London: So Much to See, So Little Time
As the weekend rolled around, and the majority of
Harlaxtonians prepared to embark on the school trip to London, I began to feel
more and more that what I was doing was insane.
Rather than signing up for the well-rounded
itinerary of the school trip, my friends and I had decided we would plan London
independently. We’d booked our hostel back in August, so we knew that we at
least had a place to stay, but that didn’t stop me from worrying. What if we
couldn’t find it? What if we got on the wrong train? What if –– and this was a
truly terrible thought –– we got to the hostel in one piece and found that it
was simply not a safe place to stay? What if our roommates were creepy old men
who ogled at us in our towels or shifty-eyed characters who stole our stuff?
WHAT IF THERE WAS NO WIFI??
It turned out that our hostel was none of these
things. We were in South Kensington, a pretty posh borough where we wouldn’t
have been able to stay otherwise, and all of our roommates seemed reasonably
normal. We weren’t all in the same room ––– in what seemed blindingly obvious
in hindsight, we’d booked independently and hoped to be grouped together –––
but the woman behind the counter did her best to try to get us together. And we
found the hostel just fine, although it took some map-reading and good
guesswork to actually find the building once we got off the tube. So all in
all, I felt pretty proud of our abilities to go somewhere by ourselves and not
end up lost or taken. But just getting to the destination does not make a good
trip, I soon discovered. While there, we had to do things like figure out where
to eat and what to see, and someone was bound to be disappointed. I worried
that I would leave London feeling like I’d seen absolutely nothing, or that I’d
wasted my money, or, worse, that despite the fun we’d had, it would never be
able to leave up to my fabulous daydreams of the trip. I worried that, like a
kid who awaits Christmas with a feverish anticipation only to unwrap socks, my
unrealistic expectations vs. the inevitably flawed reality would let me down.
But, thankfully, I was wrong.
My trip to London wasn’t perfect. I showered in a
space the size of an airport bathroom, forgot my railcard for the journey to
Watford Junction, had my walking tour held up by a car show, and came down with
a cold in the process. I didn’t get to see half of what I wanted to. But I also
drank butterbeer outside of the actual Potters’ cottage, watched the changing
of the guard, climbed the lions in Trafalgar Square, ate wonderfully authentic
Middle Eastern food (and fish ‘n chips), and affirmed my ability to safely and
successfully navigate places beyond my wildest imagination. I met Germans and
Vancouverites and saw street performers dressed as cats and drank in weird pubs
with some great friends, and I was not let down at all.
Leaving London, I felt like I’d barely scratched the
surface of a city rich in history and culture. Because to be honest, two days
is not enough to see a city. I could spend months pub-crawling and
museum-visiting and tea-sipping before I ever felt I’d experienced enough to
say I really knew or saw everything London has to offer. But I got a little
taste. And though it wasn’t complete, I don’t hesitate to say that it was one
hundred percent worth it.
-Anna Sheffer
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