D25: Day to wander

---

So, after all my complaints I actually met a really nice guy last night - we ended up chatting pretty late (we figured couldn’t sleep anyway because the music from down in the bar was so loud) and we ended up chatting quite a bit this morning too over breakfast. He’s moved to London from Portugal and just got a job, but is living in hostels for the time being as he tries to find somewhere that doesn’t cost a fortune. I feel for him - so expensive here. We talked all about our travels though - he’s been all over the UK, but also the US so we swapped stories of our fav places and such. We somehow got into a political discussion about immigration as well haha, I’m good at doing that apparently. Anyway, really lovely to finally talk to someone around my age that wasn’t been a creep.

After that I went back to South Bank to wander around a bit more. My timing was fun - a great big angry rain cloud was approaching which made for some interesting photos that were half bright half dark. I took a bunch of pictures of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben because hey, why not, and wandered around the bridges as well. Ends up there was a 10K race today so a lot of the main roads were closed to traffic which was FANTASTIC. You could really just wander about since the race was already done - wander along roads that are usually packed with taxis and busses. I was just happy to spread the tourists out to be honest haha.

I was going to go up to Trafalgar to do I don’t know what what, but then decided to veer a left into St. James - I haven’t been to that park in a quite awhile so figured it was time. Didn’t hurt I got to walk by some of the horsies too. And of special note I saw a squirrel! (They are few and far between here.) I got myself an ice cream and walked the length of the park before heading over to Harrods to get my daily treat. I have not given up on my mission to eat all their goods.

The big new adventure for today was heading over to Shoreditch in search of the graffiti. It was kind of a pain to research because everyone tells you it’s a great area with lots of great street art, but it seems hard to pinpoint the location? Or perhaps I didn’t google hard enough I don’t know but it didn’t matter because I was happy to just walk around aimlessly and see what I see. I went down a few side streets and found some good pieces, but then I came across the pop-up mall (a bunch of tiny shops stuck together) and could see one huge wall and a few side streets in a row with lots of graffiti so I took a long time going through that area. I ended up at Spitalfields Market which involved more meandering. My favourite way to travel… meandering and wandering.

(Ok, while I’m writing this someone keeps coming into the room and not holding the door so it properly SLAMS shut each time. Like, I understand doing it once because you don’t know but he’s done it 4x now and I dare him to do it again because I am not being woken up by that if he decides to get up early. Anyway.)

I went to get some thai food from one of my old favs and brought it with me to Kensington Gardens for a little picnic. I had a good laugh - I was rummaging through my bag for something at one point and looked up and there were like 6 crows walking towards me… that was a little odd. But Good old Kensington - if I had to pick one area I love the most, it would have to be this park and the lake. After I ate, I made my way down to the water to watch the birds and take an embarrassing amount of photos… as one does. There seemed to be this new kind of dweeby looking duck which I enjoyed laughing at. Oh! And there were baby swans, awwwwww. So fluffy. I also noticed the surprising lack of Canadian geese..? Are there none during summer? They were EVERYWHERE when I was here Sept-Dec.

Also, can I just say there are few things funnier than watching a child try to scare a flock of pigeons, only to have the pigeons turn and fly towards the child to escape. I had a great big grin.

So, that was pretty much that. I had debated sticking around until the sunset and going back to South Bank for photos… but… I was ready to head back. My hostel isn’t in the centre by any means and since today was like the one day without a play I wanted to take advantage of being able to get back to the hostel a little earlier.

(Ok. That guy is now slamming his bag around every which way. Like, seriously, what are you doing? There’s a guy trying to sleep right now… he’s not being successful. And why is the mixed dorm all boys again? WHY. And there are some funky smells going on.)

(And now another guy just walked in with a pizza?!? You don’t eat hot food in the hostel room that is a big no-no. THE SMELLS.)

I can’t wait for Cardiff and going back to female dorms.

(Oh God, now that the soccer game is over they're doing karaoke downstairs haha. Oh my.)

---