My First Day in London
“What the hell,” I say as I get off my rickety old wagon. “This is London?”
I guess you could say London, England, the capital of my country, was not as nice as I was expecting it to be. The first thing that catches my eye upon entering the city center is the distasteful colour. I know this is England, the land of grey, but wow, there is just too much grey here. Everywhere I look there’s just more grey. The sky is grey, the buildings are grey, the roads are grey, and even the people are grey. All this money and they couldn’t have chosen a different colour? And why is there human waste in every corner I look? It’s as if someone catapulted excrement into the city. Anyways. Ignoring everything I just mentioned, it's not that bad, the people here seem friendly… I hope. But I'm excited to be here to fulfill my dream of being a famous actor and writer!
I lead my horse to the stalls of the small nearby inn and go inside. If you were wondering, yes, the inn is grey as well. It is quite spacious inside unlike I thought it would be as I walk to the lady at the front desk. She is a frail old woman, thankfully she seems friendly.
“Hi, welcome to Slyvie’s Inn, how can I help you, young man?” She asks me. “Hello, I’m wondering if you have a single room I can stay in for the next couple of days?”
I haven’t figured out where I’m going to live yet so this inn will have to do.
“Just a second, I gotta look at our availability.”
As I’m waiting for her, my eyes wander around the building. I see a tiny little cross of Jesus above the front desk and another one above the front door. There’s a pretty big fireplace made of cobblestone off to the side and a rug right in front of it that looks like… a bear.
“Is that rug made out of a real bear?” I ask. “It is!” The old lady says joyfully. “We got it off our friend who runs an animal-baiting ring just down the road. It’s called the Bear Garden if you ever want to check it out.”
Animal-baiting. That’s new to me.
“Thanks for letting me know.” I don’t want her to know that I have no clue what animal-baiting is.
“Ah, here we go,” she whispers “One single room all ready to go. Your room 105 and it should be up the stairs and to the left. We have supper at 5:00 pm here and we bring bathing water to your rooms at 6:30 pm. Let me know if you have any questions.”
I go up the stairs that I didn’t notice before, and my room is right there to the left. The little sign on the door says vacant. I go inside and I’m once again surprised by how spacious it is. There’s a little bed under the window looking over the city, as well as a desk in the furthest corner of the room. I drop my bags off and quickly go back down the stairs, I wave goodbye to the lady at the front desk and go back out the door.
As I’m leaving I accidentally bump into a very tall man, and as I go to apologize I hear him swearing and cussing at me. He is not at all as nice as the lady at the inn. I continue on my walk down the disgusting streets and I go in the direction of the Bear Garden. The streets are bustling with people and animals. Stalls of eager merchants line the city and the colourful items they sell brighten up the alleyways. I walk a few more paces wary of my surroundings, and end up in front of Bear Garden; which I see is very popular. I could hear the loud roars of men from outside the building. I head inside pushing the heavy door open. I don’t see much at first because of the dark lighting and all the waving hands, but as I head in a large group of people crowds in front of me. I heave my way through the crowd to see what they're shouting at and as I get closer I see the brown fluff of an animal. I can’t quite make it out so I can continue to push forward.
The person beside me screams “Yeah, get him!” Another shouts “Go go, get that bear!”
Now I really want to know what they’re shouting at. I finally make my way to the front after almost getting trampled multiple times. I see what they’re chanting for; I also see the blood everywhere. The disgust covers my face and I run out. That was not what I was expecting at all…
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