Not that there's anything wrong with that

Recently, my cooking skills have increased dramatically. Yesterday, I made chicken. That’s right, just chicken, with a little bit of salt. Considering my repertoire last week consisted of nothing more than cold cereal and PB&J sandwiches, chicken was a big step. It was delicious, and I think I would have a few symptoms by now if I had salmonella, so the meal was a complete success. Pasta is a regular meal for me now (not just macaroni and cheese, but the real pasta that you have to boil and stuff), and I bought some eggs tonight so I can try to fry them tomorrow morning. If I keep improving at my current speed, I should be at a fourth-grade cooking level by sometime in the middle of the semester.

I went for a very long walk today. Starting at the Queen Mary, I walked along the main road to the west until the tall buildings in the distance had grown up around me. The banking district is the easternmost section of downtown London, and it was a surreal place as I walked through it. Nearly everything was closed for the weekend and the few other people walking through the area grasped cameras and wandered with their heads craned upward. I love to walk through an empty city. In the absence of their weekday traffic of eager businesspeople, the buildings are more easily appreciated. Normally, buildings are backdrops for society. You don’t really see them until you are alone with them and you are allowed to have a dialogue. As you walk around and discover patterns and shades and symmetries in a building, you begin to appreciate the creativity involved in designing it, and when you see the countless rivets and imagine how heavy the thing must be, you appreciate the labor committed to constructing it. When you understand the building is a direct result of hard work from hundreds of people, it becomes beautiful, because it becomes a symbol of the greatness of our society. (Disclaimer: When I said you “have a dialogue” with the building, I didn’t mean it literally. I neither advocate nor condone speaking to buildings, nor am I in any way responsible for any injuries and/or deaths suffered as a direct result of yelling obscenities at sensitive office buildings.)

I also saw a very ugly renovation of a building today. See if you can pick out which one it is.

I continued my walk, heading downhill to the Thames. I crossed at the London Bridge and am happy to report it seemed in fine structural condition and was not falling down, as so many grade-school children insist in their little songs. I took a secondhand photo of it, meaning I took a picture of someone else taking a picture of their friend in front of the bridge. I walked down to the Tower Bridge and walked across it to regain the north side of the river. I ended up at the Tower of London and decided I was lost and tired, so I took the tube back to Mile End.

I took a few pictures for you again. I hope you realize how painful a procedure it is to take out your camera in front of a crowd of Londoners and snap a picture of something mundane. You can really alienate yourself by doing that. I definitely got a sneer from a man today who saw me take a picture of a sign which read, “Humped Pelican Crossing,” which I still insist makes a valid and worthwhile picture.

As soon as they see the camera, they just treat you differently. It’s as if you’re revealing an awkward secret about yourself which nobody really gets upset about, but they just see you in a different light, as if it explains so many things about you. I imagine it could ruin potential friendships with British people, because there will always be that question in the back of their minds: “Is he going to try to take a picture of me? Does he have some peculiar interest in my history?” It will be awkward. I just don’t want to seem like a tourist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.