Travel Tips

London has a special place in my heart because it was my first truly genuine foreign experience. I know it might sound silly, but when you're riding the above-ground train from Heathrow to the city center, half asleep because you couldn't sleep at all on your plane but still as excited as ever, watching all the houses and apartments go past you--types of places you've only read about or seen on TV, and looking at the roads (yes, those cars are all really driving on the left), it's so exciting! I couldn't begin to describe it. Here you are, in a subway car, surrounded by people you don't know, 6,000 miles away from anyone you know, and you begin to think that this is the beginning of an adventure. I genuinely felt like a little kid again.

I'll always remember that ride from Heathrow to Russel Square; the confusion of the people stepping on and off the train, hearing all the accents that were different from my California drawl, noticing how white the tiles in the Underground were, and feeling the first drops of the infamous British rain hit my forehead as I emerged from the Underground to a hostel which I had only a map's clue was.

I'd relive it all over again if I could.