London -- Part 2 -- The Zoo

The day before we went to the Aquarium, we went to the London Zoo. We walked across Regent's Park from the house where we were staying. This is the London Pad of my sister-in-law and her husband, who are based out of Stewarton, Scotland. The house is actually more of a townhouse, recently constructed on the site of a former garage. Down the street is a sign marking the birthplace of the Bentley. The house is very modern in design and stretches all of 15.5 feet in width and about twice that in length (yes, I stole the tape measure and measured it when no one was looking). What it really has going for it, apart from the price, which was nothing due to the generosity of our very kind inlaws, is location. Close to the Baker Street underground station; moments away from the Sherlock Holmes museum, Beatles memorabilia store, and Elvis store; just around the corner from Regent's Park where we headed off on our way to the Zoo.

The Park was strangely ungreen and hence felt very unEnglish thanks to an unusual summer-long drought. Fortunately for us the temperature was not in the 30s (Celsius) that day but breezily in the mid twenties. As we walked past the somewhat turgid Boating Lake my son was tremendously excited by herons wandering around looking ancient and mysterious, and was sanguine about the dead rat floating by belly up in amongst a group of ducks. "Well, I was thinking it would be fun to go boating," I said, "But maybe not." My husband ignored me, as for him Boating was never in the equation. What, not cram sixteen expensive exhausting activities into our day rendering us all hysterical and/or comatose by nightfall? Isn't that the point of travel? So, we carried on, past large groups of uniformed children at some sort of field day event, others on their way to the inevitable field trip, on to the Zoo.

The Zoo was small and in the middle of large amounts of construction, transforming it from a Victorian animal torture chamber to something more in lines with modern views on animal care. Larger animals like the elephants had been moved out to a wild animal park in Luton (just screams "exotic savage beasts," doesn't it?) and the remaining creatures seemed comfortable enough. The Komodo Dragon was not to be seen, which was a disappointment for me for some reason, but there were relaxed lions lounging around, camels chewing cud happily enough, and toucans, thrillingly tropical in appearance. "These are my favourite birds," my son pronounced joyously leaping up and down in front of their enclosure, thus causing the toucans some alarm, but not too much as they probably just mistook him as one more noisey rain forest monkey on the loose.

Also in attendance, the aforementioned English School Child, this time including the Upper School Student, dressed in another flavour of unflattering uniform: the shapeless two-piece navy blue suit, comprised of long-armed, peg-legged pants and jackets, a uni-sex ensemble worn by all the kids regardless of race, creed, or gender.

The last time I was in London, a few years ago, I was startled to discover that London isn't really England. I was quite disappointed on that visit that more Londoners weren't stereotypically English, as I was there to gawk specifically at that type of individual or what I imagined they would look like based on my memories of being there 20 years ago and reading a lot of Agatha Christie books. But this time I took in stride the fact that a large number of Londoners hie from South Asia, Asia, or Africa, the lands of the Empire. Many of these in turn are observant Muslim girls and women, and teachers and students alike sported varying degrees of  hijab, most commonly a head scarf, or a combo set of headscarf and long coat. At one point I spotted a woman in full hijab, all black robes and head coverings, with a tiny slit to see out. It gave me a horrible start, she looked like the angel of death, but I tried not to make her feel bad by staring uncouthly at her. I did see a similar woman in Target right here in Deadwood City once, so it's not like I haven't witnessed it before. Still, I wondered about teachers in veils teaching children who are not Muslim. Do they talk about it? Do they explain why it is inherently oppressive of women and not really a requirement of Islam? Do the parents object? Who would I ask, anyway? If I did, and got an answer, I'm sure it would be delivered in a South London nasal drawl, as while the eyes looking at London sense that they are in some global waystation, the ears would tell you that you are in a land as English as tea and cheese toasties.

All this made me wonder further about the terrorists who blew up the underground and double decker bus almost exactly one year ago. Blowing up anything in Central London is bound to take out a large number of Muslim people, many very religious and devout. How could this be justified? Made me nervous, I don't mind telling you, every time we went down into the underground or took a bus. I'm glad nobody set out any bombs while we were there.