On my quest to embody the essence of the wanderer, I traveled to East London, which is by no means a tourist destination.

My journey here has taken me far and wide, but will not be complete until I walk, talk, think and breathe like a Londoner-a true observer-participant. 

To fully grasp this culture, I have to strip away my preconceptions and jump headfirst into the new environment. So far, I’ve adapted to the traffic flow, I’ve picked-up the local dress, and now I’ve even started to pick up the lingo-little things, like ‘cheers’ for thanks and ‘afternoon’ for well, that one’s pretty self explanatory. 

Nonetheless, I am getting closer to the streets, or the “pulse” of this “collection of villages.”

At Whitechapel Road, I found another one of London’s many street markets, although this one was slightly different than the rest. The difference being that here, vendors shouted in Arabic rather than English for people to come gaze their products. To no surprise, this particular street market stretches just down the road from the East London Mosque.

Moving north, using the Gherkin (the big Faberge egg looking thing) as a guide, I find myself somewhere between Soho and the borough of Islington where a very artsy district presented itself. Here, graffiti decorated the walls of the surrounding buildings, adding color to this otherwise bland landscape.

Thinking back to my architecture and society class with professor Hunter, I was wondering who would have put this here, what was their story, are they claiming this public space, did the urban planner ever account for something like this to happen? The answer became blurred as I left the less creative ‘tagging’ behind and moved into a world of inspired wall murals.

The closer I got to the center of London the art became more and more intricate. Luckily, I find a couple of artists in action as they painted these massive wall murals. Using stencils and spray-paints, they brought the walls to life with some of the most spectacular artwork I have ever seen. One simply said ‘Black Sheep’ with purple letters against a wild green background, but I knew I could never have created that in my lifetime.

Another mural had the image of a young girl’s face, big-eyed, with a horse’s head acting as her hat. The young girl looked almost sad while the horse faced out toward the street, looking stern.  The female artist re-positioned herself amongst the massive wall a couple of times to bring-out the image more and more until the girl and horse starred me right in the face.

As my journey ended at Bank Tube station, I began to breathe with a euphoric sense of purpose. After this, I feel even more inspired to wander the streets of London and experience every step.

In search of the throat of this city, I continue to ramble.

Russell Sheldon is an mass communication senior and is currently studying abroad Richmond  University in Kensington, England.

Russel Shelton can be reached at [email protected]

An artist works on his mural in an area of East London. (Photo courtesy of Russell Sheldon)