My favorite vacation wasn’t quite a vacation at all. It was
part of a 1994 class trip—a study trip—during my university education. The
group of us who went were supposed to be studying 18th century London
history and literature. I can’t say I learned much about either while I was in London,
though I had studied both thoroughly before we left. Once we arrived, however,
the city awed and seduced me, and I had trouble focusing on anything other than
absorbing as much of it as I could.
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| A typical colorful row of flats in Camden Town, London. |
With my classmates, I lived in a student housing flat in
Camden Town. It’s a funky, colorful northwest borough of London, and it made
for a quick Tube ride into central London. Less than half an hour after
arriving at Euston Station and then settling into our Camden flat to put our
bags down, a group of us jumped on the Tube and headed straight into the heart
of the city. We ate jacket potatoes (a.k.a baked potatoes) with exotic (to us)
toppings like sweetcorn and tuna in a restaurant that overlooked Leicester
Square. I was instantly and completely in love.
There is a palpable energy to London. The city has more
personality than any I've ever visited, and it was a character that appealed to
me on every level—I loved it history, its busyness, its colors and all its uniquely
quintessential aspects, from Big Ben to the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, to
the red double-decker buses that seemed to be everywhere. I loved the smells,
the accents, and the variety of Londoners.
Every single day, my classmates and I would venture out to
explore London. We’d pick a different area each day. We visited Westminster Abbey,
took a boat trip down the Thames, toured around Bloomsbury on a red double-decker
bus, shopped in Knightsbridge, ate Turkish food on Baker Street, climbed to the
top of dome of St. Paul’s, and the very best day was the one when we got lost.
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| Big Ben, shining bright on a London evening. |
I was out with one of my classmates and we’d done some shopping,
including a browse around Harrod’s. Rather than jumping back on the Tube, we decided
to wander a bit and soon realized we had no real idea of where we were. We
eventually discovered we were in Chelsea, a pretty residential
area of London. I don’t remember seeing a single window box that wasn’t graced
by flowers. Bold red geraniums seemed to dominate and they made a lovely
contrast with the bright blue English Heritage plaques that adorned several buildings,
indicating they had once been the home of a famous Briton.
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| Pere Biart Reading in the Garden (1890) by Belgian Impressionist Henry Van de Velde. |
Another fortuitous day we ducked into a building not far
from Savile Row in Mayfair, trying to escape the heat on a scorching hot summer
day. We were surprised to find ourselves in a small art gallery. They were
featuring an exhibition celebrating Belgian Impression, and we ended up
spending much longer than intended soaking up the beautiful art. This painting
by Henry Van de Velde, Pere Biart Reading
in the Garden (1890), made an enormous impression on me. A poster from the
exhibition featuring this painting is one of my prized mementos from my first
visit to London.
Years later, I was lucky enough to live in London for a bit.
Living in a place is a different experience than visiting as a tourist. As a young
tourist, I had been free to spend my days wandering London from dawn to dusk.
As a resident, I worked all day as a cover teacher (what we’d call a substitute)
in various schools around London and didn’t venture far from the southern borough
where I lived for weekend outings. My love for London deepened as a resident,
but nothing can compare to the initial flush of excitement I felt during my
first visit. Twenty years later, I still miss London fiercely, and I can’t wait to
visit again. For now, I visit in my fiction, using London as a backdrop for my historical romance stories, like my debut novella, Scandalous Wager.
