Assignment 8- Villages of London

I went to the village of Hampstead and the first thing I did was went to a pub to get some food. It was relatively cheap compared to what the same meal would have been in London. I went with somebody else and we got a rack of ribs and lo mein and split it between the two of us. It was one of the best meals I had eaten up to that point. After eating, we went on walking around to the church and to the graveyard. The graveyard was not what I was expecting and was different from graveyards in the United States. There was grass and greenery overgrowing everywhere making it look like it wasn’t taken care of to me. The graves were also much older and were worn down from being exposed to the elements for so long. Most of the graves were so old and so worn that the writing on them were not able to be read unless you got really close and maybe cleaned it off a little bit, then there were others that were completely worn down and there was no hope in reading it. While walking around the graveyard, there were a couple people sitting on a bench in drinking beer, whether it’s legal or not, I’m not sure, but it took me by surprise. In the states, people walk around graveyards for exercise, but normally you don’t see people just sitting around drinking and hanging out.

There were a lot of decently sized houses throughout the village, which was completely different from central London where there might be some flats. Another thing I noticed is how old the people were there normally. There weren’t too many college aged students walking around, but lots of older people that have an established job and have lots of money. I looked at some of the houses that were for sale and there were some for sale for over 300,000 pounds, which seemed crazy for such small houses. The houses were designed differently from what I’m used to as well. They weren’t just small houses, they seemed like they were fancier small houses that would be found in a richer part of a city. There wasn’t really a run-down part of town that I saw, most of it was pretty nice overall and somewhere I could see myself living eventually in life once I got the money for it. I also thought the people seemed to be nicer and more outgoing in Hampstead compared to central London where everybody just keeps to themselves and doesn’t say anything to anybody.