...Like a Yankee With His Head Chopped Off

Tonight, I decided that I should finally start exercising. So after dinner, I put on some athletic-looking clothes and headed out. My original plan was to run to nearby Hyde Park where I plan to kick a rugby ball around (once I get a pump to put air in the ball).

Down Victoria Street I ran, afraid that maybe it was taboo to run, despite my having seen hundreds of others running around all the time. But there is just something different about running that makes me feel I am doing it wrong when I am in an unfamiliar place. I think, "Surely these people must think me an idiot." And I feel this way not just because running is stupid (running just for the sake of it when I could be playing a sport seems so dumb even though I don't actually mind it that much) but also because there is something inherently ostracizing about running.

Making my way to Hyde Park, I soon remembered that I didn't (still don't) know where Hyde Park is. Well, I know it is in London somewhere, but I can't tell you what is near it. I just kept going, though, as is my way when I am on runs. My method is usually to get sort of lost so that I am concentrating on finding my way home and not on my aching legs that I should have stretched better. What followed was one of the best runs I have ever experienced. I was passing sites I had only hoped I would see here. Not Big Ben or the Tower of London, but out-of-the-way places that have a different type of character. Homes and shops that I may never again see--London is massive. I passed by Chelsea Hospital, a marvelous structure that could either be foreboding or warmly welcoming. I ran by tiny little streets with cars parked on both sides, making it--one would suppose--difficult to drive a car in between.

After following groups that seemed to be headed toward a park--for what amount of time, it would be impossible for me to say--I found myself in front of Battersea Park. Although it was not my intention to arrive at this particular destination, I was just glad that the descriptions others have attributed to London's parks are not by any means hyperbolic. This is at least the second one I have been to and they are incredible. They are especially so if one thinks of them in their context: several of these lush, open, well-groomed beauties--with their trees, winding paths, and overall woodsiness--exist within one of the biggest cities in the world.

I ran about in the park--I might have been skipping, for all I know--for a bit, and then simply headed back. From the park, I just instinctively made my way back. My instincts were probably listening to the signs pointing back to VICTORIA.

After my shower, I went to Sainsbury's for some oranges.

By the way, I am reading A Tale of Two Cities. Sadly, I have never read it before, but I have pretended the opposite on several occasions. Actually being in the general area where the novel takes place is making me more and more pleased with my decision to hold off on the read. Still, I can't help hoping that one of these times, I will open the book and the inside will be cut out, and inside the hole there is a DVD of the book.