London Calling

Right after our program ended, I left for about a week in the UK.  I was feeling a little sick, like my third cold in three months was just about to attack.  Luckily, the UK turned out to be my cure for everything.  The air felt cleaner to me, and everything cleared up – my nose, my skin, my social skills, etc.  People in the hostel were friendly, and smiled at Shelby and me even though we were complete strangers (forgot to mention that the London part of this trip was with Shelby).  The first part of our trip was a whisky tasting on the London Eye, right next to the river and overlooking everything.  For the next couple days, the biggest challenge was deciding how to spend the limited time left in London.  We went with a bus tour, strolls through Hyde Park, and lots of fish and chips.  We made friends with some locals, and the language change threw me again.  I kept wanting to over-explain myself.  It was so weird and so awesome when I could just say what I meant, and people understood me.  The Brits we met were very anti-Paris, and asked us over and over if the French weren’t very arrogant people. 

Shelby left London a day before I did, and I spent my time alone at the British Museum, and the Natural History Museum.  The British Museum, you may know, is enormous, and I once again had a hard time deciding how to spend my time.  I landed on an African art exhibit, in which war weapons that had been left Nigeria had been broken apart and sculpted into “The Tree of Life.”  You should google it.  It’s pretty powerful, and I can’t do it justice in a blog. 

My next stop was Edinburgh, which has become one of my favorite places in the world.  I was lucky enough to make some good friends at the hostel, and together we climbed the tiny green peak called Arthur’s Seat.  Hiking up to the peak was the most beautiful 45 minutes of my life.  After three months in Paris, it was exactly what I needed – green, quiet, peaceful.  Paris is full of history.  That’s obvious.  But it just isn’t the same as Edinburgh.  Edinburgh wears its history so obviously that you look around yourself on the street and see for centuries. 

The National Galleries let me see how much I had actually picked up from Chantal’s class.  I hope some of you have also had the cool experience of seeing a piece of art and recognizing its painter and significance from across the room, and then feeling like an art genius for a second. 

There is so much more I could say about the UK, but in an attempt to keep it brief, I’m going to end here.  I think one of the biggest things I got from this experience, aside from that the UK is amazing, is another dose of culture shock.  It was only about a three(?) hour train ride, and it felt like stepping into a different world.  Childish as this may seem, it just made me so excited about the world at large.  You travel three hours, and see something completely unlike anything else.  We got to see a lot while abroad, and there’s still most of a world left.  I mean, come on… How cool is that?