Day 5: A River Runs Through It

  The Thames winds it's way through the heart of London. This amazing city would not exist but for the life's blood of commerce it has provided. To honor its importance, the Mayor holds a celebration on the banks each November. A fair with crafts, food, and live music that is popular and well attended by tourists and locals alike. Into this swirling eddy of humanity we threw ourselves today.

  Any imagined renaissance-style street fair quickly faded from my mind as I realised these things are pretty much the same the world over. The Thames River Festival felt a lot like a street fair in Bellingham minus the faint smell of patchouli, and people hippy dancing to the line music. What Bellingham doesn't have is the amazing sites of Tower Bridge, Big Ben, and the London Eye. All of which I tried to soak in while negotiating the crowd, and avoiding the baby strollers that seemed to be constantly running over my toes and scraping my heels.

  The mothers that operated the little vehicles seemed perfectly comfortable with using them as battering rams to clear a path through the crowd. But why me? Perhaps they were just choosing what they thought was the path of least resistance. I have a friendly face, and they assumed (correctly) that I wouldn't make a fuss. They were women with helpless children, for goodness sake, who would make a scene over a little barked shin? My sister seemed not to have a problem, but I suppose even in this lawless river of people the cane she used for her arthritis trumped their prams.

  We finally escaped the crush of the crowd, and I departed from my companions to spent the rest of the day wandering through the streets of Westminster, and down Strand Street on what Rick Steves calls the city walk. I strayed down side streets taking pictures, and exploring places that had whizzed by as we took our bus tour. Eventually I found myself back at Temple station looking once again at the river, before catching the tube back.

Day 5 Photostream