London and fairy paths

London is a very big city, but I never feel intimidated by it, like I do New York. I've tried to rationalize my comfort in London and nerves about New York, I think maybe it is the skyline. New York's buildings are overwhelming you can only see the place where you stand, in London you can see out beyond the street your looking at or peek down the river way and see Big Ben. I'm not quite sure if I'd want to live in London permanently, I think I would prefer more country, but I would like to live there for a while at least. Today we went shopping at Portabello road, which is dangerous for me, while I'm trying not to spend money. If you walk far down the street you get the best antiques I found a dress from 1910! Of corse this was drastically out of my price range, but it was beautiful. I also saw all of these military jackets, some looked like they dated to the Regency era, or I suppose it could have been the Boer wars, never the less very interesting. I had to resisting stopping at everything, and I only bought a sale dress for 5p for a friend.

I'm going back into London next monday to meet with a woman who is an expert on nurses in ww1. Today I went to Primart (aka my savior in terms of buying clothing) and bought some dress pants. I should study up before I talk to her, I'm always nervous that I haven't researched enough or am misinterpreting something, and eventually someone will call me out and tell me I have no business writing. I was thinking about that the other day, if I had to be something else other than a writer how I could be happy, and I'm still not sure if I could be happy.

I was talking to my professor about Americans and the separation between indoors and outdoors. Here people utilize the outdoors more and don't think about. We walk everywhere and in Oxford the city bumps into the country. On my last day of British Detectives we went out into the middle of the country and finally walked into a small hamlet, the houses had thatched roofs and wooden beams, and finally my tutor lead us into a country pub. The pub had a backyard that was gorgeous with gardens and shurbbery everywhere, it looked at lot like a fairy's nook and the location even was like a fairy path.I want to bring it home with me, I want to bring everything home with me, except the excessively startchy meals. Sorry for all the rambling. I'll write again tomorrow.