The Metaphorical Resonances of the London Underground

My last day in London was pretty wonderful. I didn't do anything dramatic or expensive or crazy. I just
hit up all the old familiar places. I walked around the city that I'd come to think of as mine. I said goodbye to the wonderful host family that put up with me for several months. I had a last drink at our favorite pub with all my favorite London people. I said a tearful goodbye to my roommate who literally could not have been a more perfect match for me.

On Hampstead Heath

I spent my last day with my friends Katie and Jessica. We did things that we never took the time to do usually, like stand in the incredibly long line at King's Cross to get our picture taken at Platform 9 3/4 (totally worth it). We wandered around our lovely city, enjoying the fact that we knew our way around without a map and that we could navigate the tube with little stress. We looked out over Hampstead Heath at the iconic view of London.

Last selfie with my roommate

The fourteen of us who were part of the program got together at The Junction, our standard meeting
place throughout the semester for one last hurrah. We were minus a few people who had to leave early-I witnessed the saddest goodbye of all, when my friends Jessica and Megan said goodbye in the Harrow on the Hill tubes station. To say there were tears is an understatement. Later, after our night at the Junction in which there were many toasts and an impromptu piano sing along (piano performance by Denae McGaha), the rest of us said goodbye at that same tube station.

Goodbyes at The Junction

To say goodbye at a Tube station was pretty metaphorically resonant of us. Trains taking us to other places. The Metropolitan line-the first train line that we took together and the last. The train line that meant we were headed home.

I know London has been there for hundreds of years and will, in all likelihood, be there for hundreds more. But I won't ever be able to recapture those specific four months spent in a place I loved with people I grew to love. That's okay. I was lucky.

Daily Commute

A short photo essay about my daily commute in to school, as it's such an essentially London experience. There are a dozen ways for me to get in to the city, but this is the route I take most often! (note: this was taken on a good day. A bad day involves signal failure, train delays and a lot of really fast walking)

                        8:45 am                                                             8:46 am                                                             8:55 am
      Leaving the house (right on time)                 My street on a rainy day                                The footpath to the station

9:00 am
My home station: Northwick Park

                        9:04 am                                                              9:05 am                                                             9:07 am
Just in time for the all stations to Aldgate           The best line is the Met line                   Free newspaper (learn, America)

9:35 am
King's Cross/St. Pancras station - The majesty of St. Pancras never fails to make me pause

                                              9:40 am                                                                                                  9:42 am
                                Beautiful tree lined street                                                Sometimes on nice days I stroll through the
                                                                                                                                              public park on my way in
      

                                           9:47 am                                                                                                  9:50 am
       No unsupervised adults allowed in Coram's Fields                                              Best street in London! 

9:51 am
Home, sweet home, with nine minutes to spare!

Bits and Bobs

I'll write a more comprehensive blog post later, but here are a few "bits and bobs," as the English would say, from my first few days in London.

My corner of our little attic room 

My roommate and home stay family are lovely. Patricia, my mum, is really nice as is Finlay, her husband. They've got 4 kids, 2 of whom are at home frequently (the other 2 are at university). Alice is 10 and Michael is 15. They're funny kids and we talk a lot and watch Top Gear together.

I take back everything bad I ever said about the Tube. It's the best piece of machinery ever made and all towns should have one. The Tube plus an Oyster card equals absolute freedom and access to the whole city. Having said that, the opposite is true right now. There's a strike for two days this week and two next week and I'm told it will be commuter hell. I have to make my way into central London early in the morning, so I think I'll be able to consider myself a real Londoner if I can make it.

AHA London Centre

The AHA London Centre, where we attend classes (or where we will, once they start), it also lovely.
Perfectly centrally located and built in something like 1750, it's a really cool, old building. It's a bit shabby, but that just adds to its charm.

Today was our last day or orientation, and our site director Susie took us for lunch at a street market (I got curry-delicious), then for a quick tour of the surrounding area, capping it off with a visit to the Chesire Cheese Pub, an amazing old pub where you have to duck down several flights of really narrow, low-ceilinged stairs to get to the bottom. She even bought us the first round.

It's early days (and we'll see how I feel after living through the Tube strike), but I already love London. I'm really excited to explore it more in depth over my next couple of months here.

My roommate Jordanne and I with the iconic London symbol: the phone box.