A little reminder of how lucky I am today on our last class trip to Buckingham Palace. This has been a great experience, and I will truly miss the people I met here. But the world is smaller than you think it is, so I'm sure we'll all keep crossing paths. There have also been some surprises, big and small, for me on this trip.
I've been surprised at just how Americanized London has become in some ways. Way too many of the gorgeous buildings here house Starbucks, McDonald's, KFC, etc now; I think even more than did during my last trip here just 5 or 6 years ago. It's sad to see local color go from places. I didn't notice this as much in Paris, though there is a Subway right across the river from the Notre Dame, which was a little disconcerting. I've also been surprised at how very, very busy London is. I think the lesson here is don't travel to London during the end of July, when all of the schools of America, Europe, and Asia are having their summer holiday break. Every single day walking down Oxford Street is like hitting the Grove or the Santa Monica Prominade on the day after Thanksgiving times ten. It's hard to believe that there's a recession (or, as they call it here a "credit crunch") on in Europe as packed as the shops and resturants are. Also, depsite a little forewarning (if you're reading this, thanks Michelle!), it's thrown me just how warm London has been, and how miserably hot and stuffy the Tube is. I felt very sorry for people commuting packed in with all us tourists.
Most surprising for me, though, is how much I've missed LA; this trip has made me appreciate it more. Honestly, that's the last thing I expected. Somewhere along the way that behemoth of a city has become home for me on a more meaningful level than I realized. Like London, the whole world comes to LA and contributes their cultures to make it a richer place. Unlike London, history treads lightly in LA, and so those cultures get mixed up in strange and magnificent ways. As dazzled as I've been to walk in the same halls and cathedrals as hundreds of years worth of royalty, artists, warriors, and intellectuals, I think that there can be as many dangers in being too attached to the past as there are in ignoring it. I've come to really love the freedoms and flexibilities of LA, and the sense of constant reinvention there.
It's not quite home for me yet, though. I'm on to Edinburgh, Scotland tomorrow for a few days before I go back to LA. It should be great, since there are going to be about a half dozen festivals going on while I'm there. (The Fringe Festival, the Art Festival, the Mela, the Jazz and Blues Festival, and the Military Tattoo--probably not what you think.) I'm betting it will crazily busy up there, too, but at least I've been assured that it's about 20 degrees cooler than London. The hotel has wifi, so I'll touch in from there when I'm not running around like crazy!
No comments:
Post a Comment