Freckles Abroad

I am excited to announce that I'm loving my classes! That's probably not a huge surprise, considering I'm well known for my love of reading, discussing literature, and writing. Still, it's reassuring to know that I picked the right field of study.

On Wednesday I decided to walk to Barnes and Putney, two “boroughs” of London that are within a half hour walk from campus. I intended to go to Barnes first, which has an independent book store where I was hoping to apply for a part-time job. Then I intended to find the “Putney Exchange”, which is a shopping mall, where I hoped to find a bookstore and possibly other stores hiring.

I began on the main road from campus, called “Roehampton Lane”. I then followed what I thought were the directions I'd taken a screenshot of from my Maps app. I took a small detour to follow a path through the woods parallel to the main road, enjoying the density of green life. The air there was filled with a post-rain scent of damp moss. At the Barnes train station I took the stairs back up to meet the main road and was forced to cross the street to continue on the sidewalk. Shortly after this, I took a footpath through more of the forest, supposing by my map that I was crossing through “Barnes Green”. However, I took this turn too early and when I finally exited the gorgeously lush green forest paths, I was closer to Putney than to Barnes.

Once I figured this out, a few streets closer to the downtown area of Putney, I amended my plan to visit the Putney Exchange first and then turn around to hit Barnes. Based on a “You Are Here” map on the sidewalk, I actually ended up finding and visiting the Putney Library before the mall. It's small, but has a diverse collection. The main strip around the Putney Exchange reminded me of the streets of downtown Dublin, thin, made of cobblestones, and densely populated in the middle of the day.

Finally, after visiting the mall, I bought a sandwich and a snack at Gregg's and headed back along the main road towards Barnes. From this sidewalk I was able to view the rippling blue of the Thames River. The weather had turned out quite lovely for my adventure.

It was much easier to find Barnes from Putney than it had been from campus, based on my photographed maps. The downtown streets of Barnes were a bit quieter and spread further apart. In fact, Barnes reminded me more of downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire, than of a bustling city. There were signs for a charity walk across the gates to the church and the Commons were filled with children playing soccer (or “football”) and dogs running free off their leashes. The bookstore was unfortunately not hiring, but it was still a lovely place to visit! There's also a record shop that is only open on Saturdays, not that I have my turntable with me, anyway.

The walk home was still a long trek, but a little easier and less confusing that the start of my journey. I thought I was lost at one point, but I followed the sound of a train on the tracks back to the Barnes station. By this time my feet and legs were aching, so the rest of my trek back to campus was more of a trudge. It was overall a successful outing.

On Thursday evening, after class, I attended my first social activity on campus: Swing Society. In the UK “clubs” refers to athletics, so what we would call “clubs” in the US are here termed “societies”. Of course, partner dancing isn't yet allowed due to the pandemic, so instead it was more akin to a Zumba class. Afterwards, we all went to the campus bar together for a pint (or half-pint, in my case). It was a fun night! Also we hit it off so well that we agreed to visit Richmond Park together on Sunday. This was brought up to help one of the group who is studying photography and needed to fill up her film before class on Monday.

On Sunday, five women (and one leopard) gathered and walked together toward Richmond Park. We stopped at the entrance coffee stand to get hot beverages before we began our walk. It was mentioned that this is the largest park in London, which, in hindsight, is not surprising. The park was packed with families, bicyclers, and dog-walkers. While we started on the main road, we soon deviated from it, climbing over clods of grass and wading through grass almost as high as my hips. We paused in a mulched area under the trees to sit on a large log and take some photos. Then we continued into a field to view a herd of deer up close. Apparently they are used to humans, because some people walked right by them without scaring them off or getting attacked. It was an amazing sight – like watching Animal Planet live.

We also saw parakeets flying among the branches of the trees. Parakeets aren't native to Britain, but apparently in the 1960s or around then someone let their pet parakeets free and since then they have adapted and multiplied their ranks.

The park really is stunning and spread out – it almost had several different climates of its own! There were areas of dense forest, fern fields, grassland fields full of deer, sports fields, and a pond so large it could be considered a lake. It took us about three hours to traverse it and return to the entrance, though we did stop a few times for the photo shoot.

Since I'm writing this on an American “holiday”, I figured I should mention it. In the United States we take time today to celebrate our ancestry, but also to remember how horribly the Native Americans were treated by Christopher Columbus. We also don't have to work or go to school on this day. Meanwhile in England, I had completely forgotten that was today until I checked social media, because it's not celebrated here. That's not surprising, but it is a notable cultural difference.