This was the last photo I took of America. It’s hazy maybe because of the perpetual San Francisco fog, maybe because my iPhone’s case had finally broken off and the lens had been scratched from sliding across the ground, or because time always makes memories look hazy the further we are from an event. I don’t think I’ll ever know. Why did I make it the photo of a plane? It should have been something cool like a San Francisco skyline or a homeless man peeing on the street outside my apartment. Something to help me remember home.
Six months ago, I moved to London. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this. Every time I talk to family and friends, I hear the same things: “How’s the weather over there?” “You living the European lifestyle?” “Can you please send us pictures?” “We miss you but can you please pay your cell phone bill?”
Unlike the typical backpack-through-Europe-as-a-pre-adulthood-adventure that so many of my peers have taken, I’ve been sitting in my apartment working and living day-to-day like everyone else. European lifestyle isn’t so different from an American one. I’ll get to those differences later.
For now, let me catch you up with photos because obviously you want to see how much better my life is than yours.
This is first photo I took in London. It’s from a hotel room overlooking a corner of Hyde Park called Marble Arch. What you can’t see to the left is a bunch of tourists walking down Oxford Street that don’t know on which side of the sidewalk to walk on because wherever they’re visiting from lacks rules for walking in public and they seem to thrive on general anarchy. Oh yeah, there’s also chicken wire because the hotel didn’t want pigeons stooping anywhere near the windows. I felt like a cooped up bird myself.
The Eye, left, stares intently at Big Ben, right, from across the Thames.
Our first weekend there, Jac and I went to the London Eye, a giant ferris wheel, to really get a good look at London from 443 feet in the sky.
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- About halfway up the Eye in our pod.
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- One of the pods above us.
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- I’m sure they shot Skyfall somewhere over there.
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- That big building on the right reminds me of an air-conditioning unit.
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- This is the BT Tower. I think it shoots lightning out from the top when the crowds get rowdy.
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- Another pod below us.
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- This is probably the best picture of Big Ben I’ll ever take.
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- If you’re afraid of heights, the Eye will help you get over it.
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- The air was hazy but I got a shot of Buckingham palace from the Eye.
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- More Thames and boats.
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- This building is called The Shard. They have a restaurant at the top but if you tell them you don’t want to eat, they’ll begrudgingly allow you to drink only.
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- Here’s Jac being a bad ass American and spitting into the Thames
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- Trafalgar Square.
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- That’s Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson on top. He’s missing an arm.
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- A lion statue in front of the National Gallery.
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- More Trafalgar Square
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- This is the Admiralty Arch which leads the Mall which in turn leads to Buckingham Palace.
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- Here are people taking pictures of a column that I didn’t bother getting close to.
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- This road leads to Buckingham Palace.
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- An older Middle-Eastern man confused me for Middle-Eastern at this gate. Not the first or last time in the UK.
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- Buckingham Palace.
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- What’s something in common between the UK and North Korea? They believe in unicorns.
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- Sometimes my lizard brain forgets that I’m in the UK and half-expects to see the Stars and Stripes over buildings.
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- That kid tried to touch the boob.
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- Victoria Memorial.
Our first few days were exhausting. So much culture and history to absorb. The next weekend, we were jetting off to Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. Stay tuned for photos from Dublin.
