London, England

I wrote a webpage for London alone because that is where I spent most of my time when I was in the UK < , and it’s such a big city with so much to offer, you might as well consider it a country.

But before getting off the plane, one thing you should mentally prepare yourself for is to look every possible direction before crossing any road. They drive on the left (let’s just say wrong - not right) side of the road. Apparently because, in the old days when people used to ride horseback, most people are right handed, and you want your right side towards the centre if you ever need to pull out your sword quickly and attack an opponent. There are little signs painted on the roads at the crosswalks reminding pedestrians to look left, right, or both, but I found it was better to ignore those and always look four ways whenever crossing. Otherwise the confusion of reading the instructions while you step into the road, and with your head pointing down like that, you could quickly find yourself turned into road pizza.

I like how the city just seems to go on and on and is not littered by endless highrises but rather low, four for five story buildings. You can spend forever walking around the centre, frequenting the endless number of cozy English pubs, museums, plays and so forth.

Another thing I liked about London was the multicultural element. I must have found representatives from every nation there. And people are very tolerant to that. I guess they’d have to be, since they are a good source of cheap labour, and many cleaners I ran into didn't even speak a word of English. I also liked how the Brits were so green conscious. Perhaps they were a bit overprotective about their children and I became rather paranoid about pulling out my camera. But in spite of all these positive qualities, I have to admit I noticed one very persistent discrimination about them, and that was against the letter ‘r’. For example, in England, one does not say ‘burger’ but ‘bugu’. Basically the same pronunciation but without the r.

Many rich people, such as Madonna and the Russian dude who bought Chelsea, have moved to London, such that the millionaires started complaining that the billionaires are squeezing them out of the centre. Property prices there are ridiculous, so don’t expect to go house shopping, unless you’re a billionaire.

For cheap thrills you could ride around the city in the front at the top of a double decker bus. But if you ride the bus frequently, you should get an Oyster card, or you can buy special tickets in advance. Otherwise if you stall the busdriver you’ll end up paying double the fair. Some of the buses don’t have doors. You can be real cool and jump off while it is still moving or slowing down, like the locals.

Brixton was supposed to be a nice and popular beach on the coast and not far from London. The island’s shore is basically always a sandy beach, and I’m sure you can go almost any direction and enjoy the scenery. I hope to circumnavigate the island (and Ireland) one day with my truck. A rather pricey island, but good for tourists.