how I failed to find out about this place earlier. Unlimited Internet usage for £1. The best deal I've found thus far is £1 per hour, and the worst I've found is £4 per hour. The currency exchange at the moment is £0.47 = $1... you do the math.
At this point, I'm itching to go home. The things that I found cute or interesting when I arrived are now starting to get on my nerves. I'm yearning to hear the American accent again, to receive a smile from across a retail counter (even eye contact would suffice). First, I suppose I should catch up:
Yesterday I returned to London after seeing all of York in one day. Don't get me wrong, York was awesome, a fortified medieval city complete with a stone wall surrounding almost the entire town. The town was compact though, and I saw the entire shopping district the night I arrived... then I walked around the whole wall (you actually walk on the wall, it's pretty dope) the next day... a 3 mile journey. On the way out of the city, I walked around all of the interior roads I hadn't already seen (it's a cool jumbled network of mostly car-free streets), and then I hit the train station around 2 pm.
From that experience, I learned that medieval history is cool... I'm fully down with it and have to keep that in mind when planning my next journey. The history is literally piled on top of itself, as first the Romans came and built a wall, then the Saxons came and destroyed half of it and build more, then the Normans came and destroyed a different part of it and build even more. It's a shame that it's not better preserved, but that's the nature of imperialism I suppose.
The train system is mostly awesome. I don't even check the timetables before I leave for the station, as there are trains running about every 30 minutes. I timed it perfectly for my trip back to London, and woke up 10 minutes before arriving at London's King's Cross station. Yesterday I stayed in the YHA-Earl's Cross hostel. YHA is the UK branch of Hostelling International, which pretty much guarantees a superclean, efficiently run hostel for a bit more cash. Even still, I'm really glad I have earplugs when sleeping with ten other dudes, as the hostel is completely booked every night, and the entire dorm room wakes up around 7:30 am. There's little to no hostel etiquette in the mornings, which can leave you exhausted.
Last night I met up with my friends I met in Bath: Dinh (from Seattle) and Allie (from Lake Oswego) at the Russell Square tube station at 7pm. It was amazing that we all actually showed up and found each other without being able to rely on cell phones for communication, just an email about a tentative meeting spot. I think we were all really homesick and looking forward to seeing each other to discuss it. My new friend Allie brought her friend Katelyn (sp?) who has been interning at a London Financial business for the last four months. Talking with her was very interesting... getting an American's perspective on semi-long term life in London is something that rounded out many of my perceptions.
TODO: Flesh out perceptions on life in London
We went to a couple bars and had a couple expensive weak beers. We discussed the alcoholism that is encouraged by the business lifestyle here, and the exclusivity of the nightlife. You know the beer is weak when I resort to buying Strongbow Hard Cider instead of traditional cask ales. Here cider is a man's drink (ha!) and you'll down pints of it if you actually want to feel something of a buzz. Katelyn talked of the week she was here before the smoking ban went into effect. Looking around the low-ceilinged pub and noting the mob of smokers outside, I can't imagine what it must have been like. Sometimes it seems as though everyone smokes, and complaining about second hand smoke exposure is waaaay out of fashion here. Actually, complaining about anything is pretty out of fashion here.
I rode the Underground home and impressed myself by switching routes at the last second when my preferred line suddenly closed due to "Engineering Works" (happens all the time). Snuck in to the hostel as quietly as I could and settled down for my final stay in a bed other than my own (not counting the train station bench I'll call "bed" early tomorrow morning).
This morning I woke and wandered around Earl's Court, a ritzy area full of mums going for a run and nannies watching children in the daytime. Wandering has been my favorite activity up to this point, but now my feet are now tired from walking several miles daily along city streets. My Keen's are fully broken in, and then have done me well, but I'm literally putting holes in my socks from overuse.
I took my bags from the hostel and left them at Victoria station for the night for £6.50 (forgot my earplugs... damn... I'll have to search for a drug store or resort to toilet paper). From there I went to tourist land... Buckingham Palace, St. James's Park, and the Tower of London.
I'm really glad I went. All of those places are gorgeous. Buckingham Palace is ho hum, but the surrounding area of embassy houses, government agencies, monuments, and memorials is stunning. It goes on and on, much like Washington, D.C. but with more gold and statues (I prefer marble myself). At that point my camera's memory card died in a way I can't recover from on the road, so I just tried really hard to remember it all. From the look of things, everyone else was taking a picture of every damn thing, so I'll probably be able to check Wikipedia for better shots anyway.
I was yawning a lot, and there was all this soft inviting grass around, so I sat down in beautiful St. James's park on the sloped base of an old tree and slept for an hour or so.... it was lovely. From there I saw some more monuments on the way to Westminster Abbey's tube station, and rode to the Tower of London.
As someone who now knows how cool medieval history can be, I'm quite glad I stopped by. So much history, so expansive of a structure, complete with a huge trough where a moat used to be. The only negative was... tourists everywhere. I mean everywhere. I could hardly make out any English and that which I could hear was American for sure. Cameras snapping, children running wild, absolute insanity. I walked along the water towards what I thought was London Bridge, which has to be the most impressive (although not very functional) bridge I've ever seen.
It's funny really... I have a framed poster with a picture of that same bridge beautifully lit up at night. The caption reads: "London Bridge at Night". That's odd, the map says London Bridge is in the other direction. I walked closer, and ended up walking across the bridge, which is equally impressive up close. The poster I have has been lying to me... the bridge is the "Tower Bridge". London Bridge may have more history, but it's possibly the most simple of the many many bridges that cross the River Thames. I tried to get a picture of me getting a kick out of that, but I'll have to settle for being in the background of hundreds of other pictures from the thousands of other cameras.
The most annoying thing about the common tourist, to me, is that they don't seem to care about the history at all. They care about the aesthetics of the site just enough to shoot a picture of them making a funny face or interesting hand gesture while monopolizing the camera's eye, but I often wonder why they are there at all. I had to brush people aside over and over just to ready the short information plaques about the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and countless historical sites near Buckingham Palace. I'm no history geek, but I like to try and absorb the significance of a site by picturing it as it once was long ago... all of the incredible, almost unimaginable things that happened right on this very site... right where your kid is dripping ice cream... right where you are tossing your cigarette butt.
So now, here I sit, whiling away the time before my final essential club night. I'm very glad I came. I've learned a lot about myself. I've changed my perspective on things a bit. I've learned lessons that will aid me in my future travels... and I appreciate my home country and new home town more than ever. It would be extremely arrogant of me to assume that I can draw any global conclusions by visiting one European country, so I won't (although I'd like to). I'm just... I'm really looking forward to coming back to Portland, Oregon, West Coast, United States. I look forward to seeing you soon over a pint of Imperial IPA, a cedar plank-roasted hazelnut-encrusted salmon, and fresh organic veggies from the farmer's market.
Signing off from the UK... cheers,
Matt Walker aka Max Vantage
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