Gonna Go Down the River Once More (Week 5)

The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,

Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind,

Whole nations enter with each swelling tide,

And seas but join the regions they divide;

Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,

And the new world launch to seek the old.

                                                       –Alexander Pope

One of my favorite parts of London is the Thames. Though it pains me not to be able to jump in (I sometimes have these urges to play in any body of water), I love just walking down on the Thames path right next the banks. It even has tides; I dare you to name one river in Utah with tides. 

Not only physically central in London, the River Thames is central in London culture and history. In short, the river embodies London. At least, it embodies my perception of London. First of all, it is flithy and disgusting. Like the city, the river is completely polluted. But one usually does not dwell on that fact. The pollution in the city is overlooked for the more impressive sights of ancient cathedrals and churches welded together with modern apartments and offices. Likewise, the river's pollution is (typically) unnoticed as one sees famous landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, or the Tower of London abutting the banks. And the bridges! One should be willing indeed to forget the muddy waters for the engineering of the bridges from the Tower Bridge to the Millenium Footbridge.

Besides walking up and down and over the Thames, my favorite part of the river is how it looks at night. The River Thames, an eerie cold gray in the perpetual rain transformed to a glittering mirror of the lights at night. The new imposes itself on the old. As the lights swim across the inky black, from bank to bank, the harshness of the concrete city is blurred. For a moment, London is only light and air with the clamour tucked under the bridges binding the river. If you have not seen the River Thames at night, you are neglecting an entire facet of London. Yes, the footpath winds in and out of various restaurants which may get a little wild on Friday nights. But seeing the lights on the water cumulates the London experience. It is modern and classic, barely growing and ancient. Here you have a river that stalled Julius Caesar, that allowed the Vikings to penetrate Celtic tribes, decorated with engineered starlights of a modern civilization. It shows the city trying to contain nature but nature still managing to creep out of its bars. 

Recently, I had yet another experience on the Thames. John Burns, a member of parliament representing Battersea, claimed that "The Thames is liquid history." And that's exactly what I saw. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Flotilla floated down the Thames, mimicking the flotilla of the Queen's coronation. History right there. Unfortunately, I only saw glimpses of that history being made. Mostly, I just saw the backs of heads and glares when I tried to get closer to the bank. We got there early; well, what I thought of as early. Though we two and a half hours early, we were essentially too late to get a comfortable spot. We were approximately five or six rows of people back, but given that the Thames was not at the end of those people, there was not much to see. I got a sore calf from standing on my tippy-toes and a couple of rather blurry photos (that one isn't mine), but I was there.

In short, the River Thames does not merely snake through London; it is London. History is made on the river, culture is displayed, and the ambience of London is personified.