Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

Getting to our stop, once we figured out our route, was a breeze. Jamie and I were eating sandwiches at a local café when we noticed that our stop was mere paces from our eat-bench. We descended into the depths of the tunnel, and Jamie effortlessly passed through the oyster machine. I, however, put my oyster card into the ticket slot and, to the dismay of both the man working the booth and the annoyed Brits behind me, brought the machine to a grinding halt. After being called a foreigner and having my ticket retrieved, we proceeded to our first train, the Northern route. In a paradoxical move, we took the Northern route south to the District route. We had to race up a few flights of stairs and were looking around frantically for the green District route sign when the train dramatically pulled up right in front of us, and took us to our destination.
Our station’s name is Stepney Green, and the reasoning behind the name is rather difficult to decipher. We gathered several bits of information that led us to a couple of theories about why the name is so. The borough name is Stepney, and the station is painted green which would lead to a rather obvious conclusion. We also found out that there is a park called Stepney Green nearby, which could have caused the station to be painted green, providing the station with a fitting and identical name to the park. To determine the true origin of the name will require more research and investigating than our soaking wet, sleep deprived bodies were able to muster.

As we bravely ventured into this so called, Stepney Green, we were bombarded with  a crowd of people  moving toward unknown destinations at an amazing speed. It made us feel like we were late for something; along with being the only two people completely unprepared for the 30 min long rain showers. After orienting ourselves we began to notice the people on the street and the store fronts along the  street. Soon a trend began to form, we had arrived into a town that was predominately  Muslim and Indian. The women pushing the strollers on the street were dressed  in Burkas. Meanwhile, the shops along the street sold every type of spices necessary to create curries. The town was radically different of what Bloomsburry, where our temporary home the Arrand House is located, looks like.

The question remained as to where were we to find a monument in this maze of Indian store fronts. We walked for five blocks, stopping in store entrances  when the rain was unbearable or to seek dosages of caffeine to keep us awake. At the end of five blocks in pouring rain, our stamina was dwindling, we were about to return to the tube when  almost magically a monument appeared on the side of the building to our left hand side. The monument was dedicated to Captain James Cook Rivers, whom in 1759 surveyed the St. Lawrence River along with exploring the coasts  of Australia New Zealand and the South Pacific in 1769. After making this discovery, we swiftly made our way back to the tube, only to have a close encounter with a bus while crossing the street.

Since it was requested to use an alternative route on our way back, we decided to take the  Hammersmith & City( pink) to the Central route (red) getting off on the Tottenham and Court Road exit. After five flights of stairs  we were on the street level only to realize all the buildings and stores were unknown. Some sympathetic UK citizens saw our faces of confusion and tiredness and pointed us to the right direction. Home was just two streets over and five blocks away!