1) Get a physical map.
Yes, GPS systems are wonderful and have helped me out on more than one occasion. But technology is faulty. Paper is permanent (well, if it’s laminated – and you do want it laminated, otherwise the rain will have a field day with your paper). Plus, the streets of London are diagonal and strangely placed, so a lot of GPS systems struggle with how to depict them accurately.
2) When looking at a bus sign, if the line is colored black (and the other side is colored white), that means the bus is going in the direction of the black line. Cross the street if you need a bus going the other direction.
This might seem like a fairly ‘duh’ tip, but, well, it took me a while to figure this out.
3) Timberyard Coffee House on Old Street is a fantastic place to study.
You can literally camp out all day with schoolwork and they don’t mind whatsoever. Also their drinks are delicious and, while not “cheap,” they are cheap considering the quality of taste and of service.
4) Explore the historically preserved houses.
Museums are fantastic, but what I’ve come to love even more are the preserved houses of famous Londoners (or even some people, like Sigmund Freud, who just had their entire house moved from Vienna to London. No big deal, I guess). They give you a great sense not only of the particular individual who lived there, but of how people of that era and class lived.
5) Explore by yourself.
While doing the touristy things with friends is awesome, you can’t really get a good sense of London until you’ve wandered around by yourself with no particular aim or destination. In the words of Virginia Woolf, “To walk alone in London is the greatest rest.”
6) London is not New York City.
Another phrase that might provoke a ‘duh’ reaction, but this is another thought that I grappled over for a long time. One of the reasons that I chose London was to avoid a huge cultural shock. From most of my favorite films/books, I’d gathered that London was basically just a European NYC: both are cosmopolitan and globalized cities, its citizens all speak English, and there are lots of culturally significant places like theatres and museums. While these statements are all true, they do not capture whatsoever the great differences between these two cities. While at first I was frustrated by how different the actual London was compared to my fantasy London, I soon began to realize that we travel precisely so we can disturb our misconceptions about foreign places and come to appreciate these places on their own terms. If you are able to explore and accept London as it is rather than constantly comparing it to NYC, I promise that your frustration will turn instead to love.
[image of me embracing the London life, taken with my camera]
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