Reflections of London: A whirlwind beginning

Prior to me even getting on the plane and leaving LA for grayer skies and ubiquitous Indian and Fried food, I must admit I was a little nervous. Why? Well truth be told I had been unemployed since October, and whilst I had saved enough money to have a healthy enough trip (or at least I thought I did) my life was such a roller coaster of emotions leading up to March 16th that I didn’t really have time to completely process everything until I actually got back.

Being unemployed truly sucks as I’m sure many of you are aware. There is a freedom in it in a way, for sure, but over time the emotional peaks and valleys start weighing on me. So with heavy existential thoughts above and beyond just being unemployed, I needed a mental health break, and no sooner was I at a breaking point then did the date arrive and I was off on my 10 hour flight from LA to London.

The flight? It was ok. I can’t really sleep on planes, even after the repeated attempts to doze off – pull up that shitty airline blanket they give you, which is ALWAYS too small. The pillow positioned in a way where the top of my neck and the bottom of my head had some support I suppose. And then there is the leaning back in the seat; the ultimate airline taboo isn’t it? Many times when you lean your chair back for the, YES 10 hour flight, there is that ever so slight sigh from the person behind you that didn’t lean his back. Hey sorry buddy.

ANYWAY, I finally get to London. The plane lands and for the first time in 13 years I’m on foreign soil. Excited, I’m sitting, slightly impatiently, in my seat waiting for the plane to get to the gate. And when it finally does, I wish I could be joking when I saw my “American Airlines” plane park right next to “Iran Air”. I chuckled to myself a little, thinking maybe London is neutral ground. When they finally let us off, it was to my surprise how quickly I zipped through border check and security. I kid you not, by the time I landed in London to the moment I was off to Christina’s in the cab, which in retrospect I probably shouldn’t have done, was probably 20 minutes. And so I was in London… in route to my first destination: Peckham Rye, the area of London where Christina lived. A nice little middle-class area, with a densely cosmopolitan populace sitting right next to a nice upper middle class area of London: Dulwich (pronounced Dull-itch).

I finally arrive and ring the buzzer. Christina comes out to great me. We hug, I tip the cabbie and we head inside.

I must have had a second wind after I got into London, because at that point I wasn’t dragging but wildly awake. Maybe it was just the energy of actually being there. Actually doing it. Actually taking the risk and not thinking about all the what ifs and the consequences and the blah blah blah blah… all bullshit. I did it. I was able and I did. There were a lot of excuses that had swirled in my head before I initially bought the ticket, but that moment when I was there it was almost like those thoughts were completely idiotic because … I’m here.

I quickly put my stuff in the room I was to be staying in, grabbed a cup of coffee, and had some lovely dinner that Christina made followed by a stroll to the pub. I would’ve done that regardless, but I must note the fact that I actually landed in London on March 17th, otherwise known as St. Patrick’s Day. Christina and I walked down to the Nunhead a local pub, drank a few pints (I had a shot of Jameson of course) and then we headed back to her place. The beginning wasn’t over that soon. I had to get up at 6am the next morning to catch a bus to King’s Cross train station. We were going to Edinburgh. A weekend in Scotland awaited.

The train to Scotland was only 4 hours. By the time we arrived in Edinburgh that brisk Scotland wind wisped by my face immediately as we walked out of the train station. I was awake, but had in inkling that at the end of the day I would be dead tired by the end of it. That much was true.

The first day in Scotland was more of a getting-to-the-know-the-area day. We walked around central Edinburgh. I snapped plenty of photos almost immediately, however the first stop was our hostel we were staying at.

Since it was still morning, we couldn’t officially check in to the hostel til 2pm, so off we went on a wander. And a wander indeed.

I could see as Christina and I strolled down the Royal Mile, all the flyers and notices about various St. Patrick’s Day parties that had happened the previous night. Since it was the following morning, obviously they weren’t all immediately taken down, so it was fun to imagine what it might have been being there for that. Being used to that American ideal of a St. Paddy’s Day night, I would only imagine in another land, in another area of expatriates, foreigners and locals pining for that ideal that St. Patrick was the patron saint of whiskey and Guinness, maybe a different kind of euphoric cultural magic emerged -- and there may have been some actual Irish people there as well. It’s curious to think about those things I suppose.

I had a friend of mine tell me that he was in Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day and it was the most ridiculous thing you could ever seen, because the entire town was just drunk douche bag foreigners. Not that romanticized ideal of the holiest of holy days in the motherland is it?

Anyway, before briefly getting lost on our wander, Christina and I swung by The Elephant House: the place where JK Rowling created Harry Potter. Now I’m no huge Harry Potter fan, but it was cool I suppose. As you can imagine, EVERYBODY in there was a foreigner asking the clerks or baristas stupid shit like “Give me something Scottish”. Cue me and Christina rolling our eyes. But hey, I suppose we did contribute to the madness by just being there.

When we finally checked in to the hostel the rest of the day really consisted of going to the National Gallery, grabbing some Indian Food up the street and hitting up a pub. After that, Day one in Edinburgh was pretty much done for both of us. Back to the hostel, checked some email and facebook and without hesitation hit the sack. It felt good.

Of course I didn’t realize how clogged the hostel was with American tourists until the next morning when Christina and I went into the lounge area to get some coffee and a little breakfast. The first thing you notice is the noise. The loudness. The boisterousness. We walk into the common room and I kid you not it was probably about 20 or so young college kids on some spring break excursion I’m guessing. Maybe they were actually studying somewhere else in Europe and this was a vacation. I saw they had older liaisons or leaders that essentially rounded up the troops. For having a great first couple days, admittedly this was a bit of a buzz kill. This was MY TRIP, right? ;) I stared at these kids talking with each other… laughing.. making jokes.. playing pool… essentially commandeering the entire lounge. Christina and I were just keeping to ourselves sipping our coffees figuring out what we wanted to do that day. Christina may have been a little more annoyed then I, but it’s not that I wasn’t annoyed. It was just –observing these kids, from some University in Idaho I think, being…. well… American, I thought “Was this me 13 years ago?” Probably, I’m guessing. Oh to be 20 again. (Actually… I’m fine not being 20 for the record.)

After leaving the hostel, I had made the decision to make the jaunt up to Edinburgh castle. Christina had already been there, so she was just going to chill at a coffee shop while I did this alone. And alone I went.

The Castle was really cool, if I had one complaint is that it’s expensive to just get in. It was probably around $20 admission.

And then on top of that I decided to invest in one of those audio guide tours. All told I probably spent around $27, and that’s with no souvenirs. But I went in, after all when’s my next real opportunity to do something like this? And there is a lot of history in the castle.
A lot of proud Scottish history and heritage. And looking out over the immaculate expanse, over the castle walls toward greater Edinburgh, on such a clear day seeing even the North Sea in the distance this was undoubtedly a beautiful experience.








After the castle I met up with Christina and we ended up walking down the Royal Mile, which might I add had loads of foreigners of varying nationalities sporting a Kilt. (Yes, the kilt: a seemingly much desired souvenir item amongst the young and the drunk.)We ended up at Hollyrood Palace, ie The Queen’s residence in Scotland, and it was lovely. A nice juxtaposition from the medieval castle I was just at, and at the other end of Royal Mile. Next to Hollyrood Palace were the beautiful ruins of Hollyrood Abbey. At this point, Christina and I parted ways again. She went to the museum of Edinburgh and I decided to take a tour of the Scottish Parliament, which was conveniently right across the street from Hollyrood Palace.

The Parliament building is a fairly new building. A beautiful post-modern architectural wonder and somewhat of a controversy locally I read. When the UK parliament in Westminster allowed for Scotland to have a “devolved parliament”, which essentially means a parliament that deals with domestic matters, it was the first time in 300 years they were going to have some self-governance. This also meant that they actually needed a building. Long story short they picked this Barcelona based architect over a couple Scottish firms, and the total cost of the building, I read, was around 500 million pounds, which equals to around 820 million US Dollars. Yikes.


After leaving the Parliament building I walked over to meet up with Christina again. At this point my feet were killing me from all the walking. A big reason for this, honestly, was I wearing the wrong kind of shoes. I brought these combat boot type things to Scotland, without really thinking about it. Yeah bad idea. After 2 days of walking all around Edinburgh my feet were in pain.

Christina and I grabbed some food at this vegan place she really liked, bringing it back to the hostel to eat and rest up before we went out again to the pubs. However unlike the previous night where the local pub we went to was fairly busy but not too crazy, this night it was packed! Why? England vs Ireland Rugby match. HUGE! And might I say that Ireland kicked the crap out of England. Of course by this point I was fairly and pleasantly buzzed.

Christina and I got back to the hostel, setting our alarms for early again. The next morning we had to catch a bus that was going to take us all the way back to London. A 10 hour bus ride. And so it came to pass on our last day in Scotland, Christina and I got up, grabbed some coffee, experienced those young American college kids again, and had a nice chat with an Italian fella who was a globetrotting backpacker it seemed. Christina talked to him more than I did, but it seems that he had been living at this hostel for a couple months, getting free room and board from them in exchange for him doing little odd jobs here and there, taking groups on walking tours, pubs crawls etc. He told us he’s trying to save up enough money to get to India. India, wow, wouldn’t that be an experience.

We said our goodbyes and walked over to the bus station, caught the bus, and enjoyed a very scenic journey down to London. A journey that ended rather excitingly I might add.

Sundays in London is also known as maintenance day on the trains and underground rails. Christina and I get to London Victoria and right at the outset she noticed there was no direct train to Peckham Rye because of this. Still exhausted from our 10 hour bus trip I was resigned to just follow her, which I should have literally done in every way. We catch a train, that she soon senses is the wrong train – at least that what I found out in retrospect. At a particular stop, South Bromley specifically, Christina gets out of the train to look at the map. I didn’t follow her off the train because I didn’t know we were getting off here and I didn’t know how long the train was going to be there. (Big Mistake) There was a communication disconnect. Well as you could probably imagine, the train doors close, and like out of a movie Christina and I stare at each other through the window as the train leaves the station. Long story short, after failing to get a hold of her by phone (because I had misplaced her London cell phone number) I took a train back to that stop to discover she wasn’t there. Got back on went to London Victoria and decided to take a cab. My thoughts were, it’s already night, I don’t know London well, and even if I get to Peckham Rye somehow, my mental geography of Christina’s place in reference to all the public transit is limited. So yeah… two cabs in one long whirlwind weekend. OUCH!

Everything worked out. I got back to her place. She was understandably worried and quickly gave me a guidebook and cell phone and food. She was such a wonderful host. I am eternally grateful. Needless to say I popped an ambien and had a very good sleep that night.