Visit London: An Introduction
I lived in London for two years and I have endless stories from the experience. I’m in the process of organising years of descriptive emails into a series of travel memoirs. Before all that gets settled, I’d like to let you all into some of my experiences as I continue my “Visits” series with more regularity.
Going to London was like diving into the deep-end without learning to swim. Granted, I had been to Greece and Turkey for a university course, but that was with fifteen other people, very structured and very full of things to do. One tidy, month long course with little time to get lost.
Like that time I got stranded in the middle of a sheep field. It was 6pm at night, in October and I wasn’t going to be walking anywhere for hours yet. But that is another story entirely.
Why Did I Visit London?
I’ve always been fascinated by London. Ever since one volume of my favourite childhood book series dropped me into its historical fray.
That book series was the Royal Diaries, a collection of 24 middle grade novels written in diary form from the perspectives of princesses all over the world and time.
The particular one related to London dropped you into the pre-teen head of Elizabeth I.
I was obsessed for the Tutors for years because of her.
Then, as a got older, I discovered Dickens. I read more modern twists on London, in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
I grew to love the city more.
Family Backgrounds
I also loved the UK in general and then loved it more when I met a great aunt. She came from the small village of Ingleby Arncliffe. The village sits at a forty-five minute drive from York. She knew everything about our family history (on my mom’s side), everything from names, occupations, interests, characteristics, birth and death dates, motivations and scandals.
This included unfortunate tales of drowning, of over zealous adventuring and one right out of a storybook. A daughter of York nobility fell in love with the stable boy (a distant grandparent), and eloped to Ireland. So began the Kilfoil line of the family.
The rest of us would listen with rapt attention, forgetting names, dates and all those details she could remember. She was 80 at the time.
I next met her when she was 90 and she still was a firecracker of knowledge.
So between familial connections and the ideal that things were just more magical, historical and unknown there, I made the move. Due to boredom and no small level of resentment toward my home town, I leaped into getting a working visa as a teacher in the UK.
First Impressions
I walked off the plane at Heathrow airport with only two suitcases to my name. I did not walk out into the London air. I walked into the flare of the London Underground. That is the real heart of London, the beating veins which smell of yellowed books, human sweat and from the Heathrow end of the Piccadilly line; tense anticipation. As if we’re all ants who’ve been caught by a spider and slowly, it drags us in to its web.
Out in the border zones, the tube runs overground for a bit. My first sight came in endless flashes of brick, graffiti, brick and scraggly heather. The Underground was built decades ago and rarely built for anyone with suitcases, wheelchairs or canes. I had to switch to a second line to get up to my hostel destination up in Russell’s Square. Bump, drag, bump, sorry, bump, drag, sorry. Went the rhythm of me taking one suitcase up a set of stairs and then running like a gazelle to grab the other. Then repeat.
I got to the hostel, after much bumping, dragging, and near the end, a slight bit of embarrassed huffing. I hate standing out as a tourist. I like to blend in. Suitcases are not conducive to blending in. In fact, they rather are neon signs which scream “look, look, I’m a scrambling gazelle. Eat me! I’m not a local!” That, of course, stayed in my mind as much as Londoners like to stay in their bubbles.
Sensory Overload
The senses exploded out here, among stones, brick and signs out of time. Gold, red, worn brown in a sepia explosion of history. Horns, engines, people walking, talking, pigeons scrabbling and luggage wheels rattling. A petrichor scent permeates a flash of pastries and coffee, cigarette smoke and engine exhaust. Each foot thrumed over history, overhead workers chat and re-chisel bits of it. I passed under a construction trestle, dodge people in suits and heels, attached to mobile phones, each stride with purpose. I try to fade within even as I crane my neck to drink it all.
At last, I reach the hostel, a hidden sign among a street full of copycat townhouses in coal dust shaded stone. I breathe. I am home.
So Why Visit London?
I’ll tell you more in the following months. These travel posts will go up every Tuesday. Next week; the first five days in London and why we’re so obsessed with capturing the icons with our own eyes.
“If I can go to London. I can do anything.”
– Christopher Boone, A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, stage play.
