Dispatches from the North: Time to Kiss and Make Up, London

As promised in last week’s post, I will now reveal my plan to fall in love with London once and for all. It would just be a shame for me to live in this country with a direct train link to one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world and not enjoy going there. Despite two lack-luster trips, I am determined that this time I will like London. I will be taking the train down to London on November 18th and only staying for 24 hours, so I have devised a strategy to optimize the experience.

The Perfect Tour Guide

You would think the best person to show you around London would probably be a genuine British person, as it turns out in my case this didn’t really pan out. My husband was a terrible London tour guide, so when our Anglophile-in-Chief Jonathan Thomas wrote that he was going to London I jumped on the opportunity to be shown the sites by someone who has a passion for it. (No pressure, Jonathan.) I will be joining him and his wife for one of their days of sightseeing in London. I think we share a lot of the same interests when it comes to traveling, so I expect that I will get a lot out of tagging along with Jonathan and his better half. I haven’t seen an American in the flesh since March, so it should be nice to see some yanks.

Take London with a Grain of Salt

Possibly my first trips to London suffered from a case of high expectations. I think this time around I will have to try to look at the experience relative to my previous London trips as opposed to comparing it to American cities, or even other English cities. Knowing now that my trip to London could be rife with unpleasant moments, I will anticipate them and just consider them a necessary part of the experience.

As far as Londoners, as I said in my previous post, I do believe that underneath the Londoner facade these people do have some British hospitality buried down deep. I know myself how living in a city environment can change you, if even just for a few minutes out of every day. City life can create a kind of “eat or be eaten” situation. If you don’t do a bit of pushing and shoving to get on a train, you will never get on one. If you don’t hold your own walking down the street and do a bit of jostling yourself, you will never get where you are going. City people can often turn into completely different people in these types of situations. I don’t know what specific situations in London have created this hyper-aloof city dweller persona, but I have to believe that at least for the majority of Londoners their rude behavior is a product of their environment and not a reflection on them as people. I am certainly not excusing the behavior, I know from experience that it is possible to live in a city and switch that alter ego on and off with ease so I don’t know why Londoners carry it around with them everywhere they go. I’d like to believe that if I had met all of those ill-mannered train commuters in their local pub, even though they didn’t offer me their seat on the train they may very well have offered me their barstool.

Location, Location, Location

I think the main impediment to my enjoyment in my two previous trips to London was where I stayed. Staying in a disgusting apartment in Bermondsey was obviously a bad choice, as was staying in a hotel far from the city centre. So this time I am staying in a hotel in South Kensington. It promises to be the tiniest room I have ever stayed in, which to tell the truth I find exciting. I used to work in the hotel industry, so I find how hotels solve the problems of keeping rates low and also remaining in a desirable location absolutely fascinating. Bring on the broom cupboard with a bed in it!

The Key is Doing, not Seeing

London is a city best experienced from the inside, the first few times I saw London I tried to experience it in the way I have experienced other cities I have enjoyed, and that is by “taking in the sights”. London just isn’t laid out for this type of sightseeing, its too confusing and just not all that visually appealling from the outside, its not even very good for people-watching because the people of London really don’t want to be watched. All of my best memories of London were made INSIDE, like walking through Harrod’s, seeing a show in the West End and having a few pints in a pub. Most of my favorite memories of other cities are the exact opposite, my favorite memory of Chicago is driving down Lake Shore Drive in my friend’s convertible and seeing the twinkling lights of the skyscrapers from the lake front. My favorite memory of Paris is sitting at a cafe and sipping espresso with Notre Dame across the river and some of the best people-watching ever. London just doesn’t lend itself to as many of these types of experiences as other cities do.

You may think I am getting down on London when I say this, but really being a person who loves things like museums and cathedrals and palaces, London is the perfect city for me to visit. Going back to my reference of Chicago, although there are skydecks in the John Hancock and the Sears Tower, most of the recognizable buildings of the skyline in Chicago are full of nothing but offices. In London on the other hand, most of what you see on the outside gets even better on the inside. Buckingham Palace is pretty spectacular on the outside, but I can only imagine what it is like on the inside. I just haven’t had the chance yet to “do” London, I have seen it, I just haven’t “done” it.

Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

You will be hard-pressed to find a person who loves Christmas decorations more than I do. I am probably the only person on the planet who isn’t complaining about Christmas decorations appearing in stores in October. As Jonathan reported last month, London’s Christmas decorations this year are going to be very special because of the release of Disney’s A Christmas Carol. Above all, this is what I am looking forward to the most. I think when I get into London on that Wednesday night I will take time just to enjoy the decorations. There couldn’t be a better time for me to go to London.

When You’re Alone and Life is Making You Lonely…

you can always go, DOWNTOWN! I am alone at the moment and life is making me a bit lonely, so I think this is going to be a much needed break from what has become a bit of a mundane life. The last time I was in a big city was a little over a year ago when I went to Paris, and before that I was living in one, so right now I am really ready to get away to a city. When I was living in Chicago I had access to amazing restaurants and entertainment right around the corner, and that isn’t quite the case anymore. I do love the pace of life in Hartlepool, but I think this time around visiting London will give me a much needed dose of city life that I haven’t had in awhile and had become accustomed to. I think going from town life to city life is going to feel like more of a holiday  and I will probably appreciate the city amenities more than before.

I am really looking forward to this trip, I will be sure to give everyone an update when I return!