Lost in London

I like to wander in new places. My need for efficiency leads me to despise walking for it's lack of ability to cover a decent distance in a reasonable amount of time, but walking does have it's benefits. When you get lost, for instance, you usually can't get very far away from where you started to lose your way. Today I got lost. Luckily I was not trying to catch an impossibly hard to find Polish ferry, though. No, today I got lost on purpose. I got on the plane in a terrible mood because RyanAir decided to charge me $60 for not printing out my boarding pass. I was livid, but hamstrung, so out of necessity I payed the hefty fare, but mark my words an angry, strongly worded letter is on it's way to the bastards at RyanAir. Anyway, I was sour. Luckily I was tired so I was able to sleep on the flight, but when I got off I just didn't feel like mingling so after I checked into my hostel I put on my mp3 player and walked.

Portable music is a novelty that I treasure. I am able to give my life it's own personal soundtrack. I can watch people talk and make up hippy, anti-war dialogue as Bob Dylan plays in the background. It is a great way to shut the world out just enough to watch it through an imaginary two way mirror. As I walked in my own little world I thought that I was going in the direction that I was planning to, but after an hour of traipsing around The Big Smoke, I was hopelessly and irrevocably lost. Luckily I had grabbed a map from the hostel front desk before I left and I as I opened it up I realized that it was a map for the main bus routes. Not a problem, I would just walk to the nearest bus stop. As I got to the bus stop I realized that I was off the grid, and my shitty bus map was no help. Hell, I was half way to Heathrow. I guess I put a little too much Van Halen on the mp3 player and I was power walking like crazy in the complete wrong direction.

As I started to walk back I decided to give in to public transportation and I hopped on a bus. It took me 40 minutes on the bus to get back where I started, but then I realized that I wasn't ready to go back to the hostel so I kept going on the bus. Soon after I passed my hostel, I was lost again. This dam city is too big. The biggest in the European Union, actually, and I would say they live up to that title. I did end up finding my way and I even found some touristy stuff while I was lost, like a Roman wall that was built 1900 years ago. I also found a group of drunk Londoners. I must say the Roman wall was more interesting but for entertainment value the Londoners took the cake. One of them dropped the bag he was holding and a glass bottle shattered. The guy holding the bag started to tear up, curse, and dropped to his knees next to the bag. His friend then came over to console him and put his arm around him while they sat in vigil for the broken item. Then the third guy says, "For Christ's sake, it's a bottle of shit rum, we'll just go buy another one!" I love drunk people.