Blue Sky and Grey Water

Three weeks. I can't even tell if that feels long or short. But every now and then it hits me: I'm in London.

Today is Monday, the 04th of October 2021. Yes, I had to look the date up. My class starts tomorrow and that will be my only orientation for time. And of course, my first flu was followed by a second one. So I spent my first weeks in bed, got addicted to cough sweets and used up wayy to expensive tissues.

But: Today was a good day. After all that lying around it was time for me to get out of the house. And just walking to the supermarket for a bag of nuts doesn't count as getting out.

The first glance outside made me happy. The green tree, the "Norfolk Arms" across the street with it's blue paint, all of it was covered in sunshine. The sky was blue, so blue, that I forgot about the past rainy days.

And so Laurie and I left the house together. Our destination: Borough Market. It's one of these "must-see" places in London. According to Google it would take one hour to walk there. Even though Laurie didn't really wanna walk, after the first crossing she started smiling. We found a cute little café, got the first coffee of the day and let the sun warm our faces. Not many people were out yet. I never walked this way before, so nothing seemed familiar. And that made it even nicer to see pubs, flower arrangements and bus lines leading to unknown places.

The whole way didn't feel like an hour. There was way too much to see. Right before we hit the Thames, we saw St. Pauls Cathedral, a beautiful and giant church. You can't even see the sky if you stand right in front of it. Of course, to get in you had to pay, so we moved on with our walk.

The next stop was the London Bridge, which most of you probably know from the Harry Potter movies. She looked so much nicer in real life! Standing in the middle (okay, I stopped for like 30 seconds) you could see the whole city centre of London. Skyscrapers and famous buildings, the Tower Bridge at the horizon and the cathedral behind us. Blue sky, grey water. Everything made me smile.

As we got to Borough Market I started to understand the hype. It is basically a huge hall with food stalls. Enormous cheese wheels, halved animals, dragon fruit, exotic spices - you can get it all. We did three rounds till we had the feeling we saw it all.

On our way back we followed the river path along the Thames. The sun was still shining and the streets filled with people. Laurie made a turn towards uni, I kept walking along the water. Another highlight: I found my way back home without Google Maps.