Viewing entries tagged
Great Britain
We rushed early to St. Paul's in London one morning so we could explore the cathedral and climb the dome before the large crowds hit. Even so, I had no patience with the early bird tourists giggling with glee at the whispering gallery or shrieking in panic at the tight spiral staircase to the top of the dome, so I wrote poem stanzas on the climb to distract myself from any irritation.
Stone and marble may be durable, but even these hard surfaces cannot survive what we human beings as a species can survive: time and the touch of millions of hands and lips, touching, revering, eroding, forgetting. Funeral slabs are worn completely smooth, memorials are cracked and decaying, and some are even defaced in damnatio memoriae. We build, but still it is only temporary. Eventually hands and feet rub and erase, and we are only left to puzzle over fragments and faulty stories.
The London Eye is incredibly touristy in all the worst ways: shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, crying babies, a line out the door to restrooms, heat, overpriced bottles of Coke, and carnival attractions like street magicians and a carousel and exhibits like "Shrek's Big Adventure!" and "The London Dungeon (it's a SCREAM!)" and a very cramped aquarium.
