Well, since this is my last full Friday living in London it seemed like a good moment to pause and reflect a bit. I must admit though everytime i think about leaving this experience behind me I tear up. Honestly. I don't tend to be a "tear-up" kind of gal, but in this situation I find that I am. So, at least you the reader will be unaware of my tears and I can pretend they did not happen.
Last night I went and walked along the South Bank. The South Bank is basically the other side of the Thames river and it has pretty lights and the London Eye, a view of Big Ben and it's terribly romantic. From where I live i have to get on the tube and then walk across a bridge to get to it. It was so beautiful out last night. I wasn't shivering from the cold or being dampened by the rain. The sky had a bit of a cloudy haze over it making the moon seem very mysterious. I was trying to listen to all the British music I had on my MP3 player to truly highten the experience. Somtimes I took out my earphones and just allowed the sounds of the area to be my music. I wish you could just have been there because I really can't explain the moment. It just made me realize how much I really am going to miss being here. How lucky I have been to be here.
Gosh all my entries as of late have been rather depressing...I do apologize. I just get sad when i think about leaving. Everything is going quite well though. The weather is starting to get a bit warmer here which can only mean one thing in a city like London....TOURISTS! Now, I hate to think that I have become some stuck-up Londoner because that is barely possibly to attain in the span of four months time, but I really find myself being highly annoyed at tourists. They travel in large groups of about 8 to sometimes 502 people and consist of at least 2 very unhappy children, five strollers, and 1 person who cannot keep up the speed (i have refrained from labeling this person 'old'). The pavement is just not big enough I tell you. I like the idea that the city transports them around in topless buses because it keeps them off the pavement...I think this idea must have come from a stuck up Londoner.
Alright, well it looks like the sun is out, so i must go and enjoy it while i can.
The first pictures is me at the Tower of London (still havent been inside) and the second is at a Hindu Temple. It is the largest Hindu Temple outside of India. It was amazing.
No making fun of my silly sunglasses! They work and that is what counts. Thank You.
There are several other things i should be doing right now. My time here has slowly been dwindling down leaving me with only about two weeks left. This means i should be trying to fit as much as possible into this short time instead of sitting here reflecting on what has already happened and imagining what is yet to happen. I think sometimes a person can be so overwhelmed though with what needs done that all you can do is sit and think about it all rather than acting upon it. I should be out and about in this beautiful city snapping touristy pictures for my mother and doing some needed shopping for my adventure with my sister after the program. The fact is it is Sunday and I don't like going out on Sundays because Knightsbridge turns into this incredibly packed area. You are bound to be tripped up and disoriented because you can't do your usual looking down to manover the uneven pavement because you'll be sure to be hit by a passerby who has stopped to look at Harrod's. So it's either trip on the uneven pavement or be hit by a stunned tourist. ah, well. So since I have decided to probably not venture out i should be working on my homework in order that during the less stressful weekdays i could go out and wander...however, i'm sitting here enjoying the solitude and music. I am wandering where the last three months have gone. I am happy though. I hope no one asks me what the best part of my experience was because there is no one part that was the best. Everyday was the best. Even the moments of akwardness and boredom. The moments sitting on the bus or on the tube looking at everyone around me, walking through the parks, going to hear live music, going out with friends, watching british television, the phone calls home to my mom and dad, second hand shopping, my internship, hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law, and everything else. Ah, sounds so sappy.
So I bought a new pair of shoes. I suppose new would be the wrong adjective to use though. They may be new to me, but they are not new. I picked them up at a second hand store for the low price of three pounds. See, I needed a pair of shoes that stay on my feet properly and do not give me blisters and i've been trying to save money so i did not want to spend much money on shoes. Also, to be perfectly honest, I hate new shoes. I hate that they are all clean and stiff. I hate that you have to wear them awhile for your toes to feel just right in them. I tend to just steal my sister's old shoes.
But all this to say i preferred buying a pair of old shoes. And old these shoes appear. They are new balance and mustard yellow with black shoe laces. They appear to be worn the proper amount of time to be broken in. I'm guessing the indivdual before me had a lean to the left for when i put them on that is where i felt myself going. I think they will do.
While on the subject of shoes I would just like to say how much I enjoy looking at people's shoes. I always have the hardest time finding shoes that i think are nice and yet everyday i see multitudes of people with cool shoes on. Where are they getting them all? I think you can tell a lot about a person's shoes. In fact shoes are one of the first things i look at on a person. Since i myself like old beat up shoes I admire old beat up shoes on other people. Perhaps I just have this silly obsession with old shoes, but to me silly old shoes stir the imagination. Take for instance my "new" silly old shoes. Where have they been? I have simply no idea. For all i know these shoes could have been so many more places than i have been or will ever get to go. In my accidental hour long tube ride today i entertained myself by imagining where my shoes have been. It's a frightfully long story though and only exciting to the owner, so i will spare you the details.
Alright, enough about my shoes though...
I am done with my internship. Breath a sigh of relief and cry a farewell tear. So i have had these days free to wander around the city and do my usual thing of getting accidently lost. I love getting accidently lost when i have free time because i see so many things i wouldn't see if i had been in the right place.
Today i went and sat in the cathedral on Brompton Road. I sat there for about an hour contemplating. There i was in a magnificant space with the smell of incense around me. I tried so hard to clear my head and just exist. If there was any space for doing so wasn't it there in the house of God? In the presence of God don't all our worries and fears melt away? The mistake is being made when I thought that the presence of God was in a church. I expected to come into the presence of God just as easily as I had walked into the cathedral. The presence of God can be felt anywhere...it's not in the space, it is in the attitude.
