I grew up in rural Victoria, Australia. My town has a population of 5000 people if the weather is good and it's school holidays. The biggest city I had ever been to was Guangzhou, China, and that was just the airport and a quick bus ride out through the city. But then in December 2018, I went to London for Christmas, and London is HUGE! With a population of 11 million already, plus holiday tourists, I had never seen so many people in my life. It was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision. I had a 3 week winter break from school in Canada and nowhere to go. I spoke to a friend, Asia who lives in London, and devised a plan so that 16 year old Bella could travel halfway around the world to a country she had never been and spend 3 weeks with her friend's family who she had never met. It turned out to be an excellent plan, and arriving in London was almost exactly as I'd pictured it. Grey, faintly raining and more traffic on the road than all of Melbourne combined. Over the 3 weeks I learned some very important things about London, big cities in general and the exact art of leaving the M&M store with the maximum amount of M&M's possible. So here I am to impart that wisdom on you.
How to get through a crowd: you literally just push, and keep walking slowly. I have never had the need to get through really big crowds before, but if you're on your way to the tube station at rushhour, or trying to get a glimpse of the guards changing at Buckingham Palace, you need a good amount of push-through-a-crowd ability. Asia and I managed to wriggle our way through backpacks and elbows all the way from the big stone fence around Buckingham Palace, right up to the front gate. It was a mission to get there, but once we were there it was mind blowing! We got to see a little man in a grey suit and big black fluffy hat stand by a door and not move. Then there were some whistles, some marching and a few shouts, but by that time we had been swamped by other crowd pushers, and couldn't really see. Count your money! I was in London right before Brexit and all that drama, and the English Pound was quite strong. I remember walking in to a cafe and seeing that a cup of tea was 2 pounds. That wasn't too bad I thought, but later, I realised that I had paid almost $5 AUD for a cup of tea! I could have bought a whole box of tea bags for that! I spent the next few weeks doubling-and-a-half the cost of everything, just to be on the safe side. Double check your bridges. Apparently lots of tourists get mixed up between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, but that wasn't our problem. It was about 11:30pm on New Year's Eve, and Asia and I had joined the throngs of people climbing the stairs off the pavement and up onto Tower Bridge to watch London's famous firework display. We were up there, packed onto the bridge like sardines with what seemed to me to be the rest of the world's population. At about 11:45pm a woman in a high-vis vest with a megaphone came by to announce that "this is the wrong bridge, you will not see the fireworks from this bridge. They are being set off behind all those tall buildings over there" I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but essentially that was the message. Asia and I figured that we wouldn't make it past those buildings in 15 minutes, so we stayed on Tower Bridge, heard bangs and saw the occassional faint flash of colour behind London's seemingly permanent low cloud. We did get to see a couple get engaged though, and I think we even got in the proposal video, so that was a bonus. Wear something with pockets. Pockets are handy in any situation, but if you visit the M&M store in London (the world's biggest lolly shop apparently) they're extra important. Right on the corner of Leicester Square (pronounced 'Lester' because the English can't speak English) there is a huge colourful building, that is even more huge and colourful on the inside. An entire wall was colour-coded M&M dispensers, and the kids in there were in absolute heaven. As were many of the adults! I saw a woman pour a huge handful of M&Ms and shove them in her pockets, before calmly walking past the counters and out the door. The dispensers were designed so that you could make your own M&M mix in a cup, and buy it by weight. But if you have pockets, it makes for a nice and cheap little evening snack in Leicester Square. It's called the tube, Bella (rolls eyes). I made the grave mistake of calling the tube 'the train' to a Londoner, and was immediately labelled 'the tourist', a name that stuck for the next few weeks, and was reinforced every time I took a photo of anything. Navigating crowds, not over spending, getting the perfect firework vantage point, stealing M&Ms and getting the correct name for methods of public transport are all important parts of your stay in London, but the essential part of a trip to London, is a walk around Camden Market. Take the tube over to Camden and wander around! I am a big fan of markets, and the only thing better than my small town farmers market on the third Sunday of the month is a huge, permanent, world famous market in the middle of London. Asia and I spent almost an entire day walking around Camden, eating street food and looking at all the weird and wonderful things on display for purchase. I grew up listening to lots of '90s and early 2000s music - the CDs my parents collected throughout uni and their music festival tours around Victoria before I was born. A lot of it was The Waifs, and to this day a Waifs album will immediately take me back to listening to it while cooking dinner when I was 7, it playing quietly in the lounge room while we had friends over for a cup of tea, or endless hours of The Waifs on road trips. My sister and I were allowed to choose a CD each to bring in the car while we drove to our grandparent's house, and A Brief History was often my choice. There is a song in the album called London Still, with a line that goes 'took the tube over to Camden and wandered around', and that is exactly what I did. Too soon it was time to head back to school, back to Canada. So I packed up my carry on bag (which was all I brought with me) and said goodbye to Asia's family who had been the most amazing hosts. I gave a final hug to Boo, their dog, and we headed off to Gatwick Airport to take flight 122 to Calgary, then on to Victoria. So there are the 6 essential tips to London. I hope they were somewhat enlightening, and that I have inspired you to put London on your list of places you want to experience!!
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Hey!I'm Bella! I'm a young traveller, writer and peppermint tea enthusiast. I hope you enjoy joining me on my travels! |