London Calling

It took less than 48 hours for me to fall hopelessly and irrevocably in love with the city of London. All of the years I had wasted ruminating on my hatred of Arizona, my failure to obtain a sense of permanence in San Diego, and my apprehension at carving out a life for myself in Boston had culminated in a single moment with the realization that America isn’t where I belong at all. London is.

Our seemingly endless passage to London somewhat resembled a Kerouac novel, excluding of course all the hitch hiking. Although a flight from Florence to the central London airport is only about a two and a half hour journey the fact that we are unemployed college students on quickly depleting checking accounts and maxed out credit cards makes it necessary to opt for cheaper flights and long bus rides over expensive cab rides. So it is only after two hour long bus rides, a two hour flight delay and one brief international flight that we arrive at our hostel at almost eight pm, nearly ten hours after I left my apartment. Remember what I said about travel being work? The party girl in me is more than a little ashamed to admit it, but worn out and wearied from traveling all I want to do is eat and finally enjoy some sleep with my legs stretched out. So while we walk around the area near our hostel a little bit and I have one of the most delicious and fattening meals of my life in the form of a gigantic bag of fish and chips followed by peanut M&M’s, we save adventures on the underground for the next morning. Despite the fact that my bunk at the hostel has one sheet fitted to the bed on one side and folded over on the other side turning me into a human taco, I drop off to sleep quickly and soundly thanks to the fatigue of traveling and the heaviness of the London Ale I had with dinner.

Saturday we rise early and after a hostel breakfast, which is actually better than any pitiful Italian breakfast, we launch headfirst into a whirlwind of London must-sees. Kierra and Lisa quickly figure out the tube and Platform 9 and ¾, Abbey Road, Big Ben, House of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret’s Church, Eye of London, Buckingham Palace, and The Tower Bridge all make appearances on my camera. With the exception of a surprising amount of traffic, both by foot and car, that must be held for photographs at Abbey Road, the absence of guards at Buckingham Palace and the momentary devastation of a blockade in front of Platform and ¾ that took some resourcefulness to get around, all is as expected. Nothing disappoints or shocks except that it takes almost four hours for me to finally stumble upon a Starbucks and get my long awaited Venti Carmel Macchiato. The day is fast paced but not stressful as we easily make it through all the things on our list even after several hours spent drooling over the food courts at Harrods (If there is not a huge room devoted entirely to every kind of dessert in heaven just like the one in Harrods than I’m not going) and shopping in the Camden Markets where despite the vendors inclination to haggle I spent an excessive amount of money.

Although we spent much of the day doing hopelessly touristy things residents here would no doubt roll their eyes at, I often found myself picturing a future in the city. I don’t know how to explain the feeling but it is the same one I had when I toured USD and quite unexpectedly found that I could see myself there. It’s a kind of sense of belonging, like when you return to a familiar place that you suddenly realize feels like home. Something about London feels like home. I don’t know if it’s the city itself, the way the urban sprawl that boasts boutiques and Mom and Pop coffee shops as well as Top Shop and Starbucks all on the street is so large but yet not dirty or suffocating like New York. London boasts the atmosphere that I have always loved so much about Boston but in a somehow less threatening and hostile way. It is a beautiful city of huge trees, exquisite architecture and a kind of wide-open feeling to it that gives one the sense that the city is full of infinite possibilities. These possibilities, like the people of London, seem more friendly and approachable then they often are in prodigious cities. If dreams lay broken on the boulevards in LA, in London they soar through the skies like birds glittering even more brightly from the romantic gray skies.

Just as wonderful as the city itself, are the people of London. Maybe it’s just the way they talk that I love so much; the “God bless” and “dear”, ever so polite in beautiful accents for which I have always had a soft spot with slang that creates a delightful new dialect from the only language that I have ever known. The children are the best. Bundled up in puffy jackets and stained play clothes they look just like Americans until they open their mouths and I have to resist the urge to kidnap them because absolutely nothing is cuter than a three year old with an English accent. In the Underground and on the streets people stride purposefully from place to place but do not snarl and shove at you if you are in the way. I heard “excuse me” more times in one day in London then I have my entire month and a half in Florence. In London I saw stylish, spirited girls with un brushed hair and patterned tight, boots and blazers. Kindred spirits of mine in the fashion department, I immediately want to befriend them even if they do not in fact blog and listen to Vampire Weekend as much as they look like they would. While the tan, aggressive, Italian men illicit more disgust then attraction for me I swoon a little bit at each beautiful blonde haired blue eyed boy and wonder if he has an accent he could pass on to our children.

Each passing minute in London reaffirmed my belief that I had figured out where my life was going. Or at least where I was going, once I graduated. By nightfall we had headed to meet a friend of Lisa’s whom Kierra and I had met at Oktoberfest. She is studying there for the semester from LMU and took us to an adorable pub near her flat and then to a Tai restaurant that was a welcome reprisal from our constant influx of pasta and pizza. A cozy night of bathroom talks, laughter and hard cider is a likewise sweet departure from sweaty Italian boys, cheap boxed wine and Americanized music. I add English Pubs to the list of reasons I’m moving to London.

On our length journey back to Firenze I set my iPod to my Heart Songs playlist and cozy up to the bus window to watch Tuscany fly by as I consider my fast and hard fall for London and the impulsiveness with which I had decided to make it my destiny. Although I am well adept at making my own decisions I often find myself tentatively requesting the perspectives of others to sway me from a prison of indecision. Black or gray boots? Buy that scarf or wait? Respond to his text message or don’t? Someone once told me that my life seems to be a constant struggle between a willful determination to get what I want at all costs and a crippling yearning for approval and therefore solidarity in my choices. The strange deviation in this phenomenon appears when I have to make huge life choices. A last minute switch from Boston University to University of San Diego, the spontaneous selection of a city I knew nothing about in a country with a native language I do not speak, the termination of a friendship I had once considered necessary to my soul’s very existence. These decisions were made with conviction, few tears and little strife or uncertainty. In each case I headed into the next phase of life without hesitation, confident in the fact that rather than made a choice I had instead simply KNOWN what course my life was to take. So it is with London. I left on Sunday with regret but also the self-assurance that my life was to lead me back there someday. Like that person who already KNOWS who they are going to end up with eventually, mine is not a desperate lustful need for immediate gratification. It may be years before I am back again, decades until I have the means to live there but I know that someday when I’m waking up in London again it won’t just be for the weekend.


*Second image found on stumble