Travelling Shoes

Seeing as how it's been a month since I last posted, I think you can safely assume that I'm actually get a bit of work done. I spent two weeks working at The Natural History Museum in South Kensington during the hottest two weeks of the summer.  The NHM is not air-conditioned like most museums.  I guess when all your exhibits are either fossilized or petrified (or whatever taxidermy is), you don't have to trouble yourself about climate control.  The NHM is also free of charge so basically from June to September it is an absolute madhouse, and you very nearly asphyxiate on the collective exhalations and perspirations of a bazillion kids. The heat and humidity was so bad in the main reading room of their library and archives that the staff revolted and moved the operation into a slightly cooler wing of the building.  Then I spent three weeks in the gloriously air-conditioned library at The Royal Botanic Garden at Kew.  I love the location (you can go into the park for free for lunch) and the friendly staff,  but I can't help but feeling that, archivally-speaking, it was a complete waste of time. With a few exceptions, Kew and its colonial satellites really didn't do much of anything to contribute to the prospects of your everyday agricultural settlers. It felt like I paid my  £35 for a 7 day travel card, but I only used it once to take a bus two blocks down the road.

 But alas, I'm nearing the end of my stay in London, and in a few weeks, I hit the road for almost six weeks.  I'm dumping most of my stuff into a £5 a week storage locker in Fulham, buying a cheap little rolling case. I'll live pre-war chic: in that I'll wear the same three outfits for 6 weeks, this in attempt to safe my bum back from imminent doom by hauling around heavy luggage, though, really I'm more likely to end up crippled from the arduous task of sitting in front of old documents all day.

  I suppose it will be a good change of pace, seeing how London lost its charm for me around the last time I posted, but it's a long time to be a nomad. I'll be staying in nicer places, though, it appears. I've booked some rooms on Airbnb, and it will be so nice to sleep in a real bed (not the 5 inch spring coil mattress on a slab of wood that I've been on for the last three months) and take a shower that hasn't been used by 12 other people. Two of the places come with a Labrador retriever included in the price.

Here's the first place I'm staying. Wonder if they'll let me sleep with the dog....

  I'll be in Reading for a week, St. Alban's for half a week, Oxford for half a week, Cambridge for a week, and Edinburgh for three weeks.  Then I'll head down to London to spend a frantic few days getting ready to go and sweeping up about .001% of the loose ends that I'm creating. Right now, I'm just trying to survive the hell that is commuting.

I've had to commute long distances to work before.  My first year teaching I had to drive over an hour on country roads to get to school, leaving the house at the crack of dawn just so that I could skid into the parking lot before the first bell rang (the one that let the kids into the halls). Somehow I didn't mind the driving so much, and the next year, I moved and cut my commute to about 25 minutes.  Before that, in what I call The Dark Times, I had a 30-40 minute commute from my parents house to my various food service jobs in Greenville.  In the period before that, in what I call The Really Dark Times, I had a 45 minute commute from the hell hole in Harlem I lived in (actually a hell hole would have been bigger, cleaner, and safer) to my job.  I took the bus, because by that time, I hated the subway with the passion of a thousand suns.  

For the past month, I've been commuting to the archives, a total of anywhere from 2 hours and 45 minutes to nearly 4 hours if the stars are misaligned (which they often are). Both for the Royal Botanic Garden and The National Archives (both in Kew, but on opposite sides of town), this involves walking, a long train ride, a shorter train ride, a bus ride, and more walking.  It just means that a seven or eight hour working day turns into much longer.  Is it any wonder that when I get home, instead of going over what I've collected at the archives, I watch Foyle's War and play Candy Crush Saga?  And it's just so hot and cramped on the underground, and while the car itself is usually quite clean, you can't say the same for the folks on board. On a good day I squash up next to a handful of European teens doused in perfume/cologne to mask whatever unpleasant odor is under it (usually stale cigarettes and alcohol), and on a bad day, like today, I get elbowed in the ribs by an aggressive homeless guy who is making himself as large as possible so that no one sits next to him.  It worked. 

So there will be no love lost when I move on to a place with a little more elbow room.