I intended on finding out where one of our dormmates was working for the day so that I could go visit. She is an Asain woman (China, I think), about 24 years old, and a very proficient programmer, from what she told us. However, her English isn't very good and as a result companies won't hire her. She decided to move to the UK for a while to attend uni. Today, though, she had her first day of training, learning how to be a barista. Sadly, I never found out where she was working, so she couldn't make me a cup 'o joe.
Our other roommate, however, had nothing doing that whole day, and agreed to get lunch with me. She is 23 and originally from Hong Kong, but is now at San Francisco State University. After a few difficulties getting started (the dorm room door lock broke), we walked through the rain (of course) to the tube and went to Leicester Square for some brunch. We went to a place called Garfunkel's, but sadly they mostly played newer songs and not those of the restaurant's namesake. I got the fish & chips and a latte, knowing I'd have to stay up for over 18 hours, and she got a pasta and soup. We chatted as two people usually do: what do you do, how's life where you live, what're your plans in London, tell me all your secrets, what did you eat for dinner 232 days ago...you know, normal stuff. Her English was almost impeccible; there were a few phrases she found difficult.
Shortly before we departed once more into the 100% humidity, an elderly man sat down at the table next to us. He wore a Yankees' cap and red jacket, though looked quite British (I can tell the difference, you know) and spoke in a London accent. I tried to talk to him, to find out his life experiences, but as with most older gents and ladies, the conversation was slow-going, and I needed to leave for the airport. As we walked out, he wished me safe travels, and I thanked him.
The roommate and I departed at the nearest underground station, leaving with a snapchat message (hers) and a goodbye (both of ours). "The Sound of Silence" played in my head.
I managed to get my bag to Heathrow and myself onto the plane in time. As the plane rumbled off the airstrip, I thought of the walls that Jacob and I saw throughout the UK. In the US, when you want to separate two plots of farm land, you set up a fence, or plant a bush, or us it as a small private road. However, from what we saw, in the UK, you build a stone wall.
These stone walls aren't impersonal; they're only four feet tall, and look quite poorly put together, as though they might fall. Yet they likely stay standing for centuries, as the quantity of moss (or is it a lichen) growing on many of them can attest to. Jacob and I both found them quite asthetically pleasing: they rolled across the countryside, splitting off in all directions at the corners of plots of land and going this way and that, enclosing sheep and cows within their warm, inviting, mossy (licheny?) surfaces.
Whenever I looked at them as we biked, I couldn't help but think, "Somebody, or some group of people at one point decided to gather those thousands, millions, hundreds of millions of stones, move them onto a designated imaginary line that they probably made up, and stack them. These walls likely changed owners over the years, but they still do the same thing now as they did then: separate land and keep in animals. Those people from generations past set the framework for those in the present to work off of and use. And here these walls are today, still intact, barely modified, and overall, quite beautiful."
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