More on the way to Winnemucca. I may have a cold, but I refuse to let this possible illness stop me. Rather, I will pass the time walking by pondering on our trip in a few days to Europe. In so doing, I will continue to go over our trip to Wales in 2003.
To pick up the story, we were walking to the Heathrow Tube station. We finally reached it. We stood in a line at the underground station to purchase our tickets. It was at this moment that we discovered that lines in the U.K. are a mere suggestion, rather than an orderly way to proceed. People cut in front of me, went around me and other ignored me as they went to purchase their own tickets. Such line cutting happened repeatedly during our trip, and toward the end of the trip, I was going native.
By the way, I cannot damn those line cutters in the U.K. very much. I have increasingly noticed similar line cutting in San Francisco--especially on BART. In fact, on BART, people act like I am invisible. I find this failure to see me rather remarkable, as I am anything but a small human being. Yet they look past and through me in their rush to get to their seats. So I suspect that we in the U.S. will quickly catch up with our U.K. cousins in just the latest example of the fall of western civilization. I blame George Bush for this, too. Okay, not really, but I do blame Ayn Rand. But that is analysis for another day.
After wading through the line cutters, we were able to purchase our tickets and headed to our train. I have always been a voyeur, especially a backyard voyeur. This probably started when I started riding BART shortly after it opened 30 years ago. I love looking from the trains into the backyards it passes, making up stories about the people who live in the houses as looked at the clothes lines and bbqs and cement patios, and children toys. The London Underground lets the imagination go equally wild, as it passes the miles of graffiti and soccer pitches and rugby fields and government built apartment buildings.
As I sat there, staring out the window of the Underground, I was struck once again how young a place the Western United States is. I know that this thought is a banal cliché, yet it is apt. I further know that part of this thought is an illusion. The Western United States is simply brighter than other places. Pete Rose when asked what he would remember about playing inn Candlestick Park did not mention the winds, the fog or the cold. Rather, he said that he would remember the high bright skies of the afternoon games that made every pop-up an adventure. The brightness makes the whole Western United States seem clean and new. So it is part illusion, part reality that makes one think that the western United States is new.
London looks old. Not in the tired sense. Rather it is old in the sense of grace. Even its poorest places appear to have the grace that one obtains over a long life. This grace is enhanced by the grey skies and black buildings, definitely the colors of an old person, and definitely not the colors of the Western United States.
I was also amazed at how world-wise London is. As I rode on the train, I must have seen people of dozens of nationalities and religions get on and off the train. I saw Asians, African, Hindus, Moslems. Across from us on the train were a couple men speaking some strange tongue. At first, I thought it was Italian, but then I thought it was German. Then I wondered if my French was now so far gone that I could not even recognize it when I heard it. I was trying to read their bags, but could not see the tags. Dorey later said that she surmised that they were speaking Finnish, as their bags had Finnish tags them. After riding the train into London, we spent the rest of our time trying to guess where people were from based on their accent. We were disappointed when we heard an American accent, believing that they were invading our trip.
We changed trains at the Green Park Station, and, taking the Jonathan and Dorey show on the road, walked up a couple of other sets of stairs (and dropping things out of our bag) before reaching our new train. We then rode down a couple of more stations, and exited at the Waterloo station. We rode the elevator up and immediately, I had my new mistress. My first of the town was outside the tube station looking at an old building. I have not idea what I was looking at, or why. I just knew that I was in love.
We tried to head to our hotel so that we could start our exploration of the city. We knew going into London that our time there was going to be short--wholly inadequate. We were have only a few hours at best. We knew it was going to be shorter if we could not find our hotel. We thus started our trek.
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And thus ends this part. At least we have made it to London. I have walked 695,241 steps in 57 days. I have walked 329 miles. I will be in Winnemucca in 58 miles.
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