London

London is people. People bustling along the street, sitting in cafes, taking pictures, going places. There is not an inch of pavement or sidewalk you can claim as your own for fear of being trampled. The subways are worse. Walls of people march forwards to pack like sardines into carriages of more people. Nobody meets eyes or smiles awkwardly at the accidental knock of an elbow or shoulder.

It is a city I would recommend visiting alone. With crowds encroaching on all sides, trying to navigate the masses while looking out for another is difficult to say the least. It is so easy to separated, especially if you don’t know where you’re going.

Despite this, I don’t regret travelling to this city filled to the brim with life. I took a bus around the city, taking about two hours to see a lot of the sights. While the traffic slows the vehicle down to almost walking pace, it’s worth saving your feet and seeing a few of the further away places.

The most common advice I seemed to receive before visiting London was “don’t go up the Eye in the rain.” Well London being London and having so little time, I ended up with very little choice in the matter, which didn’t end up mattering. Yes, the rain made it hard to take pictures of the sights out the window, but from a distance the camera could focus pass the droplets, and I could still see the whole city. On top of this, so many people were deterred I got straight onto the London Eye without waiting in a queue. Even better, the capsule was almost empty!

The short time we had in the city didn’t allow us to see everything, and I did miss out on seeing Platform 9 and ¾, but friends who went to see it spent forever getting there, and waited in a queue for an hour and a half to get a few quick pictures. Of course it’s still a draw, but being so far from the other tourist attractions means I may have to wait for another time, another visit to London.