England Thoughts Part 1
Much apologies for this not being more in a daily blog form, but we had limited internet access in England. The trip was one of the best learning experiences of my life and I'm happy to be able to share these thoughts:
Pathfinding
Getting your bearings in a new city or place is never easy. And it's a fearful experience. What happens if you get lost? What happens if you walk into a potentially scary situation? All of that is answered by just going out and hitting the trail. There is always risk, there is always a chance of something bad coming along your path. There is always the unknown.
I give a lot of credit to Jen who found out about the original bus company, which is one of those topless double decker busses you often seen in movies when a superhero or rando crashes surprisingly into a group of tourists. It was a great deal where the bus toured us around most of London and then we had the oppurtunity to get on and off at certain stops. This certainly added to our experience of expanding our path, and eventually we felt very comfortable with our surroundings despite even a slow going in our morning.
Learning a New Skill
The joy of learning something new is always a comforting feeling reinforced when you get a chance to show what you know and have it pay off. Again, trying to learn it for the first time is equally scary. There's that fear that you're going to screw up. There's that chance that you'll give up learning more if something goes wrong after you've started. For us, leanring the Underground in London was exactly like this.
If you've ever traveled the subway in Washington DC it is a similar experience. Of course, you'd have to travel back in time a few decades as the Tube has been around for a while and is much larger. A convenience way to travel, our first experience on the tube was a shotgun, 1 way trip from Heathrow Airport to St. James Park near where we were staying. After that, and with some friendly assistance by the gent at the ticket booth, we soon became 'masters' of the underground, feeling confident to travel to and fro. We did have our missteps but soon figured out our mistakes and moved on.
Sense of History
Have you ever scrapbooked or kept a journal? Have you ever looked back over it and thought "wow that really happened in my life..." and felt a sense of depth to everything? Even as you get older, wiser, and add the new experience of life, you start to appreciate the perspectives of your current history with your older one.
One of the things I loved about London was its history. Modern buildings, new age archictecture, even funky ferris wheel like contraptions (British Airways' Eye) dance beautifully with historic, gothic, traditional cathedrals, buildings, bridges. It's like walking through a history book while enjoying a cosmopolitan feel. I do wonder if being a Londoner, you grow up thinking "hey, we've been around for a long time, through a lot of historical highs and lows."
With the first blog, a lot of the themes which tie together for this trip really is that of exploration. Striking out and doing something you've never done before. I'm happy for the oppurtunity to have done something like this. My grandmother always said if you do one thing in life, travel, the world opens up to you, as does your eyes.
pb
Pathfinding
Getting your bearings in a new city or place is never easy. And it's a fearful experience. What happens if you get lost? What happens if you walk into a potentially scary situation? All of that is answered by just going out and hitting the trail. There is always risk, there is always a chance of something bad coming along your path. There is always the unknown.
I give a lot of credit to Jen who found out about the original bus company, which is one of those topless double decker busses you often seen in movies when a superhero or rando crashes surprisingly into a group of tourists. It was a great deal where the bus toured us around most of London and then we had the oppurtunity to get on and off at certain stops. This certainly added to our experience of expanding our path, and eventually we felt very comfortable with our surroundings despite even a slow going in our morning.
Learning a New Skill
The joy of learning something new is always a comforting feeling reinforced when you get a chance to show what you know and have it pay off. Again, trying to learn it for the first time is equally scary. There's that fear that you're going to screw up. There's that chance that you'll give up learning more if something goes wrong after you've started. For us, leanring the Underground in London was exactly like this.
If you've ever traveled the subway in Washington DC it is a similar experience. Of course, you'd have to travel back in time a few decades as the Tube has been around for a while and is much larger. A convenience way to travel, our first experience on the tube was a shotgun, 1 way trip from Heathrow Airport to St. James Park near where we were staying. After that, and with some friendly assistance by the gent at the ticket booth, we soon became 'masters' of the underground, feeling confident to travel to and fro. We did have our missteps but soon figured out our mistakes and moved on.
Sense of History
Have you ever scrapbooked or kept a journal? Have you ever looked back over it and thought "wow that really happened in my life..." and felt a sense of depth to everything? Even as you get older, wiser, and add the new experience of life, you start to appreciate the perspectives of your current history with your older one.
One of the things I loved about London was its history. Modern buildings, new age archictecture, even funky ferris wheel like contraptions (British Airways' Eye) dance beautifully with historic, gothic, traditional cathedrals, buildings, bridges. It's like walking through a history book while enjoying a cosmopolitan feel. I do wonder if being a Londoner, you grow up thinking "hey, we've been around for a long time, through a lot of historical highs and lows."
With the first blog, a lot of the themes which tie together for this trip really is that of exploration. Striking out and doing something you've never done before. I'm happy for the oppurtunity to have done something like this. My grandmother always said if you do one thing in life, travel, the world opens up to you, as does your eyes.
pb
posted by Peter Brooks at 12:34 AM
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