Being Here: A Travel Blog Around Europe

By: Emily Ferro
Posted In: Blogs

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Emily’s Blog

So, Last weekend, my friends and I went to London. This is not new, as we have been there on a couple occasions, so the trip to London is not exactly what I am writing about. The significant part about this particular trip to London was our mode of transportation: The London Underground.

Mind you, I live reasonably close to New York City, so I am well versed in the ways of dodging speeding cars and navigating my way up and down streets that all look the same. One thing I have never done in all my trips to the City, however, was ride on the subway. Being a fairly capable walker, I would easily choose a twenty mile walk from one end of the city to the other and back than to hop on the subway. The same holds true for the London Underground. The difference here was my company. My friends, apparently, would NOT rather walk twenty miles. And so, without warning, I found myself staring wide-eyed through the mouth of the tunnel into the London Underground station.

The sight was astounding, to say the least, with hundreds of people all darting back and forth, well aware of where they needed to be. There were people hovering against the walls with maps pressed to their noses, men in business suits wielding briefcases and clutching them to their sides, women in too-high heels hurrying in the direction of the escalators, and the every-day looking men and women forming queues before the kiosks.

Everyone was moving in their own little world at their own pace. That pace was generally quicker than the one I desired to be moving at, as people constantly pushed past me as I made my way towards the kiosk myself. Tickets in hand only a few minutes later, my friends and I moved beyond the access gates and onto the crowded escalators.

Little did I know that it was dreadfully rude to stand still on the left side of the escalator. Within moments I had a burly gentleman behind me, tapping his foot in impatience. As soon as I noticed, of course, I pushed over to the right, which clearly displeased the two women I squeezed between. Instantly there was an incessant flow of men and women, trudging quickly down the left side of the already descending escalator.

Their rush was useless, if you ask me, as I reached the bottom of the escalator shortly and was at the mercy of my friend’s directional skills when it came to navigating our way through the dingy tiled tunnels. It wasn’t terribly difficult, if I am being completely honest. For the most part, we just spotted a woman who looked like she knew what she was doing and followed her to the platform, which was equally as busy.

We arrived just as the doors to the carriage were closing, and there was an instant sinking feeling of disappointment. Who knew when the next train would come? the dejected feeling lasted only a moment, considering only a moment later another train was pulling through the tunnel. The people on the platform paced back and forth, organizing themselves and trying to determine where they thought the doors would be when the train stopped. Everyone seemed so desperate to be the first on the carriage, which seemed silly, if you ask me.

Inside the carriage was another world entirely. The doors slid shut and there was a stillness that was so drastically different from the business of the station. The stagnancy made sense, as there was nowhere to rush to, but the shock over the change was intense nonetheless. No one talked or made eye contact at all, whether they were slouched in a seat or standing stiffly holing on to a pole. The only noise was the perpetual click of the wheels on the track, and the only movement was the sway of the people moving in time with the clicks as the carriage rocked back and forth.

It was an odd kind of limbo where everyone seemed equal, whether it was the uptight business woman standing to my right or the unkempt boy in the seat next to her, clutching his guitar and letting his head loll back onto the seat. We all had no where else to go for that single moment in time, so we could just be.

Leaving the train left me with the same sense of shock, because it was as though the power switch inside the passengers was turned back to ‘go!’ and the rush was instantly re-activated. My friends and I made our way at an average pace towards the exit. We ascended the stairs and re-entered the streets of London, which now seemed almost relaxed compared to the rush of the Underground.