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| By Caitlyn Tendick |
I was there with two friends this past November and while I
had been there before, I think I enjoyed the city much more the second time. It
is big and it is overwhelming and it is hard to take everything in all at
once. Now, there are plenty of stories I
could tell you about my trip there; all of which seem so insignificant and
monumental when I think of them now.
But, since my blog mainly seems to be about stories and about writing
(or the lack thereof lately) I want to spend my time pointing something out to
you fellow readers and travelers that I think does not get discussed
enough. London is no longer a real
place. It has ceased all economic or
world power that we think it holds. No.
London is a story; a conglomeration of different tales and legends all combined
into one anthology.
Think about it for a moment.
You have Big Ben where Peter, Wendy, Michael and John, all
flew past on their way to Neverland and where Jack and Rose danced to Glenn
Miller’s Moonlight Serenade.
You have the old Dickensian streets playing out before your
eyes, the dirt and the grit of a smoggy London filled night rolling through the
alleyways and the twisting down the cobbled side streets that still exist.
You have Fleet Street, home of the demon barber and the
tavern dedicated to him where you can get a fantastic meat pie and a glass of
mulled wine. Just ignore the image of a
flashing blade as you exit that night and hope that the streets are a bit
crowded as you weave back home on unsteady and travel logged feet.
You have the black smoke that reaches out from the gap on
the London Underground, stealing away the people that are easily forgotten if
the gap is not minded. Out on the
streets there are numerous the forgotten alley’s that we all pass without a
second glance, never aware of the portals that are contained at their end. Door and Neverwhere’s
slew of characters are waiting down there.
Shakespeare’s Globe sits in the heart of this town, old
stories of betrayal and murder playing out inside its dome while out on the
outskirts of the nightlife and bustling roads, Charles Dickens house still sits.
His walls are covered with words he
wrote a long long time ago and his writing desk still sits empty, waiting for
another story to be composed.
Connecting these two worlds is the infamous London bridge
that we see knights riding across to go to jousting tournaments, carrying
favors from their ladies while the bridge itself holds echoes of markets and
women hanging from windows to call down to the men below. Then, it is beneath these bridges that ghost
stories were made and where hands reach up from the icy tombs they have been
banished too, beckoning the lone wandering as they try to find their way home.
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| By Caitlyn Tendick |
There’s Hogwarts Great Hall, Sherlock’s Baker Street, and
the fear that the Doctor has instilled in us that something horrid happens here
every single Christmas season. You have
Kings Cross Station with Platform 9 ¾ and while not fiction, the gruesome images
of Jack the Ripper still haunt the passages leading through the forgotten parts
of the city.
And let us not forget that Spike and Drusilla were once from
here and that Oliver begged for more at some point in time. Let’s also remember that Canary Wharf was
attacked by Cybermen or that Nick's High Fidelity
record store is tucked between other crumbling business in the cheaper side of
town.
There are countless moments that we think of when we think
of Europe. It calls up images of
Arthurian Legend or pilgrimages from the Canterbury Tales. London is always at the center of it all and
has continued to be there throughout the ages of literature. Because of this, it is with a firm hand and
tone, that I am declaring London to no longer be the city in which we believe
that Queen resides or one in which we even call a part of our world.
London, is not a real place. London, is a book that we
somehow have the ability to step inside and have been granted the privilege to
walk its pages.
You can find Caitlyn Tendicks pictures here at http://www.flickr.com/photos/97205176@N06/. Go give her love and then like me on Facebook.
