London
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In fact, I am thankful for the respite of this pub and an excuse to watch Le Tour. Sensory overload is a woefully inadequate way to describe the feeling I am currently experiencing.
Yesterday on my flight to London my jaw hit the ground as I flew over (let’s assume) Belgium and I first saw coastline. It was still on the ground when we made it to the coast just west of London and really aside from perhaps while I was sleeping last night I don’t think I have been able to wipe the wide-eyed, slack-jawed look off of my face. I am AMAZED!!!
London is phenomenal.
London is overwhelming.
My friends and hosts the Marquardts sent me off this morning with directions to take the train to Waterloo. From there I forgot everything they told me and just started wandering. I hung a left out of the train station following the flow of people and almost immediately got pulled into the National Youth Dance Festival where I was treated to an interpretive dance troupe who performed in, of all places, the public restrooms and then I watched some of the main attraction, an MTV-esque hip-hop competition.
After that I made it about a half a block before finding myself in the art installation Volume a mix of lighted columns and ambient music or sirens or bells… and from there it just kept coming. I couldn’t make it more than a block before I found my jaw on the ground again, the National Gallery, The London Eye, Piccadilly Circus with all of its lights and thousands of people, Parliament, Big Ben and on and on.
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Because my legs are so tired from hoofing it and my neck so stiff from craning upwards, I’ve decided that tomorrow I am taking it easy and booking a day tour, the kind with transportation and climate control.
“The words are the same, but I heck if I know what they are saying.” This is how my friend Dave described trying to understand British English. He’s got a point.
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Foot note: Apparently writing on the train while productive is a bit too distracting to me as I learned when I missed the stop to David and Amy’s and ended up literally at the end of the line while working on this post, as a result I can now say I have been to Staines. From now on I’ll try to remember to look up.
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