Time and travel

Wow! Bang! Zoom! Amazing - my last post was exactly two months ago today and that wasn't an intentional occurence. It's strange and mystic the way our bodies and our souls keep time when our minds can't be bothered with it. Not much has happened in the 62 days that passed undocumented. Christmas (not my holiday but still a good way to mark the time) flew by in a whir of chinese food and broken Yiddish lessons with my grandma. New years was spent on a Virgin Atlantic plane in between two girls, both named Molly, one who I will probably never see again and the other who I run into frequently. We landed in London and just a few short days later I began my semester of Study Abroad here.

I've been hesitant to write about London and travel and my experiences. Mainly because everything i've done that has been worth my time hasn't been worth a tale and the same is true in the other direction. I stood at the gates of Buckingham Palace counting the Royal guard and marvelling at their stillness. I stood at the center of every bridge from Westminster to London and traced the winding path of the Thames as it defined this mad laid out city. I craned my neck up to Big Ben's clock until the big hand made a full loop around its little brother and I've ambled through so many museums from the National Gallery (tops in art) to the British museum (great history since the Brits stole from the entire world at one point or another) and the Tate Modern (if modern art is your bag) that I sometimes forget this city has a present to go along with its past. But, through all of that, I found very little meaning in the personal sense that I was looking for. I took pictures and just as quickly deleted them - you can find better on a ten-pence postcard.

What stands out in my mind is the feel of a pint glass, standard pub fare, as i rotate it in my hand. The reticent muttering of "cheers" as I hold the door for someone. The way that the stone-slabbed streets sometimes shift as you glide over them. The discrete camaraderie shared on the crossing of the Waterloo bridge in the morning when we all turn up our collars to the harsh London wind and fog as one. The way that you can identify a Welshman from an Irishman at the pub by the speed and irreverence of the stories he is no doubt telling to the nearest soul. Or maybe all I will remember are the occasional rides on the tube, across from friends, as we sit quietly mimicking the reserved Brits. Comfortable amongst each other our eyes dart greedily around sucking in the scene like a vacuum. Prep school students undoing their ties and tall businessmen hunching over from the slanted tube ceilings. The world comes off most different when it is mostly the same. My memories of the great things will almost certainly fade while my memories of the good, the plain and the mostly mundane, will hopefully be harbored for much longer.