London
A European summer is good for the soul.
2021 was a bad year. At the time I didn’t anticipate how bad 2023 and 2024 would be, but at that moment, 2021 trumped all the bad years. I slept through the New Year, and somehow was always flirting with depression.
Jessica, one of my good friends, was also having a bad year. We made very dark jokes about death and maternal relationships and one of us (or both of us) said we deserved a vacation. The comment made in December 2021, became our shining star throughout the next few months. We just had to make it to summer. Months later in March, just a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine, we bought roundtrip tickets to London.
I like to tell people if there is a type between A and B, that’s me. I don’t want my whole day planned down to the minute, and I can go with the flow if I know where the flow is going and how long the flow will be. Jessica and I couldn’t be more different in this realm, because when we spoke about our goals for the trip she said she just wanted to chill, nothing mattered. And while I so desperately want to be that woman, a lot of things matter to me. So, I took on the task of making our itinerary: choosing our cities, planning our excursions, and selecting restaurants. She took on logistics such as hotels and transportation. We planned last minute, our flights got rebooked without our permission, and we scrambled up until the very moment I left San Francisco for a brief stop in my hometown to catch our flight to Heathrow. Despite the last minute planning, I made a detailed google sheet with time blocks, restaurants, and things we needed to do. I color coded and labeled my email so that anything that required booking was easy for me to access. I designated myself the bearer of all tickets, as Jessica was in the midst of planning a cross country move. She did pull her weight and color code the google sheet and afterwards asked when we would have free time.
“It’s labeled in the plan for the day!”
We were ready to go! The night of my flight to NYC, I was calm and even had time to fit in a quick hookup with a man I was very uninterested in. Nothing mattered, I was going to Europe!!! After 12 hours home where I saw my cousin and hung out with Ron in a city neither of us lived in, Jessica and I made our way to JFK. She slept most of the flight, I dozed in and out of a drug induced slumber and was thankful to be seated in the exit row. Our plane landed in London the morning of Independence Day and I smiled at the irony of two Americans landing in Great Britain on this day.
Our hotel was in a cute posh neighborhood (as the Brits say), I kept telling Jessica to look the other way for cars, and we got a move on our schedule. We hit a few museums, I made it a point to be that person who questions which artifacts were stolen, and Jessica and I enjoyed the unseasonably warm London summer. Our bad year was behind us.
When I began planning this trip, everyone kept telling me I’d love London, and they couldn’t wait to hear my reviews of the city. I believed them because since I was a child I had a fascination with those across the pond. Perhaps it was the accents or the many seasons of Skins I illegally streamed with friends in high school, but people in England seemed cooler. My obsession was so strong, I believed that I’d move across the Atlantic Ocean and find a British professional basketball player. Sometimes I miss being that naive.
Jessica and I walked around museums and markets and met up with one of her friends who moved there a few months prior. The Tower Bridge looked nice, but didn’t move me and we walked for ages while practicing our terrible British accents. London was cool, and I kept waiting for the love to hit me, but it never did. I marveled at some architecture, adored the Victoria and Albert Museum (I want to go again!), had Caribbean food in Selfridges, and thought the two decker buses were a smart architectural choice. Jessica’s friend brought a friend along, and I liked her more than Jessica’s friend (we did foresee this possibility). Many people told me they loved my accent, and I thought they had to be mistaken in thinking my deep voice with a twinge of New York slang was lovable.
London was the perfect first stop on this Europe trip. I learned I can go non stop and need to be told to nap occasionally (not too long though). My knack with directions, public transit, and geography translated internationally, which boded the directionally challenged Jessica well. We loved all the markets, and after seeing Big Ben, we traveled to Camden Town to get a blue dress I love to this day. Posting my travels on social media helped me see a few friends who also happened to be in London and Jessica and I learned that the British do after work socializing way better than Americans.
Throughout this ten day trip, gratitude was a big theme for me. This was my first international trip as an adult and I was glad to give myself this gift of experience. On our last night, Jessica and I roamed the streets of Soho talking to people, swinging off strip poles, and drinking. London treated us well and as we made our way to the train station the next morning, we listened to Boris Johnson step down from his seat as Prime Minister. What a time to be in London, next stop was Paris!