London: day twelve

Today IES technically took us on a tour of the Southbank area, however, what ended up happening in reality was Hannah, her friend Marissa, and I simply took the schedule that IES had laid out for us, and followed it at our own pace. Occasionally we ran into or waited for the group, but we not overly concerned with staying close. The three of us first caught a bus down to London Bridge and jumped off at the exact point where Tula and I had ventured, almost a week ago. Turning our backs to the bridge, we followed the street and came to the Borough Market where we wove in and out of the crowd, sampling and deciding which vendor to buy lunch off of. After lunch, we made a second round of it, this time in search of dessert (had just been too tempting to pass up). I ended up with a chocolate and caramel tart and a bag full of Turkish Delights for the road. As it happens I ended up with far more Turkish Delights than I had previously planned, so you can bet that some of my time later tonight will be spent carefully wrapping them in saran-wrap so that they will keep. Well worth it though, for they are incredible – I had never had real Turkish Delight before, and I think I am hooked. Maybe it is a good thing I don’t live here, as with all the delicious and accessible food and an insatiable sweet tooth, it is possible that I would become as wide as I am tall…

After the Market, we went down a narrow road, back toward the water which brought us to a long stretch of wide sidewalk that paralleled the Thames. This is the region known as the Southbank, and the length of this sidewalk is littered with street performers, vendors, shops, events (we came across a sort of book flea market that was occurring – possibly a weekly event, not entirely certain), wharfs, a skateboard park, passes the Tate Modern Art Museum as well as the Globe Theater, and eventually it leads directly underneath the London Eye. This was the stretch of it that we walked, though it goes further. We took our time, took only some photographs, but today it was rather relaxing to just walk and not be looking at the world through a camera lens all day.

Through the day, I couldn’t help but to just fall a little quiet and listen and look around. Marissa and Hannah are good friends at Puget Sound and the history and friendship they shared was something that I couldn’t entirely participate in (though of course they are both entirely sweet and didn’t leave me out –I just don’t share the same connection with either of them). So I spent a great deal of time watching the other people. There are so many interesting people in this city, and I swear that I have never noticed people so much in my life. Not only the different cultural identifiers and languages, but even the details; what they carry with them, who or what they are looking at, their expressions, mannerisms, expensive or tattered items of clothing, notable characteristics of an individual. No one is the same, and every life is equally complex – in short; the sonder-effect. And I felt like an observer. As Hannah and Marissa chatted like close friends do, I sat back, completely unconnected to anyone around me. Not a soul here knows anything about me, and I know very little about them. But I can watch the lives playing out before me; lives that are anchored here, families, jobs, and the connections between individuals even within our own group (many of those in this program are from Indiana University and already have far more preexisting connections with one another than anyone else here). In this though, despite the room for loneliness that is created, I found it entirely refreshing. For once, not to be known. I can be someone entirely different here, and no one would know. And I realized that even though I am here for school, the real part of this trip that feels like a vacation is that I am taking a break from the person I am when I am back home or at school. That doesn't mean I am not free of everything in me, but it does relieve me from constantly having that exposed to other people who know it too – something which, though helpful and necessary at times, can also be uncomfortable and stressful; especially lately. So I've come to realize that, it was not that this trip meant getting a break from all the outside stress factors in my life, so much as it has meant getting a break from myself and who I am in the midst of stressful times - that is what I have needed most.

We followed this path from London Bridge, all the way down to Westminster Bridge, where we crossed and ended our walk at the feet of Big Ben, hopping the Tube from there and making our way back to NIDO.