London Love

Today I’ve decided to write about one of my favourite cities in all the world. London.

Ahhh London. She is truly one of the greatest cities on this earth I think. She has almost everything one could want (I say almost because one can’t forget how crap the weather so often is there).

 

 

I remember the first time I went there, age 22, I stood, on one of my first days there, outside the entrance to Topshop on Oxford Street and just people watched and soaked in the atmosphere for a good twenty minutes. It was a spectacular day – the sun was shining and people were out and about in force, I had freshly converted pounds in my wallet ready to be spent at Harrods and Zara and Selfridges and Topshop and the day before I had had the most dizzyingly great introduction to the city where I had seen and done much more in one day than I’d thought I would be able to. And I just remember standing on that street – one of the most famous in the world surely, next to Fifth Avenue and La Rambla and Rodeo Drive – and feeling like I was at the centre of the universe right at that very moment. Like this point was where trends began, where the coolest people were born, where future megastars of fashion, music, politics, sport and media all trod the boards before they were discovered and everybody knew their names. I’ve been to Times Square in New York City many times, but it was Oxford Street London where I truly felt like I was at the very centre of the beating heart of the world.

How can you top a feeling like that? I was floored by it. And now whenever I go to London I always get off the tube at Oxford Circus and happily plunge myself into the throngs of people always surging around that crazy four point intersection.

 

 

Of course Oxford Street’s pulsing heart isn’t the only great thing about London. I love even the simple things, like the tube system. I know some Londoners hate the tube, but I freaking love it. So extensive, so clean, so easy to understand – a travellers best friend. Even the people who work at the tube stations I have always found to be super nice and very helpful (shout out to the man who still let me out of Stratford station even when my Oyster card didn’t work because I hadn’t paid the right fare for that zone). I love how you are never far from a tube station, no matter where you are in London. And it’s often paired with a Tesco or a Waitrose store right next to it: extra convenience!

What else to love about London? Let me get the list!

Wandering through the food halls in Harrods and seeing and smelling all the exotic and exuberant cakes and jams and chocolates and meats and seafood and cheeses and breads.

Being spoilt for choice over which musical to see in Covent Garden or in the West End.

 

 

Being a nightmare tourist and geeking out at things like M&M World or Ripley’s in Piccadilly Circus.

Sitting in a black cab late at night, perhaps on the way home from seeing that show in Covent Garden and staring out the window lovingly watching the fairy lights twinkling in the trees as you pass Hyde Park like you’re in a commercial for British Airways or something.

Coming across Boots everywhere and knowing that if you need a sandwich, or an umbrella or some sunscreen, you can definitely find all three of these things in there.

Melting over all the cute oh so British tube station names – Baker Street, Blackfriars, Waterloo, Regents Park, and my favourite – Elephant and Castle.

Walking past number 10 Downing Street and feeling like you’re Martine McCutcheon saying fuck in front of Hugh Grant.

Sitting with a coffee and a danish on a kerb in the middle of Notting Hill on a Saturday, just soaking in the market madness around you and maybe spotting a celeb or two amongst the millions of market sellers and tourists and musicians and crepe makers (side note: I did actually see a celeb in Notting Hill once. Not an Oscar winner or Beyoncé or anything, but it was someone all Brits would know: Trinny Woodall of What Not to Wear fame).

 

Spending entire afternoons wondering around places like the Cabinet War Rooms and marvelling at all things Winston Churchill. Britain does museums as well as America, let me tell you!

Going to that Tesco next to the tube station on your way home after a long day of touristing and picking out an armful of those dreadful(ly good) trashy magazines. Nobody does trashy mags like the Brits. Katie Price and Girls Aloud and Geordie Shore oh my! Night snuggled in bed = made.

Walking down The Mall when it is lined with union jack flags and heading towards Buckingham Palace. If you don’t feel like you’re truly in London walking down there then you never will. I remember in 2012 many of the Olympic athletic events had their courses run down The Mall and past the palace and I just thought it was the greatest idea – you’re running in the greatest sporting contest in the world and running so close past one of the most recognised buildings in the world that you could practically pop in for a cuppa with Liz and Phil. Now that’s awesome.

The innocently adorable way as soon as the mercury hits 22 degrees celsius Londoners are out in the parks with their shirts off, soaking up the sun. Innocently adorable to a suntanned Aussie anyway.

The way you go up in the London Eye and look down at the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and think ‘woah – I’m looking at icons I’ve only ever seen in movies and on postcards’ and suddenly you’re getting a birds eye view of it, or you’re standing in front of it hearing Big Ben chime. They’re pinch me moments.

 

 

Everyone should visit London in their lifetime. Everyone. It is one of the most cosmopolitan, fast paced, smart, pretty and well-kept cities in the world. It’s so good that one day, if I had the right job, was the right age and felt it was the right time, I might just live there.

Until next time,

Jorgs