I can't stop replaying how it felt to step out of the Tube station and suddenly be immersed in this London neighborhood. All the cars, people and architecture were electrifying to me! I immediately got this sense that everyone was right, there really is a whole world out there beyond your own, and it was amazing to take my first step into it. The character of this place is so different than that of the neighborhoods in the big cities I have frequented in the States. I fell instantly in love with how powerful yet quaint it is: the rustic stone walls, the cobblestone side streets, the jaunty hills, the little cafes and corner stores with their fruit on display out front, and midst it all there are people and traffic teeming from every direction, making the streets swell and deflate every few seconds. It almost reminded me of cells swarming through a bloodstream.
As an aside I would like to mention how the very kind lady who checked me in had actually been to Kentucky before and was very complimentary on the lakes and scenery. That gave me some confidence, like I'm really not from the middle of nowhere.
Tomorrow I will start the real sightseeing and so the real adventure will begin. But first, here is a quick snapshot I took of a street near my dorm. More pictures to come!
All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is what the world is.
-Aleksander Hemon,
The Lazarus Project
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