There is only one word to describe London and that is overwhelming. Take the usual hustle and bustle of a city and times it by a thousand, add in people smoking everywhere, an obscene amount of tourists, cars that don’t stop for pedestrians and you’ve got London. I genuinely thought I was going to get hit by a car the first time I stepped out the doors of the hotel. At uncontrolled crosswalks you pretty much just have to start walking and hope that the cars see you and stop, I have since learned to find crosswalks with lights even if that means walking an extra 5 blocks. Trust me it’s a lot safer that way…
Everything moves so quickly here, which I suppose is just a big city for you, but I feel like it is even worse than I remember Toronto being and definitely worse than Vancouver. I feel like I have been in a race ever since I got off the plane. Not only does the traffic move super fast despite being so congested but the people walking are pretty much speed walking. Everyone is in a race to get nowhere it seems.
I think the coolest thing today was getting to see places that I have only ever seen in pictures. I nearly did a happy dance when I saw Buckingham Palace but I was already looking like a tourist, didn’t want to add CRAZY tourist to that.
I had breakfast at the hotel this morning before heading out. The lady serving breakfast was kind of hilarious because she couldn’t seem to retain anything people would say to her. I asked for apple juice, she gave me orange juice, I asked for eggs and bacon, I got just eggs, there were two guys at the table beside me ONE of them ordered the full English breakfast, she brought BOTH of them a full English breakfast. Pretty much in one ear and out the other. Besides that it was a quick and easy breakfast and I hit the pavement by about 8:30. My only goal today was to hit up some of the big tourist spots. So I walked past Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the London Eye before heading up to the Twining Tea Shop and then to Oxford Street. According to google maps I walked about ten kilometres today…it may have felt more like 30, I’m just going to go ahead and blame that on jet lag and not of the fact that I need to do more hiking when I get home. It was worth it though; London is a very pretty city.
This map is the general idea of my walk today…
Oxford Street is absolutely INSANE. There are soooooo many people and shops everywhere. I realized towards the end of the street that I probably could have gotten away with only doing half of it. There seemed to be three of every store, which gets REALLY confusing when you aren’t using a GPS and you start thinking you are walking back the way you came because hey I already passed that store…twice…and you are really, really hungry and very tried of walking and just want to find a cafe to sit down at (lets just say I was a little hangry).
Side note for anyone not using their data on their phones when they are out of the country…Google maps is well worth the download. You can take sections of map and download them so you can see them when you are offline. It doesn’t give you walking directions but it is at least something to look at when you’ve walked past the same store for the third time and are starting to think you got turned around at some point
(Click on the photos below to see the full image)
After nearly nine hours straight of walking around the city I barely scratched the surface of London. I think you could spend a week in London alone and probably still not see all the sights but I am excited to see a different side of England in the form of a quiet little village a two-hour train ride away. First though I have to navigate the insanity that is the London Underground in order to get there…wish me luck!
Check out day 2 in England here
