Blog from Piccadilly Circus

After a remarkably smooth flight, I have just found an Internet cafe in Piccadilly Circus. Being London's version, I guess, of Time's Square, Piccadilly is a highly commercialized, touristy area. Getting here from the more quite parts of London, this city reminds me vaguely of Boston and parts of Georgetown; yet London is a place all its own and very new to me.

Arriving here from Heathrow, I took the Underground, the transit rail of London, which is quite clean and easy to navigate. Approaching the downtown area from the airport, I deligthed in the patches of wild flowers and trees that seemed to greet me in the swaying breeze. With the clacking rails lulling me to sleep, I was very happy to finally be here.

I quickly woke up listening to the rail-system's computer-intercom announce the entertaining names of stops along my way: 'South Ealing, Northfields, Knigthsbridge, and, hilariously, the end of the line at Cockfosters.'  --?-- Once downtown, I explored London quickly. Today I viewed Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and Piccadilly Circus. With speed to spare, I incidentally forgot just how far I have travelled, and I got the first impression that I am somewhat exotic to Londoners at a side street cafe near St-James Square. For a cashier asked me 'Where is your accent from?' As the black boxy taxis and London's red buses rushed by on an outside street, a sudden feeling came to me that I am indeed a very distant stranger in a very exotic place myself.

So, as a Yankee, I wondered out into the London streets and found something very British--Westminster Abbey. Westminster has already made my trip worthwhile. Its gilded roof and colossal nave houses more kings, artists, and merchants than perhaps any other place on Earth.  Yet, by far the most outstanding part of the Abbey is the dedication to the Unknown Solider. Embroidered with roses, the simple tomb reads in gold:

Beneath this stone rests the body of a British warrior
unknown by name or rank brought from France to lie among
the most illustrious of the land and buried here on Armistice Day
11 Nov: 1920, in the presence of His Majesty King George V
his ministers of state the chiefs of his forces and a vast concourse of the nation
Thus are commemorated the many multitudes who during the Great
War of 1914 - 1918 gave the most that Man can give life itself
For God for King and country for loved ones home and Empire
for the sacred cause of justice and the freedom of the world
They buried him among the kings because he
had done good toward God and toward His house

Reflecting on this time in Westminster, I started toward Buckingham Palace, a short walk away. Crossing underneath the Australian gates that mark Buckingham Palace, I was quick to mark the differences between Americans and our cast-away ancestors. Proudly American, I felt somewhat like an insecure traitor in front of this Palace. All part of my imagination, I took a British women's stare to be a scornful reproach and a police guards disapproaving stance, in front of the gate, to be the proof that I am a rebel in this country. Ironic, since as I turned to leave the grounds, I saw a giant bus with a Captain America advertisement plastered across its haul. Thanks Captain America; so much for me being humbled in Westminster!