October 26 — When I hauled the suitcases containing every single one of my
possessions out of the hot tube stairwell and into the weak London
sunlight outside Aldgate East, I felt as though the city had chewed me
up and spit me back onto the pavement, aching, sweaty, and starving. I
experienced our subsequent journey to the hostel and hunt for food as
one in a daze--it was only when I woke up at midnight, the yellow
streetlight streaming onto my pillow and British accents echoing off the
cobblestones, that I comprehended it. I was in London.
Here, the everyday clashes bizarrely with the incredible. When walking, for instance, to the Pret a Manger for a cheap lunch, one might look up to notice St. Paul’s cathedral dominating the skyline, and carry on, having given but a moment’s thought to the 800 years of history that occurred on that site. In this city, I have gotten drunk in the same low-ceilinged pub once frequented by a (probably equally drunk) Charles Dickens, and I have stood over the physical remains of that very man in a famous Abbey whose Gothic, arched ceilings reach to the heavens. In this city, I have run my hand over the original Roman wall, so old that I feel it should be protected behind glass and security guards--but it runs through someone’s back garden, and when I stepped out from the park containing it I noticed a few bits of litter scattered over its’ crumbling bricks. In this city, I have stared into the painted, immortalized eyes of Elizabeth I, my feet aching and my stomach grumbling.
Here, the familiar intersects jarringly with the new and the uncomfortable. In some ways, London could not be further from Portland. The endless stretches of concrete outside my window are a world away from the soft, greenish light that shone through the trees into my apartment in Portland. Here, the hustle and bustle feels faster and more impersonal, as if the city does not know or care that you are here. It can be cold and impersonal, so different from the warm, individualistic eccentricity that I associate with Portland. But somehow that same characteristic that confined me largely to my room in the first week of living here makes it feel so much more special when you stumble upon a marketplace full of delicious smells, or a vintage shop with the perfect dress for you. It feels as if the city has taken pity on you for a minute to present you with a small gift. And in both Portland and London, the sky looks the same.
Here, the everyday clashes bizarrely with the incredible. When walking, for instance, to the Pret a Manger for a cheap lunch, one might look up to notice St. Paul’s cathedral dominating the skyline, and carry on, having given but a moment’s thought to the 800 years of history that occurred on that site. In this city, I have gotten drunk in the same low-ceilinged pub once frequented by a (probably equally drunk) Charles Dickens, and I have stood over the physical remains of that very man in a famous Abbey whose Gothic, arched ceilings reach to the heavens. In this city, I have run my hand over the original Roman wall, so old that I feel it should be protected behind glass and security guards--but it runs through someone’s back garden, and when I stepped out from the park containing it I noticed a few bits of litter scattered over its’ crumbling bricks. In this city, I have stared into the painted, immortalized eyes of Elizabeth I, my feet aching and my stomach grumbling.
Here, the familiar intersects jarringly with the new and the uncomfortable. In some ways, London could not be further from Portland. The endless stretches of concrete outside my window are a world away from the soft, greenish light that shone through the trees into my apartment in Portland. Here, the hustle and bustle feels faster and more impersonal, as if the city does not know or care that you are here. It can be cold and impersonal, so different from the warm, individualistic eccentricity that I associate with Portland. But somehow that same characteristic that confined me largely to my room in the first week of living here makes it feel so much more special when you stumble upon a marketplace full of delicious smells, or a vintage shop with the perfect dress for you. It feels as if the city has taken pity on you for a minute to present you with a small gift. And in both Portland and London, the sky looks the same.
—Lexie Boren