It's All About Perspective!

The first weekend of my spring break, about a month ago now, was spent in London, England. The
entire week was a poorly planned series of missions across five countries in eight days, rife with a
number of obstacles, but all in all a memorable experience that I am grateful to have had. Being
honest, I am not a fan of traveling and being away from wherever I am resided usually affects my
mood, but London was different.

Crowded at the Columbia Flower Market
I chose to go to London because a friend I knew from high school is currently studying there and I
wanted to pay them a visit, but it turned out that several other people from high school to be there on
that particular weekend. The adventures I had there were made more fun being accompanied by
these familiar faces from home. There were even three CMCers there that weekend, and I am still
kicking myself for not snagging a photo with them when I had the chance to.

Interesting architecture and color palette
I was very active during my time there despite the fact that I was only there for a couple days:
visited the Tate Modern art museum, went thrift shopping and got some great finds, took one of
those big double decker buses for over 100 stops in one day (don’t worry, they go by fast), tried some more
local eateries, went to some parks, and went to a neon light collection! Having people to go to these
places with (and suggest different places to go to) really helped me branch out beyond my “okay, I’ll
just go to the museums and learn about the history,” approach to exploring cities.
Me with some neon signs!
I just really enjoyed myself, and I do not take that for granted. My friend who always knows the
best places to eat somehow extended his talent to this international setting, and we had wonderful
schnitzel and falafel as well as loaded french fries. I also had a scone and wow! Amazing! It made me
glad to have a sweet tooth.
The view from inside the top of the double decker bus
after a certain hour
I guess I am biased because I had such a great time, but not only would I go back, I could see myself
living there. And I want to. It reminded me of my hometown, Los Angeles, because it is so large,
there are people from all different backgrounds co-existing either because of a prevailing sense of
tolerance or general indifference to the millions of people they are surrounded by that they will
probably never interact with-- who is to say that the two are mutually exclusive?--, and there’s a
palpable energy and life to it. Everything and everyone is going somewhere. There’s something about
big global cities that make me feel inspired. I am at a point in my life (second semester of my junior
year of college) where I really need to begin to have concrete ideas and wants for my rapidly
approaching future, and an important part of all of that is my location. London treated me well, maybe
I will return the favor one day.

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