Getting Lost in Scotland

London is a pedestrian’s paradise.  On nearly every street you will find a map with a friendly indicator that, “You are here.”  The map also includes noteworthy sites nearby, and the mapmakers also draw you a mile-radius circle, so you know it will take you roughly fifteen minutes to find what lies within the circumference.  You can only be lost in London for five minutes, maximum. 

The same cannot be said for Edinburgh, especially if the fog obscures your view of, well, pretty much everything farther than a block away.

Briefly, I must rewind to begin at the beginning:

I woke up early in London.  Rising before noon is not my forte, but today it had to be done.  My alarm beeped at 8:00 A.M.  My train to Scotland left King’s Cross at 10:00 A.M.  I wanted to allot myself some time in case I got lost.  At the least, I always anticipate being indecisive in my direction, but today I researched my route while I inhaled my bowl of corn flakes——the usual morning fare of hostels.  Since I was not staying at a five-star hotel, patrons in this hostel are responsible for washing their own dishes after breakfast, but at least the meal was free.  This morning, there was a huge line at the sink.  I sighed as I felt precious seconds slip away, but, then, a godsend:

“I can wash those for you,” said a man, a fellow hostel guest, “It’ll be faster.”

I thanked the man and savored my luck.  With my full pack loaded with over thirty pounds, I hustled to the South Kensington Station, caught the Tube to King’s Cross, followed signs to the train station, and then stood before a great sign that announced which platform I should report to.  I guess the station workers don’t know where the train will be until about fifteen minutes before departure.  I find this very inefficient.  I am also flabbergasted as to how one train could end up on opposite ends of the station.  It’s not as though trains can turn.  Regularity is their norm.  They go back and forth on a rigid track.  But, alas, I’m no trainspotter. 

We left right on schedule and zoomed out of the urbanscape and into the tranquil countryside of Scotland, which is decorated with extremely long fields of wild yellow gorse and speckled with roaming sheep.  A gentle fog hovers over the fields.  As the train cut through the country side, the rolling green hills whizzed by to reveal the frothy waves crash upon the rocky shore——the sea whose wind drags the fog and the rain onto the mainland.  Scotland’s natural beauty is untainted by billboards or fast-food rest-stops.  I’ve never been so far north, and, as expected, it’s very cold here, despite the spring season.  Now I look out of place with my cargo shorts. 

Finally, Edinburgh.  I alight onto the platform, grab a map at the tourism kiosk, and set out to find Castle Rock Hostel.  I’ve been getting in the habit of choosing hostels near extremely vast and noticeable landmarks, particularly ones that poke into the sky and can be seen from very far away.  In London, I stayed near Hyde Park and the Albert Memorial, a giant gold statue housed underneath golden spires.  In Edinburgh, I stayed near the castle on top of the hill in the Old Town.  A hostel may be difficult to find, but a giant park or gigantic castle are not easily missed.  As I’ve said before, you should always plan on getting lost, especially if you aren’t using Google Maps or a GPS. 

But when you travel alone, getting lost is fun.  Although this method may not be the most efficient or the safest, it is the least mentally strenuous way to master the local geography.  Instead of studying maps and concocting plans, I prefer to feel my way through the labyrinth.  To be the mouse who takes wrong turns in the maze——this is adventure.  Granted, you don’t want to turn down the wrong alley and find yourself abducted and forced into prostitution.  Not everyone has a father like Liam Neeson; no, it is better to get lost during the day, preferably, when the weather is favorable and you’ve recently had a good meal.       

As much as I enjoy getting lost, I prefer to shed my heavy backpack before I do so.  My first priority when entering a new city is to find my accommodation.  The night before, I researched directions to the hostel, and I snapped a screen-shot to use as a reference since, while afoot, I’d be without Wi-Fi.  My directions, combined with my map and my moderate skill with cardinal directions, enabled me to discover my new temporary home. 

Instead of using a numerical system, my room was playfully nicknamed the Underwear Room, and my particular bed was labeled “Knickers.”  After settling in, I ambled down the cobbled streets of the Royal Mile until I stumbled upon the Writer’s Museum tucked away beyond an alley.  Admission was free.  The basement focused on the native Scotsman Robert Louis Stevenson, creator of Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

The exhibit was more or less a visual autobiography.  Pictures of him in Samoa hung on the wall.  A pair of his boots was displayed in a glass case.  Certain panels described various times in his life.  Stevenson was born in Scotland, and, despite loving his home, he traveled often——throughout Europe, on American trains, and on boats around exotic islands.  I found his insight on travel to be very illuminating.  He believed that pottering about in foreign lands stimulates the imagination; exotic locales pluck you out of oppressive habits.

Stevenson writes:  “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel’s sake.  The great affair is to move, to feel the needs and hitches of life more nearly, to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.”

At home, when you are hungry or so bored that you become hungry, you open the fridge and find food.  If there is none and you are a man, you will continue to stare at the empty refrigerator and expect to find inspiration.  Once you realize this is hopeless, you go to the store you always go to in order to replenish your groceries.  When you need to sleep, your bed is there for you, just where it was last night and the night before.  This life of ease is a beautiful and wonderful thing.  I dearly miss my pantry stocked with cereal.  I miss my stove and my grocery store whose layout I’ve memorized.

When you are on the road, you must always be searching for your next meal and your next place to sleep.  When you travel, you abandon the safety and comforts of your shell.  You roam.  You become nomadic.  You are no longer bound to anything.  You are free from obligations, from habits.

When life becomes sedentary, we no longer have to think very hard about what to have for dinner.  We don’t have to scout out a convenient place to sleep.  We can drive the same routes to work without even knowing the street names.  As our surroundings become more familiar, we are more likely to complain about them.  Gravity feels heavier when you live under a cloud of negativity.  If you are roaming to nowhere in particular and you don’t care for your current location, you simply pack up camp and go somewhere else. 

Filled with a sense of adventure and a curiosity to read more Robert Louis Stevenson novels, I exited the Writer’s Museum and proceeded to get lost.  I descended the hill and sauntered through a garden.  A slight rain drizzled.  I stumbled upon a cemetery with ancient headstones.  Those buried in the grounds of Cuthburt’s Church died in the early 1800s. 

I was alone in the graveyard.  My hood was up to keep my head dry, but it cut off my peripheral vision.  Supposedly, Scotland is a bit haunted, and I was roaming through the resting places of the dead.  There was a dense layer of fog.  Eerie is a word that entered my mind. 

My eye was attracted by something in the distance.  I made a few turns.  Neglected my map.  Inspected the sidewalk under my feet.  Avoided non-descript downtown streets.  I drifted until I spotted St. Mary’s Cathedral.  I was getting hungry, and the rain was falling harder.  Whenever I’m lost, I head for a big building or a major landmark to easily orient myself on a map.  Then I use my compass to get my bearings.  And off I go, hopefully a little wiser the second time around. 

I headed south, then west toward the castle.  I began to recognize storefronts.  Then I found my confidence, neglected the map, and proceeded down the wrong street.  This becomes a process, but you don’t realize it’s a process until you’ve finished back at the beginning.  The process is called “walking in circles.”  I repeated this but in opposite directions so that my trajectory resembled a Venn diagram.

My jeans were soaked.  I stepped in a puddle.  I was worried my Kindle and my notebook were soggy inside my backpack.  Impatience set in, then frustration.  Then hunger.  Then cold.  

I started running.  Now I didn’t recognize anything.  That’s the first time I’ve seen these meadows, I thought.  I headed for higher ground.  I gazed down below.  I had no idea where I was.  The sun was setting.  I had no choice but to break my resolve and let go of my pride:  I asked for directions.

“The center of town is that way,” a young woman advised me.

I ran in that direction, then asked a man smoking under an awning:  “Where’s the castle?”

“The what?”

“The castle.”

“You can see it right there.  Go up here.  Turn left.  Then you can go up the hill.”

I was sopping wet.  The temperature was in the forties.  The wind was blowing, and the sun was sinking below the hills.  I sprinted, while keeping myself oriented toward the castle.  I latched onto it and finally resurfaced to a place I recognized.  A cow mascot jutted out from a restaurant terrace.  I remembered this.  Last time I headed left.  I turned the corner at the right and found the street I was searching for two hours ago.  I missed it by a few feet, twice. 

Finally, I found the hostel.

When you wander around by yourself, you can really grow to understand your faults.  I try to do everything on my own, even if it means I will fail.  I don’t like asking for help.  I view it as lazy or shameful, as though I am not smart enough to figure things out on my own.  But often I find myself in foreign territory surrounded by those who know more about navigating their city than I do.  They’re professionals; I’m an amateur.  There will always be skills I will never master.  I can’t expect to be even mediocre at everything.  

All empires fail.  Natives resist their colonizers.  Hitler never conquered Russia.  All for the same reason:  you can’t dominate every map.  In some places you will always be foreign, but you can always find your way home once you’ve strayed too far, especially if you ask for directions.

Sherlock Holmes' Humble Abode

I was gallivanting about London when I stumbled upon Baker Street, and I wondered why I recognized the name.  Suddenly, I realized that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson dwelled at 221B Baker Street.  In college, I took a literature class called Detective Fiction where I first discovered the sleuth in A Study in Scarlet.  It has been a few years since I’ve read the books and viewed the first Robert Downey, Jr. film adaptation.  I found the Sherlock Holmes Museum situated where the fictitious apartment would be.

I strolled around the cramped gift shop, bumping into tourists and perusing the pipes and deerstalker caps.  There was a bathroom in the basement with old-fashioned decorations and modern plumbing.  Outside the loo there was a doorway that revealed a library.  The door was locked, but I could stick my head inside a tiny window.  The off-limits room was slightly eerie in the silence underneath a tourist hub, and I could almost imagine Sherlock stumbling into my view any second.

I proceeded upstairs once more and aimed to discover the trap door that led into the museum because so far all I could find was the gift shop and the toilet.  Despite all of the detective fiction I’ve read, it took me quite a while to piece together a mess of clues.  Finally I realized that a scattering of distracted people was actually a queue, so I hooked onto the tail and waited to buy my ticket. 

As I neared the front of the line, I heard the cashier, a British man, ask the patrons which language they preferred for their pamphlet which offered descriptions of the museum’s rooms.  Many people in line were speaking German, French, Russian, and Mandarin.  For some foreigners who conversed with their comrades in a different tongue, it was apparent they would not choose English.  But some spoke English to the cashier, and still he asked which language they’d prefer for their museum guides. 

As I told the cashier I’d like one ticket, I was looking forward to the question, “Which language?” But he did not ask me.  I nearly asked him why he immediately handed me an English guide.  Perhaps he judged by my accent that I was American, and perhaps he assumed that Americans only spoke English.  What if I had learned English as a second language and masked my lack of a grand vocabulary with an authentic accent? 

I should have been flattered by his confidence in my linguistic abilities, yet my mind still itched with questions.  To his query (had he asked me), I wanted to reply, “Which languages do you have?” as though I were asking a waiter which sides I could get with my entrée.  Unfortunately, I was not granted this opportunity to slow down the line to appease a mere curiosity. 

The fictional residence of the famous detective is very tiny, so the museum staff only allows so many visitors to enter at a time.  While I waited in line, I read my English pamphlet, which described the layout of the museum.  The pamphlet asked why I was here.  Was it because...

A. I don’t know much about Sherlock Holmes.  Maybe I know Benedict Cumberbatch plays the lead role in the BBC series, but other than that I know little else, so I am curious.

B. I’ve read a few of Arthur Conan Doyle’s mysteries, and I’ve seen a few film adaptations.  I’ve become an avid fan. 

C. I’ve read all the novels and short stories, and I’ve viewed all the films and TV shows.  I’m a diehard Sherlockian, and I can recite entire chapters to you if you’d care to listen.

Before I came to England, I read a short non-fiction piece titled “The Pippiest Place on Earth,” which described the writer’s experience as a literary tourist at Dicken’s World, as in Charles Dickens.  The piece, which can be found in The Best American Travel Writing of 2013, details the allure of literary tourism.  The aim is to make fictitious environments real.  Landscapes that previously existed purely in the imagination are now tangible and photographable.  I suppose the pleasure lies in exploring the realms of a writer’s mind.  Or there may be a giddy thrill to visit a place previously unvisited, yet you can say to yourself, “This feels so familiar.”  The feeling must be tantamount to confidently navigating around coffee tables and couches in a pitch black living room without having to grope the furniture.  

Literary tourism comes in two forms.  For example, you could visit Hemingway’s haunts in Paris to try to see what he saw and feel what he felt.  In this case, tourists try to capture a supernatural essence by retracing the steps of a remarkable talent.  The places only have meaning insofar as they were frequented by a meaningful person, as though meaning were shed like loose hairs.

The second form of literary tourism takes the shape of museums and amusement parks designed to emulate a fictional world.  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios would be an example.  Just as you can imagine Harry riding the Hogwarts Express or shopping for textbooks in Diagon Alley, now you can explore these spaces in a physical reality.  Similarly, I set out to explore Sherlock’s apartment, which really only exists in the pages of a book.  Although the apartment is real, technically it is a copy.  The original exists in the forms sentences transformed into mental images; the house was built with a type-writer, not wood and bricks.      

There was a man before the door, and he wore a bowler cap and a Scotland Yard uniform.  If you so chose, you could have your picture taken with him, and you could even sport a deerstalker.  For sanitary reasons, a pipe was not offered.  I passed on the photo opportunity with the stranger.  Finally, it was time to enter the apartment.

The stairs are very narrow and creaky.  On the first floor, there is a study equipped with armchairs and a fireplace.  On the shelves, there are medical books, chemistry equipment, alcohol, and drug paraphernalia. The exhibit stated that Holmes has been criticized for his cocaine habit, but in his day the drug’s effects weren’t truly understood until Sigmund Freud tested his patients with coke to see what would happen to their brains.  Apparently, lots of artists and writers did cocaine back then to stimulate the imagination.

Watson had some letters strewn around his room, which you could read.  You could also read the medical book on his nightstand.  The landlady’s room was also included, but was not as captivating as the other bedrooms.  The upstairs was devoted to wax figures of prominent criminals and victims.  The wax figures were surprisingly real, which is desirable for purposes of verisimilitude but undesirable if you are creeped out by Moriarty looming over your shoulder.

Overall, I was fairly disappointed with the Sherlock Holmes Museum.  I was too distracted to really transport myself into Doyle’s imagination.  Other tourists were taking pictures of other tourists taking pictures.  This German girl kept fondling the wax figures while her boyfriend snapped photos.

In the end, the museum was just an old house full of carefully researched props, but the place was otherwise empty.  The problem is that Sherlock and Watson weren’t there, and they give life to the stories.  Granted, I did not want some aspiring actor to wear a gaudy costume and pretend that he’s a private detective living in the 1880s.  If this museum were in America, undoubtedly some unfortunate cad would parade around in a Sherlock suit and wave to children.  There would probably be a mystery involved, too, in the style of Where’s Waldo?  Maybe a visitor would receive a prize if you solved a riddle or counted the number of stuffed birds in the entire apartment.  

The more real these characters are in life, the less interesting they become.  They lived like average people in modest accommodations.  The duo’s superior skills seem reduced when they are viewed merely as humble neighbors.  I was more excited to turn the page rather than to open another door in the fictional-turned-real apartment.  When it comes to literary tourism, it is better to travel in your mind rather than on foot.

The Queen Next Door

On a whim, I decided to visit the Kensington Palace, the former residence of Queen Victoria.  

Even though I know very little about British history, I figured I’d take a peek inside.  I usually associate British aristocracy with haughty etiquette, puffy clothes, and numbing boredom.  But this exhibit illuminated the human qualities of the kings and queens. 

George I spent a lot of time in Hanover in the German territories, so when he became king of England he wasn’t very well versed in the English language.  Given these circumstances, his coronation seems very far-fetched to me.  Personally, I would’ve thought him under-qualified for the job.  How can you rule the people if you have difficulty understanding them?  I could not imagine voting for a president with a deficiency in the local tongue.  I would worry that he would sign documents he could not confidently decipher. 

But, of course, the English citizens didn’t elect their leaders back then.  If your superior died and you were next in line, you got the job.  Apparently, a lot of these kings and queens of European nations were related or were at least good chums.  That doesn’t seem fair.  I bet the poor and middle-class citizens had very little say in how their countries were run.  I understand now why certain Europeans settled in America while the rest tried to behead their rulers. 

When George I came over from Germany, he thought the Kensington Palace was drab, so he hired artists to create this marvelous staircase with portraits of himself and his friends having a jolly time.  Aside from this narcissistic contribution, the rest of George’s efforts did not interest me.

However, I found the exhibit on Queen Victoria to be very enlightening.  When she was a child, she had very few friends, and often her toys were her only company.  One room of the palace was devoted to her old playthings.  There was an old trunk filled with trains and basic amusements.  Whenever Victoria met Albert, who would later become king, she blossomed and found meaning in her life.  Her diary entries were written everywhere in the palace-turned-museum:  on the walls, on the mirrors, on the carpets.  She wrote that she hadn’t intended on marrying at such a young age, but she changed her mind after she met Albert.  Victoria struck me as a clingy, yet appreciative woman.  She didn’t have many close companions growing up, so she held on tightly to those she loved.

She had many children with her husband.  When I think of queens, I think of them as the mothers of their countries.  Monarchs have such a demanding job of maintaining the nation’s sovereignty that I suspect they rely on nannies to raise the kids.  But Victoria did her best to perform both jobs.  She said that to be a mother to her children, a loving wife to her husband, and the queen of a nation took all the strength one could muster.

When her husband Albert passed away, Victoria isolated herself.  She grieved for a very long time, but she was criticized for stepping out of the public eye.  To have a private life, for her, was impossible.  

I didn’t really care to see the lavish ballrooms and the gigantic closets filled with whale-boned dresses.  Those are the kinds of dresses in which women must turn sideways to fit through doorways.  I guess British aristocrats had to guess at a woman’s figure should he desire a mate at a royal ball. Those displays of wealth are off-putting.  Instead, I was intrigued by the human elements of the Kensington Palace.  The exhibit offered intimate glimpses into royal personalities.  The prim-and-proper façade dissolved.  Kings and queens became ordinary people. 

The Magic Lies Behind the Walls

London is an incredibly vast city, and it seems to be growing.  Nearly everywhere you look, there’s a giant crane looming in the sky.  Obviously I haven’t stayed here long enough to grow frustrated by all this construction, but, from what I gather, the English seem bent on making improvements.  New buildings are being erected, and certain Underground terminals are changing for citizens’ convenience.  In the United States, we only maintain roads, and maintenance seems like a euphemism for inconvenience. 

           

Some parts of London, like Oxford Street or Piccadilly Circus remind me the bright lights of New York City.  All you can do in those spots is avoid pedestrians and shop for clothes.  I don’t understand the allure in that for travelers.  I prefer to stroll down the quiet backstreets filled with row-houses where famous-but-not-too-famous artists like Carol Reed used to live.  Or I prefer a promenade through one of London’s many parks, which are extremely well managed.  I constantly see greens-keepers mowing the grass or mending the flower beds.  London’s gardens, like its people, are extremely well-kept and civilized. 

And then there are the touristy places like Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben.  All of these places are cool to see the first time in real life rather than seeing them from afar, say, in post cards or travel magazines or desktop backgrounds.  I suppose it’s nice to validate the existence of the Tower Bridge in person——just to say you’ve been there.  But, for me to truly appreciate these places, I need to understand and enjoy their histories.  Otherwise Big Ben is just a clock.

I also saw Platform 9 ^3/4 at King’s Cross Station where wizards catch the Hogwarts Express.  A cart stacked with two trunks and Hedwig inside his cage is embedded into the brick wall.  Now that is a landmark I can appreciate because not only can I discover the living treasures of a foreign city, but I can also transport myself to the remote corners of my imagination.  Since I am referring to a work of fiction, this certainly makes for an easier transition out of reality.  What I mean to suggest is that the historic buildings hold very little power for me in the present because many of the sites are not being used for their original purposes.  These ancient monuments only come to life when I imagine their pasts.  

Yet this recreation of former glories proves difficult because the modern world engulfs the historic sites.  When I saw the Buckingham Palace, for example, I thought, “Now that’s a pretty nice house, but I don’t really care for the neighborhood.” 

There’s too much traffic, both in the form of cars and voyeuristic tourists clinging to the gates.  The famous guards, with their funny bearskin hats, stood like statues.  I was under the impression they never flinched, so I was quite surprised when one of the guards violently stomped his foot and yelled, “Get off the fence!”

The guards, it seems, are not so much responsible for protecting the royal family, but instead they have been relegated to babysitting ignorant tourists.  The outburst was intimidating.  I actually felt pleased to have witnessed this demonstrative reprimand.  Watching the guard suddenly freak out was way better than watching the guards clock out and clock in——the changing of the guard, in other words.  The popular tradition offers very little variation.  There is no thrill for me to watch an act of which I know the end result.  I know what to expect.  Thousands of tourists have seen the same act, but this guard’s angry outburst was unexpected, and all the better because of it. 

The next place on my must-see checklist was St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Before entering, I ordered fish and chips from a pub nearby and ate outside practically under the shadow of the church.  The view was wonderful and so was the food, despite the lack of salt.  The experience was all spectacularly British.

Outside the entrance of St. Paul’s, I saw a red double-decker bus that advertised the new Johnny Depp movie Transcendence, and I expected to feel a similar sensation upon opening the doors.

The church is massive, and the architecture is crafted in a way that goes beyond mere expertise and ingenuity.  Generally, I’m not a fan of that old style of painting where everyone looks slightly chubby, especially in their baby-fat cheeks.  As you can tell, I’m no art historian.  But I found the murals to be very rich in color.  The whole scene was so captivating that I didn’t know what to focus on.  My eyes feel a similar disorientation when I stare at a tattooed man’s sleeve:  I see everything at once but nothing in particular. 

Photographs were not allowed, but I’ve learned that I can’t take a proper picture inside of a church.  Great architecture is supposed to be symmetrical, but I find symmetrical photographs uninteresting.  St. Paul’s was the first magnificent church I visited during my trip.  Initially, I suspected I would vividly remember the interior for years to come.  But after visiting several famous churches, the disparate images get tangled in my memory.

Like many virginal rites, my first visit to a famous church may not have been the most climactic, but the experience was certainly memorable.  A choir was humming softly in the background.  Faint fires flickered on white candles.  The voices grew louder, and the sound reverberated off the walls.  I looked at all the paintings, the arches, and the statues perched high above.  I wondered how anyone could have such great skill, but I realized that if you were going to expend so much effort then you must do it for the right cause.  I rarely find myself in a place of worship, so I guess I never realized how much the image of the church was emblematic of the faith of its practitioners.

The creators of St. Paul’s Cathedral showed immense dedication because they intended to build a shrine that would reflect the strength of their faith.  Sometimes when I’m at work, I’m motivated to do well to increase my tips or to appease my boss in order to keep my job, but this kind of effort displayed in the craftsmanship of these great churches is unparalleled. Except during fits of existential crises, I’m not one to believe that the world operates on anything more than chance, but seeing St. Paul’s Cathedral gave me some doubts of my own beliefs. Surely, these sculptors and painters were so confident in their faith, or else I suspect they’d give half-assed efforts and slap something together not worth re-visiting.

Landing in London

While traveling abroad by myself, I’ve quickly learned that appearing stupid is inevitable.  No amount of planning can instantly transform a foreigner into a native.  Without the aid of a GPS or iPhone in the modern world, one is bound to get lost.  Or if said traveler is an American visiting the United Kingdom, he is bound to get hit by a car that he expects should be coming from the opposite direction.

I stepped off the plane at Heathrow with two hours of sleep and an empty stomach.  After retrieving my luggage, my plan was to take the Underground, or the Tube as the locals say, to Hyde Park, near the hostel I booked for three days.  I heeded Trip Advisor’s advice and resolved to exchange my dollars into pounds in the city, rather than at the airport.  I asked the lady at the currency exchange at Heathrow if I could buy a subway ticket with a debit card.  She said that I could and pointed me in the right direction. 

London’s Underground is fairly easy to navigate.  You find your destination along one of the colored lines and trace your way back to your current location.  This reminded me of those mazes on the backs of cereal boxes where you had to follow the right squiggly line through a tangled mess to reach Fred Flintstone, the silly Trix rabbit, or that greedy, sweet-toothed leprechaun.  Years of practice enabled me to choose the correct line in the Tube.

Following a series of unexpected delays, I reached the Hyde Park Corner station and stepped out into the chilly air. Red double-decker buses zoomed by in the streets.  The sky was cloudy and gray, just as I expected.  I wanted to roam aimlessly through the gardens, but the cold and my full bladder prevented me from ambling about comfortably. 

I asked a man at an information desk where the Astor Hostel was.  He indicated my current position on a black-and-white map and traced my projected route with his fingertip.  He handed me the map and said, “You can have it if you want.  It would be 10p, but I don’t suspect you’ve got that yet.”

Maybe he felt sympathetic for me due to the confused look I offered when he mentioned that entity “p”:  an abbreviation for pence.  So far, the Brits’ cheerfulness was very infectious.  I traipsed happily through the lush gardens of Hyde Park.  

During my walk, I realized I had only the slightest clue about where I was, and I knew only one person in the entire country but had no way of contacting her without Wi-Fi.  I carried my only possessions on my back inside a large pack that labeled me as a tourist, and I possessed only a vague plan to explore the British Isles in three weeks before joining a group tour back in London.  Aside from gazing at the famous attractions, the majority of solitary traveling seems to entail filling the silences that abound in your head.  I had not accounted for this, but luckily I brought plenty to read.

I felt invigorated with a sense of adventure, but I also realized how daunting was the task that lay ahead of me——to navigate the UK and Ireland mostly by the help of strangers.

After stowing my pack at the Astor Hostel and chatting with the receptionist about country music in Australia, I pottered about the town, searching for food, when I stumbled upon a classic pub called the Zetland Arms.  I opened the door and read the instructions:

   1) Order a drink at the bar.

   2) Take a seat.  Read the menu.

   3) Order and pay at the bar.

   4) Re-take the same seat.  Wait for food.

   5) Eat.

I’m paraphrasing slightly, but I never expected that I, a grown man, would need instructions on how to order food at a restaurant, but I’m thankful for this seamless acclimation to pub etiquette.  I approached the bartender and asked for a drink of water.  The rest was simply a matter of following instructions. 

Near the bar there was an old man with a thin gray mustache who mumbled noises that I assumed only walruses could comprehend.  It took me a few minutes to realize he was speaking some kind of indeterminable form of English.  The only word I recognized started with F and ended with K, and it was not fork. 

The barman was a very chipper fellow, who was approached by hungry Italians with limited virtuosity in the native dialect.  To avoid any cultural barriers, he pronounced very clearly:  “The money, please!  The money!”  The Italian man extended his open palm full of coins the value of which eluded him.  The bartender plucked the correct ones to complete the transaction.  

I ordered bangers and mash, a classic British dish I learned of by watching Restaurant Impossible on the Food Network.  The dish consists of sausage, mashed potatoes, and a sweet onion sauce.  The meal was heavy and filling.  

When I finished, I asked the waitress if the tip was included.  The Europeans have this thing called VAT——Value-Added Tax——and I wasn’t sure if that was the gratuity included within the bill.  I learned later that VAT is more akin to a sales tax, but the waitress did not possess the correct words to explain this. 

“I work in a restaurant back home,” I said.  “I don’t want to be an ignorant foreigner who doesn’t tip correctly.”

Unfortunately, the waitress didn’t quite understand me.  Maybe it was my accent, or maybe her English wasn’t up to par.  I didn’t expect to find that in England of all places.