Londoners don't walk

They really don’t. They waddle, amble, stroll, march, push and dodge. It is utterly indicative of the city that even getting from place to place is a deliberate act of some kind. The British either make things happen, or else they allow things to happen to them in an exercise of stiff upper lip endurance. Either way, they’re the ones who determine their fate – even if it is by leaving things to Fate.

I wrote to my papa the other day, telling him about my confusion over noodles in Chinese restaurants here (asking for “noodles” in London will result in a strange crispy-fried concoction) and he wrote back immediately, “Do you mean they don’t have ho fun in London?” – what kind of crazy, barren, backwards place have you moved to??! – ahh, papa. It’s the little things I miss, like someone being willing to cook noodles without beansprouts for you.

Cafe owners generally hire waiters from the country of the cuisine, an effort that in Sydney would be completely wasted on the monolingual natives. I like it because every time I sit down in a cafe, I’m reminded again and again that I’m in Europe. French, English, Italians and Spanish come together in a glorious salad bowl conglomerate, mixing their cultures frequently, but maintaining their own identity, and creating something all the more exciting for it.

I’m loving the English stoicism, French flair, Italian passion, German directness and Spanish fire. I’m loving wandering the streets and not quite knowing what people are thinking. I’m even loving staring at the changeable sky, packing a jumper “just in case”, and feeling my bag grow heavy with an oft-used umbrella.

Most of all, I’m enjoying the refreshing sense of freedom that comes with not knowing what the day has in store for me.

It’s a little scary, and a little lonely, being in a foreign city by yourself, and harder than you’d think to spend days and days without speaking to more than one person who really knows you. I’d forgotten that you need to meet people and tread carefully, hold parts of yourself back so as not to scare them, to take the friend-making process slowly. Because in the end, I hunger for that sense that I can be whoever I want to be – but that who I am is just fine, too.

I came here not knowing what I was looking for, and the more I see, the more I realise that it may simply be this – to see something different to what I have known. Something different to what I see every day. Is that what wanderlust is, and does it wear off?