the journey to hampstead heath

Thursday 6.11.08

I awake after another near sleepless night, shower, get ready and run out the door around 8:30am. I dress fairly warm as it is November and quite chilly. It’s quite hard to ‘backpack’ through Europe when it is winter since you have to carry around a coat and a hat and gloves and blah blah blah. In the summer you have waaaayy less to carry around. This is why, in addition to the backpack I borrowed from jess, I also brought a huge suitcase, that jenna was kind enough to let me leave there when I did the main section of my wandering around Europe.

Back to the plot though. I pick up my favorite yoghurt at tesco (Muellers fruit corners, of course [anyone know if i can buy this anywhere in the state?s]), a spork, and I make my way towards Camden town. I find the Camden lock and sit down on steps nearby to enjoy my not-so-english breakfast. Finding a Carphone Warehouse was top on my list. The name still makes me kind of tilt my head. Why car phone? For cars? And its definitely not a warehouse. But they are found on essentially every main street in London and they are the place to go to top-up your pay-as-you-go phone. Which is why I went there of course. A very nice man helps me get 5 pounds on the phone jenna lent me, so I can actually communicate…at least while I am in England.

Business first. Now onto the happy wandering.   I continue down the road and browse the few shops that are open at this hour. I seemed to have walked farther than I have before because I came across a building that I surely would have remembered had I seen it before.  It had what seemed to be Egyptian painted papyrus columns with two statues of black cats on either side. I forgot what I was called but it was interesting and it made me check my book. I couldn’t find my good London map so I was forced to carry around a huge Fodor’s book that was outdated by four years.   [ I looked it up since and found out it is now called Greater London House]. Upon consulting my book I find I am undoubtedly going the wrong way.

So I turn around and begin to retrace my steps, finding that many more shops have opened up in the meantime. I see people with these little starbucks cups and my free sample radar fires up. A few seconds after my senses have heightened to find the free food, a man on the street comes right up to me with a tray offering a taste of a Dark Cherry Mocha or something like that. I say thank you and he tells me to take the last one too so I could have one for later. I decline politely and thank him again [WHAT?!!? This is outrageous. I cannot believe I would decline this. And I don’t remember doing it. The only explanations are: either my guilt of taking the last sample outweighed my love of free things, or I was worried my stomach would hurt. ] The sample was pretty good actually. I wonder if they have it in the states now?

I finally get on the right street towards Hampstead Heath. This is quite a physical challenge for a bum like me. it is pretty much walking uphill forever. I can walk FOREVER on straight flat land. I can run down hills when hiking. But I cannot, I repeat, cannot, properly walk up a hill without getting tired. I feel this is some sort of design flaw in my anatomy, for this has always been true, even when I was super athletic. Hampstead Heath seems like a very nice neighborhood. I had never been there before. I soon turn onto a street that I hope will lead me up to aforementioned ‘heath’ (triggered by the sign that read: “no thru traffic-environmental area.”

After about three steps, the street becomes absolutely silent. I can hear the thud of my feet on the sidewalk. An old lady and an unleashed dog amble past me. A young policeman smiles at me and says hello. I notice the beautiful, yet quaint, architecture. Nothing too ostentatious. perfection. Really. I pictured celebrities like Chris Martin/ Gwen Paltrow or James May (possibly my future husband) living here in this neighborhood. If I could live anywhere in the world, I think it might be here. It could very possibly be (to me at least) the greatest street in the greatest neighborhood in the greatest city in the greatest country on earth. Though living in Regent’s Park was pretty stellar as well.  Oh well. Too bad. You need to have wheelbarrows full of money to live here. I wish my dreams were not based on money.

After this absolutely idyllic stroll through winding streets while listening to birds chirp and squirrels  forage, I see the opening to a park...