For as long as I can remember, I have held a highly romanticized view of London that involved walking through green meadows, sipping tea, and singing “god save the queen”. Although this may be a bit of a stretch, I did expect to encounter smiling, happy people with British accents that would welcome us into their city. However, when I finally arrived in London during this week I realized that London was much different than I had originally expected.
In reality, much like any city, London was bustling with crowds of people shoving to get to where they needed to go and vehicles and bicyclists honking at one another on the busy streets. Within the first two days, I had encountered an angry Londoner loudly complaining about how he “hated American tourists” as our group walked down the road and even overheard a man on the Tube saying that he wished that the Prime Minister, Theresa May, would “just die already”. Much to my dismay, no one in the city seemed to be as friendly as I had hoped, and I wondered if my expectations of London were completely unrealistic.
That night as I lay in my bed contemplating everything I had seen and experienced thus far (while trying to fall asleep amid sounds of loud cursing outside of my hotel bedroom and at least five ambulances blaring down the street), I realized that perhaps London was not everything I had hoped it would be. Regardless, I vowed to stay optimistic and look for the good in the rest of the trip.
Much to my relief, as I continued to travel throughout London, I began to open my eyes to many positive aspects of the city. For starters, I was greeted with a smile by several staff members working in the hotel and I was pleasantly surprised when someone held the door open for me when I was entering the grocery store. Aside from these encounters that I directly experienced, I also saw a lot of love in many places I was traveling to. For instance, another time when I was on the Tube, I was standing in front of a couple who were gazing lovingly into one another’s eyes, and as the man kissed the woman’s had, I realized that there was, in fact, a romantic aspect of London like I had hoped there would be.
Although I was a bit shocked when I first arrived in London, I soon realized that there were a lot of good people and good aspects about this city. This experience made me realize that no matter where I go in the world, humanity is essentially the same. All cultures and people have their bad, unattractive parts, which I know is to be expected, but it is important to know that there are also many other positive aspects about this city, which I am excited to continue to learn about and explore!