I hit the pavements of London the next day with my enthusiasm high and patience restored. I was ready to be consumed by the city and wanted to walk its streets for hours, exploring. The next day, the train system didn’t seem so scary and I made it perfectly to Victoria station and walked towards Buckingham Palace, arriving just in time to watch the Change of Guard, which is where I got my first taste of the kind of tourists I was going to be fighting with throughout my time in London. I vowed at that moment to try and avoid all tour groups and bus loads of tourists and go in search of the Londoner essence. So I kept on walking and made my way through the gardens, past the Ritz Hotel, along Pall Mall Way up to Trafalgar Square. I ducked into the National Museum just before a big down pour of rain was about to explode onto the Square. In my efforts to escape the rain, I wondered through the rooms, past the sunflowers of Van Gogh, The Venus and Mars of Botticelli, Rembrants’ self portrait, and as if I hadn’t seen enough in Florence, more renaissance art from Michelangelo, Titian, Bellini, Raphael and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Next I was off to Leicester Square, in search of theatre show tickets. But couldn’t decide between The Lion King, Les Miserables, and The Phantom of the Opera! Too many choices so I continued to walk on and found myself in China Town, where I devoured some great Sushi and explored some Asian supermarkets. Always a favourite of mine, I find them so fascinating! From there I seemed to wonder along some back streets getting quite lost in Soho, which finally led me to Oxford Street, which I quickly decided again to avoid, so I ducked back into the streets of Soho and found some amazing little narrow alleyways, with some quirky shops and amazing fabric stores. I was drawn back into the pretentious, artistic, designer feel of Soho. I loved the street cafes and boutique stores. It had a community feel about it that I liked. It reminded me of Greville street in Melbourne. I eventually landed up back down in The West End and made my way up to Picadilly Circus. The Christmas lights of Regent Street caught my attention, so I followed the canopy of fairy lights along the rows of shops. I ducked in and out of stores like The National Geographic, and the amazing children toy store, Hamesleys. I bought a T-shirt that I thought said it all, “Find your Freedom!” It was written on the front and I felt it surmised exactly my existence at the time, it had pictures of swallows flying all over it and I loved it! So it became mine. I still love that T-shirt. It reminds me to keep pushing myself to find the next adventure, to keep pursuing the next challenge and above all, it reminds me to never forget that I am free.
Literally, the very next challenge I was faced with, happened 5 minutes later when I was due to meet Jo and some other friends at 5:30 by the tube entrance at Oxford Circus. I can honestly say that this is the one and only time in my life where I have found myself feeling completely overwhelmed by the amount of people surrounding me. I swiftly felt the full power of what a stampede must be like. A human stampede of the business suit variety! This is one moment in my life I would have loved to have become a swallow and flown above it all and watched everyone marching and struggling along, fighting to reach their own individual destinations and freedoms from the masses.
I was trying to reach the North East side of the Oxford Circus intersection and as I walked east along Oxford street I was literally bombarded by a stampede of people all exiting the tube, heading in the opposite direction of me. I simply wanted to walk an extra 10 metres in order to reach the pedestrian crossing to cross the street. I struggled through the masses of people and found myself being pushed along with the barrage of people. I simply couldn’t escape its strength, so instead of fight it any longer, I simply turned and walked in the direction of the stampeding business suits!! I was completely overwhelmed by it. It took me about 10 minutes to finally make my way over to the North East side of Oxford Circus. I felt like I had become a very small insignificant Ant, within a huge Ant Farm. All day I had been completely overwhelmed by the amount of people in London. How could one place have such an enormous population?
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