Day 6: Back in London

After surviving the train trip with the chavs, I arrived in London at around 5. I found my hotel easily enough, then set out for an adventure. It started out pretty well, with a walk through Hyde Park (the real one, not the fake one where I currently live). It was a long walk. I learned early in my trip that I had worn the wrong shoes. I had a choice between sensible brown shoes and my tennis shoes. I picked the sensible brown ones, thinking that there was an outside chance that I might need to wear something nice; besides, they seemed comfortable enough. Well, it turns out that they are intensely uncomfortable on long walks. The bottoms of my feet ached, for most of my trip, like I had just run a marathon barefoot. Plus, they gave absolutely no support to my ankles, and when I get tired my feet start to flop around like I'm wearing clown shoes. I was constantly twisting my ankles on the cobblestones.

But Hyde Park was beautiful. It had started to cloud over and then to rain—back to normal for London. I was in desperate need of a cash station, so I walked along Kensington Road, past Queen's Gate, the Albert Memorial, and various other gates. I got on the tube at Knightsbridge, which made me think, as did just about every tube station in the whole of London, of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which takes place in a mystical London Underground where the tube station names are taken literally.

I got off at Picadilly Circus. Later on, I scribbled this in my little travel notebook/journal:

I'm sitting in a coffee shop a block north of Picadilly Circus—north, or east, or west, I don't know. Even with a map of this city, I'm lost. I stood in PC for 10 mins. staring quizzically around at the multitude of streets veering off in every direction. I started down four of them before I found my street, and I only hope I can find my way back.

I decided to go to a movie because of several reasons. First, my feet and legs are killing me. Second, I like to see things I won't be able to see in the states. Third, I'm feeling incredibly lonely. I discovered that I hate traveling alone. It's just not as much fun when you don't have someone to nudge and say "look at that!" I might just go back to the hotel.

Which I did. Poor little Mike, you're thinking (and so am I). But I really don't like traveling alone in a place where I'm a stranger. If it had been somewhere familiar, it wouldn't have been bad. But I was tired and sore and lonely. It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I can be a little moody sometimes. (No, really. Honestly.) I was moody that night, so I went back to the hotel for an early bedtime.

The next day I was a total idiot. I glanced at my itinerary and thought it said my flight departed at 14:35, which is 2:35, right? So I headed out to the tube station for a train to Heathrow. I got there at around noon, hoping against hope to be able to get an exit-row seat. When I arrived at the check-in counter, the nice British woman informed me that my flight was actually at 4:35, not 14:35. So I spent four hours in Heathrow Airport, reading the autobiography of an intrepid British war correspondent, Max Hastings's Going to the Wars. He wrote, among other things, about how important it is to take a good pair of shoes with you, wherever you go. Good advice.

Update: Here's a picture of the gang in Edinburgh. L-R: Duncan, Lemont, Andrew, Matt, Duncan's wife Kendra, and me.