So. Pogolink? Crap. It’s also a bit annoying how internet access is controlled (essentially by the minute…a miserly approach at best…like old dial-up only high speed). But really what bothers me is that the network set up for our flat (just mine, mind you, the rest of the building is fine) has been down now for over 48 hours. The maintenance guy was nice enough to tell us to email someone to get it fixed (yeah, you read that right. Not a bad guy, mind you, he’s great with on-sight facilities stuff and repair, but he’s not in charge of the internet connectivity). Still, it would be nice to burn through my 2000 minutes OR 1500mb of internet time in the comfort of my own flat (since, you know, DU is getting billed for it) rather than in the stairwell on the next floor up.
To clarify, since the writing date on this post and the actual posting date are likely different, this post covers Tuesday 9/21 and Wednesday 9/22 (days 7 and 8).
Tuesday was all kinds of busy. Feeling cooped up a bit (since I’d spent most of the last several days being on hand at the flats), I decided to step out and wander around a little in the morning (we had class in the afternoon). I walked south from my flat down to the somewhat famous Fleet Street (I’m thinking of the newspapers, many of you are apparently thinking of Sweeny Todd) and walked along there heading west. I had one of the students with me, and he pointed us to the Temple Church (that is, after we passed the Royal Courts of Justice, which looked appropriately impressive). This was quite amazing, and forcefully demonstrated to me that I need to brush up on my Roman numerals…and probably learn Latin. The gardens near the temple just intertwine with all the buildings (all offices and businesses, kind of bumps the American trend of “office buildings” in spectacular fashion). We wound our way down to the river, then back east to Blackfriars bridge.
And this is where things got even more interesting. In America, of course, alleyways are nicely decorated with garbage, dumpsters, stray cats and the homeless. In London, they’re actually not alleyways at all, but actual streets or pedestrian walkways. Heading north on New Bridge Street (which crosses the river on Blackfriars Bridge), we spotted a little walkway that turned out to be Bride Lane, home to a pub, a drycleaner, and the Bridewell Theatre (which happens to be putting up a lunchtime production of the Canterbury Tales next month…I smell field trip). Walking down this way, the noise from the hustle and bustle faded almost immediately, and we would around another few shops to St. Bride’s church, which is literally tucked in the middle of all these buildings. Apparently it hosts recitals with some regularity, and we popped our heads in to hear someone practicing (or warming up) for a piano recital scheduled for that afternoon. Very, very cool.
Additionally, the little churchyard was a lovely green space, and a number of people were sitting about having lunch. An interesting ritual: lunch is mostly take out (it costs more in most places to sit and eat). So most people take away their lunch and find a nice place to eat, including church yards, gardens, parks, etc. As such, you see people using all these spaces with some regularity.
Continuing on, we got back up to Fleet Street and headed back toward the flat. On the way, we spotted another utterly nondescript alley/walkway, this one bearing a simple wooden sign that read “Dr. Johnson’s House è” Following the winding back alley (which featured doors to a number of offices and businesses tucked off to the side, we finally came up on Samuel Johnson’s house itself, nestled neatly between the more modern concrete buildings. This was very satisfying on a nerdly level. Not quite sure which way to go, we headed north-ish, through some walkways and alleys which led up to the circle just south of our flats. So, apparently, I live less than half a mile from Samuel Johnson’s house. Who knew.
Maybe an additional description would help. Being an American and quite fond of my formulaic grid pattern of city design, I think of “alley” and “street” as spaces separating essentially square buildings and plots of land. That’s not really (as in, not at all) the case in London. The walkway to Johnson’s house was a little archway through the front of a single building that led to what might have been a courtyard that connected to a winding little system of walkways that snaked through several buildings that had been build adjacent, connected to, around, and on top of each other. Think of a pop-top house in Denver, then imagine that it keeps adding on in all directions with space between additions to walk, the occasional interior courtyard, and so on. So the “alley” was just the walkway that had more or less been kept clear (not built on) to allow access back into the equivalent of the middle of an American city block. A college campus is another good example, only instead of a quad with lawns and trees between major streets (I’m thinking of urban campuses here), you’ve got a ton of buildings seemingly haphazardly tossed in like Jenga blocks, with various pathways that run through them.
Then again, the major streets seem to cut through the buildings like a river in a canyon. The buildings are shaped to the streets, like they were poured in a mold that was taken away to leave space for the street. Fleet Street winds around along the path of the river, a few blocks north, anyway, and all the buildings are flush with the street and each other, thus flowing along with the street (then it turns into the Strand further west, where you can find a lot of the West End theatres).
Anyway, I realize that I’ve written almost two full single spaced pages about the short walk that started my day. I think I’ll have to separate out the Art History class (and its walk over to the British Museum…now there’s a first day of class!) and the evening stroll.
To be continued!
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