Saint Pauls, Barbican, Islington and SOUTHDITCH!!

---

---

Today I hopped on the coach into London. My friend Ben and I started out at Harrods and Knightsbridge. We took the tube over to Saint Paul's Cathedral and decided to just start walking. As I always take a day and just get on the tube and hop off at random stations, this was keeping in tradition of my wanderings around London. We ended up at the Museum of London which traced London from the Ice Age to the Great Fires through the plague, Roman conquests, to modern day London. We then ended up at "Barbicon" which consists of amazing flats and a school for the performing arts. Within the school was an amazing conservatory (green house) which was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been. In contrast, we continued to walk through East London (Islington and an area called "Southditch" ... which actually can be best described through its name). We stumbled upon the Pickle building (which I have only viewed from afar) and Spitalfield's market. We decided to have dinner alfresco in the hood of London (nothing compared of course to the hood of NJ).

As the days are drawing to a close I can only say that my fourth summer at TASIS has been the quickest of them all. I always feel like the days are too short, the nights fly by, and I can never experience all there is while I am here. This morning as I was walking down Coldharbour Lane to the campus I said my traditional "good morning" to the crooked old man with the crooked walking stick with the scrappy little dog (yet sporting a lovely top hat) and realized that I took that man for granted. He smiled at me every morning for two months now, tipped his top hat, and said good morning. This little village will always mean more to me than any place in the world. It has been a second home, a solitude, a growing experience, and has done more for my sanity than I can ever describe. I wish I could put it into words ... for those of you who have been here you know. For those of you who have not ... I can only say that the village of Thorpe, that you will not find on a map, is the dearest place in the world. Not only because the house across the street is named "Green Shutters" for its green shutters of course, the sign on the corner says "dead slow" ... meaning do 5mph, the signs leading to TASIS take you in circles, and the local fox walks into dorms and sniffs the kids, and the arabs can shake hands with the lebanese ...

With all that being said ... I plan on making the most of the next few weeks before I return. As I never return the same person before I left, I can only hope that I have taken the most away from my fourth summer here as I possibly can.

---