Might be the damn weather, the crowds you encounter daily, the fact that you're on an island, the fact that not even two persona have the same ethnicity but this city doesn't look or feel like Europe. Not anymore at least.
It's the perfect city to get lost. The perfect city for one like me. There are so many people and so big distances from one place to another that you feel as you really are in this life:anonymous, insignificant, utterly alone. Luckily this feeling suits me perfectly and i enjoy it.
My mother has been trying to find me other Romanians to talk to an get in touch to but i don't need it. I enjoy my silence, my non-existence to others. I am and i am not in the same time.
I live in a Jewish neighborhood. But inhabited by blacks, Turks, and plenty of Punjabis. But the Jews are really fascinating. All wear those black orthodox uniforms and those black hats, have long beards and curled whiskers. Even a sort of religious white apron. It's like in a movie just that now it's real. I see their children coming to the private school in chauffeur driven cars. They speak an unintelligible language. And they seem happy.
A Jewish cemetery, 400 years old, lies in the middle of the university's main campus. Kinda of a sinister view from the library's window. Even more sinister is to know that the library itself together with 3 other buildings and the students park were actually build on the cemetery itself. 30 years ago, according to the plates, the university purchased the cemetery to expand. What is left was left as a courtesy to the Portuguese Jewish community. All those buried in the preserved part have Portuguese names...
Gravestones are granite or marble, clear letters, pure English writing. Amazing that the language was already completed so ling ago.
Students pass by undisturbed, unafraid of all the troubled spirits unable to retrace their old bones or named stones (how are they to remember who they were without that last, engraved, ID?). I wonder what happened to them when they dug for the foundations...
Without a care the sun rests a ray or two on the remaining graves in this late summer day. He's in no hurry. Neither am i... A squirrel jumps from one grave to another on its way to another tree.
What is really noticeable is the oriental look of this city. Zounds of Muslim female Nas'Ghuls wonder the streets with their brown skinned kids. Sikhs with Turbans appear at any corner. Terrorist like Arabs, in white robes and long beards spit their words everywhere. Out of the people you meet 90% at least are immigrants. Non-europeans, non christian. Makes you feel like home - you can't be a foreigner among foreigners - but also makes you realize that something got lost. This is not an English city anymore.
And some of them, even manage to speak good English, not the one massacred with Indian accent. No. While waiting for my registration i've heard the sweetest voice explaining stuff in the clearest British accent. When turning towards the employ to whom it belonged i saw a woman with her head covered in a black veil. The awareness came as a sentence: Muslim Arab Woman. A bitter smile crossed my face...
For those of you wanting to take a walk on the Thames river bank please avoid the weekend. Tourists and most likely thieves are crawling over the place. You can't even take a step without being bumped into or pushed around or interrupted from your own thoughts...
On the stairs of the National Gallery, with a coffee and a book, admiring the column of Trafalgar, the big blue cock and the big ben. Ignoring the crowd. Enjoying life.
Today, after a very long time i took an hour to sit on a bench and read over a take away coffee. In Russell Square Park. There were people on all benches. Youngsters on the grass. Most of them were reading, like me. I felt i belonged. I didn't feel alone anymore. I felt home...
Exiting the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, a 4 store legal library, huge and nice and quiet i had a sort of epiphany that i would like to do this: travel, study, research, write, share, teach. If only i had the money, the time, the job and the resources for that...
Bits and pieces:
That false politeness...
Where are the Britons?...
Today in the park that accent spoke English made me think it was French...
Rush hour at the metro...
The metro-station 175 stairs bellow, the equivalent of a 13 stores building...
Everything goes for women here: broken dirty shoes or blouses, unshaved armpits...
The smart phone obsessed nation....
People in their 50's playing videogames on their phones. Everyone walking with them in their hands. Buttoning, buttoning, buttoning...
London, baby!
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