cocopunk

On my first morning in London I went for a walk along the Thames, starting at Parliament, crossing Westminster Bridge to the south bank, and heading east past the London Eye, past the Tate Modern and the Old Globe and all the way to—and across—Tower Bridge.

I stopped to order coffee and the cashier kept asking “what kind of coffee?” because, as I learned, no one in Europe drinks drip coffee. “Plain black coffee!” I said. “Oh, filtered coffee.” This place had it, but a lot of cafes only have an espresso machine.

And they’re not wrong! Get an Americano, get a flat white, and you can’t deny it tastes better than most crud we drink. I didn’t drink black coffee in college and didn’t realize that it’s not served everywhere. But I’d try and fail to order black coffee a few more times anyway.

For lunch I crossed back over the Tower Bridge to find something in Borough Market—already busy at 11am. I got a sandwich from The Black Pig (very good, but the inclusion of pork cracklings, a.k.a. chicharrones, might have been too much of a good thing). Exhausted from pork and walking, I went back to the hotel to rest. It was only 12:30 pm and I was done for the day.

That’s the difficult thing about traveling “for fun”: at home, on the weekend I might plan an excursion for the day, say going to a museum, and then the rest of the day is routine as usual. One event, one occasion of going-outside, and then it’s back to looking at the computer, looking at the phone, the television, et cetera. But when you’re traveling it obviously would be a waste of the trip to sit in your hotel room watching YouTube. You’ve got to make use of your time!

I always laugh to myself when someone asks if I had fun. Frankly, travel is a pain in the butt! I’ve never been on a trip I would describe as fun. Then why go? Playing video games at home is fun; travel is research, an expedition, a sort of intellectual nourishment. Or something!

After resting a while I walked to Regency Park, searching for a bench on which to rest some more, but with a view of a lake.

On the way home I didn’t want to have to research restaurants or make any more decisions so I grabbed a wrap from Marks & Spencer’s for dinner. That’s one of my guilty pleasures in the UK: the mediocre pre-made meals that they sell in all the grocery stores. ‘Guilty’ because it’s a waste of calories when you could seek out something better, but so often I really don’t want to think about it at all, and the only decision you have to make is “which sandwich looks the least mushy?” Like Japanese conbini without their unique alchemy. Just the mush.