The Feeling of London

"You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

~ Samuel Johnson

I recently spent a week in London. I chose London because it has always been one of my favourite places in the world, or, rather, my favourite place out of the very few I've actually ever been to.
I was a little worried that spending a whole week in London would somehow kill a little of the, what shall we call it? Magic? Intrigue? Every possibility sounds either absurd or clichéd but London, to me, is a place that invokes the most intense feeling.

London is an amalgamation of impossibilities; nature springing up through the stones carved by humanity occupying over 620 square miles.

It is the most population dense city in all of Britain. Now, I'm not exactly what you'd call a 'people person', I'm not a sociopathic hermit or anything, but there are days when I'm not too far off, so to feel completely comfortable wandering through the throngs of bustling Londoners is unexpected.
Perhaps more unexpected, from the point of view of a girl, under twenty, living alone in the overwhelming city, is that I found myself generally relaxed and unabashed when walking alone. Even at night, when I would have expected to feel at least a little on-edge, I felt at ease, obviously I was cautious, I'm not a complete idiot but, as the girl who, when left alone in the house once when little, his under the table brandishing a candlestick because she'd heard a noise upstairs, I was just surprised that rational caution didn't lend way to excessive paranoia.

Whilst I was in London I saw a group of men, who called themselves 'The Beach Boys', who were creating sand sculptures on a beach next to the river Thames.

There's something phenomenal about this picture. Seeing, in the foreground, what is the stereotype of the idyllic Summer holiday and yet, glancing past all of that, the steely blue of the heart of London.

I saw five shows in the week I was there, had lunch with three businessmen, went to a reading by one of my favourite authors, accidentally ended up in a gay bar with two straight blokes from Chelsea, had a man predict my Birthday almost accurately, took over forty trips on the tube, wrote about ten thousand words of a story I'm working on and saw my favourite Youtubians form a band called 'Sons of Admirals' and then play songs about cats, colours and eyelashes.

All in all, I had a fabulous week, better than I hoped for, and London remains now and, I think, forever, the most irritatingly illogical but utterly beautiful city, reflective of humanity in a less distorted way that I would like and indescribably chaotic. It is a place that allows you to walk without being seen whilst taking in every colour, every sound and every unexpected sight found in the most interesting of places.

My week in London, the first holiday I've ever been on completely alone, offered me a freedom I have never experienced and my only regret is that I now have to find a way to readjust to a less spontaneous and, sadly therefore, less entertaining style of living.