in such a world art | veg | academia | geekery

Last day in London - on couch surfing and observations

(at Kensington Palace - and there’s a 159 more photos of London where that came from, once I got over my camera-shy anti-tourist thing). Well, it has been an eventful and overall great experience in London. Sorry for not blogging until now, I’ve been wanting to experience everything and then write about things after having had time to digest them. (While it took me a long time to upload pics, I won’t make that mistake again and will be uploading at least once every two days.) Today I am winding down, at a hostel for the first time where I know no one and will hopefully get to sleep early. Tomorrow morning I catch my flight to Madrid - looking forward to the hot weather.

I would say that the best part of my experience is the fact that I am “couch surfing” my way through Europe as much as I can. On Couchsurfing.com, people from all around the world create personal profiles identifying themselves, and offer up a place to stay on their couch, spare bed, floor, etc. The hope is that as people offer their couches and others stay, guests can leave positive or negative references for that person describing their stay. In the end you have a peer-reviewed, travel exchange system where you can simultaneously travel with no accommodation costs, meeting really interesting people (usually world travellers), and explore the city you’re staying in in an entirely new way.

In London I stayed with Donal Savage for all days except for my last, at a cheap local hostel (please forgive the shot taken by a shaking hand):

Having the first time traveller’s jitters and in an overwhelmingly large and loud city, I could not have asked for a better host. Donal (a Londoner originally from Ireland) went above and beyond the call of duty - he is a lover of history and knows something about everything - meaning we had wonderful conversations that often went late into the night. He owns something like 5,000 books and has read them all, clearly. He also knows a lot about London, and helped to reinforce my itinerary ideas. We ate out at several vegetarian restaurants (he is vegetarian) and went to a local contemporary art gallery opening. Also, through him I met two other couch surfers - David (from Argentina) and Graziano (from Italy). David is currently living in the south of France and offered his couch to me when I’m in the area, and Graziano lives about an hour from Rome so I may be able to stay with him when I’m there in June.

Graziano:

David (and Donal):

There are countless benefits to couch surfing I hope to experience time and time again on my journey - not the least of which is saving money. Being able to live with someone in their home and experience the intricacies of their life is a very unique way to learn about the culture of the place, which I have found to be the most important part. I’ve stopped caring about seeing every monument; instead I want to leave with some great memories of the people and a good feeling of the city itself. Living in their home also makes you feel like you are a local so it helps you to act confident. I was approached multiple times for directions for this reason, which makes me laugh since I have the worst sense of direction and have been lost multiple times - but when travelling getting lost is pretty fun.

The confidence also helped when I had to walk home two times in the dark, a 15 minute walk that had me spooked for different reasons. I saw two shows at the theatre that caused me to go home late, Into the Hoods and Wicked (both were excellent, by the way). The first time I decided to take a bus instead of walk for safety purposes but took the wrong bus or got off on the wrong stop. I ended up completely lost, and despite the fact that I had a map I could not identify any of the streets around me on it. I ended up attempting to walk as fast as possible, and within sight of females or other people walking - I also took any opportunity to ask a friendly looking person for help. But on my way, I witnessed a man (a dominos pizza delivery man) on a moped get hit by a car. Just like that, he crumpled to the ground. This all led to a disturbing experience to get home, but I managed it. The second time around, looking confident and walking quickly got me there without a hitch.

…

Cities have a million different changing faces. Donal remarked that despite the fact he has been living here for 18 years, he is still learning new things about London. In my time in London I am sure that I have only seen the reflecting shadow of one of these faces, but nonetheless my eyes have been wide open as I wandered around finding my way through the city’s interesting nooks and crannies.

Some of my observations about London:

• It is massive. It is also massively crowded. This takes some getting used to.
• It is dirty: not only in the muggy air, but also on the concrete - I find the city rough around the edges. For some reason, this is not off-putting so much as it this lends the city a certain fascinating character - mixing in with the old and new buildings and the general feeling of the city. It is very hard to describe how the city’s interesting angles, colours, sounds, and other characteristics combine to form its unique quality… so different than in Canada.
• Red telephone poles, double-decker red buses, strange-shaped taxi cabs and police vehicles, these are all very real and very interesting.
• Despite the fact that the language spoken here is English, and that I speak English - when they talk too fast I have a lot of trouble understanding what they are saying. This is inconvenient when there are overhead speaker tube announcements.
• Signage can sometimes be more intuitive than in Canada. When you are using the tube and are looking for a way out, there will actually be a sign that has an arrow and says “Way Out.” I think this is more efficient and requires less mental effort than EXIT signs, which must first be interpreted by the brain as being the “way out”, because I don’t know about you but the first thing I think when I’m looking to leave a place, is “OK, so now where is the way out?” Also, in the grocery store I went to there is a whole section of specialty foods that are free from certain ingredients (such as wheat free for people wh o are gluen-free), and one brand is called “Free from” - as in foods that are “free from” certain ingredients…
• I was confused when I first started using the tube and could not find a garbage to dispose of my gum - found out later that they have taken out garbages because of the terrorist attacks (garbage cans are handy places to put bombs).
• People in London can seem rude at times, but I’m come to conclude that it is simply the way that they communicate - they are very direct and to the point. There is little to no embellishment or fake politeness, but rather they talk to you as if they have known you for a while and are just starting a new topic of conversation.
• They say “Cheers” here, and it’s a lovely way to end a conversation.
• “garden” = backyard, “jumper” = sweater, “petrol” = gasoline, “boot” = trunk of a car - and many other linguistic differences (of course potato chips are called “crisps”, french fries are called “chips”)
• Lots of cars everywhere, very dangerous - generally if you see someone coming, they won’t stop unless you are really assertive while crossing the road or there is a clear electronic walking signal.
• It is very multicultural… this translates to the people you encounter but also to the wide variety of different restaurants with ethnic cuisines. I will go into more detail about the variety of food I’ve eaten in another post.
• I feel pretty safe, at least during the day, and for the most part can pass off as a local (as long as I don’t start talking). I have been learning how to look and act as if I live there, even while casually glancing at a map at times.
• You often come across different “squares,” beautiful garden-parks in the middle of crowded city areas that become kinds of sanctuaries with their large overhanging trees and somehow quieting space. I wish we had more parks like this in Ottawa.

I have a few more blog posts planned out that I’m going to get to right now… stay tuned for more details about the trip.