As I boarded the train to London from Devon, I was both excited and apprehensive about what to expect from such a place as London. As many of us love the life within big cities, I am not one of them. And after my seven months in Tuscany and six weeks in Devon, I had well and truly become a country girl; living the simple life, with little stress and hardly any stimulus from the outside world. I was certainly in for a shock when I arrived into Paddington Station at 5:30pm on a Thursday afternoon.
I was staying with Jo, an Australian friend, whom had moved to London and was living in Clapham Junction. She had kindly given me directions on how to get to Clapham Junction station via the tube. So off I went thinking to myself that this cant be that hard to work out, at least everything is in English, how can this be any more difficult than catching trains in Italy or all over Europe. Ill just find a map work out how to get there. But it was!
Can someone please explain to me how on earth so many stations in London don’t have escalators or Lifts! I was desperately trying to carry my 2 suitcases around with me while trying to sort out how to buy tickets, which line I had to be on and which platform I had to find. I headed underground and found the tube system and with it of course a rabbit warren of halls all heading in the direction of too many platforms to choose from. Anyway, after fighting with my luggage along corridors and up and down sets of stairs, I finally made it onto a train which took me to Victoria Station, which is where Jo told me to get off.
On the train, I had stood next to a group of policemen, who were chatting about their superiors rather unprofessionally. On the other side of me, was a man reading a paper, close up to his face and I noticed that he kept glancing over his paper at the policemen and kind of sniggering. I thought it was a bit odd. He kept doing it and then he caught my eye and discreetly pulled out a wallet displaying a secret service badge to me. I still have no idea why he showed me his badge or why on earth a secret service agent would risk getting his badge out on the train in London during peak hour.
When I eventually got off the train I was swept up by the stream of people heading to, well I didn’t know where I was going, I was just going with the flow of people, I had no choice. Then all of a sudden, the secret service guy from the train came up behind me and took one of my bags off me and said he would help me up all the stairs. He didn’t ask where I was going or anything, but just walked next to me and helped. I thanked him and he went off straight away again.
I was disorientated and getting a little agitated by all the people and having no idea how to find my next train. I found a map and stood looking at it for a while trying to match names of places to the directions that Jo had given me, but I couldn’t see any of them, so I went to find another map and then the secret service guy appeared next to me again. This time he asked me where I wanted to go and where I was headed. So I told him Clapham Junction and he looked on the map and said, “Not this one” and pointed in the direction I should head. So I thanked him again and headed for the stairs and looked up to see the torrent of people streaming down the stairs from the street. I just couldn’t believe how many people there were. I stood at the bottom of the stairs waiting for a gap to open up or the stream of people to slow down, but it simply never did. By this point, I was getting so sick of carrying my luggage that I was considering risking dumping it for a while and coming back for it later when I had worked out where I needed to go. But I knew it was a huge risk so I persevered. I somehow got to the top of those stairs and found myself completely lost again. I couldn’t see anything that was making sense. Then the secret service guy appeared yet again. At this point I was beginning to think it was a little weird. He just kept popping up all over the place, finding me again and again to try and help me. He must have been watching me the whole time, following me around for some reason. He pointed down towards the end of the station and said to turn left.
At this point I had no idea whether or not I should trust him and was well and truly sick of fighting through all the people, so instead I headed for the daylight and found myself out on the street. I had decided to take refuge in the capabilities of a Taxi driver and promptly plonked myself into a London Taxi and told him “Clapham Junction Please” I sat back and thought to myself, what an ordeal! To this day I still have no idea what on earth the secret service guy was doing trying to help me or if he really was a secret service agent at all. Who knows, but I will never forget my first tube experience in London, that is for sure.
