Getting Lost. Getting There.

"London goes beyond any boundary or convention. It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London." --Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography (2000)

I went around London alone today.

Usually I don’t go out alone, but the place is so romantic especially when you are alone, and as a friend puts it, “there’s more to London that what meets the eye,” and that I should “go out and enjoy while it’s still summer.”
So today I did. I braved to take the tube/train without asking for directions. Instinct tells you to trust yourself. I may hear voices telling me what to do or not to do, but fortunately (or unfortunately) I’m not hallucinating, haha.

I got off at Oxford Circus Underground and went to see the Oxford Circus, the Piccadilly Circus, the Trafalgar Square, The National Gallery, Downing Street (the official residence of the Prime Minister of Great Britain), the London Eye, the Big Ben (or known as the Tower Clock) and the Houses of Parliament (or known as the Palace of Westminster), all by foot.

Click here to see photos.

I got lost actually. And if there’s one thing this experience taught me it would be to enjoy getting lost. The best time to be lost is in a foreign country. One will never learn to find the right way until he or she gets lost. And that, as I always put it, is a happy accident.

I met this charming 24-year old Thai girl who, like me, was waiting for the Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben to get lighted so she could take pictures. She approached me and asked me to take pictures of her with the Parliament and the Big Ben as her backdrop. She asked if I was Chinese, which obviously, am not. She’s the 4th person this week to ask if I was Chinese. Anyway, I told her I’m from the Philippines.

Tanee, her nickname (it's difficult to remember her name, let alone pronounce), is a Thai Airways flight attendant and on a stopover in London. She was friendly; we ended up taking pictures with the both of us as the Parliament and the Big Ben as our background. We exchanged e-mail addresses so next time she’d visit London maybe, just maybe, I could play tour guide and show her around, hehe.

I also met this French gentleman, and asked me to take pictures of him and the Parliament as his background. He requested that I pose with him. Haha..

These are London’s world-famous landmarks. The camera captured wonderful memories, but not my emotions and those of the people I met. We often see these in glossy postcards or photographs, but it’s quite different when one is able to see it, touch it.