Week 9 Impressions by Lauren Haisley

If you want to understand London, take a ride on the tube. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term “tube,” it is basically the subway system in London. However if you come here don’t call it the subway, call it either the underground or the tube to avoid being classified as an ignorant American. We are lucky enough to have received Oyster cards that let us travel anywhere in zone one or two. This card is probably my most valuable possession. In a game of would you rather, given the choice between getting hit by a bus and losing my Oyster card; I’d take my chances with the bus.

The tube is so much more than just the vast chain of underground public transportation; it’s basically the thing that makes London, London. Now you may think that I am being slightly melodramatic, and maybe I am, but despite all of the ethnic differences, social differences, religious differences etc. that Londoners face everyday, and we learn about for hours on end in class, the tube is common to everyone.

Now this commonality has its ups and downs. The fact that everyone relies so heavily on the tube to get to work means that a system failure would probably cause London to shut down entirely. As it is, we have discovered that it is totally acceptable to be an hour late to work and not take any personal responsibility. You can’t control the tube. Even when the tube works perfectly and the slow moving group of elderly English ladies in front of you don’t cause you to JUST miss your train, taking the tube to work takes a good chunk of time. I think it’s Andrew that wins this contest in our group with a commute that lasts 70 minutes and goes all the way out to Zone 4 (we usually stick to Zone 1 and 2). But don’t worry, there is plenty to keep you thoroughly entertained on your ride to and from work five days a week. Talking is not one of them. Before I came to London someone said that you will always know who the Americans and Germans are, because they’re the only ones that talk on the tube. While this isn’t entirely true, let’s just say that I am most aware of my loud American-ness when there are 15 of us giggling and talking loudly about the stop entitled Cockfosters. After living here for a month plus, I definitely understand the silence. In a place where you are surrounded by people constantly, any alone time you can get is sacred. Plus when you’re so packed into a train that you’re unintentionally grabbing the ass of the guy next to you, it’s probably best not to talk.

Instead of talking, most people read and listen to music. If you don’t have your own music that’s ok because most likely someone next to you will be playing theirs loud enough for the entire train to hear. It’ll also most likely be Prince, Beyoncé, or techno of some kind. On the odd occasion you might even be lucky enough to get serenaded by a drunk man asking for money, as we were one night on our way to King’s College Pub. He sang David Bowie and then after we wouldn’t give him any money, an original composition about how cheap, boring, and basically evil American twenty-somethings are.

You also don’t have to supply your own reading material because chances are you can pick up one of the highly prestigious London newspapers given out for free every morning and evening at your local tube station. These papers contain a mixture of celebrity gossip, event scheduling, sports news, political news, and in some cases mild pornography on page 3. So if you are lucky enough to get a seat, grab the LondonLite, crank up the volume on your iPod, enjoy the pseudo alone time and always remember to mind the gap.