An American’s London Experience

“It is inevitable London will be bombed.” Standing amongst rows of shot glasses with brightly colored English flags, Royal Guards and Big Bens painted on them, my ears perked to the radio announcer’s voice. The bombings in Madrid were just the beginning, the English-accented voice read, London will be next. Before feeling terror or anxiety, I sadly wondered if my mom had heard the news and would subsequently order me to come home. Through the shot glasses I caught the distorted eyes of my two roommates on the trip with me; their faces registered panic. After we rejoined our tour group of professors and other students from school we explained what we heard over the radio in a souvenir shop. Our trip leader Heidi swore she would ask questions once we got back to the hostel and make sure it was okay for us to travel out the next day.

Retiring for the night sounded easy enough to do, considering the amount of walking I put in that day. Climbing two flights of stairs to our room, passing mirrored doors, red doors, blue doors, and large windows with no screens, I knew it was going to be tough to sleep in this unfamiliar place. Our room wasn’t a total nightmare but it wasn’t a feng shui dream either. It was a box, a powder-blue box with ten foot yellow curtains, two metal bunk beds, a garbage can and a plastic chair. Somehow I managed a few hours of sleep between the rattling and slamming of doors in the hallway and the sounds of traffic outside.

The morning did not come quick enough and by six a.m. I readily headed to a shower room. At this particular hostel, toilets and showers were separate from each other. The shower rooms consisted of two stalls (similar to public bathroom stalls), a sink and a mirror. It was here, in this small tropical room, where I had my first real international experience. Grabbing the first empty stall I found, I quickly closed and locked my door and arranged my shampoo and conditioner on the tiny slimy ledge. In the stall next to me I heard water splash and the person started singing in a foreign language! The biggest shock (although I should have realized this before when the toilet rooms were not marked with ‘male’ or ‘female’ signs) was that the person taking a shower next to me was a guy! My privacy had been compromised; I was startled to say the least. Gradually I got used to it, and soon he had finished and left. Through the light waterfall coming from the showerhead, I heard someone else occupy the stall next to me. By now I felt more comfortable and didn’t take any notice of the occupant until he started singing in a foreign language! At that point I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. I felt comfortable enough to stay put, but not to join in.

Throughout the course of the trip, we made use of London’s subway system known as the Underground or the Tube. Most people tell you it’s difficult to navigate, but from experience I can say you need to ride it a few times to get the hang of it. The Underground is really underground, seriously, it’s deep underground. We headed to the nearest Tube station soon after everyone had a simple breakfast of Corn Flakes or bread and jam. I held firmly to my greenish paper ticket, afraid I would lose it before I got out of the next station (you need the ticket to get into the station and to get out). The Queensway station loaded everyone into a normal sized elevator; we were packed so tightly I’m surprised there wasn’t more theft. The elevator shot down and stomachs lurched; the doors rattled open again and we poured out into the orange-tiled cement walkway only to encounter two flights of long escalators even further beneath the city. You can feel the rumbling vibration of the train long before you see it; a loud hiss and whoosh of air blows past your face; it feels like an alien place, nothing like this world. A simple sign brings back reality: Beware! Pickpockets operate in the area!

After coming back into the daylight of Picadilly Circus and exploring Trafalgar Square, we took a Big Red Double Decker Bus tour around the city. The tour was a ‘hop-on, hop-off’ tour where you buy a ticket for a day or two and you could literally hop on or hop off whatever stop you wanted. This tour was a requirement of the trip because it was paid for in advance. What one of the professors called a leisurely ride through the heart of London, I thought was an annoying mess of traffic jams and chilliness. Of course we took the bus tour on the coldest day and of course there were no seats available in the heated enclosed section of the bus. I almost froze; my nose started running, and wind sliced at my cheeks and my eyes. About half of our group got fed up and hopped off the bus at St. James' Cathedral, I being one of them. Crossing impossible traffic, watching dozens of Smart Cars zoom by, and seeing traffic lights go from red to red and yellow then finally to green ingrained itself into my memory. Splitting from the group at the reproduction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, I trekked on with one of my roomies to Southwark.

Somehow, half a world away, England’s air seemed cleaner. Compared to Wisconsin air, London’s air was drier and cooler. Walking alongside the Thames for most of our excursion, I watched as the city’s garbage lapped against the dried shore and longed for my own Cedar Creek, unspoiled by comparison. The baby-poop colored river sloshed back and forth against the barriers. Staring into its depths, I thought about how much evil and repulsive history the river has seen and been through: crime and punishment throughout the centuries, the Great Plague, torture chambers, the Great Fire, and Jack the Ripper. Approaching the London Bridge, we noticed an unusual sight; there was no moving traffic on the bridge. Several buses lined the sides and police cars blocked the entrance and exit points on both sides of the bridge. Curious, but not wanting to appear to be nosey Americans, we eavesdropped on a bystander asking about the situation. The policeman said there had been bomb threats and at times of heightened alert, several main bridges were to be closed off as a precaution. With this piece of scary news I again wasn’t concerned for my own safety, just that of my vacation being cut short. My roommate, on the other hand, wanted to get away from the bridge as soon as humanly possible.

I felt excited and at the same time a little fearful; it was one thing to say that London will be bombed but it’s a completely different situation when you’re standing next to a sanctioned bomb-threat area. With what precious little time we had left we spent trekking through the crowded streets of black umbrellas and wild fashion styles to see the well-known tourist sites. When the trip had finally come to a close, I was thoroughly relieved that London had not been bombed. A year later and I still feel myself waiting to hear about a bombing but I am alive and my vacation was not cut short; London lives on.