Submitted by Melody Taylor on the 2013 fall semester program in London, England…
Friday is the day to get lost here in London. Last Friday, a friend and I decided to go to Portobello Market right when it opened at 9AM, and then go on the back-stage tour of the National Theatre at 4:30PM. Oddly enough, we didn’t even think about what we would do between those two events. After leaving the market, we had 5 hours on our hands to explore London. We wanted a place to eat our packed lunches so we tried to find one of the abundant parks in London. Somehow, after being lost for a while, we found Holland Park, and then proceeded to get lost inside of it.
Afterwards, we decided to go to the Churchill War Rooms that are part of the Imperial War Museum. We did a quick Google Maps search, and went on our way. However, we could not find the war rooms, and got completely lost. Two hours later, we decided to not listen to Google Maps anymore, and try to go to the actual Imperial War Museum. Of course, we then got lost going to the museum. Once we finally got there, we learned that beforehand we were in the right area for the war rooms and completely messed up, but decided to just hang out at the Imperial War Museum. Thankfully, we didn’t get lost going to the National Theatre!
The great part about London though is that even though we got lost, we got to experience and see a new part of London we might not have seen otherwise. One of my favorite activities is to pick an area of London to go to, and just walk around and see what’s happening without any agenda or map. Instead of focusing on a certain destination, it opens up your mind to take in more details about your surroundings and absorb the culture more. I highly recommend going out today and exploring a new area whether it is down the road, a day trip away, or in a foreign country.