July 28 2006

Today I got up and spent the entire day in London with my friend Felicia, with a small side trip to Egham to visit the University of London’s Royal Halloway campus. Royal Halloway is pretty spectacular, and is considered to be one of the UK’s leading colleges. We ate at a pub called ‘The Crown’ and were the only Americans there, so it was fun. Good food, and I got to feed my addiction to chips and vinegar. I have found increasingly that one must flee from Oxford proper in order to get any real sense of what Engla nd and its people are like.

We took the train back to Waterloo Station, which makes Boston’s train station look like a postage stamp in comparison. Waterloo was utterly massive. It was like they had taken some broad avenue (or a city block or two) and put a cap on it supported by the surrounding buildings and labeled it ‘Train Station’. Enormous.

From there we wound our long, long way to Blackfriar’s Road and eventually the King’s College dorms, where my friend was thinking of staying if she got accepted to the college. Pausing periodically to check our map, I was amazed by how helpful Londoners are. Perhaps they were all just in a good mood today. Twice when we were pouring over our map, random people on the street would actually stop and ask if we needed help. In general I have found Londoners to be exceedingly friendly.

Except for that one guy on the street who wandered up mumbling incoherently, his eyes vacant and his mouth as slack as his face. He was creepy. Everyone else was cool, however.

Speaking of vacant eyed, slack faced people who wander up to you, I have a fine (and growing) collection of religious pamphlets! I love these things. They tell me interesting information, like the fact that I’m going to hell if I do not worship God in the Christian sense. My favorite pamphlet was from a homeless guy in Salem, MA. The pamphlet went so far as to have pictures of people burning in the fires of hell for their sins. (Consequently, I got this pamphlet on Halloween). Seeing as I find these attempts to illuminate me with the ‘message of God’ so amusing, I probably really will be going to hell, but I figure that since I haven’t done anything really bad I’ll just end up chilling with Socrates, Aristotle, Buddha and Confucius in Dante’s Purgatory. At least I’ll have people to talk to. The London P amphleteers (at least near Westminster Abbey) are not all homeless and dodgey-like. Many of them seemed polite, if very determined. They have a cause, and you will share it. I think it’s the whole dominion (or potential dominion) over your own personal beliefs and common sense that always freaks me out about organized religion. I had one man ask me if I was a Christian, to which I replied yes and he gave me the most brilliant of smiles. It is comforting to think that random strangers are so concerned about the well-being of my soul.

Evolution based, heretical, truth seeking and kharma-believing as it is. I suppose this isn’t the place to go into belief systems. I won’t put you through something like the Great Veggie Debate again. At least not yet.

One cannot do London in a day. Or a week, month, or maybe even an entire year. The city is massive. I hope to make a trip or two more and finally get into the BM and the London Zoo, and to visit another college campus. There just so happens to be the Royal College of Veterinary Medicine in the heart of the ‘Museum Mile’ that I have been pondering over. It’s very ideally situated within walking distance of the BM, the British Library, and the London Zoo. Places Marisa would find of extreme interest and value. The University of London happens to have an excellent vet program which I have had my eye on for some time now. Two years in the city, two years in the English countryside, one year of residency wherever they’ll take me. If I continue on to get my masters with another program in the UK, (U of L’s Wild Animal Health, teaches you how to anesthetize crocodiles and handle elephants, handy for one of my career aspirations), I might be able to swing it and get naturalized UK citizenship. Opens up a whole world of job and life opportunities…at an international level, potentially. Mucking about Bloomsbury (England’s scientific epicenter) could prove fruitful. Chances to elbow and claw my way into a career of Zoological and Wildlife medicine with conservation and research overtones abound if I can play my cards right. Or opportunities in any field of science, really. London seems full of potential.

I think, I’m sure you all will be happy to note, that I am settling on Vet Med. Half of it is laziness. I realize, that when I complete Vet school, I will be between the ages of 27 and 30. Although not the end of a lifetime at all, it is a place where things begin to solidify, especially if one pursues’ the family/respectable job route. Therefore, engaging in med school after vet school or vice versa, or switching careers at that point, although doable, is going to make a considerable kink in one’s plans. Plans of course that can hardly stand up to a breath of wind, of course, but they’re what I’m aiming for. The other half of it is that, I like what Vet Med offers me. People, animals, making some sort of impact on the world and all that jazz. Getting paid helps, too. That and/or becoming an academic where I get paid summer vacations and sabbaticals woul d also be nice. I think I might even like teaching, if I began to do it.

Scheming, scheming…

But I digress, and once more on matters academic. I feel like I must do something significant with my time. Apologies, oh Devoted (and patient) Readers!

After King’s College, we wandered down Piccadilly Street and washed up in Picadilly Circus. And what a Circus it was. Although I have never been, I would liken it to what I know of New York’s Times Square. Wandering further, we found ‘The Ritz’ again, near the restaurant we ate at last time we were in London. We passed that, continued on past Buckingham Palace and St. James Park and eventually stopped at the corner of Hyde Park. As the hour was late, we did not, regrettably, go exploring. Another time. Instead we managed to navigate our way around the park to Marble Arch (where, conseque ntly there is actually a huge arch of marble). We then happily dragged ourselves onto the bus and cooled our heels for a blessed 45 minutes.

I have no idea how many miles we covered by foot today, with few stops. Before finding the bus, Felicia and I ate dinner near Convent Gardens at a really excellent Thai food place that looked tiny from the street but was large and very nice inside. Food was awesome. I ordered my addiction, Pad Thai, and Chicken Satay. The English really need to learn to use spices, but that is my only complaint.

Oxford was it’s usually nutty self on a Friday night at 11pm. People everywhere, of all sorts. Tuxedos walked the streets next to tube tops and shirtless men, and slim French girls in tiny skirts, and homeless people, and the one black and white dog, and groups of Americans and Italians and God knows who else making the sidewalks difficult to find, let alone navigate. Pubs were crowded to the point where people were spilling out onto the street. The music was loud and thumping, the voices a blur of happy chatter and the rooms dark or lit with flashing, multi-colored laser lights depending on your preference.

Oxford on a Friday night…it’s a busy place.