"She said she would buy the flowers herself"

St. Pancras StationThere's something about Mrs. Dalloway and travel. There are two types of travel discussed in this novel: the one that takes you out of the city and the one that remains within the city. Peter Walsh, Clarissa Dalloway's old love, represents the former while Clarissa herself represents the latter. The novel's opening scene is actually one of its most memorable and is what struck me most upon reading it. The scene describes Clarissa's decision to buy flowers for a party she's throwing and the walk that that decision takes her on. She travels from her home in Westminster to Bond Street, on the way musing about her past and what could have been. This scene brings to mind what I've always loved about walking in cities. There is a chance to think while you walk. Somehow, the constant stream of noise and stimuli doesn't seem to affect one's ability to wonder and to dream. In fact, I find that the constant stimuli aids me in my musings. But there's something particularly special about London. Clarissa knows it too; “I love walking in London. Really it's better than walking in the country” (Woolf 6).

It's been a month since I've been here and I think I'm slowly beginning to see what Clarissa means. Walking here is not the same as walking in NYC. I find that I am not as comfortable to wander aimlessly here. However, I have found that if I have a destination, the walk is extremely enjoyable. If the weather is good, that's an added bonus. My walk to classes in the Bloomsbury area take half an hour in each direction and I have to say that they are getting to be my favorite part of the day. I know the route to class well but there's something really enjoyable about breathing in deeply and taking the sights I pass in. I get to walk by St. Pancras Station every day. St. Pancras looks like a palace; it sticks out on King's Cross Road as a symbol of a more grand past. And I love it. Its existence reminds me that I'm in a city steeped in history that dates back to the Roman Empire. Walking past this history every day is more profound for me here than back in NYC. I suppose it's because I walk by buildings that, for example, Charles Dickens once lived in.

As someone who has an avid interest in history, London really is a great place for me. I've spent so much time on Wikipedia, reading about the various European royal families, of which England's always seemed to be the most fascinating. The longer I've been here the more I've fallen in love with the history. It helps that I am taking a class called “History of London” that includes a walking tour of various parts of London. On these tours, I find myself gawking at the buildings my professor points out and absorbing all the information he tells us about where we are. We've been to places I would've never gone to on my own accord, simply because I would not have found those places. I would've never found the amphitheater from Roman London hidden underneath the streets of London, now in a museum. There's so much I wouldn't have found and there's still so much yet to be found in this city. If I take one thing away from Clarissa and her walk is that a walk, even in a familiar location, is always subject to being different, to being new.