It was a good trip, an amazing trip. We (my father and I) arrived on Sunday morning at around half past seven, London time (approximately 2:30AM to our minds still set on good old Eastern time.) After wading through the lines for British immigration at Heathrow (which, I firmly believe, is punishment for seceding so hastily from the British Empire over 200 years ago...) we were able to make the transfers to the hotel and to the city itself. The hotel was in Kensington/Chelsea, which was a very nice area and afforded a quick walk to the Tube.
Over the course of the week, I visited most of the typical touristy things around London - Tower Bridge, Whitehall, Trafalger Square, Piccadilly Circus, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey. We did a bunch of the smaller attractions too, as we both disliked the crowds and had tastes that were outside the realm of waiting in line to see the Crown Jewels. We saw the London Theatre Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and the London Transport Museum, all of which were just as fascinating as every other part of the trip. The most fun I had was experiencing the Tube/London Underground for the first time. So like the Broad Street subway, yet infinitely better...except for the overcrowded trains, and the random electrical blackouts underground.
We managed to catch two shows while there as well: Les Miserables, and "The Reduced Shakespeare Company presents the Bible: The Complete Word of God: Abridged." Fantastic stuff - the first was a show that my father and I had already seen and fallen in love with. The Reduced Shakespeare Company has always been a favorite of mine because of their reduced version of the complete works of Shakespeare. We spent a good deal of time in the theatre district, the West End area about Leicester Square and Covent Garden. It's really just incredible to walk through there on a busy afternoon, like a Rittenhouse Square but with ten times the amount and diversity of people hanging around.
It was an incredible week of which the highlight was seeing my sister on Monday when we took a train into Paris. She's studying at the Sorbonne, and is doing very well, despite the fact that she finds herself talking with her hands just as much as muddles through the French language with her mouth. Paris was lovely as well, and even more crowded than London - a fact I disliked.
The thing about London that struck me was how international it seemed. My own visions of London pretty much revolved around the always-stereotyped proper British Gentleman archetype - bowler hat, thick accent, smoking a pipe and drinking tea. London is so much more than that, a city that bursts at the seams with this vibrant color of people from all around the world, both acting as tourists and as it's natives. I remember seeing or hearing bits and pieces of nearly every single British possession while there, whether it was a broken word in another language or accent, or the scrawled writing on a signpost somewhere advertising cheap Indian food. I've been to New York before, and have spent some time there, and it felt even more "international" than New York. The gentlemen of Monty Python were nowhere to be found, except for on the BBC.
In the beginning I made the joke about wanting to seek asylum whilst in London, and at the end of the trip, I'm glad that I didn't actually try anything to this end. London is incredibly beautiful and cosmopolitan, however, it's also incredibly expensive, and despite the fact that my father and I were among the better ones, westerners tend to stick out like sore thumbs. I want to go back, soon, but for now, it's just good to be home again, having not had to wait in any lines or hear overlapping conversations in languages different than my own for something like 36 hours now.
I have photos, and most will probably be uploaded within a day or two.
I arrived home to find paperwork from Villanova: the loans have gone through, which is good, and I also have notes from the theatre department regarding the upcoming semester. It was a fine way to burst my summer bubble, going through a manilla envelope packed with information about the upcoming classes I have to still register for, complete with syllabi and due dates for assignments that seem impossible at this point.
Oh well, no worries. There's still a month left of summer. I should be heading into Philadelphia tomorrow to see a reading at the Borders on Broad Street by Justin Cronin who just had his latest book published. I'm not sure how long I'm staying yet - probably Tuesday or Wednesday. If anyone is around, give the cell a call and I'll drop by.
I've also managed to come back with a cold, so I'm currently under the weather...but oh well. Life goes on.