The Puddles here are bloody nice.

I am writing this from Gare St. Jean in Bordeaux and on the train to Bayonne.

This probably isn’t fair, and people can certainly say worse things about any city in the USA, but I didn’t love London. My snap judgement sense is that half of Londoners would perish within the month if you cut off the city’s supply of fish breading, fryer oil and shitty toast. Inversely, the same half would probably live to see their late sixties if you took away their cigarettes. I wonder if it is just the result of collective vitamin D defficiency as it is in Seattle, but the inhabitants of these two cities have a very similar ‘fuck off and mind your own business’ attitude (although here I suppose it would be ‘piss off`)
Plastic bags of bland vegetables aside, the city is beautiful: all old churches and quaint winding streets, comically exhuberant palaces for royalty and (this is coming from a Washingtonian) an absolutely striking amount of puddles on the sidewalk. Seriously, do London city planners engineer the sidewalks to hold water? It’s amazing. The parks here are splendid and I could really get used to the centuries old churches and garden squares that nestle in the middle of quiet, rich neighborhoods.
The second day I was there I wandered over to Hyde park and was impressed by the restraint and taste that went into the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. This is the country that (from the outside at least) appears to go into mass hysteria everytime new royalty is concieved and that still puts silent guards in ridiculous hats outside the Queen’s house (the extravagant Buckingham Palace), yet in honour of the death of a beloved member of royalty, they constructed an incredibly reserved fountain. It is a circular ring of cement canal that is not more than a dozen and a half meters in diameter and is perched on a slight hill. Water bubbles up from the top of the hill and swirls down both sides, meets in a quiet surf at the bottom, and drians into the lake near by. I ate my lunch of bread, cheese, tomatoes and basil next to the sound of the ripples in a light English drizzle.
I met up with a local running club on Tuesday (4/3/18) at the Marquis of Wellington, a pub near the Tower Bridge. They had an exceptional turn out of 40 or more people and split into groups based on pace. I went with the first group (the slow one) but darted off ahead with a group of guys who run a 10k instead of a 5k. We ran the whole way along the Thames, crossing over the Tower Bridge and winding southwest on the foot path that follows the water until we reached Westminster Abbey and the scaffolding that Brits currently call Big Ben then crossed back over and ran the way back on the South side of the river, all the while weaving through an endless stream of distracted tourists with selfy sticks and ice cream licking children.
A chap called Milo went out really fast and I gave him a hundred meter gap in the first kilometer but kept him in sight so I would get the details of the route. I pulled up beside him in front of the Tower of London and we chatted the rest of the way, interrupted only by quick jukes around tourists, wonky cobblestones and puddles (good god, so many puddles, it hadn’t even rained all day for Christsake). I was nervous about how my body would feel given that I had missed so much sleep and had only eaten one meal with vegetables in it in the last three days. Sure enough the first 5k felt pretty rough, which I did not tell Milo, but by the Westminster Bridge I felt great and ended up pushing the pace on Milo towards the end. I was not wearing a watch but we ran about a 45 minute 10k if what Milo said was accurate.
Brits apparently do not mind running in backpacks. I saw countless runners in full running garb–men and women in tights and bright shoes and DriFit race shirts–with backpacks on. I don’t get it, but I did find it amusing to follow behind them and watch the hipnotic sway of their packs.
Back at the pub a friendly couple (Lisa and Jason) offered me a seat and Lisa bought me two beers. We chatted about running, life in London, the Camino and their own travels in the States. Lisa had been all over the U.S. and wants to go back to New York and wants to see Chicago.
I caught a train back to the Astor Victoria Hostel where I showered in the tiny closet with lukewarm water and ate dinner in the basement kitchen while the folks who worked in the Hostel played beer pong. Two Aussie guys were getting pretty rowdy singing American Pop songs from the 90s and dancing. A girl from the States came in and sat next to me. Katie was from Vermont and was cute but not such a pleasure to talk to. She’s a student studying creative writing with a minor in international partying. She seemed like she was nineteen and could not fathom why I would want to walk (and not at least take a donkey if not a car) across Spain. I went up the six flights of stairs and backed my bag and took a really shitty nap from 1:30 a.m. to 2:30 on a couch downstairs with Shrek playing on a projector in the background, and then took a very groggy walk to the Victoria Station.
As with most cities, people do not care about you. If there was ever a time when you could go out to a bar and meet people, it was not during my adult life. I was glad I brought my running shoes and I was glad that I met Lisa and Jason and Milo.