I love London. For only about a day or two. Any more than that, it just wears me out - more mentally than anything...as introverted as I am, I can only take so much of crowds, especially the tourist crowds. And London is all crowds and all tourists. But it always draws me back. It's so iconically British: The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Oxford Circus, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, fueling up with a plate of fish and chips and a pint of lager...it's all British and it's everything I think about when I'm dreaming of London.
One thing I learned when I lived in England was to look up. On the ground, it's store front after high street store front: Marks & Spencer's, Boots, Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins, NEXT, Costa Coffee and Starbucks, Greggs and Pret-A-Manger...all typical store fronts that are found all across the country. But when you look up? That's where the magic is. England is old. And the architecture is beautiful and for the most part, unchanged and preserved.
I was hanging around the Westminster area of London on this particular day and glanced up, I was treated with just the tip of Big Ben peaking out over the chimney covered rooftops. I stood there, in that moment, taking in where I was, the aches and pains in my ankle and back just disappeared. I was expecting to see Mary Poppins blowing by under her umbrella and was waiting for Bert to pop up out of a chimney with his chimney sweep and break into a song and dance. My reverie didn't last long, my screaming feet reminded me that standing in one spot too long is not good when you've been walking on them for miles over the last few days.
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| Jolly doomy, gloomy London Town! |
Next time you're in London, or England (or even Europe for that matter), take a moment and glance upward. Enjoy the craft in the architecture that was built centuries before. Then find a quaint tea shop and British the shit out of your afternoon with a cup of tea and scones with clotted cream!
Happy Trails!
And of course, a little Mary Poppins magic...
