Sometimes I think they did, these feet, I mean. Perhaps in some past life they trod across this “green and pleasant land,” a land of Shakespeare, and Doctor Who, and Harry Potter, and Monty Python, and scholarly little tweed coats, and indomitable Queen Elizabeth, and the zany Egremont Crabapple Festival, and that infamous upper lip, a land that so many have coveted, but have failed to be simply cool enough to overtake, and a land so extraordinary that it has caused this anglophile to steep herself as fully in its culture as a soggy bag of PG Tips steeps in Royal Doulton for the perfect cuppa. And if those feet didn’t walk on England’s mountain green… Well, they do now.
A silver sea of clouds rent itself in two under too-early rising sun yesterday morning, and revealed below it, to the Arcadia University FYSAE students on board British Airways flight 66, the glittering physiognomy of London’s magnificent face, wrinkles shining with history, and young, playful grin gleaming with millions of uncreated opportunities. And we all smiled back.
The day was an exhausting, jetlagged whirlwind of eager camera snaps, 81 lbs of luggage hoisted up 85 steps, serene strolls through Kensington Gardens, Marks & Spencer and TK Maxx runs, Arcadia meetings, desperate cappuccino purchases, first British pints (the ale I ordered was quite bitter), and even a spot of singing Sweeny Todd out of my 6th floor bedroom window.
This morning, we were all ready by 9:15 for the tube ride to City University, where a lot of us will be taking classes. After another meeting, we were paired off into groups and given a scavenger hunt list that had us scurrying all over London. It was fantastic to navigate the city on our own, without the help of cell phones (which most of us still need to purchase) or internet. Our first stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral, a magnificent building I didn’t get to visit the first time I was here. Then it was off to Covent Garden. We walked everywhere, instead of going on the Underground, which is a point of pride, I think. On the Strand, we passed what has been my dream school for about 3 years, King’s College London. I was both happy and sad to see it, because, even though I’m not attending there, I made it so close, and stuck as well as I could to the lofty goal I dreamed for myself.
