Week 12 Impressions by Rocki Nicolai

To everyone back home,

Perhaps this has been mentioned in passing in previous blogs, but I don’t think it has quite received the attention it deserves. London is very much a city of walkers. And not just walking, but aggressive walking. Aggressive speed, aggressive approach, aggressive weaving between tourists who walk too slow, aggressive jumping in front of cars…In fact they have baby buggies/push seats (known in the US as strollers) with shocks so as not to unnecessarily jolt the children riding in them.

London is a fast-paced city. This is obvious, but the degree to which that would affect the pace people walk at, I did not expect. Even after a long day at work I find myself running between trains in the tube station, simply because everyone else is, not because I myself am in a rush…As we wait at a light for the green walk symbol people sprint across to the middle, with full knowledge that they will then have to wait there until the light turns green anyway, but that saves them approximately 1.2 seconds and is thus worth it…When on an escalator, unless moving at a sufficient pace, one must stand on the right (never mind that it actually is posted). In fact, even on stairs this must be observed. Lacking sufficient London savvy, we were literally thrown out of the way our first few days in London…the list goes on…

Perhaps because it means we can all leave 5 minutes later that we all sprint to the tube rather than enjoy a morning stroll. This explanation obviously has no validity to it considering people in London are perpetually 10 minutes late because the tube is perpetually 10 minutes (or more) late. So its possible that in an effort to make up for this lost time people walk so fast. But of course this has no validity either because every morning there is the usual grumble about the tube and everyone knows everyone will be late because everyone knows everyone uses the tube and everyone knows the tube is always late.

Regardless of the reason, I find myself walking at an ever-increasing pace. I’m shocked at the relative lack of shin splints in the group. One thing I think we can all thank the walking pace for is our amazing ability to constantly stumble, but never, or almost never fall. There has yet to be a time where we have gone anywhere without a, eh…mishap. But it only adds to the memories right…?

There are a few upsides to the amount of walking we have to do here. Unlike Portland, using an umbrella is not a sign of weakness or red flag that you are not a local. Because of the sheer amount of walking, also that Londoners don’t seem so “outdoorsy”, it is okay to use a brolly, as they are known here, or newspaper or scarf, or perhaps just walk even faster. We also get a bit of exercise, and amazing butt workouts due to the number of stairs we must walk on any given day. It also got us used to driving on the left side of the road. I cannot remember the last time I actually read the writing on the road that says, “LOOK LEFT” or “LOOK RIGHT”.

As our trip here is approaching the end I can say that many of us look forward to driving again. And many of us will realize it is nice to be back in Portland where the cars slow down and wave you past rather than speed up and blare their horn at you. And many of us will have to think to ourselves again “left, right, left” as we did when we first learned to cross the street/drive. But just as we will miss many other aspects of London, we will no doubt miss irreplaceable walking experiences. I mean, who won’t miss saying “zebra” (pronounced “zeh-bra”) so much, and dodging people running up the stairs to hop on the tube, and having someone laugh at you for stumbling over your own feet only to be able to pay them back five minutes later when they do it, and of course halfway jogging to keep up with everyone who is five inches taller than you and walking five times faster, oh wait, I think that’s just me… Hope all is well back home!

Cheers,
Rocki