I’m spending 52 weeks exploring things that make me beautiful. You should do the same. 🙂 To find out more about this series, click here!
That’s the first photo I took on my first solo trip to Europe in the summer of 2010. I went to London by myself for a week in July (the hottest week of the summer – of course) and it was the greatest, scariest, most enlightening journey I’ve ever taken.
I’d been to London before, as part of a tour group that spend four days in London and four days in Paris. London had always been on my “must see” list, but spending four days there in the November rain didn’t give me the best impression of it. Especially when it was immediately followed by four sunny, 65-degree days in Paris. So I wanted to give London another chance.
And I wanted to do it on my own. I’m not sure why that was important, but it felt like it was. Looking at this picture reminds me of how I felt that first evening. I’d landed earlier in the day after a long, HOT journey that started by dragging my carry-on three-quarters of a mile through Minneapolis humidity to the light rail station from my friend’s home where I’d left my car. So before I even got on a plane, I was already sweaty and hot and tired. Those sensations followed me all the way across the Atlantic to the hotel room I’d rented – on the top floor of an un-air-conditioned building directly across the alley from a construction zone. Awesome.
I took a brief nap in the stuffy, noisy room and then set out to see exactly what I’d gotten myself into. I took the Tube (I *seriously* (heart) public transit. At least trains. A creepy bus experience in Rome has made me leery of those, but trains – love ’em.) to the Westminster stop and climbed up onto the banks of the Thames. I crossed Westminster Bridge to the other side of the river (where there was a blessedly cool breeze), sat down on a park bench and contemplated what I was going to do with myself, by myself, for the next week. I took this picture, and several others, and gradually came to the realization that I was on a great adventure.
And it was a great adventure. That was an awesome week. I visited museums, I took walks, I sat on park benches, I saw shows, I hung out in cafes, I met people from Australia and Northern England with incomprehensible accents, I had a blast. And I learned that I was brave enough, and strong enough, and creative enough to take on one of the world’s greatest cities on my own. That’s a beautiful thing to know about yourself. With that knowledge, there’s no telling what I can do next.
So I’m going back to London next month. And we’ll see what I learn this time.