I liked London. It was noisy, endless, full of crowds, buses, narrow streets and charming buildings. It had Big Ben, the London Eye, the Gherkin and the Westminster Abbey. It had all these tourists, and hipsters, and people saying "wanker" and "gent" all the time. It had cups of tea for 70 pence (pences?). I have a feeling that you can't really not like London, not if you are here for one day.
But it was all very strange to me. Looking at these sights, that everybody knows, that I know and have seen countless times, I could never put them in context of everything else around them. Big Ben was simply a clock to me. I had zero sense of space it belongs to. I had no idea what Piccadilly Circus is really like (it's a circus alright). And the traffic is moving in all the wrong directions: I jaywalked more than I care to admit and jumped away from cars suddenly turning from unexpected angles even more often.
Good thing came out of this very short visit: I decided against wanting to live there. I suspect that it's a thing among young and maybe not-so-young ambitious folks; living in London is cool, it's like living in New York or Los Angeles, and everybody at some point could aspire to it. I'm done with it myself, though, London is much too... New York-ish for me.
Loved the cabs, though. And signs that claimed that "this door is alarmed".
But it was all very strange to me. Looking at these sights, that everybody knows, that I know and have seen countless times, I could never put them in context of everything else around them. Big Ben was simply a clock to me. I had zero sense of space it belongs to. I had no idea what Piccadilly Circus is really like (it's a circus alright). And the traffic is moving in all the wrong directions: I jaywalked more than I care to admit and jumped away from cars suddenly turning from unexpected angles even more often.
Good thing came out of this very short visit: I decided against wanting to live there. I suspect that it's a thing among young and maybe not-so-young ambitious folks; living in London is cool, it's like living in New York or Los Angeles, and everybody at some point could aspire to it. I'm done with it myself, though, London is much too... New York-ish for me.
Loved the cabs, though. And signs that claimed that "this door is alarmed".
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