LONDON: Act V (The Final Act)
March 10-11, 2017
IT WAS THE wanderer's last full day in London.
After a breakfast at the corner cafe (as per usual), the wanderer went on a search for souvenirs. She stopped at a supermarket for tea and chocolate, then went next door to Skoob Books, where she browsed and sat in a chair in a nook surrounded by towers of books and read the beginning of a Neil Gaiman novel.
And then it was time for a final round of museum visits. The wanderer strolled through Sir John Soane's Museum, an eclectic collection, with marble Greek statues, old oil paintings, a huge sarcophagus. She then traveled through Ancient Egypt (more sarcophagi!), Rome, Europe, and other realms at the British Museum. Her professor then took her and her companion on a short literary London tour, pointing out buildings in which famous writers like Virginia Woolf, T.S. Elliot, and W.B. Yeats lived and wrote.
After a dinner of pesto pasta and bubbly sparkling water at an Italian restaurant, the wanderer saw her last play in London: The Glass Menagerie. Then it was a long trek back through the nighttime streets of London to the hostel.
The day was gone in the blink of an eye. The wanderer returned to her big four-bunk bed room (some crazy random happenstance landed her and her companion in this room after they had stayed only two nights in the much smaller two-bed room they had first been allocated), and she lay down on the top bunk of her temporary bed (she'd of course chosen to sleep in a top bunk; it reminded her of being a child, sleeping in her purple-walled room atop her bunk bed, close to the glow-in-the-dark stars that dotted the ceiling). The wanderer closed her eyes, in disbelief that her week in London was practically over. Already it felt as though it had only been a dream . . .
THE NEXT MORNING, the final morning, the wanderer woke up, went to the cafe at the corner for the final time, and rushed to the tube, sipping her hot cocoa on the ride to the airport.
After a breakfast at the corner cafe (as per usual), the wanderer went on a search for souvenirs. She stopped at a supermarket for tea and chocolate, then went next door to Skoob Books, where she browsed and sat in a chair in a nook surrounded by towers of books and read the beginning of a Neil Gaiman novel.
And then it was time for a final round of museum visits. The wanderer strolled through Sir John Soane's Museum, an eclectic collection, with marble Greek statues, old oil paintings, a huge sarcophagus. She then traveled through Ancient Egypt (more sarcophagi!), Rome, Europe, and other realms at the British Museum. Her professor then took her and her companion on a short literary London tour, pointing out buildings in which famous writers like Virginia Woolf, T.S. Elliot, and W.B. Yeats lived and wrote.
After a dinner of pesto pasta and bubbly sparkling water at an Italian restaurant, the wanderer saw her last play in London: The Glass Menagerie. Then it was a long trek back through the nighttime streets of London to the hostel.
The day was gone in the blink of an eye. The wanderer returned to her big four-bunk bed room (some crazy random happenstance landed her and her companion in this room after they had stayed only two nights in the much smaller two-bed room they had first been allocated), and she lay down on the top bunk of her temporary bed (she'd of course chosen to sleep in a top bunk; it reminded her of being a child, sleeping in her purple-walled room atop her bunk bed, close to the glow-in-the-dark stars that dotted the ceiling). The wanderer closed her eyes, in disbelief that her week in London was practically over. Already it felt as though it had only been a dream . . .
THE NEXT MORNING, the final morning, the wanderer woke up, went to the cafe at the corner for the final time, and rushed to the tube, sipping her hot cocoa on the ride to the airport.
She was sad to say goodbye to London, a city saturated with history, art, culture, life. And so she didn't say goodbye. She folded and tucked the memories she made inside her heart and left the city with a promise to one day return.
"Never say goodbye because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting." —J.M. Barrie, Peter PanCurtain.
Sounds like a good end to the adventure- sad though it is that it had to end at all. :)
ReplyDeleteWell, an end is just a beginning of something else! :)
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